“Bad dogs,” said the lady, who had stopped singing as soon as her lantern revealed the two children to the inspection of her pale and penetrating eyes. “This is not the prey for which you were set to search. These are children, lost in the wilderness. Were you abandoned here, my lovelies?” As she spoke she looked down at Chanterelle. Her eyes seemed strangely piercing; it was as if she could look into the inner chambers of a person’s heart. Chanterelle hoped that it was a trick of the lantern-light.
“We came in search of our mother,” said Chanterelle. “Have you seen her?”
“I’ve seen no one, child,” the lady replied. “I’m hunting a she-wolf which has plundered my birdhouse once too often. I thought that Verna and Virosa had her scent, but it seems not. What are your names?”
“I’m Chanterelle, and this is my brother Handsel.”
“Why are you whispering, child?” the lady asked, although her own voice was low and her singing had been soft, in spite of the notes she had to reach.
“Misfortune and too much shouting have weakened our voices,” Handsel explained. “Have you bread, perchance — my sister will not eat the mushrooms which grow hereabouts, because she fears they have been poisoned by the fairies.”
“Those old wives’ tales are best forgotten,” the lady said, “but I have bread at home, and meat too, if you can walk as far as my house.”
“I can,” whispered Handsel, “but Chanterelle cannot. She twisted her ankle while fleeing from a bear.”
“Well,”’ said the lady, without much enthusiasm, “I suppose I can carry her, if you will hold the lantern and my dogs — but you’ll have to be strong, for they can pull like the Devil when they’re of a mind to do so.”
“I can do that,” said Handsel.
The lady gave the lantern and the two leashes to Handsel, and bent to take Chanterelle in her arms. For a fleeting instant the warmth of her breath reminded Chanterelle of the bear, but it was sweeter by far — and the lady’s slender arms were surprisingly strong.
“Who are you?” Chanterelle asked as she was borne aloft.
“My name is Amanita,” the lady said, turning around to follow the dogs, which had already set off for home with Handsel in tow.
“I hope your house is not made of gingerbread,” murmured Chanterelle.
“What a thing to say!” the woman exclaimed. “Indeed it is not. Whatever made you think it might be?”
“There is a story about a boy named Handsel, who was lost with his sister in a wild forest,” Chanterelle told her. “They found a house of gingerbread and began to eat it — but the witch who owned it caught them and put them in a cage.”
“It’s exactly as I said,” the lady observed. “Old wives’ tales are full of nonsense, and mischief too. Do you think I’m a witch?”
“You were singing a song,” said Chanterelle uneasily. “I was remembering a tune, and your song fitted the tune. If that’s not witchcraft, what is?”
“You poor thing,” said the lady, clutching Chanterelle more tightly to her, so that Chanterelle could feel the warmth of the bloodred fur from which her cape was made. “You’ve been sorely confused, I fear. Don’t you see, dear child, that it must have been my song that started the tune in your head? Your ears must have caught it before your mind did, so that when your mind caught up it seemed that the tune had been there before. But you’re right, of course; if there’s no witchcraft there, there’s no witchcraft anywhere — and that’s the truth.”
Chanterelle knew better than to believe it. She had heard too many stories in her time to think the world devoid of magic. She knew that she would have to beware of the lady Amanita, whatever her house turned out to be made of.
The sleep that Chanterelle had been unable to find while she lay on the bare ground, fearful of the bear’s return, came readily enough now that she was clasped in Amanita’s arms. The lady did not carry her quite as tenderly as her mother would have, but the warmth of the red cape seemed to soak into Chanterelle’s enfeebled flesh, relaxing her mind. In addition, the lady began to sing again, albeit wordlessly, and the rhythm of her voice was lullaby-gentle and lullaby-sweet.
In such circumstances, Chanterelle might have expected sweeter dreams, but it was not to be. This time, she found herself alone by night in a vast and drafty church — vaster by far than any church in the town where she had lived, let alone the village whose priest had advised them to search for their mother in the forest. Its wooden pews formed a great shadowy maze, and Chanterelle was searching that maze for a likely hiding place — but whenever she found one, she would hear ominous footsteps coming closer and closer, until they came so horribly close that she could not help but slip away, scurrying like a mouse in search of some deeper and darker hidey-hole. She never saw her pursuer, but she knew well enough who he must be and what he must be holding in his gnarled and arthritic hand. She knew, too, that no she-wolf could come to her aid in such a place as this — for werewolves cannot set foot on consecrated ground, no matter how noble their purpose might be, nor how diabolical the schemes they might seek to interrupt.
When Chanterelle awoke, she realized that she was in a bed with linen sheets. When she opened her eyes she saw that the bed had a quilt as red as Amanita’s cape, patterned with white diamonds as neatly sewn as any she had ever seen. It was obvious that the lady Amanita was an excellent seamstress — which meant, of course, that she must possess a sharp, sleek, and polished needle.
Bright daylight shone through a single latticed window the shape and size of a wagon-wheel. Handsel was already up and about, as he had been the morning before. As soon as he saw that his sister was astir, he rushed to her bedside.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” he said, gesturing with his arm to indicate the room in which they had been placed. As well as the bed on which Chanterelle lay, it had a number of chairs, one of them a rocking-chair; it also had a huge wooden wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a wooden trunk, and a tiny three-legged table. The walls were exceptionally smooth, but their gray surfaces were dappled with black, and the curiously ragged shelves set into them were an offensive shade of orange.
“No gingerbread at all?” Chanterelle whispered.
“None,” said Handsel, who had obviously recovered the full use of his voice during the night. “I’ll bring you some real bread. It’s freshly baked.”
Handsel left the room — passing through a doorway that was far from being a perfect rectangle, although the door fit snugly enough — before Chanterelle could ask where a woman who lived alone in the remotest regions of the Highland forest could buy flour to bake into bread. When he returned a few minutes later, Amanita was with him, carrying a tray that bore a plate of what looked like neatly sliced bread and a cup of what looked like milk.
Alas, the bread had neither the odor nor the color of wheaten bread, and the milk had neither the color nor the viscosity of cow’s milk.
“I can’t,” said Chanterelle weakly.
“Of course you can,” said Handsel.
“It’s not poison,” said the lady Amanita — but Chanterelle did not believe her.
“You’re a bad fairy,” said Chanterelle to Amanita.
“You’re a silly fool,” said Amanita to Chanterelle.
“This is pointless,” said Handsel, to no one in particular. “We can’t go on like this — and if we don’t go on, how will we ever find our mother?”
“You won’t,” said Amanita. “This isn’t like one of your stories, you know. This is the real world. Your mother never had the slightest hope of finding your grandfather, and you don’t have the slightest hope of finding your mother. They’ll both be dead by now — and you ought to count yourselves very lucky that you’re not dead yourselves. You will be, Chanterelle, if you won’t eat.”