She played her violin to the

aeolian sounds

as the wolves came out to listen.

in darkness they howled

to her dulcet tones

under the moonlight's glisten.

May 30, 2020

by Aldo Biersmark

I work as a freelance journalist, mainly covering concerts, sporting events, and festivals in and around Berlin. I have done this for nearly twenty years, enjoying my profession immensely. However, the story in which I now write, while living through the horrors being faced by myself and by so many talented South American musicians, I am rethinking my place in this world... I sit here bleeding, dying, with no way to contact the outside world. All I can do is write. And tell our story in hopes that one day you will know the truth.

But first, I must give you a little background:

I was sent to a well-known and well-maintained German castle near Munich, named the Burg Eltz. It is said that a spirit named Agnes freely roams the hallways of this magnificent palace, owned by the same family for over 800 years. It is important to note that there are very many ghost stories and ghost sightings all over the ancient castles in Germany. The Burg Eltz is not unique in this respect. Agnes was sighted and photographed, quite poorly I must add, by hundreds of guests and visitors to the castle. She is said to have a bloody arrow stuck in her chest, obtained while defending the castle from a scorned admirer. The story goes that a local noble, promised to her as a husband by her father, The Count of Eltz, when Agnes was just a young girl, was not what he appeared to be. She thought him to be gentle and loving when young, but when she became of age, he turned out to be what she had called “Ein Biest”, which is German for The Beast. Repulsed by the noble in every respect, she refused to marry him, which sent him into a rampage, beseiging the Burg Eltz with all his might. Agnes, the defiant young lady that she was, fought bravely against the swarm of iron-clad soldiers, only to be shot in the chest by an archer. So, the angry ghost of Agnes remains to this day wandering the Burg Eltz.

In local folklore, it is said that Agnes only targets poorly behaved men. As a fact, in modern times, seven men have had to be hospitalized in incidents at the castle. Two of them died with mysterious wounds. Four fully recovered, but one was institutionalized and never walked again.

Of course, the Bolivian Orchestra knew very little of this story. I wish I had warned them.

The orchestra’s story begins in earnest. They were invited to the Burg Eltz after the owners saw the group perform while on a vacation to South America. So impressed were they by the violin playing of Alberto Tolboya, the lead violinist, that they paid for the orchestra to come and perform at their castle. They saw their annual concert in Bolivia right after Christmas, and scheduled their performance at the Burg Eltz for late May. Even though this was during the current Pandemic, the Burg Eltz owners had enough political influence to clear the travel with the Bolivian and German governments.

The Bolivian Orchestra arrived last week, on the early morning of May 24th. They began practice the following day, the day when things began to fall apart. During stage set-up, a local hired-hand named Ralphe Neidler, fell head first into the orchestra pit, a twelve foot fall. He was quietly rushed to Hospital by where he was pronounced dead-on-arrival. Since he had no immediate family in Munich or Berlin, the story garnered little attention. Later that same evening, the Bolivian third-chair tubist was cleaning his instrument when his head somehow became trapped inside the bell of his own instrument. The incident was only seen by one other orchestra member, who described the scene as “muy extrano”, Spanish for “very strange”.

I arrived at the castle to cover the concert and event on May 26th. Immediately, I knew something was indeed ‘Muy Extrano’. During rehearsing a Bach concerto, the conductor, Maestro Basilo Riglisio began to turn the conductor’s wand in toward himself. He seemed to have no control over it as he plunged the needle-sharp wand through his vest and into his chest. I raced to help, but the damage had already been done. Immediately, I pulled out my cellular to contact the authorities, but my phone was confiscted by the castle’s owners. They told me that I would respect their wishes since I was on private property where the had complete juristriction. I was not to contact the outside.

Unfortunately, things only got worse from here. The percussion section had already been exposed to the coronavirus by a contaminated kettle drum prior to their trip. Knowing this, all percussionists wore masks and coughed very gently as to not transmit any particulates into the air. While it seemed like a good way to prevent transmission at the time, it completely failed. That very night, a quarter of the musicians lay in bed with symptoms. I was also not feeling well. And had no phone.

I also failed to mention that the owners of the Burg Eltz had an unbelievable number of pets in and around their castle. Each room I would enter, I was swarmed by mostly friendly dogs, but some were not as nice.

Well, it seems like those dogs may have contracted the virus too. For, on that very evening, while I lay coughing endlessly in bed, I heard a maddening howling from outside the castle gates. I managed to drag myself to my room’s tiny window, and witnessed the collection of rabid beasts all over the wooded castle grounds. They were everywhere. The sound did not stop.

I made my way to the part of the castle where the flautists were quartered, to ask what was happening. They held their flutes tightly, and only trembled, while pointing to Pedro Santiago, dead and bloodied on the castle floor, an arrow piercing through the center of his chest. I tried to find the castle’s owners and to retrieve my phone to call for help, but fell down a spiral stairwell, made of hard rock.

I am bloody. I am dying. I write this to you knowing that I will probably not survive the wolves, the orchestra, and the pandemic. I have done too many bad things in my days to know that Agnes is indeed going to find me.

And if you are a man, reading my story, I implore you, BE GOOD, or as we say in German, GUT SEIN! If not, Agnes will get you.

So, to sum up, if you are a good guy, you are fine. Travel anywhere you want upon pandemic’s end.

But, if you are bad, like me, the flautist, the conductor, the tubist or the hired-hand, just stay away from the Burg Eltz, and Germany altogether. Agnes does not welcome you here.