Page 40 of Enchanted in Time
The bear got down on all fours, and in three large leaps, he was already at the crossroads. Hannah hurried after him and looked down each path. The one to the left led into a dark coniferous forest that struck her as eerie and oppressive. The one to the right kept winding past the same tall deciduous trees they had seen so far, and its surroundings seemed no different from what they had been making their way through up to now.
Hannah pointed to the right. “I like this path better,” she said. The light was bright, the colors were soft, and a couple of birds were twittering in the trees.
“But someone who has fled the world and gone into hiding is more likely to choose the dark forest,” Maximilian replied. Indicating the path to the left, he added, “This fork in the road did not exist until a short while ago. The brick pathway went off to the right and not into this evergreen forest. I’m sure Mirabelle is hiding there.”
“As sure as you were when you still believed there was only one way through the woods?”
The bear let out a frighteningly loud growl, but Hannah only laughed. He no longer scared her. She gave in and shrugged. “Then I guess it will be the path to the left.”
Hannah had a heavy feeling in her chest as she crept into the dark forest ahead of the bear. The scent of pine needles wafted up to her nose, and without thinking, she took a deep breath. The air was good, but she still felt uneasy among the dense firs and countless pines. How much longer would they have to walk? When would they finally find Mirabelle?
“Do you really think she’s hiding here somewhere along the path?” Hannah mused, reflecting out loud. “Don’t you think she would have run deep into the woods so that no one would find her? If you wanted to withdraw from the world, you wouldn’t live on the main road.”
“As I already said, this path did not exist until a short while ago. And if you didn’t keep slowing down, we would have gotten here a lot sooner.”
Hannah stopped. She was about to make a snappy retort when she suddenly felt how heavy her legs had become. In spite of her comfortable shoes, her legs were aching and cramping all over, front and back. “I wouldn’t mind taking a break. Come on, let’s have something to eat and drink. I’ll move faster after that.”
“I have a better idea.” The bear lay down flat on the pathway. “I’ll carry you. You can eat and drink on my back.”
“But you’re not an animal!” she said, repeating his own words.
“My fur itches, and I’m finding it harder and harder to not constantly scratch myself. I’m afraid that if we don’t get to Mirabelle soon, I’ll turn into one!”
Hannah remembered how Frieda had explained that with each hour Maximilian spent as a bear, the animal side would grow stronger and stronger until his human side was entirely lost.
“You can set the bags on my back. That will make running easier.”
Hannah took the two bags of provisions, climbed onto his back, and grabbed his shaggy fur. “Giddyup, little bear!”
The bear uttered a deep growl that sounded like a throaty laugh. He went down on all fours, and now that he no longer needed to make allowances for her, he tore down the brick pathway at such high speed that Hannah nearly fell off. She squeezed his sides with her legs and leaned forward, and as she got used to his movements, she pulled a banana out of the bag of provisions. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she started to eat. She devoured the fruit and immediately reached for a couple of sausages and little pies. Fortunately, back in the castle kitchen, they’d had access to the entire mass of leftovers from the buffet on the night of the ball, which meant they had been able to pack a truly exquisite meal for the road. The second bag, which held a lantern for the nighttime and a few towels and knives in addition to clothes for the prince, was dangling from Hannah’s shoulder. She was simply too much of a mother to go on a trip through the woods without an emergency bag.
Maximilian raced so fast through the forest that Hannah soon had to stop eating so as to avoid getting sick from all theshaking. She slung the bag over her shoulder next to the other one and watched for some trace of Mirabelle. She peered to the front and the sides, searching the dense underbrush for a sign of human life, but she saw nothing. No footprints, no piles of branches, no man-made clearings bore witness to her presence.
“Maybe we should have chosen the other way after all,” she said. “Perhaps this isn’t a real path at all but a spell cast by some boggart.”
“Boggarts can mimic voices and sounds, but they can’t perform magic. No, this path is the work of Friederike the Enchantress. If there’s one thing we can rely on and use to orient ourselves, then it’s this red brick pathway.”
Hannah was about to refute what he said when right at that moment, they heard a quiet voice. It was coming from the thicket, perhaps some sixty-five feet away. It was the voice of a woman humming to herself, lost in thought.
“Shh!” Hannah whispered, but the bear had already stopped and was listening to the sweet sound. Who was back there? Was it Mirabelle? Or a boggart?
Maximilian veered from the brick pathway and slowly began to make his way into the forest.
“Shouldn’t we stick to the pathway...” Hannah whispered.
But he shook his enormous bear head. “Stay on my back. If it’s a boggart spell, I’ll quickly get us back onto the safe path!”
Hannah nodded, though the bear prince couldn’t see it. With every step he took, her heart beat faster and faster. She ducked down closer to his body and peered out over his large head.
Dense, thorny hedges and prickly branches blocked their view. Slowly, the bear crept around the shrubs. Meanwhile, the humming had turned into a lovely song. It sounded happy and free, not at all like something that a person who was bitter and finished with life would sing.
The closer Maximilian moved, the more Hannah suspected that it had to be a trap, a boggart spell! She tapped the prince on his furry back. He turned his head toward her, and she motioned with her hands that he had best turn back. But he shook his head and looked at her with his green eyes as if to say: “Don’t be afraid!”
Very slowly and quietly, the bear prince crept around the bushes until they finally had a clear view. There, they saw an old, bent woman with her back turned toward them. She was stooping over a basket to retrieve a large sheet. She shook it and hung it on a line that was suspended between two fir trees. Behind her was a tiny house, so small it couldn’t have had more than one room. The walls were constructed of thin tree trunks, and the roof was made of woven twigs covered by a thick layer of moss that had grown over them.
The old woman must have heard them or sensed their presence because she turned around very slowly to face them. Hannah felt a chill run down her spine, and she drew close to the bear prince. On seeing the old woman’s face, she was barely able to stifle a horrified scream. It was riddled with pustules and strange brown splotches. Her skin was wrinkled and gray. She had covered her hair with a plaid scarf, and her blouse and threadbare skirt had been patched a number of times, so that the image of the witch from Hansel and Gretel immediately popped into Hannah’s head. Her eyes were sunken deep within their sockets, and her gaze... her gaze... Hannah shuddered. She noticed something flash in the old woman’s eyes—something she did not like at all.
“What a strange pair you are... Who are you? Who has come to see me?” Her voice reminded Hannah of a raven’s, though it was high, like a woman’s.
