The Missing Barbegazi

by H. S. Norup

  Shifting her focus from the gate immediately in front to the third gate out, made her mind concentrate on the path, not the movements. Skiing became effortless. She imagined Lisa overtaking her, even though Lisa wouldn’t start until she was done. It spurred her on. The pattern continued until she passed the finish line.

  Scattered cheers erupted, and a crackled voice from the loudspeaker shouted her time. She stood to the side, catching her breath. Less than a minute later, Lisa braked next to her, and the speaker’s voice sounded. Both of them had times of 46 point something. The hundredths were inaudible.

  “Race you to the board,” Lisa said.

  They clicked out of their skis and ran to the whiteboard where Karen wrote the recorded times. Tessa followed Lisa’s finger to U12 girls. Their group began with number 106. Karen scribbled DNF by their last competitor with number 114. Did Not Finish. Tessa looked back at the course. Maria stood in the middle of the run with one ski in her hand, thwacking the ground with a pole.

  Tessa’s eyes scanned the list of numbers. Lisa had beaten her time by a mere 0.16 seconds. There were no other 46-second times, but some 47 and 48s, and a slow 53 point something. Number 108 had 45.86, and Karen circled the time with a red marker. The winner. Tessa was third. Unable to believe it, she stared at the rows of digits until Lisa congratulated her.

  She’d be on the podium! Not at the very centre of the podium, but right next to it. And she’d get a trophy.

  Tessa crossed her fingers, wishing her luck would last the whole day. She hoped she hadn’t used it all up on something as unimportant as a ski race.

  —35—

  Three times, Gawion almost told Papa that Tessa had found Maeg. The certainty that Papa would never allow him to participate in Tessa’s rescue plan held him back.

  The first time was during the night, while he pretended to search for the elf hunter’s vehicle with Papa. After persuading Papa that crossing the main road was too dangerous, they trudged along the mountain pass road. It was a waste of time and energy, and the only thing on Gawion’s mind was Maeg. Maeg lying lifeless in an iron cage. Had she tried to protect herself by going into a deep sleep, or was it much worse?

  If only they could free her now. But even if they broke the glass and entered the vehicle, they had no way of opening an iron cage. Tessa’s plan was their only option. So he said nothing. And Papa was so distraught he did not notice Gawion’s secret.

  When the twinkling stars faded, again, he came close to telling Papa. With Papa’s help, it would not take long to prepare what Tessa had envisioned. But explaining the plan and arguing with Papa might take all day. And he was running out of time.

  “I feel queasy,” he said. “Is that a side effect of long exposure to humans, Papa?”

  As predicted, Papa sent him home at once. Guilt ate away at Gawion while he dug and scooped and scraped, preparing everything Tessa wanted.

  The third time he almost told Papa was after noon. The quiet morning, resting and working in his own cave, had given him time to think. He might need his parents’ help. Tessa expected them to help. The elf hunter was dangerous.

  So when Papa entered his cave, he had decided to involve them. But Papa ruined everything. First, he told Gawion how he had done the floor-smoothing wrong, then he said, “No wonder your cave is a mess. You never pause to consider how to do things right.”

  Gawion clenched his teeth. He would show Papa about doing things right. Just wait until he rescued Maeg by himself… with a little help from his “untrustworthy” human friends.

  Later, Maman came into his cave, trying to smooth over everything but the floor.

  “Please come into the main cave and talk to your father,” she said.

  “I want to finish my room,” he answered.

  The moment she was out of sight, he popped halfway out of his own exit. The mechanical transporters were still emitting their metallic clanks. He waited, while the sun disappeared behind distant peaks and turned the clouds into a palette of berry colours. A pleasant wind rose, sending a refreshing mist of prickling snow across the mountainside. Before the transporter noise ceased, he took off. Alone.

  It was not dark yet, but that did not worry him. His fear of normal humans paled at the thought of his looming confrontation with the elf hunter.

  —36—

  Tessa arrived on Kapall among rattling, unoccupied chairlifts, half an hour before her meeting with Bahne. An icy wind whirled loose snow down the deserted piste and round the corner of the mountain hut. Seats of abandoned deckchairs fluttered.

