"What do you say we take the rest of the day off and go walk by the river?" asked Katja one afternoon a few weeks later.

Spring was in full bloom, and even though the windows were thrown open in her workroom, the warm April day was too inviting to stay indoors.

"That sounds wonderful!" agreed Wolf.

Katja put away her things, then she and Wolf made their way across the sun-warmed courtyard and out the open door set squarely in the tall stone wall surrounding the castle. Wolf darted forward, running with his nose along the ground, then stopped, sniffing the air before trotting back to her, eagerly smelling every flower or weed they passed.

At one point, a large black and yellow butterfly fluttered over his head, and he and Katja both stopped to watch it. When it landed on his nose, Katja laughed at how he went cross-eyed in his efforts to look at it. The creature eventually took to the air again and continued on its way, but Katja didn't miss how Wolf gazed wistfully after it, his eyes following it until it disappeared.

While the surrounding land didn't have the same stark beauty as in winter, even Katja could appreciate the lush greenery and evidence of life bursting from every corner.

Wild grapes grew along the outer castle wall, creating their own improvised trellises with the aid of stone and plaster. The grass leading down to the river was thick and green, and pot-bellied bees and gossamer-winged dragonflies darted past.

Along the riverbanks, cattails and reeds swayed in the current, and birds called out to one another, occasionally diving into the water and reappearing with a minnow in their beak. A blue heron paused its hunting, curving its sinuous neck as it eyed Katja and Wolf suspiciously, eventually deciding stillness was preferable to searching for new hunting grounds.

A breeze filled the air with the scent of honeysuckle, tinged with the smell of the evergreens marking the edge of the Black Forest on the other side of the river.

Katja and Wolf walked slowly along the river's edge, Wolf occasionally sticking his nose into an interesting looking hole or cocking his ears at some distant sound. Katja tipped her face towards the sun, then, looking around to make sure they were alone, she spoke to Wolf, keeping her voice low.

"Was your home inside the forest very different from this?" she asked.

Wolf sniffed a clump of clover before replying.

"It wasn't so open," he said. "The trees were much closer together. I didn't grow up near a river, but I learned to swim in a nearby pond. There was more stone and moss and everything seemed...more intense, somehow.

"The colors were brighter, but the darkness was also thicker. The stars were incredible, but it was often difficult to see the moon through the trees, so we'd go to an overlook above a valley and lay under the full moon during the warmer months."

Wolf's childhood was everything Katja wished hers had been, full of happy memories with loved ones and never wondering if you were going to be left out, certain you would always be included, satisfied with your place in your community. Her eyes lingered on the water lapping against the stone-strewn bank.

"I wonder how different the Schwarzwald was when you lived there compared to what it is now," she mused. "It's hard to imagine witches and Nichts living together in peace."

"I went into the necklace while witches were being driven from the forest," nodded Wolf. "I have to say, though, I'm not surprised the Waldkonig ultimately drove everyone from his domain. He's not the type to take anyone disagreeing with him lightly. Given what I've heard about him, of course," he added.

He and Katja fell silent, and she studied the trees just beyond the shimmering river. They were so close, but at the same time, they might as well have been a world away.

A nearby splash startled her, and Katja watched the ripples left by a jumping fish, expanding outwards and forming larger and larger circles that only stopped when they reached the shore. Was that how it would be with the Schwarzwald? Would the Waldkonig keep expanding the forest until he encountered a boundary he couldn't cross, a barrier he couldn't overcome?

Was there even such a thing?

Wolf swiveled his ears back and forth.

"I'd like to ask you some questions about being a witch," he said, "but I can understand if you don't think I need to know any more about that subject than I already do."

Katja glanced at him, surprised at just how long it had been since she'd thought of him as the groBe böse Wolf or the Witch Killer of the Schwarzwald. It had taken a while, but they'd done more than simply learn to coexist...they'd managed to become friends.

"What would you like to know?" she asked.

"When did you first realize you had an affinity for metal?"

Katja told him the story and promised to show him the iron heart later, still kept safe in her old trunk beneath her bed.

"Are affinities always passed down from mother to daughter?" Wolf asked.

"Sometimes," replied Katja. "It's not uncommon for a child to have the same affinity as her mother. But it's also not considered shocking when a child has an affinity no one else in the family has; if anything, there's a great deal of excitement."

"Do you know what your mother's affinity was?" asked Wolf, and Katja smiled proudly, warmth spreading across her chest.

