“I will eat and drink in the morning,” whispered Chanterelle. “If Mother has not found us by then, I will eat Amanita’s mushroom-bread and drink her mushroom-milk.”
Handsel stood up and turned toward the door.
“Don’t go!” said Chanterelle.
“I have my own room now,” said Handsel, “and my own bed.”
No sooner was Chanterelle alone than the room grew noticeably darker. A cloud must have drifted across the face of the moon. Chanterelle moved her injured foot from left to right and back again, and then she stretched her toes. The result was agony — but it was the kind of agony that chased sleep away, and delirium too. Her mind had never been sharper.
Because she had no voice, Chanterelle cried out silently for her mother and her grandfather. If you don’t come by morning, she thought with all the fervor she could muster, you will come too late. If you don’t come by morning, I shall be lost.
In stories, she knew, such silent cries sometimes brought results. In stories, panic was sometimes as powerful as prayer. She prayed as well, though, in the hope that even if her mother and her grandfather could not help her, Heaven might.
As before, the pain could not keep sleep at bay indefinitely, but the sleep to which Chanterelle was delivered was shallow and turbulent.
She dreamed that she was running through the forest yet again, still pursued by an old man who carried a long needle in each hand. All night long his footsteps grew closer and closer, until at last she sank exhausted to the ground and waited for the inevitable.
The old man had no chance to use the needles; he was knocked flying by the paw of a bear, which then limped away into the forest with its ancient head held low. When the old man attempted to rise again, he was confronted by a she-wolf whose gray coat was flecked with blood. For a moment or two it seemed that he might try to defy the she-wolf, which was limping almost as badly as the bear, but when she showed her bright white teeth, he thought better of it and ran off, taking his needles with him.
“Thank you,” Chanterelle whispered to the she-wolf.
“Don’t thank me,” said the wolf, sinking down beside her. “I can’t help you. I can’t even help myself.” The wolf began licking at her wounds. Both her hind legs had been bitten, and her belly too. It was obvious that the hounds had almost brought her down.
“Who will help me if you cannot?” asked Chanterelle. “Must I trust in Heaven?”
The she-wolf stopped licking long enough to say: “Heaven is a poor ally to those still on Earth, else plague would have no power to consign us to damnation. Had you kept your promises, you’d be beyond help already — and those who are less than honest can hardly look to Heaven for salvation.”
“Then what will become of me?” asked Chanterelle.
The wolf was too busy feeding on its own blood to give her an immediate answer, but when her fur was clean again she looked the child full in the face with sorrowful eyes.
“I wish I knew,” the wolf said. “I can’t even tell you the answer to your other question.”
“What other question?” asked Chanterelle.
“Why the girl sang again when she was captured for a second time by the man who knew the secret of making nightingales sing by day. I don’t know the answer. All I know is that there’s no more joy in being a wolf than there is in being a bear. I have to go away now. If I stay in this part of the forest, the hounds will have me for sure — and a wolf shouldn’t have to live on mice while there are sheep in the valleys.”
“Please don’t go,” begged Chanterelle. “If only you could save me, I think I might be able to sing again.”
“It’s too late,” said the wolf as she disappeared into the darkness of the forest.
“It’s too late,” said Amanita, as Chanterelle woke to morning daylight. “You must eat now, or it will be too late.”
Amanita was sitting no more than an arm’s reach away from Chanterelle’s head, having drawn a chair to the side of the bed — not the rocking-chair, but one of the others. The white-clad woman was holding a bowl full of steaming soup, which had the most delicious scent. The soup was thick and creamy, with solid pieces of a darker hue half submerged beneath the surface.
“Mushroom soup,” said Chanterelle very faintly.
“The best mushroom soup in the world,” said Amanita. “Not all mushrooms are alike, you know. These are the very best. They’re called chanterelles — did you know you had a mushroom’s name, my dear? I had to hunt far and wide to find them for you, but I knew that I’d have to find them even if it took all night. Luckily, the moon was full. Only eat this, and you’ll be yourself again — or perhaps for the first time ever.”
“I don’t want it,” whispered Chanterelle.
“But you don’t have any choice,” said Amanita. “You promised Handsel that you’d eat if your mother and grandfather were still lost. You don’t understand what’s happening here. You don’t understand who and what you are. When your father named you Chanterelle, he thought it was a safe name for a nightingale, but he forgot the other meanings of the word. He knew that the highest string of a musical instrument was a chanterelle, but he should have known that a chanterelle is the most delicious kind of edible mushroom, and an imitation bird used to draw others into traps. Fate plays these little tricks all the time, you see. You thought you were supposed to be a singer, but you never knew how to find your voice, or how to use it, until you came to me. All children are kin to the fairy-folk, dear Chanterelle, but only a few have the chance to cross over, to see the world as we see it, with the second sight. You have that chance, but you must seize it. You must welcome it, because the cost of refusal will be more terrible than you imagine.”
“Where’s Handsel?” asked Chanterelle. “I must see Handsel.”
“In the hope that he can seize me and throw me in my own oven, to burn me alive? In the hope that you and he can run away, laden down with gold and gems? Handsel can see now, my darling. Handsel will be my lover now, my darling boy, the sweetest of the sweet.”
“I must see Handsel,” whispered Chanterelle.
Amanita called out to Handsel to come and see his sister — and Handsel came. He stood beside Amanita, with his arm about her shoulder and his cheek next to hers.
“You must eat, Chanterelle,” he said. “If you can’t eat, you’ll never sing.”
“Can’t you see that she’s a wicked fairy?” Chanterelle asked in a voice so faint as hardly to be there at all.
“I can see,” said Handsel. “I never could before, but now I can. I never want to be blind again. I couldn’t stand it.”
“The poor girl thinks that she’s a nightingale,” said Amanita, softly and sadly. “She can’t believe what she really is, and she’s starving herself to death because of it. But you know — don’t you, darling Handsel? — how nightingales can be taught to sing by day. Tell me what the secret is, darling Handsel.”
“The old man trained the nightingales to sing by day by running hot needles into their eyes,” Handsel said calmly. “Afterward, they thought eternal night had come, and that was their idea of Heaven — so they sang, and sang, and sang in celebration. When Luscignole first saw what the old man did, she ran away, but that was because she didn’t understand her true nature and her true destiny. She lost her voice when her heart broke, and the only way she could find it again was to find Heaven where she had never been able to look before: in eternal darkness.”
“We don’t need to do anything nearly as unkind as that,” said Amanita. “Chanterelle will find her voice if she’ll only eat the chanterelles. Eat, dear child, and discover what you truly are!”