Hans went back in on the trundle-bed, eyeing the door and wondering if the farmhand would come after him. What did the fellow want, anyway? Could it be that he was the harmless fool the Groenings took him for? At last his eyes closed.
Far away he saw his sisters. They were leaning out a window and elbowing each other and giggling. Then Gerta looked right at him and said,
‘Oh Hans, there you are! Why do you stay away?’
‘Come back, Hans, come back please,’ said Guda.
‘Hans come back, we’re missing you!’
‘Hans, Hans … wake up!’
Mother Groening was shaking him. He looked past her around the kitchen in the main house in Groening-stead. It could be only moments since he had fallen asleep.
‘It was a nightmare, Hans.’
He nodded. He sat up and rubbed his face. ‘Yes,’ he said.
The farmers ate their first-light meal with few words. Most ate standing. They took a few bites, drank a cup of milk and cream, and went out. Candles burned on the long table. Out the door and windows it was yet as dark as night.
Hans yawned and stretched, sleepy-eyed on the bench. Farmer Groening measured Hans with a look both scornful and cold. He seemed to begrudge Hans every bite of bread and sup of milk he took. At length the farmer stood up, put on his hat, and stormed out. The last of the other men hastened after him.
Now Hans found himself left in the big house with the women, the girls and the children, and he wandered about, and so came to sit out on the front porch where Mother Groening and the other women of the house did their daily work, in the fresh air and bright sunlight.
In the yard the children played, the sons and daughters of the Groenings’ children, and the sons and daughters of the workers on the farm. Hans watched the children at their games. Only two days before, he would have joined into such games with his sisters. Now he felt how much older he was than those children, and bigger – almost as big as a full-grown man. And he felt ashamed, and turned in his chair and looked away.
He sat at the end of the porch and kept to himself. Darkness seemed to have risen over him like a shadow, and cold like the winds that come before a thunderstorm. He felt lost and unable to make up his mind.
‘What is it, what is happening to me?’ he wondered, and could find no answer.
His thoughts turned to his loss and his grief, and he looked back down the Charcoal Burners Road past the dead house. ‘Soon Bertie will come up the Road, and he will tell them that my tale wasn’t untrue, and that the Forest has moved.’ Or would he?
The memory of the dreadful night was already faded in his mind. He had wandered in and out of dreams so much over the past day and a half, that he no longer knew what was true and what false.
And yet when he looked to the North, where the sky darkened above the Schwarzwald, he knew in his heart that every evil thing he had dreamt was true, and only his hopes were false.
The workmen and Farmer Groening came back for the mid-morning meal. In the middle of the day they sat for dinner. And still Bertie Groening did not come back.
The men went out again, and the women cleared the table and washed the dishes, and tended the soups for the last meal of the day. Hans helped the women in their chores, hobbling about the kitchen and back hall, until he could find nothing else to do, and he went out onto the porch.
Mother Groening sat there at her knitting, alone with a pained look about her face. Hans sat beside her.
‘Mother Groening, I must thank you for all you’ve done for me, you and Farmer Groening both,’ he said. ‘But now I think, if you could only lend me a staff or crutch, I will leave you now.’
She turned to him, and he saw that her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping, or fighting back the tears. ‘Ah, Hans, and will you forgive your parents and go home again?’
‘But how can I? They are dead,’ were the words that sprang up in his throat. But he bit them back. And then he thought he would tell her whatever it was she wanted to hear, for she was such a good, kindly old woman, it would be cruel to hurt her in any way. But how could he lie to her after her many kindnesses?
So then he thought about what she asked, and what might lie behind it. And he knew that Mother Groening too fretted over Bertie, and wondered where he was and what could have befallen him. In truth, Hans couldn’t even guess. Here was a way to repay the Groenings. But also it rose up strong inside him, a longing, even a need, to go back down the Road to see where his home had stood.
He knew it had fallen, he knew what had happened before his eyes. And yet, and yet… The others spoke so surely against it. They had sown doubt in his heart and made him wonder about his own memories. He had to go back, if only for this one thing: he had to make sure. He had to see in the full open light of day where the trees now stood, and whether his home was standing, or if it lay as broken boards and splinters crushed under the roots. If he went back, he would no doubt meet Bertie on the way, and help him home. And last of all Hans felt a tiny hope worming through his breast. If they were right, and he was wrong! If his house still stood! If Father and Mother still lived!