"She was a metallurgist—like me," she replied. "According to what I've been told, she was a researcher, though, whereas I'm more applied and hands-on. She was making great strides in understanding the alchemical properties of metals and how they could be combined with one another before she left the castle."

"That's amazing," blinked Wolf, clearly impressed. "Does every witch have just one affinity? Or can you have more?"

Katja's mind suddenly supplied her with a most unexpected memory—she was sitting in the garden, on the final day of Affinity Testing, one of her small fingers pressed against the leaf of a violet as the flower thanked her for healing it.

Katja shook her head, as much to clear her mind as to answer Wolf's question. "No, every witch only has one affinity. I was told it's Nature's way of making sure no single witch is too powerful."

Even as she said the words, though, part of her wanted to reach down to the nearest plant or flower and try to communicate with it.

But suppose she could—what would that mean?

Even if she somehow managed to be the first witch in history with two affinities, it couldn't be a good thing, and she didn't want to be singled out for something beyond her control and sent away from the Hexen or treated as even more of an oddity than she already was.

The answer to her dilemma continued to be the same, even all these years later—either she'd imagined everything, in which case there was no point revealing her delusion and making herself look ridiculous, or she really did have a second affinity, in which case there was something wrong with her, and there was no point in talking about something she couldn't change that would only make her more of an outsider in the coven.

Katja and Wolf continued walking, talking about this and that, and before Katja realized it, they were standing next to the wooden bridge that formed the only way across the Neckar River for miles in either direction.

Of course, a strong swimmer could make it across the wide river, but what the Hexen feared coming for them wouldn't be swimming.

Katja stopped near the bridge and let her eyes travel to the trees just a few yards away on the other side. Something inside her felt so called to them, she nearly ran across the bridge and threw herself into the lengthening shadows. Surprised by the intensity of the feeling, Katja forcibly tore her eyes away from the forest and focused on the river instead.

"What's the closest you've ever been to the Schwarzwald?" asked Wolf.

"This," replied Katja. "Standing right here."

Something inside her urged her forward, and before she realized what was happening, she'd taken a step onto the bridge. The wood creaked as her foot came down, and she placed a hand against the railing, steadying herself, even though she wasn't sure why she was walking forward.

She took another step, both feet now high above the ground, supported only by the wood of the bridge.

"We don't need to go any farther," assured Wolf.

"I know," said Katja, even as she took another step forward.

A few steps later, she and Wolf were standing in the very center of the bridge. The water thrummed steadily beneath them, and it was odd to be standing over something moving, something that wasn't solid the way rock or dirt or clay was.

The bridge rose upwards in the middle before sloping down on either side, giving Katja an even better view of the edge of the Schwarzwald.

As a child, she'd believed the trees had looked basically the same all year round; now, having spent so many years living on the edge of the forest, Katja had learned to notice the subtle differentiations brought about by the seasons.

The pine trees stayed green all winter long, and although they didn't shed their needle-like leaves in one great show every fall, they did shed and regrow leaves over the course of the year, making them sometimes appear to be missing clusters of needles.

Beech trees also held onto their leaves throughout the winter, as if loathe to be seen in public in a state of undress; however, their leaves changed to bright shades of yellow, orange, and rust, spatters of color amidst so much grey and green.

Oak trees, sturdy trunks supporting thick, wide-reaching limbs, also exploded into bursts of color during the fall, dotting the forest with unexpected pockets of gold and red until the cold winds of winter carried away the old and wilting leaves.

Katja recalled stories she'd read about the inside of the forest, supposedly full of gurgling creeks and hidden lakes, fungi that glowed in the moonlight, and boulders larger than a cow. She didn't think they were all true, of course, but she had no doubt things appeared that way in the woods.

Wolf stood beside her, nose in the air, and Katja gazed down the other side of the bridge, the side that would take her completely across the river, setting foot where she'd never stood before, where she wasn't allowed to stand.

"I wonder what would happen if I just walked into the Black Forest," she said. "Would the Waldkonig himself appear and finish me off or would there have to be some sort of trial?"

"Well, I doubt we could claim ignorance," replied Wolf, "given you're a member of the Hexen."

Katja nodded, her eyes suddenly fastening on what appeared to be a thin green rope looped around part of the bridge railing. Stepping closer, she held her hands against her chest so she wouldn't accidentally bump something she shouldn't.

"Wolf, look," she said, using her head to gesture towards the rail, where a bright green vine was wrapped around the post.

(Artwork by Free Photos from Pixabay)