“Poor Chanterelle,” said Handsel, who seemed even fitter and bolder today than he had when he drove off the bewildered bear, and was in far better voice. “Can’t eat, can’t walk, can’t sing, can’t do anything at all. How can we save you, little sister?”
“Find Mother,” Chanterelle replied. “Leave me, if you must, but find Mother.”
“Handsel won’t go on without you, Chanterelle,” said Amanita. “If you won’t get better, he’ll stay with you until you die.” And after that, she didn’t add, he’ll stay with me.
“Find Grandfather,” whispered Chanterelle. “Please leave me, Handsel. Find Grandfather, because he can’t find himself. The bell in the tarn can’t toll, you see. Its chimes can’t echo in his heart like the chimes of conscience, drawing him back to his hearth and home. Find Mother, before she loses herself entirely. Find them both, I beg of you. If you love me, go.”
“You’ll regret it if you do,” said Amanita to Handsel.
Handsel seemed to agree with her; he shook his head.
“One more day, Handsel,” whispered Chanterelle. “If you’ll search for just one more day, I’ll eat something. That’s a promise. Even if you fail, I’ll eat — but you have to try.”
That argument worked, as Chanterelle had known it would. “If you’re sure you’ll be all right,” Handsel said dubiously, “I’ll go.” Even as he said it, though, he looked at Amanita. It was as if he were asking her permission.
Amanita shrugged her shoulders, whose narrowness was evident now that she was no longer wearing the speckled cape. “You might as well,” she said, “although I’m sure that there’s nothing to find. I’ll lend you Verna and Virosa if you like. If there’s anything out there, they’ll track it down — but you’ll have to be strong if you’re to hold on to them.”
“No,” said Chanterelle quickly. “Don’t take the dogs. Don’t take that little pipe either. Your voice will be enough, now that you’ve got it back. Search hard—you have to find them today, if they’re to be found at all.”
Again Handsel looked at Amanita, as if for permission. Again Amanita shrugged her narrow shoulders.
“Look after my sister,” Handsel said to the white-clad lady. “If anything were to happen to her—”
“Nothing will,” said Amanita. “She’s safe here. Nothing can hurt her, if she doesn’t hurt herself — but if she won’t eat—”
“She will,” said Handsel firmly. “She will, if I keep my part of the bargain.” And having said that, he left.
When the door closed behind him, Amanita looked down at Chanterelle for a full half minute before she put the bread that wasn’t wheaten bread and the milk that wasn’t cow’s milk on the three-legged table. Then she sat down in the rocking-chair, tilting it back so that when she released it she moved gently to and fro. She never took her eyes off Chanterelle, and her brown eyes were exactly as piercing now as they had seemed by tricky lantern-light.
“That was very brave of you, my dear,” the lady said at last, “if you really believe what you said about my being a bad fairy.”
“I do,” said Chanterelle, “and I’m not a silly fool.”
“That,” said the lady, “remains to be seen.”
Chanterelle tested her injured ankle by stretching the toes and turning it to the left and the right. The pain she felt made it evident that she still wasn’t able to walk, and wouldn’t be able to for quite some time. The pain nearly brought tears to her eyes — but the anguish wasn’t entirely unwelcome, because it distracted her attention from the awful hunger that felt as if it were hollowing out her belly with a fork.
The fake bread and the fake milk were beginning to seem attractive, in spite of the fact that they were not what they seemed to be. Handsel had obviously eaten them, just as he had eaten the red-capped mushrooms, but Chanterelle couldn’t be certain that Handsel was still what he seemed to be.
“I wish you would eat, my dear,” said Amanita after a long silence. “If you don’t eat, you’ll never recover your strength. If you do, you might even recover your voice. You mustn’t let stories make you afraid — and in any case, you can see readily enough that my house isn’t made of gingerbread.”
Chanterelle put out a hand to touch the wall beside the bed. It was softer than she had expected, and warmer. It had a curious texture unlike any wall she’d ever felt before. It wasn’t brick or stone, and it wasn’t wood or wattle-and-daub.
“It’s a mushroom,” whispered Chanterelle. “The whole house is a gigantic mushroom. How did it grow so big? It must be magic—black magic.”
“Magic is neither black nor white, my dear,” said Amanita. “Magic either is or isn’t.”
“The witch in the house of gingerbread tried to fatten Handsel for the cooking-pot,” Chanterelle observed. “She wanted to eat him. Bad fairies and witches are much of a muchness, in all the stories I ever heard.”
“Did the witch succeed?” asked Amanita.
“No,” said Chanterelle. “Gretel — Handsel’s sister, in the story — put an old stick in the witch’s hand every time she reached into the cage to see whether Handsel was plump enough to eat yet. The witch was nearsighted, and couldn’t tell that it wasn’t Handsel’s arm. When the witch finally grew impatient and tried to cook Gretel instead, Handsel pushed her into her own oven and cooked her. Then the children took the witch’s hoard of gold and jewels back to their father, so that they would never be poor again.”
“I see,” said Amanita. “I fear, dear child, that I am not nearsighted. Were I what you suspect me to be, you’d have no chance at all of escaping me. In any case, it would do you no good if you did bundle me into my own oven. I have no hoard of gold and jewels, and you have no father. Your brother told me another story, about a little girl with a marvelous singing voice, who lost the will to sing when her heart was broken — but she was found by the old man who’d kept her when she was a child, who knew the secret of making nightingales sing by day. You know that story, of course.”
“I know,” whispered Chanterelle fearfully.
“Well,” said Amanita, “that’s nonsense too. All you need to set your voice free is a little bread and milk.”
“The bread isn’t wheaten bread and the milk isn’t cow’s milk,” said Chanterelle. “The bread is baked from mushrooms and the milk is squeezed from mushroom flesh.”
“That’s true, as it happens,” admitted Amanita. “As you’ve observed yourself, there’s not much food fit for children growing wild in this part of the forest. There are insects a-plenty, and animals which eat insects, and animals which eat animals, but children can’t hunt. Fortunately, the mushrooms with the red caps do make nourishing food. Handsel is as bold and strong as he ever was, don’t you think? He isn’t afraid to eat my bread and drink my milk.”
“Handsel will find Mother today,” whispered Chanterelle, “and Grandfather too. Then we shall all go home.”
“Go home to what?” asked Amanita. She stopped the chair rocking and leaned forward to stare at Chanterelle even more intently than before. “To an empty foundry, which had failed long before the plague came and your grandfather tipped the unfinished church-bell into the tarn? Do you know why no one can hear it tolling in the dark current, least of all its maker? Because it has no tongue! It cannot ring, dear child, any more than you can sing.”