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As noon crept on, the countryside went flooding with golden light, green hues purling into yellows across seas of grass, clover and buttercup islands drifting and drinking the sun. At a shallow river bank, sagging willow sleeves hid naked girls splashing lamblike in the water.
There, the big sun crawled over their heads, dusting freckled cheeks and sloped shoulders with color. Little sandwiches and strawberries stuffed in their pockets for picnicking were devoured. When the morning fog lifted at last, they flung off their overclothes and swam. Hours passed, stretching shadows across the shoreline where Wendla sat watching, damp and shivering.
Ilse was back — or rather, Ilse was here . For now. The why was evaded when Thea pushed on it, so Wendla didn’t know. It didn’t really matter. Just one more question no one would answer. She hugged Ilse with all her strength, told her how much she missed her, asked no more questions.
She had missed her. Ilse was one of her first friends and closest, she thought, before… whatever happened. The chasm that cracked open between them, followed by utter disappearance. She had been gone for the better part of nine months now and Wendla had felt her absence, though everyone else seemed to pretend there was none. Ilse was the only one who understood the depths of Wendla’s mind, things that Wendla herself couldn’t make sense of. And in her return, she seemed inexplicably changed. Making all the same motions but looser now, less stable — like a coin at the end of its spin. Which is why - Wendla was telling herself - she couldn't stop staring.
When she caught herself, an unnameable shame wound up in her torso, attention darted down to the cattails shimmering on the water’s surface. They had done this last summer and the summer before, on and on since before she could remember. Never had she felt so sensitive to, so aware of the bodies around her. But it was bound to happen that way, right? After all, they were all girls, growing and changing together. And their mothers refused to explain anything to them. They would inevitably notice these changes in each other. It was only natural.
With that thought, she scanned every girl save Ilse. They’d all grown, really. Over layers of stockings and skirts, it was a less perceptible change but stripped down, it was at once very clear. How Thea’s hair released from milkmaid-braids had grown almost to her waist. How Martha’s baby fat had withered and the crease of her brow chiseled, along with the ridge of her shoulders. How Anna’s waist had turned and widened the breadth of her hips, how Melitta’s breasts filled the space in her old blouse almost to bursting, soaked linens creased and clinging…
The longer she looked, the smaller and uglier she felt. Fat-faced and flat-chested was Wendla Bergmann.
Considering all of them, Wendla felt jealous (and then conceited and silly). But looking at drenched Ilse alone, cackling and cutting through water to push Thea in… she could not describe what she felt. She didn’t have the language.
Something like someone had grabbed her stomach from below and wrung it out like a wet sheet. Not unlike watching Melchior’s walk home but less like baby butterflies, giggly and dizzying. This was heavy and all-encompassing. It made her want to run home and hide in bed. It made her want Ilse to chase her there. She rose to her feet wordlessly, squeezing her damp hair before buttoning her dress up the front. She hoped not to draw attention but perhaps she’d been watched just as closely.
"Wendla! Wait!” Ilse called, tripping in her race with the tide to meet her on-shore. Wendla’s face felt hot so she hung her head and dabbed her cheek. Definitely hot. "Are you going home?”
“I am …” She looked up into Ilse’s green eyes, a little bloodshot, and looked away. She had so many questions and no courage to ask any of them. The weight of them was stifling but the words wouldn't come. “My mama's waiting so... I have to. But Ilse, it was so nice to-“
“Let me walk you, at least!”
A lone butterfly flitted ticklishly in her ribcage. Hoping more than anything to be insisted upon, she reminded, “You're still all wet…”
“You’re both leaving?” Thea hollered from the river, and Ilse turned to nod and wave her whole arm, calling Goodbye everyone! Wendla caught a bead of water roll down the dip of her throat, disappearing down the hollow of her chest. At that same moment, she turned her whole body straight toward the sun and shielded her eyes.
