The forest grimm, p.13
The Forest Grimm, page 13
Reserve your strength, Clara. Soon this tunnel will open to the heart of the den. I’ll have room to properly fight—or quickly die.
I don’t know how long or far the wolf takes me. Time is a blur of frantic heartbeats and rampant heartache. What if I never see Mother again? Or Henni and Axel?
What if I’d let him kiss me under the sycamore tree?
At last, the tunnel opens, but not into a closed den. There’s light here, although it’s heavily shrouded by cloistering spruce and pine. We’re aboveground in a hollow of the forest. The air is cool and damp, and red-spotted mushrooms surround the edges of the grassy slopes. We must be near water.
Something whistles past me. A spear. The wolf drops my ankles and dodges it. I hurriedly push to my feet. The wolf comes at me again. Another spear darts from the shadows. The wolf ducks, and the spear whooshes by her.
“Have you come to join my menagerie?” an airy and high-pitched voice calls. A woman steps out from the shadows, but only partway. I can’t make out her face. She’s holding another spear, crudely made from a stick and what looks like carved bone. “I would love another friend.”
I don’t know if she’s speaking to me or the wolf, so I press my lips shut.
“Last chance.” The woman takes aim at the wolf.
The wolf snarls and draws up to her full height.
The woman doesn’t shrink away. Her slim fingers tighten around her spear shaft. She throws the spear, fast and fierce. Somehow the wolf is faster. She springs away and darts out of the hollow. The woman chases after her, leaving me alone.
I remain tense for several moments, expecting the wolf to leap out from the dark thickets and return for me, but none of the trees stir with sounds of her.
A huge breath of relief purges from my lungs, though a pinch of anxiety remains trapped inside. Who was that woman? Not my mother, that’s a certainty. I only caught a shadowed glimpse of her, but it was enough to sense the difference. Mother has an unbridled spirit that manifests in every movement. This woman was more polished and graceful. I saw that even as she sprinted away.
I think of any Lost Ones who might have such a bearing. Could she be Ivana Hirsch or Marlis Glathorn? I shift from foot to foot, awaiting her return. She will return … won’t she? I imagine she’d be glad to find another soul in the forest.
The woods remain silent except for the sound of a thin breeze hissing through the leafy branches and wild grass of the hollow. My anxiety ratchets up a notch, a clock wound too tight. If the woman doesn’t return, what will I do? How will I find Axel and Henni? The burrow hole the wolf dragged me through is sealed off on the other end.
I reach to close the front of my cape—it’s become a kind of shield—but my hands grasp nothing. The cape is gone, I remember. I never tightened the strings like Axel warned me to.
I wrap my arms around myself, feeling naked. I pace the hollow, rub my sore spine, and crane my neck to spy any exit that looks promising—a worn path, a stream, even a deer trail—but I can’t see anything in the surrounding thicket. I’ll count to a thousand, I tell myself. Then I’ll venture off on my own.
When I reach 793, something flickers in the corner of my vision. I slowly revolve, bracing myself for the worst. But no gray fur flashes from behind the trees. It’s not the wolf. It can’t be the woman either. The person racing by is too short.
It wouldn’t be a child. No children were ever Lost. The Forest Grimm had the kindness to spare them that fate. All the Lost Ones are sixteen or older. Old enough to make a wish on the Book of Fortunes, if that were still possible.
I creep forward. “Hello?”
The little person halts and hides behind a pine tree.
“Do I know you?” I rock forward on my toes to step closer. “I’m Clara Thurn from Grimm’s Hollow.”
No response comes. Maybe it’s not a person, but an animal … an unusually large hare that I mistook for someone with two legs. I’m about to turn away and leave the poor creature in peace when a small voice finally peeps, “Mama says I shouldn’t speak with strangers.”
I stifle a gasp. It is a child. A boy, from the clear tenor of his tone. I inch nearer. “No one is a stranger in Grimm’s Hollow.”
“We’re not in the village.”
“But surely you’re from there.” The other mountain villages aren’t within walking distance.
