Page 47 of Enchanted in Time
“You mean my foot!”
“On three!” she said, ignoring his remark. “One... two... three!”
She pulled on the rope with every ounce of strength she had as the prince simultaneously tugged on his paw. The two of them pulled on the rope as hard as they could.
“It’s getting looser!” Maximilian cried, panting. “Keep pulling!”
Hannah tugged and tugged and tugged on the rope.
“Keep pulling—we’re almost there!” the prince shouted.
He wiggled his paw and yanked and tugged and then wiggled his paw again. Slowly, the hard earth loosened, and the roots released him. The earth broke up and crumbled. He pulled hard one more time and finally freed his paw from the hole. The momentum caused him to tumble forward onto the forest floor, and Hannah landed on her bottom next to the trunk of the fir.
“I’m free! Look!” Maximilian happily wiggled his hind paw. “Now let’s get out of here before the forest gnomes return! Quick, scramble up on my back.”
Panting, Hannah tossed the rope on the ground and wiped the sweat from her forehead. He didn’t have to ask twice. She was so exhausted that she didn’t have more than a few steps in her. And besides, she wanted to get out of this accursed place as fast as possible. She climbed up onto his back, and the bear prince took off, running deeper into the thicket.
Worried, Hannah looked around at the forest, which was getting darker and darker. “Maximilian, we’re veering too far from Frieda’s brick path!”
“Damn! But we still have to get away from the spot where the forest gnomes found us—as fast as we can!”
“Try to make an arc so we can find our way back to the path. Let’s not get lost!”
“Hold on tight!” Maximilian charged off as Hannah clung to his fur and ducked to avoid the twigs and low-hanging branches he was tearing past. He made a large semicircle. Hopefully the way he went would lead them back to Frieda’s path.
“Wait!” Hannah pointed at a half-shaded spot at the base of a pine tree. “That’s goutweed growing there!”
Maximilian slowed down and tramped over to the pine tree. Then he bent down a bit so she could slide off his back.
Hannah hurried over to the evergreen and stooped down toward the herb. “Look, it’s goutweed!” she cried, laughing. “Now we’ve already got two ingredients!” She carefully plucked a handful of leaves and placed them in the little bag along with the wintergreen blossoms. “Now all we need is elecampane. The only plant we haven’t found yet is the most conspicuous of all.”
“Tell me what it looks like. Four eyes are better than two!”
“Elecampane reminds me a bit of sunflowers, but the center is orange instead of brown. And the petals are bright yellow like a sunflower’s, but rather than being large and oval, they look more like strands of hair or stripes or thread. It’s also called the tears of Helen of Troy.”
“Where does that name come from?”
“They say that when Paris abducted the beautiful Helen of Mycenae and took her to Troy, she was holding elecampane blossoms in her hands. The plant is big. You can’t miss it. It prefers shady places.”
They heard whooshing and rustling noises behind them.
“Quick, get on my back!”
All of a sudden, a wind blew in. Were the forest gnomes back? Hannah jumped on the bear prince’s back, and off he ran, charging straight back to the brick pathway.
Something was roaring through the air behind them as they heard the faint sound of bickering, whispering voices. The bear ran even faster.
Hannah turned around on his back to see the air swirling around the same way it had a short while ago before the forest gnomes appeared. “They’re behind us!” she cried.
Every muscle in Maximilian’s body tensed up, and he went faster and faster as if he had waited until this moment to draw on the reserves he had as a bear. He growled and panted as he raced through the forest.
“There’s the brick path!” Hannah cried. “We’re almost there!”
“Have to grab ‘em! Have to grab ‘em! Have attacked us!”
Hannah could hear them squealing behind them.How fast were these darn gnomes anyway?“Hurry!”
The bear prince tore through the forest as Hannah clung to his fur. She was practically lying on his back as she huddled close against him to keep from falling. And as if it would get him closer faster, she narrowed her eyes to slits when she caught sight of the brick path.
