A Bitter Settlement

The music of the brass bands drifted in through the open window, loud and relentless.

A cool wind swept through the room, heralding not only the approaching end of autumn, but also the end of Max’s standing in the village, or whatever little of it remained.

The following day was the Kehraus Festival.

At exactly noon, this year’s winners of the marksmen’s contest would bring the festivities to a close with a shared salute.

He could already picture it vividly:

Hans’ smug grin, and those of the other villagers, when he would enter the festival tent and approach their long table.

How their pealing laughter would drown out the music the moment he had to admit that he hadn’t managed to catch a Wolpertinger.

But the humiliation would not end there.

Fulfilling his end of the wager would only swell the waves already rolling toward him, until they finally broke over him.

Max sighed audibly and pressed the pillow over his face as his thoughts turned to Theresia.

When she had heard of the bet, she had burst into tears, or so people said.

Since then, she had avoided him.

During mass, she had averted her gaze, and at the market, where he usually met her at the same hour each week, she had not appeared at all.

Once, late at night, he had thrown pebbles at her window, hoping she might show herself.

But when there was no response even after long minutes, he had finally given up.

“Even a Wolpertinger was easier to catch than reaching her…” he murmured into the pillow. “Does she really think I made all this up just so I wouldn’t have to marry her?”

He already knew the answer.

“Of course she does… And after what I said in the forest… I can hardly blame her.”

His thoughts drifted back to his own words.

To his longing for discoveries and distant places, for technological marvels and innovation, everything Theresia had met only with incomprehension and a shake of her head.

Max tore the pillow from his face and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Suddenly, another face flashed through his mind.

Not Theresia’s.

Well’s.

He rubbed a hand over his face, thinking of her humanoid form, so strangely alien and yet familiar.

The fur. The wings. The antlers.

The emerald-green eyes.

Unbidden, his mouth twisted into a crooked half-smile as he recalled her peculiar manner.

“Never would have thought Wolpertingers were so... headstrong.”

A sudden fluttering sound tore him from his thoughts, and he looked toward the window.

Max jumped up and stared at the sill.

“Could it be…?”

The fluttering grew louder.

A dark shadow fell across the room.

And then it landed directly on the ledge.

A wood pigeon.

Max stared at the cooing bird in disbelief for a moment before sinking back onto the bed with a sigh.

“How foolish of me…”

And so, the long hours of the night relentlessly went on.

***

The smell of beer, frying fat, and sweat-soaked linen hit Max before he had fully entered the festival tent.

It was almost noon, and his head throbbed dully from lack of sleep.

He felt strangely light nonetheless, almost hollow, as though the night had already taken everything from him that could still hurt.

And some part of him had already come to terms with the fact that the hoped-for miracle would not occur, and that he was about to lose everything he had bet on.

For a while, he had considered simply running away.

Leaving everything behind.

I would never have convinced Theresia to come with me anyway, he thought. Why submit myself to humiliation when there was an easy escape?

But his pride would not allow it.

He had proposed the bet. He had agreed to the stakes.

If I run now, I would never again be able to look at myself in the mirror, he concluded.

When he finally stepped into the tent, the air inside was warm and stifling, heavy with voices, music, and the dull thud of countless footsteps.

The brass band was playing, people were drinking and laughing everywhere, but it all sounded muffled, as if he were underwater.

Max walked slowly toward the long table where Hans and the others sat, exactly where he had expected them to be.

Conversations fell silent. Faces lifted.

Max stopped.

His throat was dry when he spoke, but his voice barely trembled.

“I… I don’t have a Wolpertinger…”

For a moment, nothing happened.

Hans, who had been watching him from the instant he entered the tent, took a sip from his mug, wiped his mouth at leisure, and looked at Max as though he were only now noticing him.

“Pardon?” he asked loudly, leaning forward slightly. “The music is rather loud. Could you say that again?”

A soft murmur rippled through the rows.

Someone at the edge of the table grimaced. A tavern maid briefly lifted a hand to her mouth.

Max felt the weight of their gazes and the pressure in his chest, but he did not retreat.

He drew a deep breath.

“You’ve won, do you hear me!? I don’t have a...”

The words went no further.

With a sudden jerk, the tent flap at the entrance flew aside, and a stocky figure nearly stumbled over the threshold.

Mud splattered, a few mugs clinked as the man hauled himself upright.

“Wait!” he shouted hoarsely, out of breath, his face flushed with excitement. “Is it too late?! The boy was right, I tell you, he was right!”

A ripple of astonishment passed through the tent.

“…Hunter Kuno?” Max whispered when he recognized him, disbelief in his voice.

He had asked him days earlier about how one might catch a Wolpertinger, but otherwise had little to do with the man.

Heads turned, conversations died away and even the brass band struck a sour note before falling silent.

“I’ve got one! A real one!” Kuno hoisted a rough cage triumphantly into the air, draped with a cloth. Something inside jerked and shifted, alive and restless. “Caught it last night!”

Max’s heart hammered in his chest.

For a fleeting moment, the people around him vanished.

There was only the cage. The cloth. The movement beneath.

Well.

The thought struck him so suddenly that he grew dizzy.

Hope flared.

But alongside it came something else.

A resistance deep in his chest, as though he did not want her to be caught.

And yet… some shabby, weary part of him hoped that she was.

“Here!” Kuno stepped up and shoved the cage into his hands without ceremony.

The weight dragged at his arms. “It’s yours. You can thank me later!”

The thing inside shifted again.

“How’d you catch it?” someone called from the end of the table.

Kuno waved it off as if it were nothing.

“Oh, easy enough. The tried-and-true method. Sack, mirror, candlelight, and salt.”

Max’s thoughts tumbled over one another.

Salt. Mirror. Candlelight.

Unbidden, he thought of Well’s furious tirade after he had tried that very same nonsense.

A murmur passed through the crowd while eager faces leaned forward.

Hans was standing now as well, eyes narrowed, his lips curled into an expectant smile.

“Well then,” he said quietly. “Let’s see it.”

The tent fell silent as the music ceased completely.

One could have heard a pin drop.

Max’s fingers closed around the edge of the cloth.

His breath came shallow, and he felt the stares, the pressure, the seconds stretching thin.

Then he pulled the cloth away.

For a heartbeat, he did not understand what he was seeing.

Then he recognized it.

The far-too-broad body. The short legs. The bulging eyes.

A pug.

A small set of antlers was stuck crookedly to its head, and along its sides hung a few glued goose feathers, attached to a harness strapped around the dog.

It let out a single, disgruntled bark when it caught Max’s gaze.

For a moment, there was absolute silence.

“THERE’S YOUR WOLPERTINGER!” Kuno bellowed.

Then he, and the entire tent, burst into roaring laughter.

Mugs were raised, hands slapped tabletops and someone let out a shrill whistle.

Hans did not laugh loudly, but broadly.

“…good thing you made it in time, Kuno!” he snorted.

Max let the cage sink slowly.

A sigh escaped him, quiet and barely audible.

And in all the shame, all the humiliation, all the pealing mockery, he felt something that surprised even himself.

A tiny spark of relief.