Chapter Five

The Wooden House

It took only a night, a day, and the edge of twilight to reach the house of Hans' grandmother. It took longer than expected because of the wooden house in the woods, and the evil within it.

Night had long ago fully descended and decided to stay a while when it happened. The deep darkness of midnight, with which I was quite familiar, still held enmity for me. Pretending to be docile and tractable, the dark led me into a sense of security, and so I missed the root that tripped me and twisted my ankle.

I fell face first into the loam, hastily jerking my head back and spitting out leaves and dirt. When something that felt suspiciously like a fat beetle skittered over my hands, I shrieked, scaring both the boys out of their minds.

Wulf grabbed one arm, Hans the other, and they hauled me up, nearly wrenching my arms out of their sockets. I didn't care - I just wanted to be away from the slimy bug that had tried to get intimate with my hand. Leaning on Hans was easy, since he didn't have scraggly hair that tickled my face. But the moment I regained my composure and tried to force my feet to take my full weight, I nearly fell down again.

"Ow!"

"What's wrong?" Hans demanded immediately, forcing me to lean on him again. "What is it?"

"My ankle," I said, feeling like a ninny. I'd tripped and managed to hurt myself to the point I couldn't walk. We'd been on this "quest" less than a full day. Things were not looking too good. But I didn't say any of that aloud. Instead, I added, "I think I twisted it when I fell. It hurts a lot." In fact, a red hot throbbing was shooting up from my leg past my knee. Even trying to so much as wiggle my toes made tears of pain prick my eyes.

"What now?" Wulf asked Hans gruffly. I could barely see the outline of his face in the dark with my vision blurry and wet.

"I don't have the slightest idea," the town boy replied. "It's too dark to see enough to make her a crutch or anything. And we can't just stop here. It's the middle of the night. There might be wolves."

Without replying, suddenly I found myself being hoisted into Wulf's arms.

"What are you doing!?" I yelped.

"You can't walk."

"I know, but-"

"But nothing. Let's go. We'll stop if we come to a house or at dawn, whichever comes first."

Hans looked at Wulf for a long moment, and a prickle of unease rolled up my spine, making my back itch and sweat suddenly pop out against my skin. Without thinking, I grabbed the rough homespun of my friend's shirt. Hans' mint green eyes took in my gesture, took in the sight of my white-knuckled grip on Wulf's shirt, and then he smiled a little, nodded, and started walking. Looking at Wulf's face, I saw that same smile. Confused, I finally gave up trying to figure out what that had been about and tried to relax while making sure my legs didn't fall asleep.

* * *

You know how, when you read certain stories, and the heroine is in the forest at night and there's an empty house and you know that if the heroine goes inside, she's probably going to be eaten by trolls or baked into a cookie by a witch or something? As I write this, I can only wonder that the boys and I had lost our senses so completely that we didn't stop to think, in a kingdom full of magic both wondrous and dangerous, that an empty house in the middle of a forest while we were on a quest trying to thwart an evil witch was possibly a trap. We walked into it blindly, foolishly, and almost lost our lives for it. Hans and Wulf will always bear the mark of our stupidity.

The house was a one-story cabin made of logs, and the door - painted a vivid crimson - was wide open. It should have been a clue, but by this time, my ankle hurt so badly I almost asked Wulf to cut my foot off. I could tell by the number of stumbles that both Hans and Wulf were exhausted. All three of us had been up since dawn the day before, and save for when my friend had lifted me up to carry me, we had not stopped to rest all night. Now, as dawn crawled nearer and nearer the horizon, we lost our heads and ran into the empty cabin.

A fire was lit on the hearth, but there was no sign of a living soul save the three of us. No food was laid out on the bare table, which allayed our suspicions of sinister enchantment, and no beds or any such comforts presented themselves. There weren't even any chairs, so no traps could hide in the furniture. Hans went outside to fetch something, I didn't know what, and Wulf carefully laid me in front of the fire. Looking at my ankle made me wince. It had swelled to nearly twice its natural size. Blue and vivid violet mottling spread like a shackle around the entire joint and all around, from the middle of the top of my foot to the midway point on my shin. Had I broken it?

"You sprained it," Hans said, coming back inside and shutting the door.

The click of the door settling in its frame made a chill trickle down my spine, but I ignored it, preoccupied with the now white-hot burning pain in my leg. Brushing ineffectually at my tearing eyes, I watched him bring in a pail of water and an armload of firewood logs still un-chopped. Dropping the wood and setting down the pail, he went into his pack and pulled out his hatchet.

With careful, sure strokes, he cut two logs in half, then with exactingly movements, cut two inch wedges off the halved logs.

"What are you doing?" I asked crossly. My vision blurred from tears and pain. I just wanted to lie down and rest, but I knew that no matter how tired I was, I'd have to be nearly dead with exhaustion before this pain would allow me to sleep.

"Making a splint," he said. "Not a very good one, but it's the best we can do with what we have."

Then he pulled off his shirt and dunked it into the bucket. He glanced at me quickly before slapping the whole sopping mess onto the swollen part of my leg.

Icy water made me shriek. Dignity made me stifle it. Shivering with the cold of it, I gritted my teeth and watched as Hans cut up his vest to make ties for my splint. The frigidity of the water numbed some of the fiery spikes stabbing into my leg. I felt myself start to relax.

"The cold will bring the swelling down," he mumbled, brushing his hair out of his eyes. I could tell he was barely keeping from nodding off. Only the pain made me any better. I heard a growling snore, and looked to see Wulf grousing in his sleep, half sitting up and leaning against the wall. I had to grin.

"We're all exhausted," Hans said.

"Tell me about it."

"Well, you see, we woke up at dawn, and-"

"Shut up, Hans," I said, still smiling, as he began splinting my leg, wrapping it tightly with strips of material that I recognized as the remains of one of his shirts.

"Maybe when I go to bed," he said, and I could tell that despite his tiredness, he was grinning too.

* * *

I managed to sleep, and luckily, I dreamed. It was the only thing that saved me, but I was too late to help the lads.

In the meadow, atop the Watch Rock, I kept my eye on the flocks on the green. It had been a long, long time since I'd kept watch alone. Off in the distance, near the stream, a flight of swans swam gracefully in the early dawn light. The rays of the sun glinted off ebony and ivory feathers. And Wulf and Hans were kneeling to drink from the stream. At the sight of them, my blood turned to ice, though I couldn't have said why. I tried to call out, but my voice was trapped within my throat.

All around me the lambs were crying. There were words in their bleats, but I couldn't understand them. I tried to call to Hans and Wulf again and again as they cupped their hands and filled them with the water.

The water....

Don't drink the water!

I bolted awake, screaming, "Don't drink the water!"

But I was too late.

As I spoke, the water from the well of the wooden house with the red door touched Hans' and Wulf's lips. I knew that things were about to get very, very bad.