by H. S. Norup
“Please. You must come. I brought berries,” she said. “I have more berries at home. You can have all of them.”
He sighed. At least, it sounded like a sigh.
“Please. No one believes me. Everyone says you’re extinct.”
“It is better that way.”
Hot tears welled up in her eyes. The barbegazi blurred around the edges.
“But why?” she asked with a sob.
“Your sort will want to capture us.”
“My friends wouldn’t do that,” Tessa said. But others might, she knew. In school, they’d just finished their endangered species project, where they’d learnt about gorillas and pandas and snow leopards, and breeding programmes in captivity. In that light, some of the entries in the elf book took on a new meaning. Perhaps she shouldn’t tell that professor she’d found a barbegazi.
“That’s why Opa lied,” she said. “He lied to protect you.” Or maybe the professor lied in his book, to protect the barbegazi? Opa had never stopped talking about his rescuer, and the whole village had mocked him for it. The puzzle baffled her, but clearly someone had made an effort to keep the barbegazi’s existence secret.
“Okay. I won’t tell anyone about you,” she promised. “And don’t worry, no one even suspects you’re still around.”
“I fear that is not entirely true,” Gawion said. “You see, my sister has been missing since the big avalanche.” He nodded up towards the Törli couloir.
“Let me fetch a shovel and help you search,” Tessa offered.
“You are most kind, but Maeg—Maegorodiel—is not here. Not under the snow. It is much worse.”
“What’s worse than being buried under the snow?”
“Being held captive in the village.”
“But who?…” Few people had skied off-piste on Monday, when the avalanche warning was so high. On Kapall, she’d only seen the man in white. Then she remembered the whistling guest at Felix’s house.
“It might be nothing,” she told Gawion, “but I have an idea.”
FROM HABITS & HABITATS: A HISTORIC ACCOUNT OF ALPINE ELVES BY PROFES SOR, DR EBERHART LUDWIG FRITZ BAHNE
Barbegazi aestivate, spending the months from May to October in a deep sleep, below one of Europe’s ever-shrinking glaciers. Global warming and retreating glaciers* are therefore believed to be major contributing factors in their presumed extinction.
Statistically, the best time to capture barbegazi is in October. In several documented cases from Mer de Glace in France and Great Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland, the creatures have stumbled sleepily out of their dens, into traps set in glacier crevasses.
* Measured retreat of the Great Aletsch Glacier (the largest glacier in Switzerland) from 1870 to 1990 amounts to two kilometres, or close to ten per cent of its length. Since 1980, glaciers around the world have been losing mass at an accelerated rate.
—17—
“Let me help you with the berries first.” The human, Tessa, got up. It was taller than Papa. As it tilted the big pack towards him, he saw the countless see-through bags, filled with berries, inside. Berries and more berries. Perhaps enough to feed them until the summer sleep.
“D’you want more raspberries?”
Gawion licked his lips. “Please.” With so many berries, he could eat a few more without feeling bad.
Tessa smiled and poured raspberries into his cupped hand, spilling several, which Gawion snatched up from the snow. He scooped them into his mouth and closed his eyes, savouring the cold lumps.
“Good?”
He opened his eyes and nodded, trying to say “delicious”, but only managed a grunt. His mouth had not been full of berries since he woke in the autumn. Maman, as usual, had risen days before the rest of them. She had gathered a whole mountain of berries, and her beard, which she knotted into a basket, was striped in colours of a sunset sky. As always, just after aestivation, Gawion had been allowed to eat as many berries as he wanted, and, starved as he was, he had eaten five whole handfuls.
Later in the year, they scraped snow away from brambles and found half-ripe and half-rotten berries underneath. Tessa’s berries were much better, because they had been picked just when they were ripe. The raspberries dissolved in his mouth, and the tasty juice filled him with pleasure and energy. His belly gave a slow, satisfied growl.
Tessa made odd noises, like a small bird hiccuping. “You look like a vampire with blood running down your chin.”
He finished chewing and gave the sort of courteous bow Maman had taught him to. “I am much obliged to you.” He did not want to reveal that he had no clue what a vampire was. Probably some type of dog. Dog! He was supposed to be meeting the dog.