  After the prize-giving ceremony—Felix had of course won his race—both she and Felix had been busy getting everything organized. Luckily, Aunt Annie had been occupied in the kitchen, making finger food for a small midnight celebration, and hadn’t interfered with their preparations.

  Mumbling, Tessa went over elements of the plan, convincing herself she hadn’t overlooked anything. Still, there was plenty to worry about. What if Bahne didn’t show? What if she couldn’t find the right spot? What if the barbegazi couldn’t do their part? The whole project suddenly seemed like a far-fetched idea with no possible happy end.

  She shivered, and decided to wait inside. The empty bar greeted her with a lingering smell of frying oil. After taking off her helmet and gloves, she perched on a bar stool. The barmaid tidied rows of snacks and gave her a peppermint tea, although the till was closed. Tessa sipped the tea. The minutes on her phone changed at an unbearably slow pace. She slipped a hand into the breast pocket of her jacket, where her fingers pierced the paper tissue so she could touch the snowflake without taking it out. Staring at the photo Felix had sent, of her on the podium, she tried to remember that feeling of being lucky from this morning.

  When she went outside, Bahne stood by her skis, looking towards Schöngraben. In profile, with his bulging backpack, he resembled a hunchbacked white giant on the prowl.

  He nodded in greeting, without speaking. She nodded back, opened her ski jacket and made a show of turning on her Pieps. Unzipping his jacket using long leather zipper pulls, he showed her his own blinking avalanche transceiver. Two tick marks for the plan so far. Gawion would be able to open the pockets, and they might need Bahne’s avalanche transceiver for their back-up plan.

  Words weren’t necessary, and all she really wanted to say was: Are you ready for the revenge of the barbegazi?

  She led the way past the training area, speeding up when she saw he followed. He skied well for an old man, but lacked Opa’s elegant lightness.

  At the boundary of the prepared piste, she hesitated. She’d promised Mum not to ski off-piste without adult supervision. Bahne was an adult. Technically, she wasn’t breaking any promises, but this, if she’d asked, would surely have been forbidden.

  Without giving Bahne a chance to catch his breath, she let the wind push her over the edge. If she could exhaust him, it might help.

  Before the landscape fell away on the steep slope, she paused. All contours vanished in the fading light. She knew the route, but she mustn’t fall. After securing her headlamp, she adjusted the beam so it pointed at the ground.

  “Clever girl,” Bahne wheezed, when he caught up, “I didn’t think to bring mine.”

  Her first whistle was inaudible. She licked her frozen lips, tasting salt, and whistled again. This time, a weak tone emerged.

  Two high-pitched notes answered her.

  “It’s them,” Bahne said.

  “Yes. This way.”

  She took the steepest incline at a slower pace. Silhouettes of lonely trees gained colour when her light hit them. Her knees became springs, absorbing the bumps hidden under snowdrifts and layers of darkness.

  Where the slope flattened came the tricky part: finding the exact spot. She stayed far right in the gorge, hoping the mountain stream was covered with hard snow, so that no one fell down before they were supposed to.

  At the first glimpse of Gawion, she stopped. Where were his parents? She’d told him to bring t
hem. Were they hiding? Afraid of her?

  When Bahne reached her, she pointed with her pole.

  Gawion waved at them.

  “Hi, Tessa,” he called, “Can we play?”

  Bahne gasped.

  “It’s tame,” he muttered.

  “I brought someone who wants to play too.” She hoped Bahne thought her voice shook because of the cold. “Go ahead, Professor.”

  Bahne rushed straight towards Gawion. His shadow blocked the light from Tessa’s headlamp, and he glided right between the two forked twigs that stuck out of the snow and marked the hidden hollow. A moment later, as intended, the white surface collapsed under his weight. A half-choked scream preceded the sound of Bahne crashing against the ground at the bottom of the hole.

  Tessa smiled and lifted both arms with ski poles over her head in triumph.

  She heard a moan from the hole, before Gawion dived into a tunnel he’d already prepared. A deep clunk resonated in the hollow, as he walloped Bahne.

