The Forest Lodge – Part 1: The Forester

The firewood appeared every morning at six, stacked neatly on the step, and Ingeborg never once saw who left it.

She was sixty-one, a retired schoolteacher, newly installed as housekeeper at the Waldhaus, a long timbered lodge in the Bavarian Forest, miles from the nearest village. The windows looked out on a wall of dark spruce hung with mist. The nearest neighbour, she'd been told, was a forester called Klaus Brandl who lived in a hut up the valley and did not speak to guests.

She set out a plate of Apfelstrudel on the step one morning, with a note: Thank you.

The plate was empty the next day. In its place was a pine cone, perfect and tight, and a sprig of blue gentian.

For a week, the gifts continued. A feather. A pinecone. A tiny carved bird. She left strudel, then soup, then a note: Please come in for coffee.

On the eighth morning, there was a knock.

He stood on the step, hat in his hands, a tall, lean man of sixty-six, with a weathered face, a close white beard and astonishingly gentle grey eyes. He wore a green loden coat and heavy boots. He smelled of moss and woodsmoke.

"Klaus," he said, in a rusty voice. "I am sorry. I have not been in the lodge in many years."

"Please. Come in."

He sat at the long kitchen table, stiff as a heron, cradling the coffee she gave him. She talked, to put him at ease, about the forest, the deer, the mushrooms she'd found by the stream. He listened, saying nothing. Then, slowly, he began to answer.

He told her about the trees. He had planted half this forest. He knew each oak by name. His wife had loved the woods; she had died eleven years earlier, and he had taken to speaking only to the birds.

"Can I ask you something?" said Ingeborg, softly.

"Yes."

"Will you come again tomorrow?"

"Green?" said Klaus, with a faint smile, a word from the moss.

"Green," said Ingeborg, startled and delighted. "Very green."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Mushroom Season.