“Do you really think I care?” Ilse laughed. She slid into her dusty dress, not bothering with all the buttons, long hair soaking through the back. All Wendla could think of was how furious her mama would be with her for that. How free Ilse must be now.
Decent-enough, Ilse took Wendla’s hand in her own and they started off. Behind them, Wendla heard Anna call, “See you tomorrow!” She called it back out of habit, while a part of her fantasized about breaking that promise. As harsh as it may sound: never coming back. Vanishing like Ilse ( with Ilse) from the strict mold of their lives to be like wind.
Ilse lead them off the beaten path, wading through a field of yarrow and tall grass while sing-stumbling through some old children’s song. Wendla laughing, corrected her wording and they sang together.
Hiding in the reeds, crushed ivy under their backs, the light hits Ilse's face just so , a golden halo glows around her. Wendla turns her face & Ilse meets her halfway, their lips meet—
The image went as it came, a flashbang behind the eyes, there and then gone. She missed Ilse so very much, she must remind herself.
“Can I show you something?” The words burst out of her before she could fully consider them. The tops of roofs were peeking over the edge of the slope and soon it would be too late to turn back — Wendla didn’t want to be where Ilse couldn’t go. She stopped dead in her tracks, grass tickling the hem of of her dress.
Ilse stopped a pace ahead and turned back with a knowing grin. “But won’t your mama be missing you?” Wendla’s cheeks flushed red and she smiled softly towards the ground, unable to keep up the ruse long. “Or are you trying to get me alone ?”
Wendla’s face went even redder as she shifted her gaze from sky to grass nervously. “Mama is waiting—“ A growing smile betrayed her, but she couldn’t help it. Ilse was charming. “But I have been waiting for you for — how long has it been? She can wait. A little while longer. And I’ve got something you’d like to see… Do you want to come or not? You can take me straight home if you’d rather…”
Green eyes grew wide and wild, meeting the challenge with glee. She squeezed Wendla’s hand tight in her own and leaned in til their faces nearly touching. “Show me.”
Like little fairies, they were off. To the end of the meadow, skirting the edge of their village and back into the wood on the other side. They weaved on and off the tread path, stooping under low leaf-arches and climbing fallen trees. They sang old songs and played word-games. They talked of Melchior Gabor and Moritz Stiefel, how they had grown taller and leaner, and how little they had seen of each other in so long a time. They talked of the coming autumn, of Wendla’s new niece, and the latest town gossip. They talked so easily about simple things, and nothing was said about the time that had passed between them.
They had talked a long time, plodding mindlessly over root and weed to the beat of their chatter, when Wendla remembered she was to show something at the end of this path. Ilse knew the outside of town better than her — she had lead her most of where they’d been already, summers ago when days seemed endless. Under the trees, daytime was already giving way to evening and though Wendla did not want to go home, she knew they could not go any further aimlessly. Resigned to the sunset and the truth, Wendla stopped under the sycamore where she stood in amber light, nervously weaving her fingers together.
“Ilse,” she stopped, sounding ashamed but looking straight into her eyes. “I lied. I'm sorry. There's nothing to show.”
A beat. Then laughter, shattering the silence like warm rapids through glass. Wendla couldn’t help but giggle with her. “I knew it! So you did just want to get me alone,” Ilse purred, squeezing Wendla around the waist before bursting into sweet laughter again. The brief contact had Wendla’s heart in her throat, her face began to burn.
“Well... I wanted to talk to you.” Her voice was thin, but earnest. How many times had those words been met with scorn? She took a deep breath, prepared for resistance. “I want to know… Why did you go? And where have you been ? They say you were sent away, but not why. They say let it be a lesson , but not to what. I don't know what to believe. You tell me."
Ilse’s laughter and merriment faded quickly into the disposition of a stone wall. The questions clearly touched some tender spot that made her go cold. She turned and ran leagues away, taking two steps back. Wendla studied Ilse’s face in the long pause that followed. Once so expressive and alive, all she saw now were solemn features fixed on one far-off spot.
