by Minkman, Jen
“Hey, Julia,” Sabine greeted her. “Anne just left. She said she was going to her grandmother.”
“To Gran?” Julia felt the blood drain from her face. If that were true, she would have bumped into Anne on her way back from Eichet… unless her sister had decided to cycle through the woods.
“See you later,” she mumbled, running back to her own house to get out her bike again. At break-neck speed, Julia raced to the woods, gasping for breath by the time she reached the main forest trail running between the trees. From this point onward, she would have to slow down because of the bumpy road, but she tried to use it to her advantage by feverishly looking left and right in the hopes of spotting Anne somewhere.
When the path ended and the trees thinned out, Julia came to a complete stop and stared unseeingly at the blue sky peeking through the chestnut trees at the end of the trail. She felt sick to her stomach, dread sending a spike of adrenaline through her veins. The tension coursing through her body made her muscles feel weak.
Anne was nowhere to be found. She didn’t believe for one second that her baby sister had decided to visit Gran today. She’d been wanting to go back to the forest since last night, and so she’d snuck off, disappearing deep into the woods.
Julia patted both her pants pockets looking for her cell phone until she remembered it was still at home. No phone calls to Anne or her grandmother, then. In despair, she slowly swiveled around, peering in every direction. She parked her bike against a tree and in a last-ditch effort to find Anne without help, Julia started to jog alongside the edge of the woods. Maybe she’d discover Anne wandering around somewhere if she headed north, where the forest turned darker and denser.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled to herself after trotting along for five minutes without finding a trace of her sister. There was no point spending a fruitless afternoon darting around like an idiot.
Just as she decided to turn around and go back to her bike, Julia suddenly did spot someone walking between the trees further up north. The figure was still far away, but it was definitely some hiker trudging through the woods. He might have seen Anne somewhere. Julia closed her eyes and tried to slow down her breathing. She’d wait here and address the person when he emerged from the forest. When the walker drew nearer, she saw it was a boy not much older than she was.
Her heart stopped when he came even closer. The sunlight hit his long, blond hair. Two bright, blue eyes bore into hers. He emerged from the trees and Julia’s hands started to tremble.
She was staring at the angelic face of Legolas with Thorsten’s blue eyes.
It was the Prince of the Forest. The boy Anne had drawn in her sketches – the drawings Julia wasn’t supposed to have seen.
11.
“Grüss Gott,” the boy greeted her politely.
Julia swallowed. “Hi there.” Her voice sounded shrill, but the boy didn’t seem to notice. He passed her and walked on, veering off to the right to get to the road leading down to Eichet. Julia hesitated for a second, then started to follow him at a distance, sweat pooling in the palms of her hands. She hoped he wouldn’t look back.
Anne had met this guy in the forest. This very guy. She was sure of it. And this was her chance to find out where he lived and tell him to leave Anne alone. What if he had given her drugs? What if he had abused her, even? Julia tried to blink back tears. With a knot in her stomach, she followed the guy until he entered a detached house in one of the richer neighborhoods of Eichet, a short distance away from the next block of houses on the quiet street.
Julia indecisively stopped behind a big tree next to the boy’s residence, her eyes fixed on the front door. Now what? Was she absolutely sure this guy had done something wrong – or was she about to saddle another innocent person with a bunch of sinister motivations and make a fool of herself for the second time today?
Frowning deeply, Julia let out a sigh and turned around after memorizing the street name and the house number. She started to jog back to the place where she’d left her bike. Maybe she was kicking up a fuss over nothing. Maybe Anne would be back by the time she got home. And if not, she’d call her on her cell and tell her to come home immediately. She’d call her mom, too. Everything would be just fine.
When Julia turned into her street, Mrs. Ebner emerged from her house and crossed the street to stop her. “Julia,” she said with a worried face. “What’s wrong? Have you found Anne?”
“No, I haven’t.” Julia put her bike against the fence. “I’m going to call her now. And my mom as well.”
