by H. S. Norup
She waited several minutes after he’d gone before she dashed round the shed to the van. Hiding behind it, in case Bahne returned, she tried the doors. Locked, of course. She knocked on a window. “Maeg,” she said, as loud as she dared. “I’m a friend of Gawion’s.”
From inside came a moan and a quiet, squeaked, “Help.”
FROM HABITS & HABITATS: A HISTORIC ACCOUNT OF ALPINE ELVES BY PROFES SOR, DR EBERHART LUDWIG FRITZ BAHNE
No accounts exist of barbegazi surviving longer than three days in temperatures above ten degrees Celsius, and they only thrive in sub-zero temperatures. Because of this heat sensitivity and their severe intolerance for iron, the recommended environment in which to keep barbegazi in captivity is an iron cage inside a glacier cave—or, these days, a ventilated, industrial freezer.
—28—
Back near the road, Tessa’s phone beeped as soon as she had reception. A list of messages and two missed calls from Felix appeared on the cracked screen.
What’s happening? at 10:21.
Where r u? at 10:47.
U ok? at 11:03, 11:18 and 11:36.
It was almost noon now. Ok. Found Maeg, Tessa texted.
Meet at bus stop, he wrote back.
Tessa waited for a few minutes before Felix jumped out of the ski bus. Walking up the steep driveway to the house, Tessa had just begun telling him about her morning, when he shushed her. Bahne was walking towards them, skis on his shoulder, eyes hidden behind silvery goggles.
Tessa froze, but Felix pushed her.
“Act normal,” he hissed. Then he spoke louder: “Snow’s good today, Professor. Off-piste, as usual?”
“Probably.” Bahne slowed, but didn’t stop. “Schöngraben allows me to do what I enjoy most.”
Tessa clenched her teeth. Like hunting barbegazi, she almost said.
“Just stay away from those avalanches,” Felix said.
Bahne snorted. His thin moustache curled.
“How can you chat with him,” Tessa said when he was out of earshot, “as if he’s normal?”
Felix shrugged.
“Just thinking ahead. Perhaps we need to… I don’t know… get him to talk or something.”
“There you are,” Aunt Annie called through a kitchen window. “Food’s ready.” Luckily, she turned her back before she noticed Tessa wasn’t wearing the green ski-club jacket and didn’t have any of her ski equipment.
After discarding their outdoor gear, Tessa and Felix entered the kitchen in their thermal long johns and knitted tops, as if they’d both just come home from training. They wolfed down spaghetti and meatballs. Tessa finished her account of the morning in whispered bursts whenever Aunt Annie, who was baking, fetched something in the pantry or turned on the mixer.
“Was the car key in his room?” Felix whispered.
Tessa thought back, trying to remember if there’d been any keys in the drawer where she found the map. She shook her head. “He could’ve been using it.”
“We won’t get the master key with Mum here anyway. I’ve got another idea.” Felix raised his voice to be heard over the din of the mixer. “We’re going out, Mum.”
“Where—” The closing door muffled the rest of Aunt Annie’s question.
“Get dressed,” Felix said in the hallway, “I’ll get a coat hanger.”
“A what?” Tessa asked, but Felix was already gone.
Outside, Felix placed a wire coat hanger against his chest before he zipped up his jacket.
“What’s it for?”
“Opening the van. I saw it in an online video. Tried it once on Dad’s car.”
“It worked?”
“Yeah, kind of, but the alarm went off.” Felix shrugged. “With Maeg inside, I’m guessing the professor has disabled his alarm.”
They jogged all the way to Bahne’s van. Soon Maeg would be free! Tessa couldn’t wait to bring her to Gawion. He’d be so happy. And Tessa would truly become a secret barbegazi protector.
They tried the van’s doors, knocked on the windows and called Maeg’s name.
This time there was no answer.
“You’re sure she’s in there?” Felix asked.
“Still in there, you mean.”
“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, with Bahne skiing, this is probably pretty safe.” Felix unbent and straightened the hanger, before he attacked the passenger door.
“Perhaps she’s sleeping,” Tessa muttered.
