Waldeinsamkeit Can Wait

Another year, another solo trick-or-treating trip, Hilda thought, stepping out her front door. She almost turned around to say goodbye to her parents, but she knew better by now. Her father was snoring on the couch, empty beer cans scattered around; her mother was staging another screaming match behind closed doors with… well, Hilda stopped keeping track a while ago.

So, she sighed, primped the flowing skirt of the princess costume she’d sewn herself, and carefully made her way down the stoop as the screen door creaked shut behind her like some rickety old demon.

From the looks of it, things were just getting started; only a few other kids were out, which meant the best candy hadn’t been nabbed yet. The sun was setting, though, so she had to hurry if she wanted to secure her stash of sweets. Hope Mrs. Bärwald has those weird German jellybeans again. Dad ate half of them after I fell asleep last year, and Mom ate most of what was left after I woke up.

She waved to a few kids she recognized from school—not friends, exactly, but they tolerated her. That was enough, even if they didn’t wave back.

Soon, though, the less tolerant kids came out to play.

“Hey!” Michael Rawls shouted as she spun away from Mrs. Bärwald’s candy bowl, packed to the brim with those jellybeans she’d been craving—carefully wrapped in beeswax bags, like always. They had a bitter aftertaste, so they weren’t too popular when sweeter treats were on the menu at most other houses in the neighborhood. “Your mom make that dress?”

“Hilda made it herself, and it’s as beautiful as she is!” Mrs. Bärwald shouted back. “Where’d you get your costume, Party City?”

“Well… yeah,” he said, shrugging as he exchanged confused looks with his goons. All three boys wore matching skeleton costumes, cheap plastic skull masks held in their free hands—presumably so they could gorge on candy as they wound their way through the neighborhood. None of them carried Halloween bags, but Hilda could see their pockets were stuffed.

Mrs. Bärwald laughed, rocking back in her chair, her witch’s hat tipping so far back Hilda thought it might topple off. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me: Hilda designed and created this costume herself. She has actual talent, unlike your little posse.”

The grin that crossed Michael’s face then reminded Hilda of the hyenas she’d seen at the zoo during the one class trip her parents ever allowed her on. “You bully all the kids who pass by?” he asked. “Because aside from Hilda, that’s all we do: pass by. No one else wants to stop for that gross German garbage you call candy.”

Hilda gasped. Mrs. Bärwald gave out this candy in memory of her husband, a German immigrant who passed away 10 years ago—on Halloween night, as it happened. It might not have been very popular with the other kids, but Hilda thought it a lovely way to honor his memory.

She turned to Mrs. Bärwald, expecting the worst—but as with thinking of saying goodbye to her parents, she should’ve known better by now. The woman stood, towering even taller than usual if you counted the witch’s hat. Michael and his gang had been laughing it up, but her height put a damper on their jollity. Then, without warning, she took a single jellybean and, with perfect aim, slung it right at the center of Michael’s forehead.

Bullseye, Hilda thought with a smile.

The boys scampered off, yelling something about how they’d tattle, but Hilda hardly heard them over the sound of Mrs. Bärwald’s raucous laughter. “Right between those prissy little eyes!”

Catching her breath, the old widow took her seat and handed Hilda another bag of jellybeans. “Back in the day,” she said, “I could’ve hit ‘em all before they had a chance to blink. Dart-throwing champion, didn’t you know. Still got my aim, but these old bones don’t allow for speed anymore. Ah, well.” She patted Hilda’s handcrafted crown. “Enjoy the candy, honey. And those weren’t just words: the dress really is beautiful.”

Blushing, Hilda performed her finest curtsey, which she’d spent all of last night perfecting after putting the finishing touches on the dress.

“I’d curtsey back, but I almost knocked my knees out just from standing up. Word of advice: don’t get old. Ever. My Christof had the right idea, dying on me so soon.” Mrs. Bärwald sighed, smiling—probably for Hilda’s benefit. “Happy Halloween, kiddo. If you see those losers again, whip out a jellybean and they’ll run packing.”

