by H. S. Norup
Tessa scampered out of the kitchen after Felix.
“I trust you didn’t touch anything in the room,” Aunt Annie called behind them.
The map felt like a blinking burglar alarm.
“I’ll help you,” Tessa said to Felix.
“Don’t. Even. Bother.” He ran downstairs and slammed the door to the ski room behind him.
FROM HABITS & HABITATS: A HISTORIC ACCOUNT OF ALPINE ELVES BY PROFES SOR, DR EBERHART LUDWIG FRITZ BAHNE
Over long distances, barbegazi supposedly communicate with each other by whistled signals. Whether whistling, talking or non-verbal communication is used when they are close together is unknown.
Recent reports of mountaineers in the high Alps hearing shrill whistles in advance of avalanches, has led to rumours that the barbegazi might not be extinct.
These claims are supported by the unearthing of polar-bear-like fur, by this author, in a crevasse on the glacier hiking trail between Jungfraujoch and the Konkordia Hut in Switzerland.
—22—
Tessa lay on the sofa, staring at the knots in the wooden ceiling. This time, she’d really messed up. And for what? A map owned by every hiker in the area, for sale at the tourist information, and a chain to lock up skis. How had she ever imagined she could help Gawion find his sister?
Her phone rang. It was Mum. For a moment, she considered not answering, but then Mum would just call Aunt Annie. After the fourth ring, she picked up.
“Hi, sweetheart, how are you?”
“How’s Oma?”
“Oh, you know… The doctors are very competent,” Mum said, and gave a long explanation of tests and outcomes, trying to sound upbeat.
“Did she solve my puzzle? Can I talk to her?”
“She’s a bit too tired to talk or do crosswords at the moment.”
“Please get her to do it, Mum. It’ll make her feel better.”
Mum ended the call with, “I hope you’re being a big help to Annie.”
Tessa hadn’t thought she could feel any worse.
She went to the window. Blankets of winter snow still hid half the cars, and a cloud of powder surrounded Felix. It was unfair only he got punished. Perhaps he’d cooled off by now and would let her take over.
Outside, the sun had disappeared and the temperature dropped.
Felix greeted her with a “Go away”, without even pausing in his work.
“I want to help.”
“You’ll just scratch the cars.”
Frost bloomed like flowers of ice on the windscreens of the cars Felix had already uncovered. Tessa shuddered, remembering dark mornings, driving to school in the car when Mum had left it outside during the night.
Of course! She almost laughed out loud. You couldn’t keep a barbegazi inside a house. They’d never survive the heat. But in one of these frozen cars…
As inconspicuously as possible, she ambled up along the row of visible cars, whistling a few notes. At each one, she ducked behind them and made peeking holes on the windows with her warm breath, before examining the interior. One car had a white sweater on the backseat, and she took so long to be sure it wasn’t Maeg that Felix had walked up to her and poked her shoulder with the brush.
“Stop touching the cars. What’re you doing?”
“Looking for the car of that guest.”
“Okay, Tessa, I’ll play along in your spy game. Just tell me why.”
It wasn’t a game. If Felix knew what was happening, he wouldn’t be so condescending. He’d be helping her search for Maeg. But she couldn’t tell him without betraying Gawion’s trust.
“Show me the car first,” she said.
“It’s not here.”
“You’re sure?”
Felix rolled his eyes.
“First of all, it’s not a car, it’s a white van. The coolest van ever. With tinted windows, four-wheel drive, four-litre engine.” He counted out these facts on his gloved fingers. “I haven’t seen it since he arrived. Probably scared of the other guests denting it.”
Tessa’s mind whirled. Maeg had disappeared on Monday. A van was an even better hiding place than a car. But it could be anywhere: on a lift station parking lot, on a forest track, by a hotel or post office or supermarket in one of the nearby villages. How would she ever find it? She didn’t even know what to look for.
But Felix did. She needed his help, and she owed him an explanation. Even if it meant trusting him with the secret of the barbegazi.