Behind the pine, a head pops out covered by a mop of glossy brown curls. Two large hazel eyes clap on mine. He’s a beautiful thing, from what I can see of him, like a fairy child from Grandmère’s book of children’s stories.
I’m ten feet away now, but I still strain to see him clearly. His form is blurry in the shrouded daylight. From his height, I’d guess he’s seven or eight years old. I can’t remember ever seeing him in Grimm’s Hollow, though something about him feels familiar.
His lips mash together as he studies me without blinking. “Do you still know the way back home?”
“Yes.” Kind of. “I’m the tiniest bit lost at the moment.”
He shuffles out into the open, his shoulders slumped. “That’s what they all say.”
“They?” Has he met other villagers in the forest? “Was that your mother who chased after the wolf just now?”
“Mama was afraid of wolves.” He idly kicks at the wild grass, but he’s so slight in build that he barely stirs the blades. “What happened to your red cape?”
My fingers clutch the base of my neck where the cape’s strings should be. “How do you—?”
“Red for rampion. Red like the color of roses.” His voice falls into a singsong rhythm, like he’s reciting a nursery rhyme.
“You know about red rampion?” I squint harder, still struggling to see him better. It must be my vision that’s hazy, not the light, because the boy remains slightly out of focus.
He nods and hops over a stone. “The first to grow forever holds the seed of magic. That’s what he told me.”
“He?”
“The oldest tree. He says he was once a man, but no one besides me believes him. No one hears him like I do.”
The haunting faces I’ve been seeing in the forest jump to mind. Perhaps I didn’t imagine them after all. “Red rampion was the first to grow? Is that what he meant? Grow where?”
“The Forest Grimm, of course. I know a poem about it. Would you like to hear it?”
“Um … yes.” I’m having a hard time keeping up with everything the boy is saying. I’m too distracted by his restlessness. He doesn’t hold still. He circles me, jumps to swat dragonflies, and scours the ground like he’s searching for insects.
“I learned this all by myself,” he says. “But I guess I couldn’t help it. The oldest tree wouldn’t stop saying the words.” He puffs out his small chest. “Are you ready?” I nod.
When magic kissed the earth, it grew a red flower,
Which woke up the land and granted it power.
But a curse be upon those who wrong this domain,
For when blood soaks the soil, magic shall become bane.
Forgiveness comes slowly after such insurrection,
But the first to grow here will offer protection.
The boy stares at me expectantly after he finishes, the edges of him continuing to blur and streak in my vision. “Didn’t you like it?”
“I … yes.”
“You didn’t clap. And ‘insurrection’ is a big word.”
“S-sorry.” I give him a round of applause, but it’s faint and clumsy. My hands have started shaking. I finally recognize the boy. I saw a miniature portrait of him once, in Axel’s uncle’s house of all places. It sat in a dusty corner beside another framed picture, this one of a woman, Axel’s aunt. She had passed away years before Axel came to the village. “Are you Oliver Furst?”
“No one calls me Oliver.” He wrinkles his nose. “I’m just Ollie.”
“Ollie,” I repeat, speechless. I see too much of Axel in the boy now, how his hair might have been curlier like Ollie’s as a child, even though Axel’s hair is golden and Ollie’s is chocolate brown. Their eyes are also similar, just different colors.
The two of them are cousins—a cousin Axel never met because by the time he came to live in Grimm’s Hollow with his uncle, Ollie was already dead.
Icy frost stabs my veins and raises gooseflesh on my arms. The boy I’m looking at … he’s a ghost. “How long have you been in the forest?”
Ollie leaps at another dragonfly, but doesn’t disturb it. His hand passes right through the bug as it whizzes by. “I don’t bother counting days anymore.”
“Is your mother here with you?”
His mop of curls bounces as he shakes his head. “Just the tree people, but you have to die here to become one of them. Mama died in the village. Me too. We caught the blood cough.”
Consumption. It took six villagers when it swept through Grimm’s Hollow thirteen years ago. I was only a small child back then, and my family was spared the sickness. I don’t remember the epidemic, only tales of it. I don’t remember Ollie either. Did we ever meet? I would have been four years old when he passed away. “Why are you here if your mother isn’t?”
