Encounter in the Moonlight

“Damn it!”

The mossy ground clung damp and loamy against his cheek, a cool forest scent filling his nose.

His ankle throbbed as he pushed himself upright, boot brushing the gnarled root he’d tripped over.

Panic rose, then eased when he spotted the faint glow of his oil lamp in the grass beside him.

He picked it up and turned the wick higher.

“Lucky me,” he muttered. “I’d never find my way out of this godforsaken forest again…”

He raised the lamp toward the gnarled oaks ahead.

Their interlacing branches formed an arch that, in the darkness, looked like a portal to another world.

“Here…” Max whispered softly, almost reverently. “This is where it happened…”

His thoughts returned to the last full moon, almost exactly one month earlier.

The first time he had stepped through that twisted gate.

Together with Theresia.

***

“Would you finally explain to me what this is all about?!” she snapped, her voice irritated as her dirndl snagged yet again on a branch.

Max walked ahead of her, lighting the path.

His voice sounded excited, almost euphoric, as he hurried deeper into the thicket.

“We need a place where we can speak in peace.”

A tearing sound echoed through the night air as Theresia freed herself from the branch, followed by a horrified cry.

“Oh no, my skirt! I’ve had this for less than two months.” She sighed. “Isn’t this far enough now?”

But Max pressed on, instinctively following the tunnel formed by crossing branches.

“Just a little farther.”

Grumbling and far from reassured, she followed until the tightly packed oaks finally thinned and a small clearing opened before them.

A gentle trickling could be heard from a nearby stream.

The moonlight shone so brightly that it glittered on the water and bathed the sorroundings in a silvery glow.

“…A glade?” Max murmured as he stepped forward, Theresia stumbling after him.

“That's enough, I won’t take another step. You will tell me now what this is about. We are engaged, Maximilian! Things like this give people reason to...”

But Max grabbed her hands and pulled her close.

“Theresia, listen to me. Do you truly mean to spend your whole life in this village, never seeing the wonders of the world?”

Theresia’s eyes widened, a strand of her golden hair fluttering across her forehead in the faint breeze.

“M-Max, what are you saying?”

“I’m talking about the great cities,” he continued. “Paris. London. Vienna! Places filled with light and strange machines.”

He held her shoulders.

“Something is stirring beyond our village, Resi. The world is moving and we could be part of it!”

But she only shook her head.

“You would run off like a foolish child? Your apprenticeship is nearly done, my father even put his name to you!”

Max’s voice softened, grew quieter.

“Have faith in me, Theresia. At the Polytechnikum in Vienna they teach mechanics and machine engineering. The fees are high, but if I work as a day laborer and you find work as a maid, we could...”

“A maid?!” she interrupted angrily.

He hurried on. “Just for a while! Until I...”

“Enough!”

The word cut sharply through the night.

“We have a future here. One our families laid stone by stone. One that isn’t vague and uncertain like what you’re suggesting.”

“Resi, I only meant...”

Her voice was trembling now.

“I won’t hear another word of it!”

She took a step back.

“Take me home. Now.”

He wanted to answer, to explain, but one look at her expression told him it was hopeless.

They stood there in silence for a moment, only the soft murmur of the stream and the distant call of an owl filling the glade.

Then something rustled in the underbrush.

Theresia flinched.

“Did you hear that?”

Max paused, listened briefly, then forced a smile.

“Just a hedgehog or a deer, nothing that means us harm,” he said quickly, lifting the lantern a little higher.

Theresia’s fingers clenched in the fabric of her skirt, but she grit her teeth and shook her head.

“I just want to get out of here.”

“Resi, please,” Max tried again, stepping closer. “If you’d just listen to me one more time...”

She snapped the lantern from his hands, the glass clinking softly as the light swayed between them.

“Alright then! I’ll find my way back on my own if you refuse to come to your senses.”

She lifted her chin and turned away, but before reaching the edge of the forest, she turned back once more.

“Maybe...” She swallowed. “Maybe this engagement was a mistake from the very beginning.”