Mother Groening clutched his hand. Hans swallowed, and nodded.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘I forgive them. I want to go home again.’
Mother Groening beamed and hugged him, dragging him off his seat. ‘Wait, wait!’ she told him, and turned back inside the great house.
Hans felt his ankle, and wondered if it was fit for a long day’s hike. He unbound the strips of linen, and was aghast at how much the flesh had puffed up, and how tender, red and sore it was. He took the rags and wrapped them back around the ankle as tightly as he could, glad for every wince and hot stab of pain. ‘I will wrap you up tighter than a shoe could hold you, you won’t be able to wobble or twist a finger’s breadth.’
Soon enough Mother Groening came forth, with a stout staff and a hunter’s wallet.
‘Here are some cheeses and dried sausages for your Mother, Hans, and some bread and cakes for your journey. And I put in a small jug of wine for your thirst. Ah Hans! You make an old woman very glad. And if you happen to see Bertie along the way, be a good fellow and tell him to hurry home before nightfall, will you?’
‘I will.’
‘Oh, where is that fellow, you’re ready to set out, and the day is waning – ah! Here he is at last, Otto, what took you so long?’
The gangly, wicken-eyed farmhand leaned out of the door. ‘Well, Mother Groening, but you said,’ he began but she shook her head and pulled him out.
‘Never mind, never mind! Otto will go with you, Hans, and see that all is well. And now, I wish you God speed and good luck on your way.’ She bent and kissed him on the cheek.
Hans stared over her shoulder at the farmhand.
‘But, Mother,’ he said, ‘I can find my own way home.’
‘But the Road is long, and your ankle is hurting. Otto will help you on the way. And also he will give Bertie some company on his way back home, when you meet him.’
Hans could think of no answer to that. And so he found himself trudging up the Road with the gangly man beside him. They came to the dead house and waved farewell to Mother Groening and the other women of Groening-stead. Then Hans leaned upon the staff with both hands and started down the Road toward the bottom of the Dimmerthal.
But as he crossed under the shadow of the dead house Hans felt feelings of unease rising in his breast. He stopped. The farmhand came to a stop alongside him. Hans squinted at the man, who looked back at him foolishly.
‘I thank you for your offer to come along with me,’ said Hans. ‘But truly I need no help. My ankle is strong again and I can find my own way home. Please go back to the farmhouse. There must be many chores for you to do.’
The farmhand pushed back his cap and scratched his head. ‘But Mother Groening,’ he said, ‘she told me to go with you.’
‘Thank Mother Groening for me, and tell her I don’t need help.’
Hans gave the man no time to answer. He turned and started back down the Road, hobbling on the staff. Along he went, and after a few minutes he looked back over his shoulder. The farmhand stood where Hans had left him, looking after Hans as if unsure what to do. Hans gave him no more than a glance, and went on his way.
The day was a fine one, and Hans felt his spirits rising as he left the odd man and the dark wreck of a house behind him. His ankle burned softly, but as he fell into the easy pace of walking with the staff, he found it bothered him less and less.
But then something came to him and he looked back.
The gangly man was following him down the Road.
Hans halted until the man caught up to him.
‘Why are you following me?’ asked Hans. ‘Didn’t I make myself clear to you? I don’t need your help, and I don’t want it. Now go back to the Groening-stead.’
The farmhand scratched his head as before. ‘But Mother Groening, she told me to go with you.’
‘And I tell you not to.’
Once more Hans swung on the staff and marched away. He was feeling angry now. So he went for a time; but when he looked back again, there was the farmhand following after him at the same distance as before.
Hans pounded the staff into the ground. ‘Why do you hound me so? I tell you, go back and begone! Or we will come to blows!’
The gangly man halted. He scratched his head. He looked back toward the rise that marked Groening-stead and he looked back to Hans.
‘I wouldn’t want that,’ he said.
‘Then go!’ Hans went on. He walked as fast as he could, digging the staff into the ground with each step. But he found the farmhand trailing him once more.
‘Pay him no heed, he will tire of the game and give up,’ Hans told himself. But his feeling of unease was rising even as the Sun wheeled into the West and the shadows lengthened. And now his ankle began to burn and bother him. He tried other ways to lean upon the staff, now to right and now to left, now forward and now back. Each shift helped a little, for awhile, and then the ankle fired again, and worse than before. Soon it was an agony, and Hans had to sit on the side of the Road, staring at his foot with a black ruinous gaze.