  “Unconscious!” Gawion called. “Oh, good. It’s a silver chain.”

  “Look for a car key in his pockets too. Pull the leather straps on his clothes. It’s probably a square, black plastic thing,” she called, not daring to move closer to the trap.

  Moments later, Gawion appeared out of the snow next to Tessa, and handed her a car key and the silver chain. Of the three keys on the chain, one was old fashioned and heavy, with a rusted wavy pattern around the large hole. The other two looked like normal padlock keys. After she dropped all of them into her pocket, she zipped it, and double checked that it was closed. Under no circumstances could she lose these keys.

  So far, everything had gone as planned. She had the keys to the cage. Bahne lay unconscious in the hole. Gawion was in control of him.

  Dad always said “Fortune favours the bold”. With such a bold plan, perhaps she’d stay lucky.

  —37—

  After Tessa left, Gawion walloped the elf hunter again, as a safety precaution.

  It half-sat, leaning against the thing on its back, with its head drooping to the side. He opened the buckle under its beardless chin and removed the shell. By pulling on the plastic handles, he wiggled the sticks away from its hands. The wooden feet lay disconnected from the human. He avoided touching them. If only he did not have to touch the foul creature. Its faint whiff of thawing spring snow had disappeared. Now it only reeked of iron.

  Standing over the human, Gawion rehearsed the memory alteration, mumbling, “Cover the eyes with my beard, touch the temples with all six fingertips, erase memories by speaking the charm three times, then say it backwards to seed replacement memories.”

  Although Papa had taught him the charm decades ago, he still lacked understanding of that last bit. It replaced the original memories with snippets of the awful noise that blasted from human dens on the mountain every afternoon. Somehow, this particular kind of noise matched the befuddled state of the humans just after they had been charmed. When he had told Tessa, it laughed and said “That’s why I felt so funny, and kept hearing après-ski songs in my head”.

  He had nodded as if the explanation made sense.

  Gawion had altered memories several times on his own, but he had never tried to erase such a long period of time: six days and five nights. And his last memory charm was a disaster—Tessa had remembered him asking about the berry gift. Perhaps he should have listened and involved his parents. If he failed to remove all six days’ memories, the elf hunter remained a threat. The elf hunter! Its stench alone made him sick.

  He hated what it had done to his sister. How it had made her suffer. Her time in captivity would torment Maeg for the rest of her long life, while this evil creature would remember nothing.

  Ice-cold rage filled him. His fingers tingled. Tiny icicles grew at the end of his claws, and ice crystals appeared on the elf hunter’s hair and eyebrows and wispy moustache.

  Altering its memory, making it forget everything, was not enough. He wanted the human to know that everything it had achieved—the fulfilment of its lifelong dream of capturing a barbegazi—had been taken away. Of course, it would remember nothing after Gawion’s charm. But at least in that one moment, when it realized everything was lost, it would suffer.

  So he did not alter its memory right away. Instead, he sat down and waited for the human to gain consciousness.

  At its first moan, Gawion stood. He paced along the circular wall until it stirred, then he said, “Elf hunter!”

  “Mmmm… hmmm… yes?”

  “My dear sister, whom you have captured, is being freed.”

  “Mmmm… How?” Its head rolled forward. A hand rose to its neck, searching for the chain. “The clever girl,” it said very slowly.

  “Oh, yes. My friend is very clever.” Gawion continued his walk of the perimeter. He felt invincible, with the elf hunter in his power. “While we wait, I shall be a real fairy and grant you answers to three questions.”

  “Three questions?” The elf hunter raised its head, looking for him in the gloom. “But barbegazi are not fairies.”

  “Fairy, elf, or human—why does everyone focus on our differences?” he grumbled. Perhaps he had overplayed his role. Been too nice. He would speak in a tone it could understand.

  “Yes, three questions. And that was the answer to your first question. You have two left.”

  “Sustenance. What do you need?” it asked without hesitation, sitting upright.