“I’m sorry I let her go by herself. I feel so bad now. I didn’t think there was any harm in letting Anne go to her grandmother, but then Sabine just told me…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?” Julia prompted the neighbor anxiously.
“Sabine says Anne is in the habit of going off on her own into the woods a lot lately. And she has no idea what Anne is doing there. Sometimes your sister would get a text message and she’d take off shortly afterwards, and she wouldn’t tell Sabine who it was from, but she did mention she was going to ‘work on her story’.”
“Oh my God.” Julia lowered herself onto the fence, her legs shaking. “And she only told you this now?”
“Yes, because Anne kept saying it was a secret. Sabine didn’t want to betray her trust.” Mrs. Ebner’s face looked pale. “I think you should call the police. There’s something fishy about the whole story, I’m telling you.”
“I’m going to make a few phone calls.” Julia went inside and ran up the stairs to get her cell phone and check it for messages. No missed calls or texts. She called Anne and heard it ring several times before switching to voicemail. “Anne, you have to come home right this instant,” she said hoarsely. “And please call me back when you get this.” She hung up and called her grandma.
“Hello?”
“Gran, it’s Julia. Is Anne with you?”
“No, she isn’t. Julia, what’s going on? Did you talk to her?”
Julia took a deep breath. “No, I didn’t get the chance. She wasn’t here when I got home. I’m going to call Mom now, okay?” Her voice cracked.
“You do that. Let me know what happened, dear.”
“I will, Gran.”
Julia hung up and called her mom’s cell. No reply. She didn’t want to just leave a voicemail, so she called the landline. Fortunately, Uncle Helmut answered the phone after two rings.
“Hey. It’s Julia. Is Mom still with you and Aunt Verena?”
“Yes, they’re having coffee out on the patio. You want me to get her?”
“Please.” While Julia waited for her mother to come to the phone, she got up and walked over to her sister’s room. Haphazardly, she pulled open cabinets and drawers to look for Anne’s sketchbooks and diary. Maybe she’d find some more clues in there.
“Hi, sweety. Have you talked to Thorsten?” her mom said, interrupting her search.
“I have, but he doesn’t know anything. Mom… Anne is gone. She lied to the Ebners about wanting to visit Gran and she took off to go to the forest alone. I think…” Julia took a deep breath, a sob escaping her throat.
“Slow down,” her mom called out. “What happened? Why are you so upset?”
In fits and starts, Julia told her mom what Thorsten had said, what Gran had told her and the mysterious guy she’d bumped into when she was looking for Anne in the woods.
“Okay. I’m coming home right now,” Ms. Gunther said, her voice trembling. “But first I’m calling the police. They might be there sooner than me, but you can go ahead and talk to them. Tell them the exact same story you’ve told me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Julia clicked off. In the meantime, she’d managed to dig up a big pile of sketches Anne had made. She blindly stared at the other portraits her sister had done of the blond boy from the woods. There were three more besides the drawing she had already seen once, and the resemblance was striking. She had to give these to the cops as evidence.
An
ne’s desk drawer contained her diary. It was locked with a flimsy lock that didn’t seem too hard to pick. Julia took the diary downstairs to get a small screwdriver from the toolbox. After three attempts, she managed to pry it open.
Julia sat down heavily at the kitchen table, the book in front of her.
When she opened the diary, Anne’s childlike handwriting stared up at her from the pages. Julia wiped away a lonely tear, clenching her fists. The police just had to find her sister, and maybe she’d discover some clues in here to help them do that. Quickly, she flipped through the pages until something in the margin caught her eye. It was a whole string of hearts, connected by an elegant line that looked like a vine. The hearts were colored in with green felt pen. Julia’s heart sped up as she started to read the decorated diary page.
“Me and Sabine started our work on the tree house, and when she went home I stayed behind to walk a bit deeper into the forest. And something happened there. It was like a dream! There was a beautiful boy there, sitting on a tree trunk. He started to talk to me and he said he thought I looked beautiful too! He said I look like a princess. But I’m not supposed to tell anyone I saw him there. I think he might be the Prince of the Forest!! Is he actually real?”