Finally she simply stated, “I don’t know how to explain.”
Wendla then perceived something she’d always felt in herself and never saw clearly in another human being: that infinite well of unshakeable sadness. Ilse had always had a sense of it lingering below the surface but now Wendla saw it - like her own - draped entirely about her, pale and haunting, glowing moon-blue.
Her heart yearned to gather every broken piece and hold it together, here, forever. Ilse's answer was so similar to the one Wendla expected, the one she got every time she asked a difficult question. Where her mother flat-out couldn't explain — Ilse just didn’t know how. Wendla approached slowly, twining her fingers with the other girl’s and dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Please try…” she begged sincerely. “You have to understand… I… it’s so different without you here. I’ve missed you and you- you just left! Without even saying goodbye. How could you do that?”
"It wasn't my choice, Wendla." Her voice went icy flat. As if afraid of her own tone, she sighed and went on softer, "You know you're my best friend, right? Of course you do."
Wendla's frustration could not be so easily quelled. "How can you expect me to! When you-"
"You brought me all the way here! That's proof! You like me and you do want to spend time with me," Ilse insisted like those things were debatable . Huffing, pouting, crossing her arms, Wendla was unable to disagree but wholly unhappy with being brushed off. By Ilse, of all people. It must be something awful, she would come to think later. In the moment, it just felt condescending. "And of course I love you too. And I'll tell you everything about where I've been, because it's really, really been wonderful. Just don't ask me why I went. Please."
Like all things Ilse, the compromise was a decent enough. The girls sat on moss-rocks while Ilse went on about the artists, their expansive trinket collections and their soft rugs that feel so good on bare skin. As the sun fell behind the trees, Ilse confessed in hushed bursts of giggling that she'd posed nude for a few. Wendla's jaw dropped.
"Oh, don't be that way!" Ilse looked away, maybe blushing, a glimpse of self-doubt pushed aside by self-soothing smiles & laughter. "You wouldn't? For Gustav? "
Air pushed out of Wendla's lungs, almost like a laugh in return. Too nervous, and tingling all over. This was far from appropriate conversation for ladies. "I don't know..."
"You would. If you met him. Believe me," she injected quickly, lightly. Contact burns where her shoulder bumped against Wendla's playfully. "Have you... you know? With anyone at all?" Things got suddenly very serious for Wendla.
"Have I... what?" Closer to answers than ever before, she stared doe-eyed at her friend. Her friend who somehow broke free from this life, who lived everyday in a waking dream. Wendla was at once envious and terrified of Ilse’s position.
"Have you..." She couldn't seem to take the words themselves seriously. Ilse looked around awkwardly and cracked into laughter as she said it, "You know.. made love ? So they call it."
It wasn’t an answer but so near to one, her hands started shaking. "Oh, no. No, no, I wouldn’t- I’m not married.” She gasped in and out, a bit afraid of the answer to come. “But, well… Have you?"
A beat of silence then Ilse's unrelenting laughter. It seemed to get further and further away each time it came. “I might have, once or twice. Have you even gotten close?”
“Wow. Well, I wouldn’t know," she admitted shyly. "I don’t really know ... what it is . ” Despite the embarrassment shrinking her down, her eyes didn’t move from Ilse. Once or twice was Ilse-speak for more than that . Maybe that was what she’d sensed all day, what hypnotized her at the river. Ilse had changed — like Mama said: she was a sinner, a succubus. A gentle gaze searched frantically for a physical mark of wickedness , but couldn’t find anything. A tug in her chest screamed to run home but Wendla couldn’t even stand. She just stared, aching and afraid for more.
Ilse was struck then with an unreadable expression, a kind of stumble into self-pity before she could catch herself. Wendla, against her better judgement, wondered what kind of person Ilse made love to.
