The Salt in the Wound

A few weeks after moving into my late grandmother’s cottage in the Bavarian Alps, I began to experience a strange recurring dream. I would find myself in a dark, wood-paneled room, the air thick with the smell of old books and dust. A boy, no older than ten, sat at a heavy oak desk, his back to me. He wore a stiff, old-fashioned suit with a high collar, and his hair was slicked back like a miniature adult. He was writing intently with a fountain pen, the scratch of nib on paper the only sound. I would call out, but he never turned. Then, the dream would end.

One night, I woke with a start, my heart hammering. The room was pitch black, and for a moment I didn’t know where I was. Then I saw him—the boy from my dream—standing at the foot of my bed. He was so real, so solid, that I could see the sheen of sweat on his pale forehead. His eyes were wide, and they were not the eyes of a child. They were ancient, hollow, and filled with a terrible grief. He opened his mouth, and a torrent of sounds erupted—the crack of a whip, the sharp cries of children, the thud of bodies hitting a wall. The boy began to weep, and his tears were not clear but dark red, like old blood. He raised his hands, palms up, as if offering me something, and whispered, ‘Look—blood and salt—salty blood.’ His voice was barely a breath, yet it cut through the chaos like a blade.

I snapped awake for real, drenched in sweat, the images still searing my mind. The room was the same—my grandmother’s spare bedroom with its heavy velvet curtains and lace doilies—but now it felt alien. I told myself it was just a nightmare, a product of moving to a new place, of my grandmother’s recent death. But the dream persisted, every night, the same boy, the same words, the same blood tears. I began to dread the dark. I tried sleeping with the lights on, but the boy would still appear, standing just at the edge of the light, his eyes pleading.

Desperate, I started researching the cottage’s history. I found an old photo album in the attic. Among the sepia pictures were several of a family, stiff and formal. In one, a group of children stood in a row outside a stone building. I recognized the boy instantly—the same hair, the same suit. The caption read ‘Schule der Buße, 1912’—School of Penance. My grandmother had never mentioned it.

I dug deeper, finding letters and documents. The school was a harsh reformatory for ‘difficult’ children, run by a stern headmaster with a fetish for discipline. The children were whipped, starved, and subjected to cruel rituals. One punishment involved making them stand in a salt circle while the headmaster recited verses about hellfire. The documents included a death certificate for a boy named Klaus, who had died from ‘complications of a severe fever’—but a marginal note in my grandmother’s handwriting said, ‘he drowned in his own tears.’

I couldn’t sleep after that. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the wind howling outside. Then I heard it—a faint scurrying in the walls, like tiny feet. I tried to ignore it, but it grew louder, until it filled the room. I sat up, and there he was again, but this time he was by the window, his back to me. He was mumbling, and I could make out the words: ‘Salt… the salt binds…’ He turned slowly, and his face was gaunt, his eyes sunken. He held out a small, tarnished locket. ‘Take it,’ he said, his voice clearer now, ‘it holds the salt.’

I don’t know why, but I reached out. The locket was cold. I opened it, and inside was a pinch of white salt, mixed with something brown and crusted—the boy’s blood, I realized with horror. As I touched it, the room spun. I was no longer in the bedroom. I was in the school, in that dark room, and I was the boy. I felt the sting of the whip, the burning of salt in my wounds, the despair of a child who had no one. The headmaster’s voice boomed, ‘You will learn to obey, or you will burn.’

I screamed, and then I woke, back in my bed, the locket clutched in my hand. The sun was streaming through the curtains, and the room was warm, but I was shaking. The locket was real, a physical proof that something beyond explanation had occurred. I looked at the salt and blood mixture, and I knew what I had to do. I took the locket and buried it in the garden, under an old apple tree. As I covered it with soil, I felt a release, like a knot in my chest loosening. That night, I slept deeply for the first time in weeks, and the boy did not appear. The scurrying in the walls stopped.

But sometimes, when it rains, I think I see a small face pressed against the windowpane, watching me. And I remember his words, ‘salty blood.’ I wonder if the boy is at peace, or if he is still searching for release. I never told anyone about the locket or the dream. They would think I was mad. But I know it was real. The salt and the blood are still under the tree, in the damp earth, and perhaps they always will be.