“Excuse me a moment,” he said. Then he bayed, “Brownie?”
A distant howl answered with something he did not quite catch, perhaps about Brownie sniffing him out.
“What was that?” Tessa had begun to jump and do strange things with its arms. Almost as if it thought it could fly. Perhaps this human was a little bit peculiar.
“A prior engagement. Are you attempting to… to take to the skies?”
“You’re so funny. That’s not in the book.” Tessa bird-hiccuped again and stopped moving its arms and legs. “I’m freezing cold.”
“Aha. And you do not like that?”
“No. D’you want to borrow the rucksack to carry the berries?” Tessa lifted the blood-coloured pack with all the scary metal buckles. “It might be too big.”
In stupefied shock, he saw how Tessa was swinging the thing towards him. A buckle struck the back of his arm. Gawion jerked away. Numbness spread up to his shoulder and down into his hand. Warm sweat broke out under his fur, and he felt momentarily dizzy.
“Oh, sorry. Did I hit you?” Tessa put the pack on the ground and fumbled inside. He did not think it had noticed how much the tiny amount of iron in the shiny metal had affected him.
“It is okay.” He gasped.
“It’s way too big for you. I can tie this with a rope, then you can pull the carrier bag.” Tessa lifted out a sky-blue carrier with all the berries in it, and tied a short rope through the sun-coloured handles. “Should be able to hold. I’ve used one of these to carry ski boots.”
Gawion saw to his relief that there was no metal anywhere on the carrier.
“What’s up, mate?” The big dog padded into the circle of light.
“Brownie!” Tessa patted the head of the dog and rubbed behind his floppy ears.
Brownie gave his usual greeting: “Rooooowf.”
“Good dog,” Tessa said and rubbed harder.
“Nice, but stupid,” Brownie barked to Gawion. “Why do they always say ‘good dog’ when I ask them how they’re doing?”
Gawion made the kind of low growl that is the same as a shrug in Dog, before he barked, “Have you found my sister?”
“I might have a trace.” Brownie leant against Tessa’s legs. It had stopped rubbing him and was staring at Gawion with open mouth.
“You understand each other?” The human looked back and forth between him and the dog.
He nodded. “And Brownie understands every word you say.”
“He does?” Tessa crouched and looked into the dog’s starless-night eyes. “You do?”
Brownie replied with a short bark.
“I wish I could tell someone about this, but they wouldn’t believe any of it.” Two shrill beeps sounded, and Tessa looked at a small, square, metal thing. “Oh, gosh. Mum’s on her way home. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
It fastened the pack’s metal buckles round its middle. A hot shiver ran down Gawion’s back, and he instinctively hugged his own stomach.
“Can we meet tomorrow night?” Tessa asked. “Closer to the village?”
“By the big earth mounds?”
Tessa frowned, then, apparently realizing what he meant, nodded.
“When?”
Gawion thought for a moment. He would prefer to split up from Papa, before he met with the human.
“When the moon is above the last mountain in the east, on this side of the valley,” he said.
“D’you mean Eisenspitze?”
Gawion stiffened at the name, which meant “Iron Peak”, and he could barely nod. He had forgotten that there used to be iron mines on that mountain.
Tessa turned and walked away, the strange wooden feet clanking.
“What trace?” Gawion barked.
“At a tree, by the stream on the path towards St Jakob. I got a whiff of something there that smells like you do.”
Could Maeg be there? Could the water have carried her outside Schöngraben? No. The surface was frozen and covered with snow. But whatever it was, he had to find out as much as possible. Even if it meant sneaking out of the gorge.
Brownie sat with his tongue out, panting.
Gawion ought to get the berries home. But not yet. He shovelled with his feet, hiding the sack of berries under a mound of snow. “Can you show me the place?”
Brownie growled, “Sure,” and Gawion followed the lumbering dog, leaving Schöngraben.
