Chapter Sixteen
FOREST HAUNTS AND A MERRY INN
As though drawn by an invisible spirit of some ancient myth, the two hurried deeper and deeper into a magical realm of heavy timbers and soft ferns. The air smelled musty, and the earth beneath them was padded with the crumbled black residue of centuries. Now quiet, the girls slowed their pace and looked about carefully. A slow, creeping sense of dread had just begun to crawl over Frieda when Maria’s happy voice cried out, “There!”
The tyke sprinted toward a damp, shallow dish in the forest floor that was covered with mushrooms. She stopped at the edge of the heavily shaded clearing. “Frieda! Look how many!”
Indeed, before the two girls stood a veritable world of mushrooms on their stout, singular pillars like a field of multicolored umbrellas. Frieda smiled. “There, steinpilz, the fat brown ones. And there, see the pretty blue caps? They’re blewits, and those huge gold ones! Those are pfifferling and they’re delicious! I remember them from m’Mutti’s kitchen.”
The two girls stared wide eyed at the enchanting glade. Covering the moist earth was a host of varieties. Some flat, some rounded, many brown, others red or blue. A large arc of fairy-ring mushrooms encircled a splattering of dark-capped ones standing tall on their cream-colored pillars. Ledge like flattops grew from the sides of rotting logs, and white-toothed semmelstoppelpilz mingled with many others to boast nearly every color of the rainbow.
Frieda led Maria carefully into their newfound mushroom kingdom. The two tiptoed gingerly among the host of fungi at their feet, staring incredulously at their treasure. “These are too soon ready,” whispered Frieda. “It is summer; most are not ready until St. Michael’s!”
Maria nodded, suddenly a little fearful. “Are they witched?”
Frieda paused. The word had always frightened her. She looked about for any sign of spell-casting or charms. “I… I… methinks not.”
Maria waited as Frieda thought hard to provide some other explanation. “It is cool here. Perhaps they grow differently in this wood.”
The answer seemed right enough, and, relieved, the girls were soon bobbing amongst the little pedestals, snatching this one and that with grasping hands. It took very little time to fill the baskets, and with broad smiles the pair stood and faced one another proudly. “Well, methinks we’ve too many!” boasted Frieda. She set down her overflowing basket and Maria giggled.
“We’ve enough to feed the whole of the caravan!”
“Aye. But we wanted poppies as well,” answered Frieda.
They looked about. “We should find a more sunny place,” said Maria.
Frieda turned in circles. “I saw lots of them along the highway. Shall we go that way?”
Maria stared vacantly at what suddenly seemed to be endless forest. She shrugged. “I’ll follow you.”
So the two wanderers began a brisk walk with their baskets in hand. They spoke of things touching both their hearts, and Frieda probed Maria on the secret particulars of Wil’s past. “He was always kind, but he liked to be alone mostly,” Maria said as she thought carefully. “He seemed to be unhappy a lot.”
Frieda nodded.
“Mutti was usually angry with him.”
“For cause?”
The little girl shrugged. “Methinks not. Mutti was angry with everyone. Karl worked hard to please her, though, more than Wil did.”
“And you?”
Maria stopped and her face fell. “I tried to be good, but she thought this”—she lifted her deformed arm—“was a punishment. I think she was ashamed of me.”
Frieda set her basket down and hugged the girl. “No one is ashamed of you, Maria.”
The maiden smiled.
Scanning the forest, the two spotted a distant dip in which a pool was likely lying. They hurried forward and, to their delight, they did, indeed, come upon a clear spring filled with crystal water and laced with watercress. “Ah, Maria, we should have brought another basket!”
They removed some of their mushrooms and topped their baskets with the green water plant. They took long, refreshing draughts of water and sat to speak of times past once more. It was a restful conversation that wandered between Frieda’s life as the daughter of a lord to Maria’s and the particulars of Weyer. Frieda spoke in somber tones of her lost siblings and her father’s shame and lovingly of her mother. Maria giggled over May Day tales and cried a little when she remembered Karl playing bladder ball with his friends.
Frieda turned the talk toward Wil again but suddenly stopped. An uncomfortable breeze had chilled her, and she sat erect, looking about with wide eyes. The woodland had become ghostly quiet, and the shadows had slowly thickened around the two like creeping villains enclosing their prey. Frieda took short, anxious breaths. She stood and whirled about, first this way, then that.