Coquelicot climbed the root staircase into the woods and then dashed along the path, her heavy shoes thumped at each impact. It was all she heard, besides her ragged breathing.

Clomp, clomp, clomp.

She arrived in the nick of time at the forest's edge above the farm. The old man was shouting some last minute instructions at the boy, who led a donkey hitched to a small cart to the road.

It took her a minute to catch her breath, but then she followed him. She hid in the forest and behind bushes, imagining and practicing what she would say to him.

The boy continued on the main road towards the village. Towards Lessoc. She paced among the trees. Every time she had come with her mother, they had walked in the fields around the village, and not once through it.

"Never drink the water from the fountain, especially the basin, Coquelicot," her mother had whispered whenever they came close on their way to Bulle.

"Why not?" she had asked each time.

"No reason. The water is perfectly fine, I fixed it many, many years ago. Still, it's better if you don't drink from it."

"How did you fix the fountain, Mother?"

"How does anyone fix anything, sweetheart? With love."

Although, sometimes instead of 'love' she said 'magic.'

From behind an oak, Cocot watched the boy go into a village house to make a delivery. While she waited, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck suddenly prickled. A cool breeze lifted, stirring the leaves and stickle bushes around her and a chill ran down her spine.

The wind. That was all. But she hunched her shoulders with apprehension. It was not the wind, or the nearness of the village with its perfectly fine fountain that made her uneasy. She was sure she was being watched.

Pretending to stretch and change positions, she glanced about, trying to spy the source of this feeling in the crowded underbrush and thick shadows of the forest.

There—behind and to the left, a heavier shadow was hiding in a knot of ash saplings. Whoever it was expelled a breath in a soft huff, and stomped with a hollow thud. The horse from the field, maybe.

Cocot was on the verge of creeping closer to see if it was in fact the animal when laughter from the village caught her ears. Children chased each other in between the houses and through the streets.

A shout and more laughter drew her out of the forest. Feet heavy, heavier than her thick shoes, she crept closer. When she arrived on the main street in between the first houses (there weren't that many), she was surprised to find it empty. The children were gone and there was no sign of the boy or his cart, either. She kicked at the packed earth and gravel, shuffling her feet. Making her way slowly up the street, she rounded a house and saw the fountain.

The fountain of Lessoc rose up in the middle of the open square like the rounded top of a church steeple. Cocot had never seen a fountain with a roof over it before. She took a step closer, one hand still on the last house, her fingers reluctant to lose their contact with the cool blocks of stone. Gathering her courage, she took another step into the square. She was thin and fragile as a down feather, tied to the ground by the weight of her shoes, and she inched forward, ready to run for safety.

The fountain seemed harmless enough. Flowers decked the round stone wall, and crowned the spouts in the middle. But something could by lying in wait, hidden, deep in the basin itself.

She edged up to the fountain's side, held her breath and peered into the water. The inside of the basin was filled with clear water, clean apart from bits of paper trash and flower petals floating on the surface.

"Never drink from the fountain."

"Why not?" she whispered to her mother's memory.

"No reason. The water is perfectly fine."

"What happened here?" she asked.

Dread seeped into her stomach, up from her feet, chilling her blood. There was a pit of snakes here, but she couldn't see it. She leaned closer, searching; the water that poured from the spouts deceiving in its bright, tinkling melody. She was thirsty, hot and tired. She would feel better if she splashed her face, drank from the spout, but mostly, if she could dip her hands—no, her whole body in the basin and float with the flower petals.

"Home free!" shouted a voice behind her.

She startled, jerking sideways as a boy pushed past her to tag the fountain.

"Home free!" cried a girl, tearing across the square and throwing herself at the fountain, too. The pair laughed and panted for a few seconds before the girl noticed Cocot staring at them. "Who are you?" she asked, flipping one of her yellow-blond braids over her shoulder and sniffing.

"Yeah, what are you doing in our village?" asked the boy who shoved his way in front of the girl. He was stocky and bushy haired as a pony.

"Are you playing a game?" Cocot asked instead of answering.

The boy humphed a yes. "Cache-Cache Béret."

Coquelicot recognized it as a sort of hide-and-go-seek. She smiled. "Can I play, too?"

Two more children, a boy and girl who were younger than the others stepped out of their hiding places and walked over, studying her. The girl with the blond braids moved to the center of the group.

"That depends," the blonde said. "We don't want just anybody in our village. Tell us where you are from, who your family is and maybe we'll let you play."

Before Cocot could answer, one last boy, the seeker in the game came running down the street to grab the younger girl.

"Touché!" he shouted. "You're it!"

"No, no fair," the little girl whined. "We aren't playing anymore." She pointed a grubby finger at Cocot.

"Who's this?" the boy asked. He seemed about the same age as the older girl, and his hair was trimmed short as a soldier's.