Hilda waved, trotted down the steps, and headed the opposite direction the boys had sulked off in.

***

About an hour and three hundred pounds of candy later, Hilda hefted her hand-sewn Halloween bag, modeled after her late cat Winkles. Getting full, she thought. Maybe three or four more houses, then I’d better head home. Not that home was something to look forward to, but she didn’t exactly have any other place to go.

Part of her dreamed about living with Mrs. Bärwald. Yes, she was old; yes, she smelled a little funny; and yes, she spoke her mind in jarring ways. Anything was better than home, though.

Anything.

These thoughts in mind, Hilda hardly paid attention as she trotted down the steps from the final house for the night. She bumped straight into someone’s back.

No. Not just someone. Michael. “Ah, Princess! I was hoping to bump into you again. Looks like you beat me to the punch!”

His friends—Kent Olivier and Rahul Agarwal—laughed dutifully.

Not dealing with this, Hilda thought. She started walking away—

Then jerked backward as Michael gripped her arm tight, causing her to drop her Halloween bag. The candy spilled everywhere, Kent and Rahul scooping everything up like the vultures they were.

Except for, of course, Mrs. Bärwald’s jellybeans.

“You’re gonna pay for what that old hag did to me,” Michael whined, voice cracking. He started dragging her toward the woods at the end of the street.

Kent actually had the decency to look up. “Hey, Mikey, we don’t gotta go that far.”

“Yeah,” Rahul mumbled from the ground, where he was still rifling through Hilda’s candy. He was pickier than Kent, only nabbing what spoke to his sweet tooth. “Let’s just take her candy and go.”

“No,” Michael said. “I’m tired of Her Royal Highness thinking she deserves special treatment just ‘cause she can’t talk.”

Rahul kept digging through the candy, but Kent followed as they crept closer to the edge of the trees. “Mikey,” he said, “it’s not her fault she’s mute. C’mon. Let her go.”

“You know ‘mute’ isn’t the politically correct term, don’t you, Kent?” Michael spat as they reached the tree line. “You wouldn’t want to offend the princess, would you?”

She struggled, twisting and punching and kicking—until Kent tackled them both like the football player he was, knocking her and Michael into the woods.

“Damn it, Kent!” he yelled. “Are you nu—?”

But Kent wasn’t there. Neither was Rahul. Neither were the houses, the street, the trick-or-treaters.

It was just them. Them and the woods and the dark.

***

“W-Where are we?” Michael whispered, perhaps not wanting to disturb the quiet blanketing everything for fear of what might lurk beneath. “I mean, one second we were in town, then Kent tackled us and now we’re—”

Hilda shushed him with a finger. They were still on the ground after Kent’s charge, and the sequined gloves she’d sewn were caked in the grime of the forest floor.

“Blegh!” He shoved her away, frantically wiping his lips with the collar of his skeleton costume. “You got dirt in my mouth, stupid!”

She stood, ignoring him. She couldn’t ignore the fact that he was right, though: they were lost.

Living with her parents meant fresh air was necessary to survive, so she spent a lot of time in the woods at the edge of town, skipping stones in the little pond and watching birds flit between branches. It was especially beautiful now that the leaves had turned.

But this… this wasn’t the same place. The trees and their leaves had a dark cast—not quite colorless, but severely muted, like they were trapped in time. The pond was nowhere in sight. And the birds?

Well. There were no birds. Nor squirrels, chipmunks, beetles—

“Hey.” Michael again. She spun toward him; he was still sprawled on the ground for some reason. “You think we’re… lost, or something?”

Ooh, how she wished (in that moment, at least) she was hard of hearing and not just unable to vocalize. She shook her head, exasperated.

“No? You know where we are?”

Well, it was her fault for shaking her head, and his fault for not picking up on social cues. She shook her head again, and he didn’t ask any more questions that made her wish she hadn’t gone trick-or-treating at all.

