And then I realized something that brought a little chill to my heart. Today was Wednesday; they were leaving tomorrow, Thursday, and staying, said the count, for a few days…which meant that they’d be at the hunting lodge on All Souls’ Eve, Friday night—the very night when Zamiel the Demon Huntsman was said to ride through the forests, driving every living thing before him. Scorched hoofprints were found after his passing, they said, and animals dead of terror, with no mark upon them….

But I couldn’t tell Charlotte and Lucy that. There’re things best kept quiet, for fear of making them worse. So I said nothing—for the moment.

Chapter Two

There was one person who would have enjoyed Count Karlstein’s hunting lodge, and that was my brother, Peter. He was eighteen now, a fine shot, a keen hunter, and he knew the forests as well as anyone alive. Too well, perhaps; for he knew where the finest game was to be had—and he had it, and was arrested for poaching. Poaching! In old Count Ludwig’s day they’d have been more indulgent—but they managed the forests better then, and game was more plentiful. At any rate, Peter was under lock and key at the police station and my poor mother was nearly frantic with worry. I wasn’t; Peter was cheerful and tough, and a few days on bread and water wouldn’t hurt him. But the worst thing was, he’d lose his chance of entering the shooting contest—and he’d set his heart on that for years.

This was no ordinary shooting contest. For one thing, it wasn’t held regularly every year or even every five years; it was held only when the Chief Ranger of the Forest retired. And, of course, there was no ordinary prize: a few gold coins and a scroll and a medal pinned on by the Mayor—but you’d get all that and more if you won any of a dozen shooting contests up and down the valleys. No, the prize here was nothing less than the Rangership itself. The winner of the contest had the right to take charge of every living thing in the forest, whether it grew in the ground, ran over it, or flew through the air above it. And Peter had set his heart on trying for it; and now he was in jail. There wouldn’t be another shooting contest for years and years, maybe. And poor Ma, at the Jolly Huntsman, was in despair—especially as the place was filling up with men and muskets from far and wide.

I begged Frau Muller for an hour or two and went down to the village to give her a hand.

And found—sitting at the kitchen table, grinning all over his silly face and digging his great fingers into a pigeon pie—no less a criminal than my poaching brother!