My new clogs padded the dirt. They were clunky and made my feet look huge, but I had never liked wearing shoes more. Arne had been strict about us wearing them everyday. He didn't want to deal with us tracking dirt into the house again. It never bothered me because I found it fun to clack whenever I stepped on harder surface.

 Speaking of Arne, he had not been saying much to me lately. Our nightly chats were often brief or skipped. I couldn't understand why our friendship had to end simply because I would not marry him.

 "Stay near me, Clara." I called behind her as we went deeper through the trees and shrubs. We were foraging for berries to put in a pie. Every minute or so, a tit whistled a pattern of tones above us. Clara knew what berries were fine to eat, so we picked those. We picked blackberries and elderberries. We went deeper through to find some raspberries to balance out the intense sweetness of elderberry.

 “It’s quite a season for berries, isn’t it?”

 Clara was acting strange with me. Whenever I spoke to her, she would return a straight smile, tip her head away from me and then say, "I want to keep walking."

 She had done it a few more times before I had to remind her, "Clara, I don't think we should be so far from your father. He will wonder what's taking us so long."

 Clara halted in her pace. Her fair strands swaying with the slight breeze. I had never seen a girl so still. "Clara?" I stepped up to her. As I came closer, I saw the wet side of her face.

 "We can’t go back. I haven't shown you the lingonberries."

 "Clara, are you crying?"

 "There's so much I have to tell you about. You have to stay. If we go back, you'll just be cross. You are always cross with Fa. And when you're cross, you want to leave.”

 "Clara, is that what you think?" I crouch to her and hold her skinny arms. "I would never be so cross to leave."

 The girl’s face was tight with sorrow she panted as she said, "Freja, you love us don't you?"

 "Of course I love you."

 "And Fa?"

 Of all the questions I could have been asked, this I could hardly bare to answer. But she needed to believe me when I said I would stay. "Yes, him too."

 "Then... why won't you be my mor?"

 I felt a needle prick my heart. "Did he tell you?"

 She shook her head, "I heard. I heard you tell him no by the tree."

 I looked downward. "I have my reasons, yndling. But it has nothing to do with you." I touched her cheek, "You are a perfect little angel. You understand that, right?"

 "I don't understand. Ida has a mor. Why not me?"

 I didn't know what to tell her. For she did deserve a mother. The best mother the world could offer. She broke free of my caress, threw off her clogs, and ran deeper into the cluster of trees. "Clara!"

 "T'isn't fair!" her small echo carried.

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 I attempted to prompt myself after her. But as I took one brisk leap, my clogs gave out, causing me to slip. I hit the ground with my hands, realizing why Clara had left her shoes. So I did the same and proceeded in the direction she fled.

 The little one had done well to hide. I couldn't make out the sight of her blue dress, patterned in tartan. It was nearing noon. Arne had already been behaving in a short manner towards with me. I could not return without his only daughter.

 But at some point, that was no longer a worry. My worries had changed. Her blue dress was in sight. The top half spotted with yellow juice that dripped from her mouth. Her petite form rested stiffly against a bush of round red berries. Berries she held also in her trembling hand. A mix of fear and agony shot from her eyes.

 I understood quickly that she was not enjoying her snack. Her name was shrieked from my lips, frightening birds to scatter in the treetops. I ran to her. She was squealing a plea. I knew she was trying to tell me something but her mouth would not open. "Oh, Clara, what have you done?"

 I noticed an obscure figure moving somewhere behind the trees. I wondered if it was Arne. But Arne would have shown himself immediately. Somewhere, hidden in the deepening shadow, for a mild second, I believed I'd seen two eyes. Two green eyes, just before the sun cast a beam before me and the slight vision beyond had dematerialized into the void.

 Clara sqealed again, drawing me back to the situation at hand. I slipped one hand under her head, the other under her legs. Clutching her body to mine, I brought her out of the wood. Trembling myself because I knew Arne would not be able to handle this sight. The sight of his own daughter swinging limp in my arms.

 He must have seen me coming from the window because out of the house he charged to meet me halfway to the door. He expressed an anxious look. I returned a dire one. He took the girl from me and brought her in to his room. He laid her gently on his bed. "Clara, dear. What has happened to you? Well, can you not speak?" He put his hand on her tiny chin.

  Clara's eye dripped with pain as he slowly pulled her chin down. There was a popping sound of plausible disjointment. The girl weeped. Her mouth snapped shut with his release.

 My chest was pounding inside. I had never known a condition like the one I was witnessing. "What is it, Arne?" I calmy pleaded.

 His face remained hovering over his girl. "Lockjaw," he muttered. "What kind of berries were she near?"

 I gulped down my worry, answering in a wary voice, "They were tiny, red berries."

 I knew by the way he turned his face from his daughter that my information offered no hope. He stood up and stepped out of the bedroom. I held up a hand at the seething girl, before following him.

 I found the man looking as though he was at wit's end. His forehead was pressed against the wall with his arm resting above his head. His chest released a weary pant. I could see that between his squeezed eyes was prayer.

 "Arne? Wh-What are you suspecting it was?"

 "I don't suspect. I know. There's only one thing she could have eaten."

 "What thing, Arne?" His delayed speech was driving me mad.

 The ominous word passed from his lips, lips I'd tasted sweetness from to now taste bitter truth, "Baneberries." He turned to regard me with deep and dire eyes. "They are poisonous. She knows that. Yet she ate them anyway."

 I heaved while growing faint, "Poison— you don’t mean? No. No, you're not saying she could... Arne? Arne what are you saying?!" I begged him to tell the truth I wanted to hear. That this pain would leave her soon, and she'd be alright.

 Arne was covering his face with his enormous hand. Dropping it thereafter, as his fingers slipped down from his eyes, his wrathful gaze rested on me. "You were supposed to be watching her."

 I felt the words cut me. "I was. But then she ran from me."

 He approached me menacingly. "That’s why you follow after her."

 "I did. You weren’t there so you wouldn't know."

 “Your right. And had I been there, this would never have happened! Because clearly I cannot trust you to protect me datter from something as simple as berries!”

 His bluster flung a drip of spit against my cheek. I wiped it and stared sternly at him, "Is this how you would have spoken to me had I become your wife?"

 I captured his subtle flinch. He said to me, "How you've managed to make this about you is beyond me." He stepped pass me to sit in the kitchen and... give up.

 But I am not one to give up. "I'll make this right, Arne. I promise I will." He had already ceased hearing me, his head bent over the table. I remembered the eyes I saw in the wood. Someone had been watching us. And it couldn't hurt now to find out who.

 I gave the pitiful cottage one more adoring gaze. The people in it had my heart. I needed to find help, and there was some imbuement of hope there in the wood. Once the scene was taken in to the fullest, I left out the door.