While he swept snow off the last cars, she told him everything that had happened in the last two days. She didn’t mention Brownie. Talking with a dog might be too big of a stretch for Felix.
Afterwards, Tessa sat on his bed while he tidied his room, telling him barbegazi facts she’d learnt from her elf book. Felix collected a jumble of clothes and shoes and comic books from the floor, and stuffed everything into his wardrobe. Signed posters of seven World Cup skiers hung on the walls. Two monitors, keyboards, a steering wheel and other electronic stuff crowded his desk. Using a T-shirt, he dusted his biggest skiing trophy, before he positioned it in front of his other shiny trophies, on the top bookshelf.
“I don’t know, Tessa,” he said, pulling on the T-shirt over his long thermal top. “If Dad hadn’t told me about your broken skis…”
“But you saw the metal chain and poker, right? And the map—” Tessa drew the map from the inside of her long johns.
“You took that from the room? Are you insane?”
“Sorry. But look! He’s marked all these places in Schöngraben.” She pointed to the circles and crosses after unfolding the map. Seeing it in the light, she noticed that some of the circles had handwritten notes.
“That’s funny,” Tessa tapped a circle. “This one’s where I fell in the hole.” They both leant over the map, trying to read the tiny scribbles.
“Willy Berger sighting,” they said together.
“But that’s Opa. That’s where Gawion rescued him.”
Felix stared at her, then he began nodding.
“Okay. I think I believe you. Let’s find that van.”
After he printed a photo of a similar van from the internet, they got dressed and jogged down to the huge lift station parking lot. It was late afternoon and only a few cars remained there. No white vans. They walked along the busy main road to St Anton and back through the village, splitting up to check side streets and carparks. They didn’t find the van.
Tessa’s tired legs protested. Now that Felix believed her, she almost didn’t mind the exhaustion. But how could they search the whole valley?
By the time they returned to the house, hunger pangs competed with her aching thighs. Aunt Annie was off on another family visit, delivering a homemade apple strudel, based on the mouth-watering smell in the kitchen. She hadn’t left any of the dessert for them, but a meagre plate of bread, cheese and salami waited in the fridge.
Felix frowned. “Mum’s really mad this time,” he muttered.
“At least you get to meet a barbegazi,” Tessa said, chewing on a wedge of Emmental.
Roughly an hour before the moon would be above Eisenspitze, they mounted lightweight aluminium snowshoes—borrowed from Aunt Annie’s stuff-guests-might-need closet—and hiked up the track along the mountain stream, towards the avalanche protection mounds and Gawion.
—23—
A sickle moon hung low over the dreaded mountain, when Gawion surfed down towards the earth mounds, with his stomach in a knot of worry. The steep eastern gullies, with their hoof marks from agile mountain goats, remained untouched by humans. But at the bottom where Schöngraben widened, tracks from wooden feet created a detailed pattern of ridges. Hard ridges. During the day, the sun had warmed the top layer, before the rippled surface froze again. Gawion stubbed his toes on the ripples, and he whistled in pain.
“Slow down and keep your claws out, or lift your toes,” Papa called.
Papa had insisted on coming with him. He mistrusted the human, and he planned to hide among the
nearby trees, ready to help Gawion if needed.
It was an unnecessary precaution. Gawion did not fear Tessa, only what it might have discovered about his sister.
A shrill, human whistle rang out ahead. It had no meaning.
“Gawion,” Tessa called.
Gawion sped up, then slowed as he saw that not one, but two, humans waited below in a circle of light.
Papa grabbed his arm, stopping Gawion abruptly.
“See that?” he whispered, pointing with a shaking finger. A metal chain dangled from the hand of the second human. “It is just like at Mont Blanc.”
“Are you even sure it is metal, Papa?” he whispered, although the way it glinted in the light from Tessa’s head and clinked when the human swung it around, left no doubt.
Papa sniffed with his large nose. Gawion just stared at Tessa. Had it deceived him? No, he refused to believe that. It had brought berries. It was a descendant of the berry-human. And that chain…
“Gaaawiiiooon,” it called again.