He releases an exaggerated sigh. “You ask a lot of questions.”
A smile works its way to my lips, despite the fact that I’m speaking with the spirit of a dead boy. “My father once said that’s what my epitaph will read one day: Clara Thurn. Asked a lot of questions.”
“Epitaph?” Ollie’s little mouth purses. “What is that?”
“Words on a gravestone.”
“Oh.” He kicks through the grass again, but can’t make it rustle. “I’ve never seen mine.”
I have. I’ve seen every grave marker in Grimm’s Hollow. Before I made my peace with death, I used to wake in a cold sweat from nightmares of being trapped inside a coffin underground. I chased the fear away by visiting graves, which I found to be calming places. Most burial sites are on people’s lands, but some, like Ollie’s, are in the common graveyard on the outskirts of the village square. “You were buried beside your mother.”
He slows his traipsing and picks at the worn edge of his suspenders. “I wish I could rest with her.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I did a bad thing.” He lowers his head and stares at his shoes.
“It couldn’t be so bad.” I drift closer and kneel in front of him, wishing his blurry form were solid enough for me to wrap my arms around. “You’re just a boy.”
“Boys can steal pennies.” He sniffs. “I stole two of them. Mama told me to give them to a poor man, but they were just enough to buy cookies on the next market day, so I buried them in the forest to save for later.”
I tilt my head, understanding how this story must have ended. “And before market day came, you caught the blood cough?” I ask gently.
His hazel elfin eyes lift to mine. I didn’t think ghosts could cry, but unless it’s a trick of his blurred appearance, his eyes are gathering tears. “The fever made me forget where I buried the pennies. I still can’t remember. And my fingers can’t dig up anything.” He thwacks the grass to prove his point, and his hand sails through the tufts without bending the blades. “How will I rest unless the pennies are given to the poor man like I promised?”
My heart squeezes. Soon I’ll be dead like Ollie. I’d hate to have any unfinished business that tormented my spirit. “Maybe we can help each other. I’ll keep a lookout for your pennies, and you can help me search for Sortes Fortunae.”
His frown deepens. Is he confused?
“The Book of Fortunes,” I prompt. He probably died too young to remember its significance.
“I know about the book.” His voice adopts a glum tone. He turns away and heads back for the thicket. “Everyone’s looking for it and no one ever finds it.”
“But do you know where it is?” I spring up to follow him, wincing as the sudden movement sends a spasm of pain through my S-curve. “I promise to help you find your pennies.”
“That’s what they all say.” He walks past the tree line of the hollow. “But then people forget who they are or they die here, and it’s too late.” He tosses me a weary glance. “I thought you would be different. Magic touches rare people, just like it touched this forest. The woman in red said you might be one of them. But you’re already lost.”
My mind swirls with all he’s just said. “Woman in red? Was her name Rosamund?” My stomach flutters with irrational hope. The chances are next to nothing that she’s my mother. How could she be when Mother journeyed into the Forest Grimm wearing a green dress? But then I think of the strip of red wool on the Tree of the Lost in Grimm’s Hollow. Grandmère and I chose it because it’s Mother’s favorite color.
Ollie jumps over a protruding root as he advances farther into the thicket. “Red for rampion. Red like the color of roses. Watch for the girl in the red cape.”
“Who taught you that?” I scramble after him. “The man in the oldest tree or the woman in red?” It could be someone else for all I know, but Ollie doesn’t bother to say. He just weaves into a dense copse of aspen, too clustered for me to squeeze through. Even if I could, he’s already starting to vanish between the shafts of sunlight. “Wait! Will I see you again?”
He shrugs a ghostly shoulder. “There’s a girl who lives in this hollow. You should be nice to her. But if she offers you stew, tell her to taste it first.”
“Wait, please don’t go! At least help me find my friends.”
He turns around, his body barely visible with its growing transparency. “Oh, and don’t leave here without your cape.”