"My name is Coquelicot. I live in the valley, opposite the Moléson. My mother married into the Oberson family a long time ago. We have a chalet in the woods," Cocot said. Half truths and misleading information, but she didn't want them to know too much. They would surely tell their parents all about her. She chewed on her lower lip.

"Your mother married an Oberson?" the girl asked. "So who's your father?"

"Yeah," agreed the boy with the very short hair. He marched up to Cocot to stare down at her. "You don't look like you're from here. You look like...you look like an Italian." The way he said Italian made it an insult.

Cocot blinked in confusion, but before she could protest her innocence that she had nothing to do with Italians; the three youngest children started a taunting chant.

"Italian, Italian, you're an Italian!" they shouted over and over.

"But I'm not!" cried Cocot.

"Then what are you?" asked the blond girl. "Why is your skin brown and why are your eyes so dark, did you paint them? Only gypsies paint their faces and eyes!"

Gypsies were obviously worse than Italians. Her mother had traded with travelling gypsies several times, and Cocot tried to recall if they had painted eyes—like dolls in the store windows with their flat, dull stares, but they had had normal eyes in brown and hazel.

"Admit it, you put coal in your eyelashes, didn't you? Well, it doesn't make you pretty," said girl. She flipped her braids back and forth. "Only gypsies never brush their hair and let girls wear pants!"

"So tell us who your father is, gypsy!" said the boy.

"I don't have one," said Cocot. "My mother found me in the field. I was a poppy flower and she changed me into a baby girl with her last wish."

Stunned silence.

Peals of laughter burst forth from the two oldest children, followed shortly by the rest.

"Do you really believe that?" the short haired boy asked, laughing.

"Yes, I do," said Cocot. Of all the strange, wondrous tales her mother had told her, of fairies, goblins, witches and magic, the story of how her mother found her growing in the field was her favorite. And the one that rang with the most unwavering truth.

"You really are dumb!" squealed the girl.

"Dumb gypsy, dumb gypsy!" shouted the youngest three. The stocky boy darted forward to poke Cocot's arm and then leapt backward as though burned. He did it again.

It looked like a game to Cocot, but it didn't feel like one. She held still and pretended not to notice him dancing around.

Shoulders still shaking with laughter, the oldest boy leaned sideways over the fountain to drink from one of the spouts. Cocot gasped loudly, but he kept drinking.

"Are you sure the water is safe to drink?" she asked.

The children laughed.

"Don't you know anything?" asked the girl. "That's the fountain, of course it's safe to drink."

"Maybe she thinks he'll swallow the moon, like the horse," said the stocky boy. He put a finger in his nose and started digging.

"What do you mean 'swallow the moon?'" Cocot asked. "What horse?" The dark animal in the forest immediately came to mind.

"You mean you don't know the legend?" The blonde sniffed and shook her head. "It must be hard to be so dumb and ugly!"

"What's the legend?" asked Cocot, ignoring the insults. The girl stared at her as though she was something disgusting unearthed from beneath a pile of leaves.

"You want to hear the legend of the fountain?" the oldest boy asked, wiping the back of his hand across his chin.

"Yes."

The boy waved his arm once. "Hey! Shut up!" he shouted at the other children. "Many, many years ago—"

"Hundreds of years ago," the girl corrected him.

"Shut up, shorty!" the boy snapped. "I'm telling the story. Many, many years ago, a man in the village left early in the morning to do some selling at the market in Château-d'Oex. He was gone all day. On his way home that night, he met up with some friends he hadn't seen in years and they went to a tavern to drink, and he left his horse tied up outside. At midnight, he remembered his wife was waiting for him, so he rode back as fast as possible. When he got home, his wife yelled at him—like all stupid women do—and told him to take better care of his horse, who must be dying of thirst.

"So the man led the horse to the fountain and was letting him drink while he watched the reflection of the moon in the water. Just then—" the boy paused and opened his hands dramatically, "a cloud passed over the moon and the man thought his horse had swallowed it!"

"Typical dumb man," interrupted the girl.

"The next day," he continued, "the man told the village council what had happened, and they decided to build a roof over the fountain to make sure no one could swallow the moon on accident."

"That's the danger?" Cocot asked, more to herself, than the boy.

"It's just a story. No one really thinks a horse could swallow the moon," the girl said, twiddling a braid in boredom.

The youngest three children had lost all interest in Cocot and kicked a red rubber ball around.

No, that wasn't the danger her mother had warned her about. There had to more, something else to the legend. Cocot was opening her mouth with another question, when the sandy-haired boy from the farm appeared, donkey in tow, coming down the hill and into the square. Everyone turned to watch him.

***

Cocot has heard the Tale of Lessoc Fountain and it doesn't seem horrible at all. Why would her mother have so many warnings about it?