Page 26 of Enchanted in Time
“And the shoes...”
“... and the shoes Mirabelle wore that evening.”
Hannah froze. Was this some bad joke? How sick could you get? “You gave me the shoes of the girl who had to go through such a horrific evening here? That can’t be, can it?”
Frieda shrugged. “Without the shoes and the dress, my spell would not have worked.”
Hannah wanted to kick the red slippers off her feet and throw them on her neighbor’s reflection, but Frieda cried out: “No, Hannah! You must keep the shoes on your feet at all costs! Otherwise, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to conjure you back!”
Hannah shook her head in bewilderment and kept the slippers on her feet. She had no idea what part was true and what part her quirky neighbor was making up. Just to be safe, she would keep the shoes on.
Furious, she stared at the water. “We’ll discuss this later, Frieda. But look, I’m wearing jewelry from my own... from our time. And my underwear was also made in our time, although maybe not in our country. So I don’t see why there should be any problem bringing me back.”
“The journey through time is not just any tunnel that you can open and close at will. The journey must be justified, and the traveler must fulfill a mission to be able to return.”
“Fulfill a mission? I have to fulfill a mission before I can come back to my kids? What have you done to me?”
“Now calm down. It’s really not that bad. You can do this?—”
“Not that bad? You’ve conjured me away from my children. They need me! They’re little, and they don’t have a father anymore. I’m all they have left! How could you do this?”
“I promise you, dear Hannah, I shall take care of your little angels. Just as you shall take care of my godchild. Do we have a deal?”
“A DEAL?” Hannah jumped up. “That’s blackmail!”
Frieda chuckled. “No need to be so dramatic now. All you have to do is to save the prince—and poof, you’ll be back here with us!”
“But...”
But there was no time to object. Frieda’s reflection was growing more and more faint and blurred, and Hannah’s neighbor was becoming increasingly less distinct until even the glint of her half-moon glasses could no longer be seen. The enchantress had cut the connection!
Hannah’s shoulders sagged. A tear welled up in one eye, then another and another until they were spilling out and rolling down her cheeks. How had all this happened? How could she have been so gullible? Her neighbor was an enchantress who had shamelessly used her for her own purposes, regardless of how her children would fare in the process!
More tears came streaming down her face—then more and more until she could no longer restrain herself. With her back against the side of the fountain, she let out a loud sob as she slid down onto the grass and wept. She cried all the tears she had been holding back since the day her husband died. There were thousands of them. She wept for him, wept for her children, wept for herself. Until finally all the sorrow was out and not a tear was left. She wiped her cheeks and raised her head. It was no use. She would have to be strong. She had always been strong. She’d had no shoulder to lean on, and she was used to picking herself up and carrying on without any outside help.
First, she needed a plan. What did she know so far? The prince had turned into a bear because of a curse. The same curse had once been put on his father and apparently passed on to him. The cause was a young woman who had been ridiculed and made a laughingstock at a ball that took place in this castle a long, long time ago. The young woman had then run off. Wherehad she gone? What had she done? When had she uttered the curse? What exactly was it?
Hannah would need all this information to be able to help the bear prince. Once she had saved him, she would travel back... no, forward in time, and back... or no, to her kids. The thought of her little sweet peas weighed heavily on her chest. Was Frieda really treating them well?
Frieda... She hadn’t told her the truth! Hannah pondered a while. Maybe Frieda also hadn’t told her the truth just now. Hannah had supposedly traveled back in time? Bah! What nonsense! She took a deep breath and made up her mind. She wouldn’t need a cab to get back to her kids. She would walk! Her shoes were comfortable, even if they had been part of a frightful story.
Now firmly resolved, she stood up and looked around. How would she get out of this garden without going through the castle again? Back there was a gate. She would have to run past the balcony. If she ran fast enough, the bear prince would never detect her!
She closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. Immediately, thoughts of her children flooded her mind. How were they doing? Was Frieda really not harming them? The three of them had been cheerful. She would have to trust that while it was true that this woman was using her to save her godson, she wasn’t hurting her children. Definitely not. And if she did, then—magic powers or no—Frieda would be in for a nasty surprise. But that damn enchantress had it coming to her anyway!
12
Without waiting another moment, Hannah ran off, past the balcony and over to the little gate, which—she sent a quick prayer to heaven—was unlocked. She pushed it open and darted out without once looking back at the castle and the enchanted prince.
Outside the massive castle wall was a narrow trail that she followed to get back to the small road the coach had taken to bring her there. She would simply follow the road back. Luckily, it was the height of summer and not too late in the evening. It would be another two or three hours before the sun went down, and by then, she would be out of the forest and no longer far from town—if not already home!
She gathered up her swinging skirt and started to jog. She wanted to leave the castle behind as quickly as possible. Tonight. She wanted to be home with her sweet peas. If there was one thing all this was good for, it was that she could feel once more how much she missed her children, how much she enjoyed sitting with them night after night, reading them stories, and caressing the youngest children’s heads when they were plagued by nightmares.
She heard clattering and clanking sounds. Was the bear wreaking havoc in the castle and destroying the entire interior and all the tableware? Doors were banging, and the bear was roaring and shouting. Was that her name? She didn’t care. She came to the large portal that led to the castle courtyard and ran past it. Was someone waiting in the shadows to pull her back into this strange situation? But no one was lurking behind the gate. Not a soul was in the castle square, and nobody came charging out of the large castle portal to hold her back—not even the bear.
She followed the small road, which hardly even merited the name since it was not tarred, cobbled, or paved in any way. It was nothing but trampled earth with some blades of grass and dandelions growing along the side. Hannah kept running. Her heart was pounding, and the stitches in her side were starting to bother her, but she refused to slow down until the path entered the forest and the castle was no longer in sight. She gritted her teeth, gathered her dress up higher, and hurried into the forest a short while later. Four more steps. Three, two, one. At last, she paused, turned around, and sighed with relief. The castle was no longer in view, and the bear prince hadn’t followed her. She held one hand to her side, pulled up her skirt with the other, and continued to run. She was panting loudly, but no one could hear it anyway. The few deer and rabbits that lived in the woods so close to the town had surely long since fled her approach.
She followed the bumpy little road and was glad the red slippers were so comfortable. If she had worn any of her own shoes, she was sure she would have long since been tormented by blisters. If only the poor girl had kept them on back then, they might have served her well for her flight into the forest.