“Ollie!”
It’s too late. He fully disappears. The space where he slipped between the trees has become only mist and motes.
CHAPTER 18
I clutch the trunk of a slim aspen, my mind reeling. The moment Ollie vanishes, I start to doubt my encounter with him. No one I know has ever been visited by a ghost, not even Grandmère, and she of all people might have experienced such a curiosity. But perhaps the old woman doesn’t tell me everything.
I turn in a slow circle, unsure where I should go: return to the hollow—Ollie said I shouldn’t leave here without my cape—or journey blindly back into the forest and hope I somehow meet up with Axel and Henni.
I fist my hands and force myself forward, leaving the hollow behind. It’s not as if I can just wait for my cape to miraculously return to my possession. I’ll have to test my luck without it and attempt to find it on my own.
This section of the thicket isn’t as deep as I first imagined. After I pick my way through a few more yards of clustered trees, I spy another hollow—or perhaps the same hollow, just divided by the thicket.
I duck under a branch and emerge into the clearing, but before I’m even standing straight and can take in my surroundings, a woman captures my full attention. She’s eight feet ahead and standing in the shadow of a large oak bordering the hollow. Unprepared to meet another person so soon, I startle.
“Are you cold?” she asks. Her voice is breathy and rhythmic, like air and water coursing together. “Come and rest in my home. I’ve been waiting for you. I have furs to warm you. I will make you comfortable.”
She glides forward a step, and the silky shadows slip away from her face. She’s not so much a woman as she is a girl, I realize. Her hair is stringy and falls to her waist in a tangle of russet waves. Dirt smudges her skin, and her dress is even dirtier, black in places where it isn’t brown.
I don’t recognize her from the village. Could she be another ghost like Ollie? He mentioned a girl in the hollow, but he didn’t say whether she was dead or alive. I squint at the edges of her. They aren’t blurry like Ollie’s. “Was that you who threw a spear at the Grimm wolf?” I ask.
She dips her head in a queenly way. “You may call me Cinderella,” she replies. “And sadly the wolf escaped me. A shame. She had such beautiful fur.”
My jaw drops. I stare past all the wildness of her and take in her doe eyes, dainty nose, and elegant bearing. I envision her with cleaner hair—light chestnut instead of russet—and fresh glowing skin. I see her dress as it once was, no longer grimy but wedding-white and trimmed with ribbons and fine embroidery. All she’s missing is her red veil, the veil I found in the sycamore. The veil I left behind in my pack.
“Ella?” I gasp. I rush forward to embrace her. We were never close friends, but it doesn’t matter. I’m brimming with Henni’s joy and Axel’s happiness, as well as my own relief that I’ve found another Lost One in the forest.
Just as I’m about to fling my arms around her, she jerks back stiffly. “I apologize,” she says, affecting a smile. She smooths her hair as if she’s pinning a lock into an immaculate coif. “I always welcome strangers, but I’m not accustomed to embracing them, nor hearing them call me by informal names.”
I stagger on my feet for a moment. I don’t understand. Ella is her full name. It isn’t short for anything, like Henni is for Henrietta. In actuality, it’s Cinderella that’s her informal name. The villagers started calling her that once word spread about how she became Lost. But how did Ella learn that name for herself after she had already left the village?
“Sorry if I’ve offended you.” I bury the sting that she thinks I’m a stranger. She should have remembered that I’m her sister’s best friend. “I’m Clara Thurn from Grimm’s Hollow.” I wait a beat, but she still shows no signs of recognition. “Thank you for saving me from the wolf.”
Her smile relaxes, and she dips her head again into another graceful curtsy. “I’m delighted you have come, Clara Thurn.” She turns and glides deeper into the hollow, angling her head at me in a silent invitation to walk beside her. “My menagerie keeps me company,” she says, “but people are altogether more interesting, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I readily agree as I join her, though I haven’t given it much thought—and what does she mean by “menagerie”? Still, being agreeable is my instinct with Ella. She was always the older sister I was trying to impress, the more confident version of Henni.
