I found myself sitting next to Hanna, with Timo on the other side of her. He was looking directly at me, the first time he had looked at me with interest since he had taken up with Izabela, though I didn’t think romance had anything to do with it. Both of them were looking at me, in fact, as though I were some celebrity landed among them, as though I were really Max’s wish about Heidi Klum made flesh. If it had not been for the driving desire to wish for my father’s recovery I would have got straight back out of the car again and fled, because the way they were eyeing me made my skin crawl.
Jochen was in the seat next to Max, I noted with relief. He had flipped down the sunshade and I saw that he was watching me in the vanity mirror. The expression in his eyes was unreadable. I looked away.
As I settled back in the seat I could feel the bulk of the envelope and the money stuffed inside my jacket. I had not dared leave the money anywhere, so I had decided to carry it with me.
All the same, I wished I had not had to do so. I was as conscious of it as if I had been carrying a concealed weapon. If the others discovered I had ten thousand euros in cash in my inside pocket there would be a hailstorm of questions, of pleas, of begging. Do this for me now, Steffi. Just do this. Just do this one thing. I rubbed the front of my jacket with my hand, feeling the hidden bulk, but I said nothing.
I huddled in my corner of the seat, my face turned to the window, and brooded. The outskirts of the town flashed past, then the road which led to the Eschweiler Tal. We left tarmac and began to bounce along the gravel track which led into the heart of the Tal. I said nothing and the others were silent too. I could feel the tension in the way Hanna held herself on the seat next to me.
We rumbled along until we reached the spot where Max always left the car. While he was applying the handbrake I had already opened the door and was climbing out. I looked at the blue skies, and the flourishing green of the wooded hillside. I did my best not to look at my friends, though I was aware of their gaze on me.
‘C’mon,’ I muttered, and made for the trees.
As we struggled our way uphill through the undergrowth, I could almost hear the others’ thoughts, their unspoken urge to ask me for things, held back only by their respect for my father’s situation. They don’t think of asking Rote Gertrud for anything any more, I realized. I’m the witch now. I wondered what they would say if they knew what I had in my inside pocket.
The climb uphill was warm work and we were all perspiring by the time we reached the ruined house. Hanna entered first and as I climbed over the stones which littered the entrance I could see she already had the carved box in her hands and was holding it out to me.
I took it in my own hands and opened the lid. The curse on Achim Zimmer had gone. Of course, I thought. I had spoken to Achim the day before. So far as I knew, nemesis had not fallen upon him and ended his slimy existence, but I supposed that his days were numbered. No way to take back the curse. In spite of all Achim had done, of all I feared he would do, it was still somehow shocking. Self-defence, I told myself. There was no other way.
Someone pushed a pen and paper into my hands. No one said a word, but I could feel them all hanging over me with expectation as I carefully lettered my wish. There was absolute silence as I finished writing, folded the paper very carefully and placed it in the box, placed the box on the ground.
Then it all fell apart.
Max – I should have known it, as Max could never suppress his own impulses for more than about half a minute – was the first. Bringing out another piece of paper, holding out the pen again, wheedling, blustering, his mouth grinning but his eyes serious.
They must have taken my silence for acceptance because the next moment they were all clustering around me, blurting out their wishes, trying to attract my attention. Still, I might have pushed them away, simply refused, pleading upset over my father’s condition – if Jochen hadn’t lost his head and grabbed my jacket.
I think he only meant to make me listen, but as I pulled away the lining parted and the envelope fell out, scattering banknotes.
There was a stunned silence. Then: ‘What’s this?’ That was Max, of course. I snatched up the envelope and the loose notes, cramming them back inside my jacket, but it was too late.
‘The other wish – it worked,’ said Hanna, and all eyes momentarily turned to her.
‘What other wish?’ said Timo incredulously. His eyes were round, his gaze fixed on my hand as it disappeared into my jacket with the money.
‘Ten thousand euros,’ said Hanna, and a shockwave ran through the group.
I heard a collective intake of breath and it was the sharp ebb of the tide that precedes a tsunami. The next instant they were all over me, clamouring, almost shouting in my face in their excitement, hands grabbing at the front of my jacket, at my sleeve: Steffi, you’ve got to – Steffi, please – Steffi – Steffi – Steffi –
I was suffocating, surrounded by jostling bodies, the faces of my friends turned to gargoyles by avarice and cupidity. I tried to push them away, but they came crowding back. Max was waving a piece of paper at me. Someone else nearly had my eye out with a pen they were flourishing in my face. I began to panic, thinking I would be stifled in the crush, the way that Gertrud Vorn had been stifled all those years ago by the choking smoke of her own burning.
I gave a hoarse scream, struck out, and then I was stumbling back, turning, out of the ruined house, flinging myself into the undergrowth, running downhill faster than I would ever had dared, had not utter panic lent wings to my feet.
The others would come after me, I knew – ostensibly to comfort me, to calm me down, but all the while throbbing with the need to get back to the nub of things, which was the overwhelming urgency for me to gratify their desires, to make their wishes for them. And their curses.
I could hear Hanna calling me. I dodged to the right and cut away through the trees, stooping low. In my dark jacket and jeans I would be hard to spot, or so I hoped. My breath was ragged, my heart thumping wildly. The overhanging branches seemed to loom at me, trying to grab me with jagged talons of twigs. I skidded to avoid them, then stumbled onwards, swiping at them with my arms.
I was not following any particular course, driven simply by the blind desire to put space between myself and the others, but all of a sudden I burst out of the undergrowth on to a narrow path. At the same moment I realized that there was someone standing on the path with their back to me: a tall, lean figure in black.
My crashing exit from the undergrowth did not go unmarked. A second before I would have thundered into it, the figure turned and I saw a face I knew. I was practically in his arms before I could stop myself.
‘Oh, my God,’ I said. ‘Julius.’