“So today I asked him whether he was the prince of the woods, and he told me I had guessed right. I can’t believe it! He says the portal to his palace is somewhere in this forest, and that is why I can’t tell anyone about him or about our meetings. He’s trying to hide the entrance to Fairyland so no one else can find it. Before I went home, he danced with me and he even kissed me, just like in the storybooks. I’m so in love!!!”
“He gave me some mushrooms today. He said that if I ate from them, I’d be able to see the fairies living on the other side of the portal for just a few seconds. It was so weird. First I saw all kinds of beautiful and wonderful things, but afterwards I had to throw up. I guess it’s because I had to come back to the human world.”
“I sat in his lap with his arms around me, and I ate another one of those fairy mushrooms. It felt like I was floating. He said he’d make me his princess when he returns to his palace. Every day he tells me I’m pretty!! He’s my dream prince.”
“He was angry with me. I showed him a drawing I did of his face, and he tore it up. And then he yelled at me, saying I should never tell anyone about him or the entrance to his realm because something terrible would happen if I did. I was planning to tell Julia about him, but now I’m scared. Why was he so angry? Isn’t he in love with me anymore?”
Julia’s stomach turned as she pushed the diary across the table and leaned back in her chair. This was so perverted and wrong on all levels that she couldn’t stop trembling. So it really was that blond boy she’d met in the woods. That sick pedophile had touched Anne. He had held her in his arms, kissed her, fed her shrooms. He’d lied to her so he could turn into her fairytale prince. And she, Julia, had innocently told Anne this very morning that the prince couldn’t hurt her and couldn’t force her to keep seeing him if she didn’t want to.
And suddenly, she remembered the phone call Anne had received while she was in the bathroom. Maybe it hadn’t been one of her classmates at all. Maybe it had been that boy, telling her to come see him in the forest. So that’s why Anne had seemed so anxious and insecure.
Julia startled when the doorbell rang. Fighting back her tears, she got up to let the cops in. She had to be coherent for their interrogation. The diary could be used as evidence, too, so it was a good thing she’d found it.
But it wasn’t the police. When she opened the door, Thorsten was standing there. “H-hey,” she stammered. “Weren’t you supposed to work until three?”
He stepped inside. “I clocked out a bit early. I was worried about you.” He cast her an inquisitive look. “And rightly so. You look terrible. Have you talked to Anne yet?”
Hearing her sister’s name was too much. Julia burst out in tears. “No,” she wailed. “Anne is gone. She’s disappeared. And I’m so scared that this boy may have hurt her.”
“Hold on. What boy?”
“The boy from the woods,” Julia whispered. “The boy she drew. The boy she talks about in her diary.” She headed for the kitchen on trembling legs and showed Thorsten the diary and the sketches, relating the story about bumping into the mysterious Legolas-lookalike in the forest, the drawings Anne had made, and the creepy stories she’d come home with.
“The police are on their way and I’m sure they’ll take the guy in for questioning,” Thorsten reassured her, a grim look on his face. “He’ll think twice before bothering Anne again. I don’t think he has hurt her – he wouldn’t dare. He knows she made sketches of him, after all.”
“I hope you’re right,” Julia replied dejectedly. She got out her cell – still no messages. “But, Thorsten – what if she doesn’t come home? What am I gonna do?”
“Let’s give it some time.” Thorsten put his arms around her, rocking her back and forth gently when she started to cry again. “Just calm down.”
A few minutes later, the front door swung open and Ms. Gunther stepped inside, three police officers following in her wake. She looked at her oldest daughter anxiously. “Anne is still gone?”
Julia blinked at her mom. It was time to tell her all the other things she’d discovered, but she didn’t even know where to start. Luckily, Thorsten stepped in and showed the police the diary and the drawings, telling them everything Julia had told him. He also gave them the address of the mysterious boy in the sketchbook.