After a few tries the lock sprang up. No alarm sounded. Tessa opened the door, and crawled inside and between the seats to the back.
A large cage, with rusted iron bars as thick as her wrists, filled half the space. On the floor, in the furthest corner, lay a lifeless furry bundle.
“Maeg!” Tessa tore at the locked hatch. She stretched her hand in through the bars, but the opening was too narrow for her elbow, and she couldn’t reach the barbegazi. “Maeg!” she called again, a bit louder.
The bundle didn’t stir.
“Let me try.” Felix had joined her, and he nudged Maeg with the ex-coat-hanger before Tessa could stop him. A jolt, like an electric current, ran through the barbegazi’s small body, then it stilled again. Maeg moaned.
“At least she’s alive,” Felix said. The lock on the cage had an old-fashioned keyhole, which he failed to open with the coat hanger. Two modern padlocks on massive iron chains further secured the hatch. “Pro stuff! No chance opening these with any of Dad’s tools. We need the keys.”
“I promise, we’ll save you, Maeg,” Tessa whispered, as she crept out of the van.
They trudged between locked sawmill buildings and stacks of planks, the gushing river swallowing the sound of their footsteps. Scenarios for rescue missions flitted through Tessa’s mind, but none of them were realistic. She discarded them faster than they took to appear.
Halfway home, they sought cover from an icy drizzle under the wide eaves of a house. Here, Aunt Annie couldn’t overhear them, and so they leant against the wall to think up a plan. A few times one of them began a sentence with “What if?…”, only to end it with “…Forget it.”
Eventually the streetlights flickered on. Sleet pounded on the roof. Tessa’s bum was numb with cold when an idea finally took form.
“This might sound really crazy…” she said, “and we would need Gawion’s help. And lots of luck.”
Without delay, she told Felix her plan.
—29—
After closing the door, Bahne turned the key twice and tested the handle. He surveyed the room. His locked suitcase, with his tools and fur samples, lay at the exact angle he had placed it before going out. Everything seemed to be in order, unlike yesterday.
Yesterday, an unfamiliar scent had lingered in the room, and his suitcase had been moved. When he confronted Mrs Berger this morning, she denied that anyone had been inside, but there was something shifty to her eyes. Perhaps, he thought, he should leave this place earlier than planned.
At home, in his laboratory, he had an industrial walk-in freezer and the necessary equipment to force the barbegazi to talk. A local builder had replicated the modified rack, based on a sketch from the historic archives in Geneva. His own narrow feet tingled, at the mere thought of stretching those hairy barbegazi pads.
“But how can I keep it alive?” he muttered. Even after years of trawling through ancient texts, their dietary needs remained an unsolved mystery. He emptied the contents of his backpack. Moss, bark, pine cones, pine needles and grass from deep below the snow in Schöngraben scattered onto the plastic sheet on top of his bed. Despite trying to feed it a variety of native plants, the barbegazi in his van was weak from lack of sustenance. So far, it had rejected everything he offered, except a few ice cubes. Whatever the barbegazi needed, he knew it must be available here and now in these mountains. And so, instead of leaving early, he might have to extend his stay.
While he showered and changed clothes, he took deep breaths, and reminded himself that despite his failure to get any human words out of the barbegazi,
his trip was an immense success.
All the miserable Christmas holidays he had spent in this B & B, with its chatterbox proprietor, had finally paid off. After years of marking barbegazi tracks on his map, he had known the most likely places to be rescued by one of them.
“Rescued,” he scoffed. As if he needed to be rescued. His new avalanche airbag had worked like a charm. It had kept him afloat on the surface of the sliding snow. Both skis were gone, as expected, but he would rather lose them than risk breaking a leg. And he had, of course, brought snowshoes. Pretending to be unconscious until he could get his iron chain around the barbegazi had been easy.
Preventing it from starving to death was turning out to be difficult.
But even if the services of a taxidermist would be required, the discovery and capture of a barbegazi was a breakthrough for science. A crowning end to his career. The means to restoring his professional reputation and making his colleagues across Europe envious. He sneered, imagining the astounded faces of the old guard, all those who usually sniggered behind his back at zoological conferences, convinced elves were as extinct as the dinosaurs.