His silence allowed Hilda to listen, as she was so used to doing. She listened as the trees spoke to one another in creaks and rustles and groans. Were they gossiping about their visitors? Maybe this experience was as weird for them as it was for her and Michael.

Speaking of, she heard him stand up behind her. She half expected him to start blaming her for their current predicament, but right then, he looked like exactly what he was: a scared little kid. Not that she wasn’t scared herself—her fear was simply dressed as curiosity for Halloween.

Whatever Michael had been about to say, he was cut off by the sound of padding feet. So there were animals here?

Wait. Something was… familiar about the animal’s gait.

Winkles? she thought.

Impossibly, that’s exactly who it was. She smiled so widely it hurt as her beloved tabby came trotting from between two trees.

“What the heck?” Michael said. “Is that Winkles?” Many moons ago, he and Hilda had been friends. They were neighbors for years, often playing together after school. But Michael’s family moved out in second grade—which was, incidentally, around the time Winkles succumbed to a tumor—and he found new friends, like Kent and Rahul. After that, everything changed between them. Regardless, he knew the cat right away, if not by sound then by sight.

Hilda made no effort to hide the tears streaming down her face. She pulled Winkles close, snuggling him as she once had every night before going to sleep.

Then, she made the mistake of really looking at him.

He… had no eyes.

She balked, but didn’t drop him—just set him down as quickly as possible and backed away. Michael seemed to have the same realization, gasping behind her. There was a sort of dim light above the trees, though neither of them had spotted the moon; it hadn’t been bright enough, however, to notice Winkles’… impediment from afar.

The cat meowed, curling his tail around the stem of a pale white flower with impressive dexterity. He picked it, bringing it over to her, but she kept backing away, backing away, backing away.

Footsteps racing behind her. Michael running.

Not the worst idea he’s ever had, she thought, and, lifting her skirt, followed as fast as her feet would take her.

Thankfully, this princess preferred sneakers.

***

As far as they could tell, Winkles—or the ghoul parading itself as Winkles—had stopped tailing them some time ago. That hadn’t stopped them from running.

And getting even more lost.

Michael came to a halt first, breathing hard; he played baseball, and so was more equipped for short bursts of speed than long sprints. Hilda was equipped for neither, collapsing in a heap and clutching her stomach as she gasped for air.

“Hey!” Michael rushed over, dropping to one knee. “You okay?”

She nodded… then shook her head.

“Yeah, well, none of what’s happening is okay.” This time he stood, leaving her on the ground. “We need to find our way home before something worse than a dead cat finds us.”

To her surprise, he reached out a hand. To her even greater surprise, she took it.

“Listen, um… about earlier.” Michael kicked at some leaves. “Before the woods, I mean. I overreacted. You know I’m a bit of a show-off in front of the guys. Kent was right, though: I didn’t need to go that far. It’s…” He swallowed, quickly covering his blush with his skull mask, which he’d somehow held onto all this time. “It’s my fault we’re trapped here. I’m sorry.”

Hilda simply smiled at him, hands on her hips. From the way he abruptly about-faced, she guessed his blush was spreading like wildfire.

“Come on,” he said, mustering as much dignity as a teenage boy could. “Let’s try to get our bearings, or something.”

Before she could stop herself, Hilda took Michael’s hand. He didn’t pull away.

As they meandered through the seemingly endless woods, hoping not to come across the Winkles-thing again, Hilda didn’t just listen to the silence: she absorbed it. Was this how people felt around her? Yes, her speech disability wasn’t her fault, and silence hardly made her uncomfortable. This, though, was different—like something or someone had purposely designed this forest to unsettle her. She wished she could relay these thoughts to Michael; she knew the old him was still in there, not buried so deeply as he liked to pretend.

She glanced at him, trailing slightly behind but still holding her hand. They’d been thick as thieves back in the day—them and Winkles. The shenanigans they got into together…

“What’s that smile for?” Michael asked.

