Page 67 of Enchanted in Time
“She’s intelligent, she’s clear-headed, she wants to protect her godchild, and she knows that this curse has to do with Mirabelle. She knew from the beginning that Mirabelle could not have put the curse on the royal family. And she knew that Mirabelle had awakened something evil in the forest that had been dormant for a long time.”
“What are you saying?”
“Why didn’t Frieda observe and listen in on Mirabelle the way you did? It doesn’t make any sense to me that she knew nothing about what happened to the mother’s soul back then!” She looked up. “She must have known! She knew about the soul, but she kept it from me! Just like everything else...”
Irmgard nodded, and her horn glistened in the sunlight. “I’m sure she knew about it. Didn’t she say so?”
Hannah slowly shook her head. Oh, that woman. Just wait until she got her hands on her!
The unicorn snorted. “Now get up on my back again. It’s already afternoon! You can sit and think at the same time.”
Hannah nodded in agreement and jumped up on Irmgard’s back. It was getting easier every time. She clutched the unicorn’s soft mane as Irmgard immediately trotted off.
Hannah’s stomach was making loud growling sounds, but she didn’t feel hungry. She still wanted to think about Frieda, but the mountains that loomed before them were distracting her. A single large mountain towered over several small ones that were grouped around it haphazardly as if surrounding their leader.
“Rupertsberg. I’ve gone hiking there with my kids. We thought it was creepy. Leon was terrified and wanted to go right back home. He said there were lots of haunted caves there.”
“What made him think so?”
“He claimed he was hearing loud banging and howling noises. Emi, Marco, and I heard nothing, but Leon insisted he did. He was terribly afraid, so with all his insistent whining and weeping, we decided to turn around and go home.” Hannah laughed at the memory. “Emi was yelling furiously, and Marco was whining the whole way home. Both of them really wanted to get to the top of the mountain and see the caves. And Leon was crying, and I had to carry him all the way to the car. That day, I thought to myself: how can one person handle all this bythemselves? Now I wish I were there again, back with them on that day. It was so much fun!”
“Children are a wonderful thing,” Irmgard agreed, and there was a hint of melancholy in her voice that Hannah would have heard if she hadn’t been so absorbed in her own thoughts. After a moment of reminiscing, she directed her gaze toward the massive, barren mountains.
“Look! There’s a path over to the side that leads right to the middle of the mountains and to Rupertsberg, the big mountain.” Hannah pointed Irmgard in the direction she meant. “See it?”
Irmgard snorted affirmatively and trotted toward the narrow point of entry that lay between two smaller, rocky mountains.
“What did Siegfried mean when he said to beware of the thunder?” Hannah asked.
“I haven’t the foggiest notion...”
26
An eerie stillness hung over the massif as if all the inhabitants were holding their breath and listening to Irmgard’s footsteps. The slow clatter of the unicorn’s hooves on the barren rock echoed throughout the mountain terrain, where hardly anything grew. Step by step, she scaled the first of the smaller mountains by means of the side path that wound its way through the mountain range.
Three ravens were flying overhead and cawing so loudly that Hannah and Irmgard jumped. Looking up at the black birds, they followed their flight with their gaze. The three ravens glided over the mountains and vanished behind one of the peaks.
“Just birds,” Hannah whispered.
“I guess that’s true...”
“What do you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“By suggesting that the three ravens may not just be three ravens.”
“What three ravens?”
Hannah rolled her eyes. This forgetful unicorn. “Never mind, Irmgard.”
The stillness that hung over the mountain range weighed heavily upon them. Again and again, Hannah looked back to see if someone was following them. But there was no one in sight and not a sound. No animal, no human. No one. No dark smoke or strange mist. Only the steady clatter of Irmgard’s hooves echoing through the silence. But why? Had the Evil not noticed that they were in search of the fireflower? Had they been so quick that it hadn’t been able to keep up?
Hannah looked ahead once more. The sun was already low in the sky. The mountains were casting long shadows across the path, which was strewn with small stones. How many hours remained before it was dark?
A cold wind whipped across the path and made her shiver. It roared between the mountains and pulled at her hair. It kept blowing against them—more and more wildly, more and more fiercely—so that Hannah had to cling to Irmgard’s mane. She leaned down to shield herself with the unicorn’s head.
Irmgard laid back her ears and narrowed her eyes to slits. She was finding it harder and harder to battle the storm and was getting slower with every step. She tried to stay by the edge of the path in the hope of avoiding the raging wind, but it blew just as hard there as it did in the middle. Her legs were shaking from the strain.