He alone had been certain they were still alive. When the institute stopped funding his barbegazi research a decade ago, he continued the hunt. And every year he spent time in locations with barbegazi rumours: skiing in St Anton over Christmas and in Chamonix during Easter, and crossing the Swiss Alps on glacier hiking trails every weekend in summer and autumn.
After sitting down at the desk, he opened the drawer and extracted his black fountain pen. Unfortunately, he had no need of the red pen today. He only wanted to mark a few new crevices without barbegazi traces on the map. The map. Bahne flipped through the stashed papers twice, without finding it.
He struck the desk with a white-knuckled fist, saying aloud, “They are all liars.”
Someone had been in his room and taken his map. Mrs Berger had been lying. Just like old Willy Berger had lied when he denied being rescued by a barbegazi. Even mentioning it in Habits & Habitats had not brought the stubborn mountain man to his senses.
Bahne stood up abruptly. The chair snagged on the carpet and crashed to the floor. He picked up his notebook and strode out of the room, letting the door slam.
Maybe from the armchair in the breakfast room, he might overhear something that could lead him to the map thief.
—30—
Icy pellets of hail attacked them on their way home. A bang rang out, nearby. Blurry green sparkles lit up the dark sky—an impatient child setting off early New Year’s fireworks.
“Let’s hope Bahne isn’t here yet,” Tessa said. She planned to wait for him in the ski room. “And for lots of snow and avalanches.”
Felix punched in the code by the back door. “You are loony,” he said, with a hint of admiration.
Yells warned them of the mayhem inside. A frantic mum unbuckled the tiny ski boots on her wailing toddler and wiped goo from its nose at the same time. Two drenched boys in ski boots fought, using poles as swords.
Luckily, it only took them a second to find Bahne’s white ski boots on the boot heater. Unluckily, that meant he was already home, and Tessa needed to revise her plan.
Upstairs, Bahne was sipping a cup of tea in front of the fire in the breakfast room, a notebook in his lap. Unable to believe her luck, Tessa made straight for him, but was intercepted by Aunt Annie, who pulled her into the kitchen and shut the door.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I just want to ask Bahne—”
“Professor Bahne. Don’t bother him. Can’t you see he’s working?” She sighed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he wrote his next book here by my fire?”
“But—”
Aunt Annie cut her off. “No buts. He’s a valued guest. Not like them. Bless the poor mother.” She nodded towards the noisy ski room. “Professor Bahne is a distinguished gentleman who doesn’t want to be disturbed. Especially not by children.” She shooed Tessa back into the hallway.
Over her shoulder, Tessa saw Bahne vacate the chair by the fire and walk up the stairs to the guest rooms. No wonder, with the racket from the ski room.
Later, she sat on Felix’s floor, pulling her knitted thermal top over her knees. She’d just talked to Mum, who had tried to convince Tessa that her sniffling was only due to a cold.
“They might operate tomorrow.” Mum sniffed and fakes-neezed. “Or Monday. I’m so glad you’re at Annie’s, so I don’t need to fret about you.”
Only about Oma. Tessa heard the unspoken words. She’d forgotten to ask if Oma had solved her puzzle, before Mum ended the call.
Felix stood by his desk, straightening the row of trophies. “What now?” he asked.
Tessa wiped her eyes. She’d have to concentrate on saving Maeg, and let Mum worry about Oma. She wound and unwound the hem of her top round her index finger.
After a while, she said, “I’ll just knock on his door.”
“Really? Sure you don’t want me to come?”
“No. It’s better if I go alone.” Before she could change her mind, Tessa rose, and grabbed Opa’s book and a pen from Felix’s desk. “Just keep Aunt Annie down in the kitchen.”
As she crept up the stairs, she heard Felix in the kitchen, saying, “Mum, can you wash my lucky ski socks? I need them for the race.”
It wouldn’t surprise her if he really did have lucky socks, and it didn’t surprise her at all that he couldn’t just wash them himself.