“Fairly low iron content and rather slim,” Papa said, in a low, bleak tone. “But one well-placed swipe would immobilize you long enough for them to carry you out of the gorge.”
“Tessa would not do that. It wants to find Maeg.”
“Who chose to meet so near the village, son?”
“But why bring us berries?”
“To gain our trust.”
Gawion edged closer, trying to hear what the humans were saying. If only his hearing was as good as his sense of smell. Tessa faced away from him, and he could not make out its words.
The other human swung the scary chain faster and faster. Raising its voice, so they heard every word, it spoke with an angry undertone. “D’you know how many barbarians I could’ve killed while we’re standing here? If that barbegazi isn’t coming, this is a complete waste of time. Capture it on your phone. Or bring it to the house and hide it in the shed.”
Gawion stopped breathing. The forest stilled, as if the trees were listening. As if like him, they were trying to understand the strange language. Trying to find an explanation that was not the obvious meaning of those words. But there was no other explanation. The new human talked about killing, and hiding him in a shed, and capturing him on a phone—whatever that was.
Tessa stomped. Its feet clanked. The wooden feet it had used to walk on the snow surface yesterday were gone. Tonight it wore metal feet. Metal feet primed to paralyse him with a single kick.
How could he have been so gullible? He had liked Tessa and believed its promise to help them. And here it was with an elf hunter by its side.
Papa sighed. Gawion refused to look up at him. From under his bushy eyebrows, he saw Papa shake his head.
“Come, son.” Papa tugged at his arm. “I was much older than you, when humans captured me. Show me where you found the bits of Maeg’s fur.”
After casting a last glance at the two humans, he led Papa up through the forest, giving the earth mounds a wide berth. Behind them, Tessa continued to whistle and call his name.
Gawion swore that he would never, ever again trust a human.
—24—
“Why do boys always have to kill things in stupid computer games?” Tessa stepped on the spot, trying to keep warm. The snow shoes clanked. She whistled for the millionth time.
Somehow, the excitement of the afternoon had fizzled out on the way up into Schöngraben’s gloom. The hike had begun with Felix asking questions about the barbegazi, which she answered. But she’d already told him everything, and soon Felix switched topic to the ski race and the pressure of being last year’s seasonal champion. Tessa tried to understand, she really did, but secretly she wondered why he couldn’t simply be happy about winning last year, and enjoy his collection of trophies. So they’d been standing without talking for a while when Felix lost patience and exploded into his computer game tirade.
“I play lots of games without killing,” he said.
Tessa raised her voice: “Gaaawiooon!”
A long silvery chain attached Felix’s house keys to his ski trousers, and he played with it, swinging it in vertical circles, making the keys jingle. “He’s not coming,” he muttered, and looked at his watch. Again. “It’s half past nine and the moon’s already on the other side of the valley.”
Tessa wiggled her fingers and toes to avoid them turning numb with cold. “Please. Let’s wait a bit longer.” She turned her headlamp up, enlarging the reach of the light. Rotating slowly, she stared into the shadows and repeated her call.
Felix swung his keys faster and faster. “Come on, Tessa. I want to start this season with a win, and tomorrow’s the last training.”
Where was Gawion? Had something happened to him? What if he’d also been taken?
“It’s just a ski race,” she told Felix.
“Just!” Felix rolled his eyes.
For a while, they stood in silence again. Tessa stomped her feet and swung her arms, opening them wide, then hugging herself. The chill seeped up through the thick soles of her boots. Felix just swung the chain.
“I can’t play your fairy game any more,” he said eventually.
“It’s not a game.”
“Right now the barbarians in Civilization seem a whole lot more real than your barbegazi.”
“They are real. I brought them berries.”
“I never saw any berries. Besides, there’s a hundred ways to dump a load of berries up here.”
Tessa stamped harder. Why was Felix so annoying again?
“You saw the map,” she said through gritted teeth.
