The Woman on the Cliff

I sail down the river a week after leaving the castle, sleeping on my boat and encountering not a soul. Having run out of food, I decide to dock by a forest to forage and hunt—hopefully, I can find enough to sustain my travels for several more days without stopping. I hike into the trees when I get off the boat, looking for berries on bushes and listening for animals. To my surprise, I run into a woman all alone soon into my trek! With her dark hair, olive skin, and bright green eyes she is so breathtakingly beautiful that I stop in my tracks when I see her.

She speaks first, her voice like velvet. "Hello, you look lost. Do you need help?"

I simply stare at her; never, in my entire existence, have I seen a creature so perfect, so stunning before. "Y-Y-Yes," I manage to stutter, "I'm journeying home from the war, and I need to find something to eat."

"Come with me," the woman says.

She looks sad, I think to myself, as though even her level of beauty does not please her. I follow her through the woods, completely entranced. I couldn't think of anything witty to say, so I decide to ask her about her life story as we approach a small shelter and enter it. "Why are you all the way out here? Do you live in the forest?"

"Yes," she says, and now she sounds sad too, her tone matching her facial expressions, "I moved out here to protect men like you. Men who would do anything for me because of my looks."

"What do you mean?" I say, highly confused. We're inside her home now, sitting at a small wooden table, eating bread and drinking mead.

"Men become infatuated with me as soon as they see me. They claim they can't live without me, can't breathe without me. Many of them take their lives when I deny them marriage. I don't do anything but walk by them. I don't try to tempt them or even talk to them, most of the time, because I know what will happen—every single time."

We've finished eating by this point. She gets up, gesturing for me to follow. She continues her story as we walk up a steep hill that overlooks the Rhine. "I don't do any of this on purpose, but it's destroying me. I've thought about throwing myself off this very cliff many times. The worst part is that I only say no to all of them because my heart belongs to another. A man who fought in the wars, as you did. Years ago, he promised he would return to me and that we would be with each other together forever."

I listen, shocked. I knew some power had washed over me when I first saw this woman, but I had no idea it had driven many men to their deaths and that it had almost driven her to her death. We reach the top of the cliff. The view was incredible. I could see my boat from up here, see the castles lining the Rhine, and I could see a boat making its way up the river.

The woman sees the boat too, and she stops talking as soon as she does. "This can't be...that's the boat my lover rode off to war in!" She runs down to the water, and I sprint to keep up. Sure enough, as we reach the shoreline, a man jumps off the boat looking ecstatic! I turn to head back to my boat, smiling and knowing that she would finally be happy again.