Facing front, she shook her head.

Michael sighed, removing his skull mask. “Y’know, I regret not learning sign language when we lived next door. I don’t really have an excuse, but it just feels silly now. Even if we don’t really talk anymore—or, well, you get me.”

She stopped, gripping his hand a little tighter.

“You… must get lonely, huh? And jerks like me don’t help.”

She thought of her parents. Of her long days at school, interacting only with her teachers and interpreter. Of how empty the house felt after Winkles died.

After Michael moved away.

“Aw, don’t cry,” Michael said, not covering his blush this time. “I’m sorry I said anything. Come on, let’s—”

Footsteps again. Much heavier than a cat’s.

Hilda wanted to hide; she felt Michael’s compulsion to do the same through the quiver of his hand. But they were both far too frightened to move.

This is it, she thought as the thing approached. Devoured by some monster in a haunted forest. Not like the princesses in fairy tales.

It was tall. Dark. Breathing smoke through its nostrils.

Or just… smoking?

“I don’t believe it,” Michael said, voice uneven. “M-Mr. Bärwald?”

Removing the cigarette from his mouth, the man seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see him. Assuming he saw them at all, for he, like Winkles, had no eyes. “Why, yes,” he said in his weighty German accent. “Yes, I am he. And you are?”

Michael looked Hilda’s way, as if seeking approval. She nodded.

“Well, you p-probably don’t recognize us because you, um, died 10 years ago, but I’m Michael Rawls, and this is Hilda Janggok.”

Recognition sparked even before Michael finished talking. “Ah! That’s right! You were knee-high when last I saw you, yes,” Mr. Bärwald said. “But your faces, they are the same. It’s like no time has passed for me—which it hasn’t, I suppose.” He took another drag of his cigarette, then pointed to it. “Normally, I would snuff this out around Kinder like yourselves, but the dead have few comforts, yes? It may be what killed me, but… details, details.”

Clearing his throat, Michael asked the question on his mind as much as Hilda’s. “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Bärwald, but we have to ask: Do you know the way out of here?”

The man nodded sagely, puffing smoke—which, thankfully, was as ethereal as he was. “That I do, Herr Rawls, that I do. I cannot take it myself, but I go there often, to be that much closer to my beloved Marta.” With a skip in his step, he strolled right past them. “It’s about time I visit again, anyway. Come, come, Kinder. This way, yes.”

Either he’s leading us out, Hilda thought, or he’s leading us to his lair, where he’ll suck our brains dry. We don’t have much of a choice, though…

Michael seemed to have the same thought. They nodded in unison.

Then, they followed the spectre of a man long gone.

***

Mr. Bärwald was as good as his word despite his lack of eyesight. He led them to a spot where, between two thin trees, they could see the town—now dark, though the glow of streetlamps made it seem like daytime compared to the woods. “Run along, now,” he said. “Waldeinsamkeit can wait.”

“Huh?” Michael asked, mirroring Hilda’s confused expression.

In response, Mr. Bärwald patted them both on the shoulder, sending a strange warmth through them. Aren’t the dead supposed to be cold? Hilda asked herself.

Without another word, he gently pushed them through the portal, and…

And…

Why was Hilda standing alone with Michael, of all people, on Halloween night? And why was her Halloween bag on the ground, empty except for Mrs. Bärwald’s jellybeans?

Michael looked at her, the hyena sneer he normally wore replaced by a sort of calm understanding. She didn’t quite get why, yet she knew: something had changed between them.

She signed to him: “Goodnight, Michael. Happy Halloween.”

Michael smiled, and signed back: “You, too, Hilda.”

***

Christof watched the Kinder walk home. “Yes, Waldeinsamkeit can wait,” he said to himself, turning away. “Hopefully for a long time yet.”

He stomped out his cigarette, pulled out a bag of Geleebonbons wrapped in beeswax, and thought of his Marta.