“For all I know, you could’ve drawn circles on that map yourself.”
Angry tears threatened, and her voice rose, turning shrill: “I didn’t. You know I didn’t. I found it in the room.”
“Whatever. I’m not risking the race for your crazy fantasies.” Felix began walking.
“Please! Wait! He’ll come.”
“Maria’s right. You’re absolutely loony,” he said, without pausing, without turning, without looking at her.
Tessa’s stomach clenched, like she’d been hit in the solar plexus. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature spread from there. The light from Felix’s headlamp disappeared behind the first of the avalanche mounds, and it was as if the stars had been turned off.
Felix had believed her, and now suddenly he didn’t. He thought she was loony. Everyone did.
Why would Gawion trust her? He needed someone to help save his sister, and Tessa couldn’t help anyone. She couldn’t help him and she couldn’t help Oma.
How could she have thought a silly crossword puzzle would make any difference?
Warm tears splashed down her cheeks as the last of her resolve melted away. She sobbed into her gloves and slumped until she sat on her knees, the snowshoes forcing her to angle her feet awkwardly. Her knees grew colder and colder, prickling until they turned numb, and then she didn’t feel them at all. If only the pain inside could disappear as easily.
The blood flowing towards her chest would never be enough to fill two holes in her heart.
FROM HABITS & HABITATS: A HISTORIC ACCOUNT OF ALPINE ELVES BY PROFES SOR, DR EBERHART LUDWIG FRITZ BAHNE
Barbegazi have elfish abilities for languages and can speak in whichever tongue they are addressed, as documented in Foubergé’s transcriptions from 1779.*
To the frustration of more recent elf researchers, barbegazi refuse to talk in captivity. In the only successful case of getting a response, the scientist used a modified replica of “the rack” found in the Tower of London, to stretch the feet of the barbegazi, until it screamed: “Zooterkins! Gadzooks! Potzblitz! Gadsbudlikins!”
After the demise of the creature, a linguist read the transcripts, believed to be gibberish, and explained that these were perfectly normal swear words from the Renaissance period.
* Foubergé, A.S. 1779: “An Examination of the Usage of Language by Subhuman Creatures” from Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 69. London: R
oyal Society, 721–748
—25—
Gawion glided in front of Papa, on the narrow track between the mountain stream and the forest. Next to Brownie’s deep paw prints, large indents, not much deeper than their own shallow marks, made a pattern in the snow—the footprints from Tessa’s and the elf hunter’s surface-walking metal feet.
They stopped, and, after crawling up on Papa’s back, Gawion snatched a lump of fur from a branch.
Papa sniffed it, inhaling deeply while shaking his head.
“I refused to believe it,” he said. “I hoped she was merely injured…” Then he ordered Gawion to go home, while he searched near the human habitats. “Await my whistle, when the brightest stars of Ursa Major are above Polaris,” Papa called, on his way down the track.
Gawion was so downcast he did not even protest. He shuffled up between the trees, staying in the forest high above the earth mounds. He wondered what he was supposed to do if Papa did not whistle at the agreed time: Search for him or hide?
Through the dark, needle-covered twigs, he saw a faint light shining. At least Tessa had stopped whistling and calling his name. A weird gurgling sound—a cross between a bubbling spring and an animal in pain—reached him. It was unlike anything he had ever heard, and it seemed to be coming from the humans.
Curious, he crept nearer, promising himself to stay in the shadows.
The elf hunter had disappeared. Rolled up like a coloured snowball, Tessa lay on the ground, convulsing, and emitting the strange loud gurgles. It must be very cold after so long in the snow. Suddenly it howled like a wolf. The howl meant nothing in Wolfish, but it was clearly a cry of pain. Had the elf hunter attacked Tessa? Or was it all another trick, to trap him with?
Gawion inhaled, filling his nostrils with night-forest air. His nose only detected a weak metallic taint. Much less than the smell from that chain. The human had saved them from starvation—he could not just leave it to die in the cold.