“That doesn’t surprise me. They won’t tell you anything here. Have you ever been to Berlin? ” Her eyes lit up, mischeivous with memory and fantasy. Wendla had been not fifteen miles from home in her life, so shook her head sheepishly. She felt very babyish and simple. “Oh, you would love it. Or it might kill you. I mean, someone as innocent as you.”
“Don’t say it that way! I’m not innocent— ” It wasn’t her fault no one would tell her anything. It wasn’t her fault they kept girls under lock and key. She wanted to know this great secret Ilse knew, but even she danced around telling it.
“Oh, you are so innocent. You’re like the first flower of spring. You’ve never even kissed anyone, I know it.”
“That’s not true! I… I’ve kissed you. ”
“Well, that doesn’t count!” It felt like Ilse was changing the rules, but she was the only one with the rulebook. Wendla had to believe her. It seemed like it should count, though. They were ten years old in a house of sticks, preparing for married life; Wendla wanted to be the boy, she always did. She could still recall the hum on her lips that lingered hours after. “We’re talking about men. Girls are different.”
“…How so?”
A smirk wiggled into Ilse’s voice, “You haven’t, then. If you had, you would know.”
“Will you just tell me rather than hold it against me!”
Ilse sighed and leaned back to gaze at the sky above them, first stars twinkling into the sky swiftly dimming. “I don't know if I can describe it,” she explained once again without explaining anything at all. “You just… When it happens, you feel it. I can’t really say.”
“Show me then.” Frustration and curiosity clouding all propriety, Wendla's voice was set and certain. She turned to look at Ilse lying and realized how dark it had grown, her features blurred under the haze of evening. Far off, she might have heard her mother ringing the bell and calling her name. Wendla’s stomach folded into itself as she insisted. “You be the boy. Hm?”
The implications of this weighed visibly on Ilse. She pressed her palms into the dirt and pushed herself back up, mere inches away but unmoving, cautious. Studying her face in the dark, it was so unclear. “Are you playing around?”
“I want to know what it’s like.” Like Ilse said herself, girls are different. Her circle of friends had shared endless kisses on the hands and cheeks and tops-of-heads. This was no different than then, practicing. Mama - who’d keep Wendla in the dark til marriage if possible - would surely be least upset if she learned from a friend. “Please. I don’t care if it hurts. Be him and I’ll be you.”
The ever-confident and jubilant Ilse went quiet, breath staggering hesitantly. Had she said something wrong? Was this too inappropriate? Darkness and familiarity had made Wendla too bold. A bell rung in her brain, she almost scrambled to apologize when a hand hardly-there set itself upon her hip. Stilled dead and silent, Wendla fought through the roar in her ears for words. Ilse inched closer, but spoke before Wendla could rush forward and meet her.
“They’re more… how should I put it? Men are rougher. They want to feel like you’re theirs." A dangerous thought slid down Wendla’s throat, coiled white-hot deep in her stomach: I want to be yours. I want to be hers. Take me with you, please. Foreheads pressed together, rabbit-hearted Wendla hung onto Ilse’s stare, close enough to see. “And they do like when it hurts… I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can. It’s okay,” Wendla whispered, catching Ilse’s lips against hers like time was running out. The kiss was chaste, hardly a peck. A second of soft skin on soft skin and then she pulled back, reared by the explosion of flutters in her belly. Neither girl dared to speak. The crickets chirping their bedtime prayers, Ilse laughed softly. Wendla turned away in utter shame — but Ilse caught her cheek in palm, brought her back with a gentle tug.