  “That is an easy one. We thrive on frozen forest berries. They contain all the nutrients we need. As they discovered in Vienna…” Gawion threw this last comment to the elf hunter, like a fisher-human throws a line and hook. He had seen that once, when he was little. The desperate screams of the impaled trout still haunted him in daymares.

  “The zookeeper’s daughter…” the human said. “That wasn’t a question.”

  Gawion flexed his fingers. Toying with the elf hunter gave him no satisfaction. Even though it was still weak, he should probably wallop it again.

  “If you really are part of the Vienna avalanche of barbegazi, why stop here, when you are more than halfway to the high Alps and their expansive glaciers?”

  “My mother was too pregnant to continue,” he said, not bothering with a more detailed answer. “Are you happy, now you know everything?”

  The human squirmed, but stayed silent.

  “In a few moments, you will know nothing.” Gawion arched his soles and bounced lightly on his heels. He stood three barbegazi feet from the human’s head. The exact distance for a perfect leap.

  The elf hunter’s eyes roamed, searching for him. But to human eyes, in this weak light and standing in front of a snow wall, Gawion was almost invisible.

  “I am going to alter your memory. Afterwards, you will not remember having seen either me or my sister, and the clever girl will be just another irritating human child.”

  The elf hunter still did not speak.

  Gawion searched for signs of suffering or remorse in its stern features. To his disappointment, he found none.

  With a hard rebound of his heels, he leapt with his arm outstretched. But the elf hunter pulled something out from behind itself, and swung it upwards. It connected with Gawion’s arm. A metallic plink sounded. Gawion screamed. He landed on the wooden feet, burning his hip. Fire spread down his leg and up to his ribs. His walloping arm felt heavy and numb.

  The elf hunter swung its long animal-skin strap with the metal buckle again. With immense effort, Gawion pushed off with his uninjured hand and rolled away until he hit the wall of snow.

  The human dislodged the pack from its back and scrambled up. While it continued to swing the strap, it rummaged in the pack.

  Gawion had just sprung to his feet, when it withdrew a long, rattling chain. The foul smell of iron invaded his nostrils.

  Brandishing the iron chain in one hand, and swinging the strap in circles with the other, the elf hunter advanced towards him.

  Gawion pressed himself against th
e wall, unsure which way to move. Left or right? Could he jump over this tall human?

  The elf hunter sneered.

  “Did you think I would come unprepared? Without iron?”

  —38—

  Seconds after Tessa flashed her headlamp towards Felix’s window, he came running out of the house, in his ski jacket, with normal boots for her and Mum’s big rucksack, to carry Maeg in. Between gasps of breath, while she changed boots, she told him what had happened. She left her skiing stuff under the large pine tree, before they set off on their mountain bikes.

  Despite the scattered gravel, they skidded on frozen puddles in every turn of the narrow village roads. Tessa kept one foot on the ground and glided more than she pedalled. She was grateful to be wearing her ski helmet and back protector.

  By the hiking trail, they dismounted and abandoned the bikes. As they jogged up to the sawmill, the lights from their headlamps bounced on the stacked timber like glow-in-the-dark rubber balls.

  The deep-frozen van still stood behind the shed. Tessa made a mental tick mark. She listened. Blood pounded in her ears. She heard nothing else. No long-distance barbegazi whistle yet. It worried her. Gawion had promised to signal when it was done, and he’d assured her the sound would be audible throughout the valley. Had he overestimated his own abilities?

  After she extracted the keys from her pocket, she unlocked the van, wincing at the high beep it made.

  “Give me the berries.”

  “Berries!” Felix hit his forehead, making his light disappear. “I forgot. Sorry, Tessa.”

  “Never mind. We’ll stop and get some from Oma’s freezer.” Her house keys clanked, reassuring her, when she patted her pocket.

  Inside, she crawled across the seats to the back, calling to Maeg. The bundle of fur didn’t stir. A terrible thought struck her.

  Could Maeg be dead?

  Tessa crouched by the cage, her head bent to stay clear of the ceiling. Her hands shook, and she dropped the set of keys twice, before she managed to open the two padlocks with the modern keys. Clanking against the bars of the cage, the iron chains slithered down.