—18—
As she ran home, Opa’s snowshoes, fastened to the sides of the big rucksack, swung against Tessa’s arms and hips, clanking noisily over her heavy breathing. But that didn’t matter. The barbegazi weren’t extinct, and she had talked to one of them. Gawion.
“Gawion,” she said aloud.
The name rolled off her tongue, sounding fancy and French. And Gawion needed her help. Tessa’s imagination raced ahead.
Together they’d find Gawion’s sister. In the future, Tessa would bring berries every year. All the barbegazi would become her friends. Scores of barbegazi babies would dance around her while she fed them raspberries. Oma would be so glad she was carrying on from Opa.
She’d become a famous barbegazi protector… No, not famous. She’d become a secret barbegazi protector. And she wouldn’t tell anyone but Oma about them—not even Mum—until the time came to hand over the responsibility of delivering berries to her successor. Perhaps her own granddaughter. She saw herself as an old lady with long white plaits, skiing ahead of a teenage girl.
At the sight of the dark house and the empty driveway, she slowed. If she wanted to keep the barbegazi a secret, then she had to start right now, by avoiding questions from Mum. Better let her think she’d been home all day.
She cast a glance at the sky. Stars twinkled. There were no heavy clouds. Good. Then Mum would park outside. The crescent moon was still far from Eisenspitze, and it was already after eight o’clock. She’d probably be meeting Gawion around nine tomorrow night, then. She giggled. Agreeing on meeting times with someone who didn’t own a watch was a bit tricky, but it was all part of being a secret barbegazi protector.
After she dumped the rucksack with the snowshoes in the garage, she dashed into the house. She hid her hiking boots in the far corner under the entryway bench, and hung her damp ski clothes below several coats. Turning on all the light switches she passed, and pulling off layers, she raced through the kitchen, snatching up the note, and into her room.
When she heard the car, she stuffed her fleece and socks and the crumpled-up notes into the drawer under her bed.
“Tessa. I’m home,” Mum called.
Panicked, Tessa grabbed a book from the pile on her desk and jumped into bed, pulling the sleeves of her thermal top up to her elbows and the covers up to her nose.
“Tes-saaa…” Mum drew her name out into a sigh as she entered the room. “I’ve told you a million times to turn off the lights.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Where’s Oma?”
Mum sank down on the edge of the bed and hugged Tessa, long and hard. When she let go, she frowned. “Why are you wearing thermals in bed?”
“I was cold.” Technically, that wasn’t a lie.
Mum touched her forehead and ran a hand down to the back of her neck. “You’re all sweaty. Please don’t tell me you’re coming down with something.”
“I’m fine, Mum.”
Mum stared at the book. “Learning maths? In the Christmas holidays? You must be ill.” She went to the dresser and pulled out a dry T-shirt and some leggings. Hugging the clothes to her chest, she just stood there like she’d forgotten where she was and what she was doing.
“What’s wrong?” Tessa asked.
Mum threw the clothes in Tessa’s direction and whirled around. “Coffee,” she said, stomping out of the room, sounding as if she had a bad cold.
Clearly something was wrong. Tessa hurried to change into the dry clothes on her way to the kitchen.
Mum stood with her back to Tessa, making a mug of black coffee and a cup of hot chocolate. When she trudged to the table, her eyes were glassy. Tessa snuggled into the pile of cushions in the corner of the bench, feeling her own tears rising.
Mum took a big gulp of coffee. “Oma might need heart surgery,” she said. “They’re transferring her to the University Heart Clinic in Innsbruck tonight.”
Tessa slumped back and leant her head against the wall. Her plan of making Oma feel better by keeping the promise to Opa was stupid. And Oma didn’t even know she’d delivered the berries. She took a sip of her hot chocolate, burning her tongue, and watched blurry teardrops splatter onto her red knitted top.
“Maybe her heart is broken because Opa died.”
“Maybe, sweetheart.” Mum smiled through her tears. “Oma’s heart is just a bit… The doctors need to fix it. They can fix her heart.”
Tessa didn’t know if Mum was trying to convince herself or Tessa. They sat in silence for a while.
“I’ll be staying at Cousin Sonja’s in Innsbruck for a few days, and I want to get there tonight. I talked to Lisa’s mum on the way home—”
“No.”
