The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,30

sun was still high in the sky, Johann thought the trees looked sinister and menacing, like an impregnable black wall rising up in front of them. He’d been here many times before, but today the edge of the forest seemed like the boundary to a foreign, evil land. They ran across a stubble field and soon reached the blackberry and hawthorn bushes at the forest edge. A jay screeched somewhere, and something big, probably a deer, disappeared rustling into the bushes.

“And now?” asked Johann, who was considering Margarethe’s idea increasingly stupid. “What do we do now?”

Margarethe pointed at the stream entering the woods. “A path begins there. I know it from when I used to go into the forest with my father. If we follow the stream, we can’t lose the path. It leads to a clearing with some large rocks and a cave. Maybe the children are hiding there.”

“And you think no one else has thought to look there?” asked Johann mockingly.

“I don’t know.” Margarethe walked ahead. “But I do know one thing: if we stand around here for much longer, we might as well turn back around and let the others search.”

Johann gave a shrug and followed her into the forest. Underneath the trees, it looked like dusk had already fallen. Many of the beech and oak trees hadn’t lost all their foliage yet. Patches of thick undergrowth made it hard to see the path. The stream gurgled along peacefully, and it was as though a large bell hung over the woods, muffling every sound within.

They followed the stream in silence, as if they feared waking sleeping beasts. Johann knew the area. He used to bring the pigs here to fill their bellies on acorns, although he never went deeper than a few hundred steps into the woods. Beyond lay the unknown, inaccessible territory of hunters, forest workers, and outlaws.

The deeper they walked into the forest, the darker it got. Fir trees took the place of beeches and oaks, barely allowing any light to reach the forest floor. Thickets of thorny bushes slowed their progress even more, as well as fallen trees overgrown with moss and fungi. Several times they had to take a detour around obstacles and struggled to find the stream again. They reluctantly called out for the children, but it seemed to Johann their voices were instantly swallowed up by the trees.

“I . . . I’m scared!” whined Martin. His small, hunched body was trembling, and his stammer had grown worse, which always happened when he was afraid. “Wh . . . what if the b . . . b . . . boogeyman finds us a . . . and eats us?”

“I told you not to come, damn it!” swore Johann.

“Don’t be afraid, Martin,” Margarethe said soothingly. “The boogeyman would spit someone like you right back out.” Her face was smeared with dirt and sweat, making her look like an angry forest sprite.

Johann knew the tales of the boogeyman and the kobolds. The stories were as old as time. But while he thought kobolds were just a myth, he wasn’t so sure about the boogeyman. Every now and then, travelers told stories about dirty, ragged figures hanging about the woods; outcasts, the insane, wanted criminals—the forest was their home, and Johann, Martin, and Margarethe shouldn’t have been there.

“I think we should turn back. It’s late,” he said to Margarethe. “We can come again tomorrow.”

“Just to the clearing,” Margarethe replied. “I’m sure we’re nearly there. I came here with Father once.”

Indeed, a short while after, they arrived at a small clearing drenched in afternoon sun. A handful of ducks fluttered into the air, quacking loudly, from a pond the stream flowed into; a pile of large, moss-covered boulders stood in the center of the clearing, forming a small cave at their base.

“Ha, I told you!” exclaimed Margarethe triumphantly.

Johann looked around the clearing. He’d never been here before. It was a quiet, peaceful spot, and he could indeed imagine that lost children might seek shelter here. They fanned out and searched the cracks in the boulders and the cave. But they found nothing, apart from old bear droppings and animal bones. Johann found a symbol scratched into one of the boulders: a bearded head with horns.

“What is that?” he asked, running his fingers along the moss-covered lines. “It looks very old.”

“I bet the boogeyman drew this,” Margarethe said with a wink. “That’s just what he looks like—same as you if you don’t wash your face.”

Laughing, she