Palm’s hunting blind was in a meadow that could only be reached by going through the forest. The forest was as black as the bow on a funeral wreath. Elsbeth peered into the darkness and longed for a bright, warm, sunflower shade of yellow.

At the forest’s edge, she hesitated one last time. On the one hand, going into the forest at night alone after Selma’s dream seemed like sending Death an invitation, like throwing herself into his arms. On the other hand, it would have been cheap of Death to take advantage of such an easy opportunity. On yet another hand, Death was now under enormous pressure, since he only had about an hour left to strike, and in such circumstances, people aren’t as choosy and are more likely to be satisfied with easy solutions. On top of that, the more she thought about it, the more trouble Elsbeth had coming up with any suitably dramatic kind of death, but she came up with quite a few that would count as an easy way out.

Elsbeth went into the forest; she did not want to go back on her decision.

She remembered that singing helped when you were afraid. Elsbeth sang the lullaby “The Forest Is Dark and Silent.” It was, in fact, pitch-black, but it was not at all silent. There was rustling and cracking on all sides: above, behind, in front of, and next to Elsbeth. Maybe it was the imps, who were afraid of the optician’s heat patch, which she still had on. She stopped singing because her voice sounded so lost, and singing the praises of a marvelous rising fog that, in reality, was not the least bit marvelous, seemed rather desperate to her. Besides, she was afraid of attracting or not hearing something.

Unfortunately, Elsbeth knew all about creatures you could encounter in the forest at night. She thought of the shrub woman, who emerges from the underbrush every hundred years with a basket on her back and wants to be scratched and have her hair deloused. Those who scratch her back and delouse her hair are rewarded with leaves of gold. Those who don’t are carried off.