Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(7)

He managed to sit up. He pulled the bearskin with him and clutched it around his sides like a blanket. “What happened to me? Where is the Queen of the Thrushes? Where is the fierce little knife-man?”

“You’ve been told too many stories,” said the old man, “and that’s the truth in a nutshell.”

“From what I hear, you were dead,” said the old woman. “I have known it to happen once or twice before. A maiden from Arnhelt was struck by lightning and crumpled to the ground, and the smell was bitumen and sulfur. She had no pulse when they reached her. Her face went that color of plums too far gone for jam. Then somehow, she came back.”

“Back from where?” Dirk managed to say.

“From death. But she was never the same. She had been an accomplished young woman, daughter of a wool merchant. The banns for her marriage had been called. After the lightning hit her, though, she wouldn’t marry. She took up the flute and played till—well, the end. Rarely spoke to a soul, or smiled. That’s a bad eye you’ve earned; be glad for what you won’t need to see.”

“Don’t scare the lad,” said the old man.

“He’s witnessed enough to be scared already, I can’t make it worse.” She clapped her hands suddenly, but the boy didn’t start. To the old man: “Do you see what I mean? And now what are we going to do?”

They went outside to talk beyond the far side of the woodshed, for privacy. The dark was falling, though whether this was the dark of the same day or some other day, Dirk didn’t know.

He looked down. He wasn’t naked anymore, but dressed in his same clothes, his only clothes. Cut-downs from the old man.

The old man and the old woman had meant to lose him at best, to kill him perhaps. If he’d truly come back from death, they must be terrified.

He hated them. He also didn’t want to terrify them anymore.

He didn’t know why he was such trouble to them, but he couldn’t wait around to find out.

So he made the effort to pull himself up. He dragged the bearskin with him, turning it around so the black fur was on the outside. He stumped to the table in the middle of the main room. There was a knife with a carved head lying there next to a red, red apple. He left the apple but picked up the knife and wrapped it in a scrap of leather for safekeeping.

The old woman wouldn’t care—she’d wanted him gone anyway. But the old man might follow him. The boy took the crutch so as to slow the old man down should he consider pursuit. Then the boy climbed out the window. He left his life, but in a more conventional way than before. He was still a boy, but he was no longer a child.





A Posthumous Education





8.


At this point it would be false to say the world sang to Dirk in his new freedom. It may have been singing, but not to him; or he was deaf, unschooled in such melodies. He tramped along, aware of his bruises and aches, unaware of shafts of Rheingold light, birdsong, malodorous water cabbage, rococo flourishes of ivy along the boughs of ancient oaks.

A bit of a dolt, that is to say.

The farther he got from the waldhütte, the more indistinct it grew in his mind. As if he’d never lived there. Peculiar, especially since he had never lived anywhere else.

The light was rational and the shadow romantic, and he could sense a purring tension, but he had no words, no references by which to articulate it. And no one to tell it to.

The one thing he did notice was the water. It seemed every time he crested a slope and walked or slid down the other side, he found a stream at the bottom.

You can’t be so surprised; where else is mountain water to go? It doesn’t just stand upright on the tops of ridges, picking its nose, said the figure on the knife in his hand.

Of course, knives don’t talk. Dirk suspected he was imagining things out of worry. Nonetheless, to be polite, he asked the knife which way he should go.

If what you want is to live among your kind, then follow the next substantial stream, said the knife. It will end in a lake or a river. People tend to gather on those shores. They will provide interest and possibly supper. But if what you want is to be unencumbered by human sorrow, keep to the forest. True, the forest is full of appetites on four legs. You might easily satisfy one of them before you know it. Your bearskin cloak will conceal you only so long. But you will be free until the forest catches up with you. And I’ll be free when you let me go. I’ve waited this long, I suppose I can hold my temper until then.

The hours passed. The light shifted. Everything nearby looked the same, but the depths of the forest were growing blacker. When Dirk approached a newly fallen tree that spanned a river, a little brown bird emerged from the greyed, papery leaves that still clung to its branches. You’ll have to cross eventually, said the bird.

Birds don’t talk, he said, trying his foot on the muddy roots to see how stable the tree might be.

Of course we don’t, not to humans, said the bird, cheerily enough. You’re probably just lonely. Still, watch your step. Keep to the trunk and take your time.

Oh, she added, when Dirk was about halfway across, you might drop that knife in the river if you wanted. It will do you no good, and water is efficient at rusting mettlesome items.

Beware advice you haven’t asked for, snarled the knife-head.

Both of you, be quiet, said Dirk. I must concentrate or I’ll end up washing my clothes with me in them. I’m still learning the one-eye skill.