“We’ll go there and check it out,” the detective leading the team promised them. “I think I’ll get out a search warrant immediately. If he’s keeping that little girl in or around the house somewhere, we’ll find her.”
“Can we come?” Julia asked timidly.
The detective shook his head. “You don’t want to, really. It won’t be pretty. I’ll be back here as soon as I can.”
The police left and Ms. Gunther slumped down on the kitchen bench next to Julia and Thorsten. “I should have paid more attention to her,” she mumbled vacantly. “I should have been home more. I shouldn’t have let her wander around alone so much.”
Julia’s heart cracked when she heard her mom blaming herself. Admittedly, she’d thought the very same things herself just a few days ago, but it wasn’t her mother’s fault this had happened. Besides, what could she have done differently, anyway? She was a single mom with two daughters.
“Don’t do this, Mom,” she whispered, pulling her closer. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. How were we supposed to know what was happening in that forest?”
“I’m sorry,” her mom replied, a desperate sob in her voice.
Thorsten got up. “I’m gonna ask Sabine what she knows one more time,” he said determinedly. “Maybe the right questions will jog her memory. My mother said she knew more about Anne’s wanderings in the woods.”
Julia looked up. “Are you coming back?” All of a sudden, she badly needed his support. He gave her the strength to believe in a happy ending.
He nodded. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised.
Ms. Gunther jumped to her feet and started to bustle around the kitchen, viciously scrubbing all the countertops with a sponge. “I can’t sit around like this,” she explained when Julia caught her eye. “I’ll lose my mind if I start thinking too much.”
Julia smiled wanly, left the kitchen and sat down on the bottom step of the stairs clutching her cell phone. The first thing she did was call Axel to tell him about the events of the day.
“What?” he exclaimed disbelievingly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. We were on our way to Moritz’s band practice anyway, so we’re already on the bus.”
“We?” Julia parroted.
“Yeah, Gaby and me. We’ll be there before you know it, okay?”
When the doorbell rang, both Julia and her mother almost tripped on their way to the front door, but it wasn’t the police. Thorsten was there, flanked by Sabine. The gir
l anxiously looked up at them all. “I didn’t know she was doing dangerous things,” their youngest neighbor said in a strangled voice. “She always looked so happy when she came back from the forest. And she said I shouldn’t tell her secret to anyone.”
Ms. Gunther put a consoling hand on Sabine’s head. “You can’t help it, sweetheart. Why don’t you tell us now? Tell us all you know about Anne and where she always went.”
“Well, she said that if I ever stumbled upon some kind of door in the woods, I shouldn’t go through it, because it would upset the Prince of the Forest.”
“A door?” Julia thought of the portal Anne had talked about in her diary.
“Yes, that’s what she said. I thought it was weird. You find doors in houses, and there are no houses in the woods. I thought she was just telling me about stuff in her story. I knew she was busy writing and drawing things for it.”
“Isn’t it possible there’s some abandoned cabin somewhere in the woods?” Thorsten suggested.
“No idea,” Julia replied. “I’ve never encountered anything like that, but then again, I mostly stick to the trails when I go running or biking.”
“Maybe we should go look for her?” Sabine looked around the circle of grown-ups, her lip trembling.
Thorsten nodded. “I think we will, but not with you tagging along. I’m not losing any more little girls to that forest today.”
Sabine pleaded with her brother, but to no avail. She sulkily followed him out the door.
It didn’t take long for Axel and Gaby to show up on their doorstep. Gaby ran up to her best friend and hugged her tightly as Julia wordlessly buried her face in Gaby’s dark hair. “Oh my God, Gab, this whole day is like a nightmare,” she sniffed, barely audible.
Axel hugged his aunt, and they all kept quiet for a few seconds. Then Julia pulled away from Gaby and took her and Axel to the kitchen to show them the sketches and the diary. Meanwhile, her mother made tea for everyone.
