Page 69 of Enchanted in Time
She didn’t wait a single second. She could already feel the rope around her ankles, though it was just as invisible as the belligerent gnomes themselves. With one leap, she jumped back onto the unicorn.
“Be gone!” Irmgard neighed. She reared up, and her hooves came thundering down onto the ground. The crashing sound echoed throughout the mountainous terrain.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” they squealed. “The unicorn is protecting her. Have to get her anyway! Evil woman! Must stop her!”
Irmgard stamped her hooves and kept moving farther and farther backwards. “Away with you! Don’t you dare wrap your rope around my flanks again! Away, I say! Away!”
Were the gnomes threatening the unicorn? Where was the respect they’d had for her in the forest? Hannah looked down. There were no footprints anywhere, nor were there swirling colors in the air like what they had seen in the forest. The forest gnomes were still invisible. But Irmgard was restlesslyprancing back and forth and flicking her hoof to the side as if she were casting off some shackles and attempting to drive the tiny creatures away.
“Quick, Irmgard, let’s ride!”
The unicorn neighed and reared once more, provoking numerous high-pitched, agonized screams: “Ow! Why is it doing that? The unicorn is attacking us! Evil unicorn! Must tie it up! Is our enemy!”
“Quick, Irmgard, let’s get out of here!”
Irmgard kept nervously prancing backwards until she was finally free. With one large bound, she leapt forward, but there, too, she immediately felt the forest gnomes’ ropes around her fetlocks. She had no choice but to gallop down the path to the left. Faster and faster she ran, and soon Hannah no longer heard the high little voices.
“Why did they follow us? And why did they attack you?” she asked.
“The Evil!” Irmgard replied bluntly, shaking herself as if even she got the chills at the thought.
Hannah was thinking as Irmgard speedily trotted along. “Tell me, Irmgard, why did the forest gnomes show up just now? Why did they attack us right at that moment?”
“They had probably been following us for quite some time already. We stopped there for a while, so they were able to catch up with us.”
“Or because we were on the right track! That’s why they’re not following us now—because we’re moving away from the fireflower!”
Irmgard snorted with surprise. “What are you saying?”
“Earlier, you said that the Evil might be shielding the flower from us. As long as we can’t find the flower, it won’t need to attack us.”
Irmgard whinnied. “And?“
“I had just suggested we go up to the summit of Rupertsberg to look for the fireflower. At that exact moment, the forest gnomes were suddenly there. I heard none of the whooshing or buzzing that signaled their arrival the times before. It was as if their voices just came out of the blue.”
“Maybe they climbed out of one of the cracks.”
“Even if they did, someone must have led them straight to us.”
Irmgard neighed excitedly. “Fabulous, dear Hannah! Your logical deductions are superb—superb, I have to say!”
“So you agree?”
“With what?”
“Well, that the fireflower has got to grow at the top of Rupertsberg.”
“Of course, the fireflower grows up there! Didn’t I say that already?”
Hannah furrowed her brow. Had the unicorn known where to find this magical flower and simply forgotten? Did the flower really grow at the top of Rupertsberg? She took a good look at the high mountain to her right. Was it up there—the key to rescuing Mirabelle’s mother and, by extension, Mirabelle herself? The key to freeing Maximilian from his bear form? The key that would finally bring her back to her children?
“What do you think? Do we need to take the path back to the plateau to get up there, or is there a second path that will take us to the top?”
“There is a second path farther back... I think... I did hear of it once... at least, I think I heard of it... now who was that again who told me about it?” Irmgard knit her brow. Her moment of clarity seemed to have passed.
Strange how she would suddenly get these blackouts, and then—as if memory lapses were not an issue at all—she would remember things moments later that she had usually forgottenbefore. “Have you been somewhat forgetful since the time you were born, or did that happen later?” Hannah asked.
“I’ve always been a little absent-minded, but at some point it got worse. I don’t remember what triggered it. All of a sudden, it got so extreme that some of the herd refused to take me seriously.”