“That was a girl’s kiss,” she whispered, then went sort of serious. Wendla could faintly see her looking back-and-forth sideways, like she was working out what to do. “With boys. It’s more…um… like—” She didn’t finish that thought with words. Lips loose, almost parting, crashed into Wendla’s and stayed there. Pushing, pulling, kissing her again and again without ever stopping. The hand on her cheek combed its way into dark locks where it curled around a fistful, tightening and sharply pulling her head to the side. Wendla, unused to such contact, involuntarily gasped. Ilse took the opportunity to bite her bottom lip, slide her tongue between her teeth and chase Wendla’s to the back of her throat until she full-body flinched away with a shocked Oh!, pale hand flying up to hide away her buzzing lips and burning tongue. The hand in her hair fell away, dropping like a stone to her knee. Whole body burning hot, it would be one thing to hurt — it was another to want this so badly. The reality of this was beginning to set in. She scoured Ilse for similar panic, but found only the smallest worry in her brow which didn’t go away when she chuckled, “Well, something like that.”
Wendla could still feel it, hot and slick against her teeth. She wanted it. Knew because she wanted it that it must be terribly wrong. These things split her in two, declaring bloody war inside her. Wendla thought something akin to Fuck it and leaned in again, attempting to give the same voracity she’d received. Ilse smiled against her lips, hummed in delighted surprise, kissed back. Wendla’s whole body turned without thought towards her, hands daintily roaming across Ilse’s shoulders and over the back of her neck.
Ilse threaded her fingers delicately through Wendla’s hair, pulling just enough to tip her chin. Wendla didn’t want to be treated like glass though. She wanted to know what Ilse had done. What she had felt and been through, whatever that meant. She opened her mouth willingly now, inviting Ilse in to her great enthusiasm.
They pushed and pulled on each other for awhile. Until Wendla had almost laid flat, one arm hooked around Ilse and soft hands at the back of her head to keep her close. She’d gone soft, let Ilse play her part and lead the kiss down a bruising, intimate way. Ilse pulled back eventually, letting Wendla drop to the ground, panting and dizzy as the other inspected her for signs to yield.
“Then what?” Wendla’s voice went high and airy, like she wasn’t quite herself. Something was very wrong with this, she knew , but she wanted to play pretend a little longer. Ilse wasn’t stopping it either, so it was probably fine. Decent enough.
Ilse’s mouth, sort of puffy and wet, moved to her neck, placing kisses down the side. Wendla’s breathing vocalized, shaking. “And then this…” she said, grazing her teeth along the dip in her throat. “And they’ll touch you… here.” Ilse’s hand dragged flat along her thigh, palming shamelessly over the dip where hip met thigh, then carried dangerously on up her stomach to rest over her right breast. “And here.” Wendla flinched, breath hitching with uncertainty and Ilse’s touch floated off, downward. It occurred to her that Ilse, however wise to the motions, may never have learned the words either. "And especially here.” Through layers of fabric, she curled her palm over that forbidden place that even Wendla should never touch. Shouldn't but had , and so knew exactly what potential lie there. Ilse knew, too, apparently. She jolted up and Ilse let her, backing away to sit on her knees rather than hover over Wendla. “Oh no, no, I’m sorry. I was- I didn’t mean to-“
With the spell broken, the reality of night set in. Vision had adjusted as it dimmed but there was no trace of sunset anymore, just inky moonlight. The grey shadow of world around them. Mama would be furious and no less when she explained her whereabouts, however many details were omitted. Which would have to be quite a few. Oh God.
“No, no it’s— it's okay." Shuffling to stand, Wendla felt dizzy with heat and a confused guilt. Not clear-cut like sneaking extra dessert or disobeying her mother — this guilt was all mixed up with desire, nostalgia, affection. A pulse lingered where Ilse had touched her. Vines of briar sprouted there and climbed her insides like ivy, prickling up her throat, thorns and wildflowers blooming to shred through her organs. “But… Mama must be scared to death. I really should…” She glanced homeward, took one long step that way even though Ilse hadn’t yet moved, like she wasn’t ready to go. That wasn’t uncommon when they were girls so Wendla was prepared to go on without her. Stepped one, two, three paces before she stopped and turned around, clearing her throat politely.
“Would you walk me home?"