to live!” Perhaps that was an exaggeration, but not a great one. Yes, she could hunt, but gunpowder was not free, nor the lead to cast bullets. Mother had been the one that did most of the preserving of vegetables and fruit, and she was not at all certain of her ability to imitate her. Nor could she count on the brownies and the faun to keep serving her; in fact, she had taken the considerable risk that when she returned, the chickens, goats and garden would still be there and in good order, because she expected to have enough money to replace at least the chickens if she had to.
“Shell the peas,” Tante Gretchen said. “If nothing else, you can go to the Bruderschaft. They might not have dwarf-hordes of gold lying about, but they can probably spare enough supplies for one slender girl to live on until October. Then everyone will have forgotten, you can dye your hair and take a new name, and go in a different direction and earn money for winter supplies.”
She bit her lip. She didn’t want to go to the Bruderschaft, hat in hand, but what choice did she have? And in good conscience, she was going to have to report to them anyway on the misadventure she had gotten herself into.
As if reading her mind, Tante Gretchen added “I’ve already sent word to them through the Forest Elementals about your situation; you needn’t worry that you’re in trouble, but you should go tell them in person eventually.”
Giselle swallowed. “Well then, when do you think I should leave?” she asked.
Tante Gretchen left the bread dough to rest, and came to the doorway to peer up at the sky. “What do your sylphs tell you about the weather?”
As usual, there was one hanging about, this time asleep on a branch in one of the trees nearby; there always was at least one, still, although she had greatly feared they might desert her after the night-sylphs had accidentally caused the Hauptmann’s death on her orders. But how could I have done any different? she asked herself, as she always did. What he would have done to me . . .
She shook off the dark thoughts, and woke up the drowsy sylph with a thought. “Tante Gretchen would like to know what the weather will be for a while, please,” she asked, silently.
The sylph yawned, and blinked sleepily. “Rain tomorrow and the next day, fine again for at least three.”
“Thank you,” Giselle said, and the sylph yawned again and went back to sleeping on her sunny branch.
“Well, you may as well stay until the rain is over,” Tante Gretchen said, logically enough, when Giselle reported what the sylph had said. “I can use the help. And I’d like you to finish our book before you go.”
“And I will happily give it, and even more happily finish the book,” Giselle replied. Though as she finished shelling the peas, she tried not to think about the situation. She really did not want to be in the debt of the Bruderschaft—she was trying so hard to be independent, like Mother, and it felt like failure to have to come to them, proverbial cap in hand, in the very first year.
With rain pouring down as hard as Giselle had ever seen it, there was not much they could do but things that could be done indoors. Since the cottage was so small, and Tante Gretchen was meticulous about keeping it clean, it was less than two hours’ work to have everything scoured. Obviously you could not wash clothing when it was raining, nor bake, so that left handwork. Tante Gretchen pulled her favorite chair up to the fire, piled her mending in one basket on her left and had her knitting in a second basket on her right, while Giselle had a lantern over her shoulder and the Karl May book about Winnetou she had promised to finish in her hands.
She did her best to immerse herself in the story, because to tell the truth, she was having a hard time with her emotions. Anger, one minute, at the Hauptmann for spoiling her carefully made plans. Fear that she might still be caught . . . or that when she finally reached the Bruderschaft Lodge, they would have quite a different view of the situation from Tante Gretchen. Something rather like anger at the idea that even if they felt the same as the Earth Master, she would be in