“Yes. I received an invitation to the ball—which Frieda obviously arranged. Then she stuck me in this dress, gave me these shoes to wear, and conjured up a coach to take me to your castle. And somewhere in all of that, she muttered a spell, and I traveled through time.”
“What did she tell you about how to break the curse? What powers do you have? Why did she send you specifically?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have any magic powers, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She laughed halfheartedly, only to pause in amazement the very next moment. Before her lay the valley that led to the castle. Up in the heavens, the stars were shining, and together with the moon, they lit the path she’d taken to flee justhours before. “How can this be? We haven’t even walked ten minutes!”
“The forest is enchanted—I explained that to you.”
And in that moment, she believed it—she had found herself in an enchanted forest in another time or dimension. And there was no way back to her children through this strange, enchanted forest.
A breeze wafted against her calves, and she looked down. The skirt of her dress had been torn to shreds and only covered her scratched-up legs as far as her knees. The bear stared but then did the proper thing and immediately looked away. The thought flashed through Hannah’s mind that in his time, women only ever wore long skirts. How surreal was that?
“Now come... please,” the bear growled. “I would like to speak with my godmother myself. She must have had some reason for sending you here. I haven’t seen her since the curse first took effect!”
Hannah was listening intently. “Was your father also transformed?”
“No, I meant since the evening I first had that experience—the first time my father died and I was transformed. The curse should have actually struck my father. He was the one who offended the girl at that time. And yet I’ve been the one who has had to witness his anguished demise day in and day out.”
To have to experience the death of a loved one repeatedly—what a horrible thought. “I’m so sorry. It’s enough to witness the death of someone you love just once.”
The bear seemed to detect something in her voice, for he was silent and for a moment he looked at her in a way that gave his expression a human appearance. But that quickly disappeared. “I don’t even know how many times I’ve witnessed it. But I’ve made the most of the time. I’ve spent many years wandering off every morning, each time heading in a different direction andtrekking through the entire forest. I searched for solutions, for clues, for Mirabelle or my godmother. But I found nothing. And no matter how far I roamed the forest, it never came to an end.”
The prince had left even though he knew his father was dying? How could that be? When someone you love is dying, you stay by their side. That was only natural—she knew that from her own experience. How long had it taken her to leave her husband’s hospital bed back then, even though he had long since died? If the nurses and, ultimately, the doctor hadn’t forced her to leave the room, she would have stayed even longer. Leaving the dead meant accepting their death and moving on. At least, that was how Hannah had felt at the time. As soon as she had ceased to weep by Andrew’s side, she had turned off all the tears inside her and joined her children, who were waiting for her outside with a kindly nurse. She had begun her life as a single mother... to return to her husband’s side never more.
Then again, how awful to see your own father die multiple times—and to be turned into a brown bear every night! She would likely have done the same in his place. She, too, would have roamed the forest in search of answers.
“How did the other guests react when they realized you were stuck in a time loop? And what did your father say?” Hannah asked.
“I was the only one who remembered.”
Hannah looked up in amazement. He’d had to go through all this by himself? “What happened the night you were first transformed?”
“That night, my godmother, Friederike the Enchantress, came flying in while I was being transformed.”
A fleeting smile crossed Hannah’s lips. Her old neighbor could fly?
“She stood before me and cast a spell to delay the curse. She said she didn’t have the power to break it, but she would findsomeone and send them to me. To give her more time to do that, she cast a time loop spell for the day of my transformation. She explained that I would relive that day again and again for a hundred years. I would have to spend the night as a bear, but in the morning I would wake up once more as a human being. And the last time, on the last day of the hundred years, she would send someone to my side who had the power to break the curse and save me.”
“Why did she conjure a time loop? She could have searched for someone to break the curse while you were a bear.”
“Did you not hear what I said? She promised that when the final time arrived, she would send me someone who had the power to break the curse! That someone is you!”
“Me?” Hannah asked, putting her hand to her chest. “But I have no magical powers. I don’t know how to brew a potion or read the stars or do any of those magical things. I have zero interest in magic!”
“Then why did she send you? What’s so special about you?”
What sort of question is that? Men aren’t supposed to ask that kind of thing!“I...”
He ignored her stammering and looked up at the starlit sky. “And if you’re here now, then that means... that this is the last time. If we fail to break the curse now, then I shall remain a bear forever!”
An icy chill ran down Hannah’s spine on hearing the prince’s words.
“I need to speak with my godmother. She needs to explain all this to me!”
Hannah assumed that by “all this,” he probably meant her presence—and she agreed.
“And if you really can’t help to save me,” the bear added, “then I shall demand that she conjure you back! I promise you that!”
She glanced at him. Was he smiling as he tromped ahead with such resolve? Could bears even smile? Or was it her imagination? Her fear of him disappeared. He had come to defend her against the wolves, even if he only did it so she could save him. How strange. Here she had met a prince, and now she was the one who would have to help him. Where was the classic prince on his shining white steed, the one who rescued the lady in the beautiful dress? She smiled halfheartedly to herself and trudged along beside him.