Walking along the corridor, music and the sound of splashing water emerged from behind one room door. From another, wails of the toddler from earlier, mixed with the older boys’ laughter.
No sounds reached her from Bahne’s room. Tessa stood outside it, taking deep breaths, and staring at the black book in her hand. Here goes, she thought, and knocked.
Folded paper stuck out in the middle of the book. The map. Tessa fumbled, trying to open the book while holding the pen. She’d used the map as a bookmark. Bahne’s map.
On the other side of the door, heavy footsteps approached. Tessa’s trembling hands dropped both pen and book. The map fell out. As the door opened, she bent low to collect everything, and stuffed the map up under her knitted top. She hoped she hadn’t stretched her top too much with her knees earlier, or the map might slip out at the slightest movement.
“Yes?”
Tessa got up from the floor, her cheeks burning. Her heart beat fast and loud like helicopter rotor blades.
“Excuse me, Professor.”
He narrowed his eyes, with no movement of the thin moustache.
“Ca… can I ask you to sign this?” She shielded her face, hiding behind the book.
Bahne’s expression transformed. He raised both eyebrows. It relaxed his stern features. “Habits & Habitats. My first book!”
Tessa struggled to remember what she’d planned to say. That blasted map. She handed him the book.
“Please?”
In his hand, it naturally fell open by the most read page. Frowning, Bahne pulled at a pair of reading glasses which hung on a cord around his neck. But as he pulled the glasses up to his eyes, a chain, hidden inside his pristine shirt, got caught up and fell out of his collar. He slipped this chain back inside his shirt a moment later, but not before Tessa had seen its set of very interesting attachments—on the end dangled three keys.
Tessa gaped, then hurried to look down at the book, while she mentally ticked off this vital item in her plan.
“What is all this?” he said, surveying the sketches and scribbles in the margins.
“My grandfather’s notes. I inherited the book from him, you see. He’s mentioned right there.” Tessa pointed at the paragraph about Opa.
When she looked up again, Bahne was studying her.
“I’m afraid he didn’t tell you the truth,” she said, her heart rate speeding up again, “Because there are barbegazi in Schöngraben.”
“He told you?”
“Yes. And I’ve seen them.�
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A gleam appeared in Bahne’s eyes. “And you know where they live?”
“Well, no.” She smiled inwardly at Bahne’s look of disappointment. “But they come to play when I whistle.” Was it too far-fetched for him to believe? She’d discussed it with Felix. But there might not be enough new snow tomorrow for avalanches.
“Play?” Bahne’s eyes narrowed again.
“One of them is very funny and talks like they do in films about the Napoleonic Wars.”
“It talks to you?”
“Oh yes. He’s told me how his family sleep through the summer.” She grasped for something from the book, something Bahne knew already, so he would believe her. Perhaps… “And how they escaped from that zoo in Vienna.”
“Could you take me to meet them?” Bahne asked. “I would be very grateful. I will even mention you in my next book.”
Her wish come true. How ironic.
“What’s your name?” he asked her eagerly.
“Tessa. Tessa Gilbert.” She bit her lip and pretended to think hard. “It’s actually a secret. I promised not to tell anyone about the barbegazi,” she whispered.
“You’re not betraying any secrets. I already know everything about them.”
Like how to make them suffer, she wanted to say, while fighting to keep her face blank. The boiling anger inside her made it difficult to speak. “Oh. Okay.”
“Tomorrow morning?” he asked casually, while he opened the book at the cover and signed his name under the printed title.
“No. I have a ski race. And they don’t come out until the lifts close. Do you know Kapall, Professor?” she asked, knowing that he did. It was the first place she’d ever seen him.
He nodded.
“Meet me outside the mountain hut on Kapall at half past four.”
“Very well.”
Tessa snatched her book away, mumbled, “Bye,” and made for the stairs. As she walked, the map slipped out from under her top and fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, she glanced behind her, but Bahne was gone. She sighed with relief. Step one of the plan had worked. Now she just needed everything else to fall into place.
