The Master's Apprentice - Oliver Potzsch Page 0,78

Johann watched the clearing for a while for any signs of life. He could hear the blows of an axe in the distance and guessed that the charcoal burner was out chopping wood somewhere in the forest. The relatively large house suggested he had a family.

Johann sneaked over to the house as quietly as he could. It was built of hefty logs, and the windows were as small as arrow slits. The door stood ajar. Johann nudged it open carefully and found a tidy room within. It was warm inside, and a large bowl of barley porridge stood in the middle of the table—probably breakfast leftovers. Johann devoured it like a famished wolf. Using both hands, he shoveled the sticky mass out of the bowl and into his mouth. When he had cleaned out the bowl, he licked his fingers. He stopped short when he heard creaking footsteps on the boards above him.

There was someone upstairs. He didn’t have much time.

He frantically looked around and spotted a chest next to the stove. His heart leaped with joy when he opened the lid. Inside the chest were clay bowls, wooden spoons, a tarnished copper candlestick holder, and—most importantly—clean linen shirts and leggings, like farmers wore in the fields. There was even a pair of wooden clogs. Johann quickly gathered up an armful of the clothes. He was about to run outside when he spotted a bowl of milk in the corner that someone must have left for the cat. He was still so hungry that he knelt down, held the bowl to his lips, and slurped up the milk like an animal.

In that very moment, the door to the next room opened and an older woman wearing an apron and a bonnet gaped at him. There were more people in the house than he’d thought. The woman turned pale and then pointed at the kneeling, naked Johann with a trembling finger, screaming loudly.

“A wolf-man!” she screamed. “God help us! There’s a wolf-man in our house!”

Johann dropped the bowl and it shattered on the floor. Holding on tightly to the clothes and the shoes, he ran out of the house while behind him the woman continued to shriek, calling upon all fourteen holy helpers to save them. Much to Johann’s horror, the charcoal burner emerged from the forest. His bearded face was black with soot, making his eyes gleam very white. He was holding his axe like a weapon and came running toward Johann between the charred stumps.

“Stop, whatever you are! Stop, beast!” shouted the man.

Swinging his axe, the man cut across the clearing and blocked Johann’s way. Johann managed to dodge the axe at the last moment, hearing it whooshing past his ear. He staggered and almost fell but caught himself and rushed toward the forest edge. He could hear the charcoal burner closing in on him.

“Martha, get the workers!” the man shouted. “We must catch the beast. I won’t let it get away! Hans, this way!”

From the corner of his eye, Johann saw a younger man with an axe run toward him from the right. The strong-looking lad was about to cut off his escape route. Johann desperately hurled himself shoulder-first at the worker. There was a loud crack, and a sharp pain shot down Johann’s arm. The young man cried out and fell to the ground. Johann still clung to the bundle of clothes as if it were a treasure. He got back on his feet and ran into the forest. Soon the fir trees swallowed him up.

“Go back to the hell you came from, you demon!” yelled the charcoal burner. “May God strike you down with a bolt of lightning!”

The shouting gradually eased and eventually stopped altogether, but Johann kept running until he came to a narrow track. After a little while, the trees opened up and Johann saw a larger road that led out of the forest and through fallow black fields.

Johann washed himself as well as he could in a ditch by the wayside before putting on the shirt, leggings, and wooden shoes. Then he stepped out into the road. The sun was high in the sky—Johann guessed it was around noon. He was gasping with exhaustion, and he was shivering—not just with a chill that seemed reluctant to leave his body, but also because he was terrified that the charcoal burner and his workers might appear from behind the next bend. His shoulder hurt like hell. He was too weak to run now, let alone