“Tessa…”
“We’re not friends, Mum. I don’t mind being home alone.”
“Please, Tessa. Don’t be difficult. You can’t stay here on your own.”
“Then let me come! I want to be with Oma.”
Mum smiled, but shook her head.
“What about Aunt Annie and Uncle Harry?” It would give her an opportunity to spy on the skier from the avalanche… What was wrong with her, she wondered. How could she think about that, when Oma was in the hospital?
“I’m sure Annie’s busy. They’re bound to be fully booked over New Year’s.”
“I can sleep on a mattress in Felix’s room. And help Aunt Annie prepare breakfast. Please, Mum.” Tessa leant across the table and took Mum’s warm hands in hers. For a moment their roles seemed to have been switched. “Please. Then you don’t need to worry about me at all.”
Mum sniffed and wiped her tears away with a dishcloth. “I suppose I could ask. They’d want to know about my mum’s surgery anyway.”
It took Tessa two minutes to stuff the elf book, a toothbrush and some clean clothes into a duffle bag. Mum’s choked voice, as she explained to Aunt Annie, came through her bedroom door.
At least she could let Oma know that she’d delivered the berries. She sat down at her desk and tore a piece of chequered paper from her maths exercise book. At the top, in red marker, she wrote, GET WELL SOON OMA, inside a heart. Below, in pencil, she drew a row of nine empty horizontal boxes, counting, while she mumbled the letters, “b-a-r-b-e-g-a-z-i.” She had little time and now came the difficult part. Oma was so much better than her at crossword puzzles.
Tessa needed help, and she grabbed the Scrabble box and poured the tiles onto the table. On the board, she built her message: BARBEGAZI HAVE BERRIES PROMISE TO OPA KEPT. The words didn’t cross as much as Oma’s secret messages usually did, but it would have to do.
“Five minutes,” Mum called.
Hurriedly, she copied the pattern of boxes on the paper and added hints: type of elf, really important verb, fruits in your freezer, something you say you will do, opposite of from, grandfather, past of keep.
Mum glanced at the piece of paper when Tessa gave it to her and said, “Oh, you’ve made her a
crossword,” before she folded it and slid it in between the pages of the novel in her handbag. “She’ll be so pleased.”
When Mum dropped Tessa at Felix’s house before she drove to Innsbruck, Felix was already asleep—it was late and he’d done extra training in the afternoon—so Tessa would sleep on the sofa in the lounge this first night.
After tucking blankets around her, Aunt Annie pulled a chair over to the sofa, and she sat, her big bosom heaving, holding Tessa, enclosing them in a heavy lavender scent.
Tessa cried a bit. Aunt Annie sobbed violently and blew her nose, using half a box of tissues. It almost made everything worse.
When she had been pretending to sleep for a while, Aunt Annie shuffled out, leaving Tessa alone with her silent tears.
FROM HABITS & HABITATS: A HISTORIC ACCOUNT OF ALPINE ELVES BY PROFES SOR, DR EBERHART LUDWIG FRITZ BAHNE
Similar to polar bears, barbegazi are covered in an insulating underfur, topped by long guard hairs. Each hair shaft is transparent, with a hollow core that reflects and scatters light.
Combined with the barbegazi’s ability to blend into their snowy surroundings, their hair transparency has led to legends of barbegazi being invisible.
Despite their diminutive size, barbegazi possess brutal strength, and elf researchers should at all times carry iron chains.
THURSDAY, 29TH DECEMBER
—19—
Aunt Annie believed in the “healing powers of the great outdoors”, so she sent Tessa to ski training. Also, she argued, it would take Tessa’s mind off things.
Although she didn’t care about the ski race any more, Tessa was glad to get away from Aunt Annie’s chatter and fussing. It was too much. Luckily for Felix, Aunt Annie had a house full of guests to mollycoddle. Tessa wondered how he managed off-season.
Felix had left early to help Coach set the course, and by the time Uncle Harry had adjusted the bindings on Felix’s old skis to fit her boots and weight, she was already late.