She vanished among the trees, until only moonlight and the ripple of the stream remained.

Max stayed behind, rubbed his hand over his face, and sighed.

Moments later, the rustling came again, louder now.

Max spun around.

A shape detached itself from the shadows of the oaks along the stream bank.

At first, he saw only movement in the darkness.

Then it stepped into the moonlight:

Antlers rose from its head, finely branched like a stag’s.

Long hare ears twitched above a body covered in dense brown fur, while folded white wings lay along its sides.

The creature lowered its head to the stream and lapped the water, slow and careful.

Max barely dared to breathe.

“That… that's…”

Without thinking, he took a step forward, and the drinking stopped at once.

The creature lifted its head.

For an endless moment their gazes locked, Max’s wide, disbelieving eyes and the creature’s cold, glowing green ones.

“A Wolpertinger…”

The creature froze at the sound of his voice.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then its ears snapped back and its mouth twisted open, baring sharp white teeth.

A deep hiss crawled from its throat, vibrating through the night.

For a frozen instant, Max couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.

The Wolpertinger tore itself from the ground and straight at him, its wings lashing.

His mind went blank.

And he ran.

Branches tore at his face as the trees spun and closed in around him.

“This can’t be...” he gasped, still running.

Behind him came the sound of wings once more, then fading back into the forest.

***

The memory faded as Max stepped into the moonlit glade again.

His chest tightened as he set the lamp by the stream, his hand already reaching for the coarse linen sack at his shoulder.

He emptied it, arranged the few items in the lamplight, and braced the opening with a dry branch.

Next, he took out a small hand mirror and laid it carefully inside the sack, angled so it reflected the interior completely.

Finally, he lit a candle from the oil lamp and placed the flickering flame directly in front of the sack’s opening.

Last, he took his small pouch of salt and gripped it tightly.

Then he withdrew, pressing himself flat against the damp ground at the edge of the glade.

If the old hunters’ stories were true, this was how it would be caught, Max thought.

***

The minutes stretched on.

Only the soft murmur of the stream and the rustle of leaves in the wind kept him company.

Eventually his eyelids grew heavy, and his head slowly sagged to the side.

Then came a rustling and he jerked upright.

Something moved between the oaks.

It stepped into the moonlight.

The Wolpertinger.

Its green eyes reflected the candlelight, its hare ears twitching as it tilted its head.

It paused for a moment when it noticed the trap, then hopped closer, as the light seemed to draw it in like a moth.

It sniffed, lowered its head, and placed one paw into the sack.

Its gaze fell on the mirror, eyes wide as it stared at its reflection, as if recognizing something it didn’t like.

As it was halfway inside the sack, Max burst from the bushes and lunged forward.

Before the creature could react, he yanked the sack up and began pouring the salt inside.

A shrill, piercing scream filled the clearing.

The sack thrashed violently, nearly tearing from Max’s grip, as he struggled to keep it closed.

Pain flared up his shoulders, his fingers slipping as the weight inside the sack dragged him a half step closer to the stream.

Silence fell.

The sack hung heavy in his hands.

No sound. No movement.

Max panted with a weak smile on his face.

“I did it…” he murmured. “I’ve caught a Wol...”

But before he could finish, the sack began to convulse again.

Stronger now.

More violently.

The fabric stretched, bulged outward, as if something inside were growing.

A sudden jolt flung Max backward.

He lost his footing and fell headfirst into the stream.

When he sputtered back to the surface and opened his eyes, someone was standing before him.

A figure, taller than before, its white wings flapping agitatedly.

The sack was still over its head.

Cursing and groaning, it tugged at the fabric before finally tearing it off.

Antlers rose proudly between long ears.

Dark brown hair fell in wild, wavy tangles around a face lightly covered in fur.

Grains of salt clung to it, sparkling in the moonlight.

It crossed its arms over its chest, tapped the ground with one of its hind paws, and leaned down toward Max, green eyes blazing with fury.

Its mouth twisted.

"What in the woods is your problem, huh?!"