Hannah stroked her neck and pressed her forehead against Irmgard’s head. “Farewell, you wonderful unicorn!”
Then Hannah approached the water. “Frieda, how do I get back?”
“Mommy’s coming! Mommy’s coming!” The kids were jumping up and down and cheering.
“My dear Hannah, you could have done so at any time. You are still wearing the red slippers I gave you, aren’t you?”
Hannah looked down at the red slippers, the most comfortable shoes she had ever worn. “Yes?”
“All you need to do is to click your heels three times and say: ‘There’s no place like home.’”
Hannah looked up. “Is this a joke or something? I could have come back anytime?”
“Do you really think I would send you to a strange world, away from your little angels, without being able to bring you back at any time? What sort of lousy enchantress do you take me for?”
The children laughed as if they had known the entire time. So that’s why they never looked too worried! Torn between the urge to let fly at Frieda and join the kids in their laughter, Hannah put her hands on her hips. “You could have told me that earlier, Mrs.—”
“Oh, come now, just call me Frieda, dear Hannah.”
Hannah laughed. “All right, fine.”
She turned once more to Maximilian and gave him a wistful smile. He nodded in encouragement. There was nothing more to say, and it wasn’t going to get any easier. It took her all her strength to leave him behind, but at the same time, she longed to be home with her sweet peas. Hannah clicked the heels of her red velvet slippers three times—clack, clack, clack—and recited the words: “There’s no place like home!”
The next moment, she felt a sense of vertigo and held her hands to her stomach. She looked at Maximilian, who was smiling, and she saw that his contours were blurring. The surroundings turned into a swirl of forest colors, shimmering and glittering as if someone had strewn them with fairy dust. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was standing back in her living room.
“Mommy, Mommy, I missed you so much!”
Emi was the first to bound over to Hannah, closely followed by Leon, who fell into her arms and sobbed. “Mommy, you’re finally back!”
Even Marco came running over and joined the family hug. “Mama!”
Hannah’s eyes were filled with tears of joy, and she held her children close. “Oh, you three, I missed you all so much!”
They stood there for a while, and all that was to be heard was Leon’s quiet sobbing as he hugged his mother with relief. The other two were silent while their mother cradled them in her arms. She hadn’t felt so happy in a long, long time.
29
And now to you, Frieda!” Hannah said once the children had broken away from her after a while. “How could you send me without my consent?—”
“Oh, now first of all, calm down, dear Hannah. Didn’t you have a wonderful time there? And didn’t it do you good?”
Hannah was about to protest and fly into an indignant rage, to throw everything that had made her so livid back in Frieda’s face, when it occurred to her that her elderly neighbor was right. While the stresses of the past few days had caused the muscles in her arms and legs to ache and the balls of her feet to burn, she felt more alive than she had in a very long time, as though this fantastic adventure had freed her from the depths of sadness.
The kids were excitedly telling her about their days with Frieda, who was happily ensconced among the three of them and laughing at their high spirits. As Hannah watched her, she thought of Irmgard’s warning that this was a woman whom no one would willingly trust with their children. How time must have changed her.
Leon crawled onto Hannah’s lap and nestled himself against her. “Mama, you’re going to stay with us now, right?”
Hannah kissed him on the head and hugged him tight. “Forever, my love, forever.”
The next day, the doorbell rang early in the morning. Hannah struggled to get out from between her kids, who had slept with her. Even Marco had joined in, and the two little ones had snuggled close together and quickly fallen asleep.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Marco had asked the night before, with Emi and Leon’s deep, quiet breathing as the only accompaniment to the silence.
“Yes, sweetie. How about you?”
He’d nodded. “Do you miss that man? The prince?”
Hannah had been taken slightly aback. She had thought of Maximilian from time to time, but the children were so much more important. All that mattered was that they were together again.
