The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set)

by Coleman, Christopher

  He swallowed the water and then pushed the glass away, gulping down several frantic breaths, trying to fill his lungs as fully as possible before the coughing resumed.

  “I’m dying, Anika,” he said, “and...I don’t want...” was all he had managed before the hacks started again.

  “You’re okay, Papa, don’t talk,” she whispered, stroking the back of his head. She glared back toward the officer who was standing alone, away from the oasis of furniture, awkwardly watching the domestic scene play out as if he’d stumbled upon it accidentally.

  “My father is not well. He should not be here!”

  “Your father is here of his own will, Mrs. Morgan,” Stenson replied. “In fact, it is your father who...”

  “No!” It was Marcel. He stood, precariously and with some effort, but much quicker than Anika would have thought possible given his condition, his chest bowing forward, his shoulders high and receded. “No. If she is to hear it she will hear it from me.”

  “I don’t want her to hear it, Marcel. There is no purpose served by it. That was never the plan and it shouldn’t be the plan now.”

  “I want her to hear it, Oliver,” Marcel said, his words soft now, a plea for understanding.

  The officer shook his head disapprovingly, but remained quiet.

  Anika’s father closed his eyes for what must have been twenty seconds, and then breathed deeply, exhaling comfortably, the coughing fits mercifully over for the moment. “I know what has happened to you, Anika,” he said finally. “I know where you’ve been.”

  Anika shook her head in a combination of confusion and denial. “What?” The word was barely audible, and the tears in Anika’s eyes felt poisonous.

  “I know all that you’ve been through. At that cabin.”

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through! How could you know! What is happening here? Papa, what did he mean that you want to be here? What does that mean?”

  Anika looked back and forth between the two men, hoping the pieces would suddenly come together and the answers to her questions made apparent. She watched as Officer Stenson walked toward her and set the plate on the table beside the couch. The dish contained an assortment of cheeses and surprisingly fresh-looking bread, but Anika’s appetite was lost.

  Officer Stenson said nothing more as he strode to the back of the warehouse and disappeared through the interior door.

  “I’m trying to tell you, Anika,” her father continued, “I’m dying. Soon. I can feel it in my chest and hear it in my cough. You know it as well as anyone. You can hear it too. And you’ve seen how I’ve rotted over the years.”

  Anika cringed at the word choice.

  “You know I’m dying. You do. But the problem is my girl, I am a selfish man, and I don’t want to die.” He paused, and his eyes widened just slightly before saying, “And I don’t intend too.”

  Marcel sat down again on the couch, this time easily and controlled.

  “I had always hoped, Anika, and at times even prayed, that as the years piled on me and my body began failing that I would accept death as everyone does, as people have done for thousands of generations: ideally, with grace, but if not grace, then at least concession.” He paused, calculating the words. “But once I learned of it, of the miracle, and the truth of what it meant, I...”

  He stopped suddenly, recognizing the frenzied crescendo of his voice. The volume and tenor reminded Anika of a carnival barker.

  “I could never unlearn it, Anika,” he continued slowly, “I could never not try.” He paused again, and this time stared intently at his daughter. “That is where you come in.”

  The words drifted in the room, each molecule of air now saturated with the solution to the riddle of why Anika’s father was sitting before her in a warehouse at the end of the world. Anika shook her head in disbelief, the tears now streaking steadily.

  “I don’t understand,” she lied, “what are you saying?”

  Marcel’s look was rigid, but his voice had the tone of kindness, “You know what I’m saying, Anika.”

  “But why? Why me? And how could you have...It was just an accident. I wandered into the woods. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense!”

  “Sit down, Anika, the story is a long one.”

  “I don’t want to sit down!” Anika screamed, now teetering on hysterics, but her father’s look was fierce, and one Anika had known since her earliest memories. It was a look that, even under the circumstances, she’d been conditioned to obey.

  She moved backward to the chair and sat, waiting for her father to begin the story of why her life had been shattered.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Gretel stared at Odalinde, who was now seated in the kitchen, her shoulders and chin high, her back stiff against the chair. Gretel’s hand was still firmly wrapped around the door knob, her expression mixed with fear and confusion.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Odalinde, but I really had plans to row today. I...”

  “Sit down, Gretel. Please.”

  Odalinde’s stare was hypnotic, and Gretel could see in the woman’s eyes that whatever she had to say was not insignificant.

  “It’s about your mother.”

  Gretel relaxed her hand and let it slide from the knob, the feeling of urgency now replaced with one of anxiety. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Gretel walked to the kitchen table and sat down next to Odalinde.

  “And I want your brother to hear this too.”

  Gretel quickly called for Hansel, who emerged from his room moments later. Seeing his sister and guardian seated together instantly made him curious, and he too sat down, facing his sister from across the table.

  Hansel and Gretel stared unwaveringly at Odalinde, waiting for her revelation. Gretel could sense the woman’s nervousness as she looked to the floor, studying her thoughts and trying to figure where to begin.

  “I’ve wanted to talk to you both for quite some time now. And it’s taken me much longer than it should have. And before I begin, I just want to say I’m sorry—for many things really, but most of all I’m sorry for that. For waiting so long.”

  Neither child said a word in response to this preamble, and Odalinde continued.

  “I’m going to tell you why I’m here, why I came here at all, to your home.” She paused a moment, waiting for any interruptions that may come, and hearing none said, “and to tell you what I believe happened to your mother.”

  “Mother?” Hansel said, the word coming off his tongue as if only generally familiar to him.

  “That’s right, Hansel, your mother.”

  “What do you mean ‘why you came here?’” Gretel backtracked, “you’re a nurse, our father was...is ill.”

  Odalinde’s mouth turned down in a guilty frown, and she sighed deeply through her nose. “Yes Gretel, but there’s more. Much more. Now I want you both to listen to me carefully.”

  She stopped and looked back and forth between the siblings, making sure she had their attention.

  “What I’m going to tell you must not be discussed with anyone. Not with your friends, not with your teachers, or even the Klahrs. No one. You’d be wise even to keep it from your future husband or wife. Do you understand me?”

  Hansel nodded, rapt with intrigue.

  “Okay,” Gretel said, “but why are you about to discuss it with us?”

  Odalinde smiled. “Because Gretel, you’re at the center of this story. You were always to know.”

  “Know what?” Hansel asked.

  Odalinde began.

  “YOUR MOTHER WAS BORN during a time of enormous upheaval and discontent in the Old Country. The kings and emperors of the assorted lands—men who had known the greatest power ever held over humankind—were abruptly and successfully being challenged by their people. The uprisings were fleet and merciless, and within a decade each had watched helplessly as his power receded to the past like broken waves. In their place chaos and strife emerged.”

  Marcel was settled
back on the couch now, motionless, his eyes barely slits, his mouth effortlessly and eloquently unleashing the story to the ether.

  “Most in the nobility and clergy were killed during this time, or banished to the wilderness to die a much lonelier death, one filled with cold and hunger. Those of the tradesmen and peasant classes fared only slightly better though, since once their rulers fell, they were essentially leaderless and naturally distrustful of anyone who tried to assume a position of authority. And this distrust fractured not only regions and villages, but neighbor and family as well. The ultimate result was a continent of borderless nations and mob rule.”

  Anika hung on every word, both fascinated by her father’s fecundity and frightened by the delusions that had apparently infected him. He’d obviously been sick for a long time—and very sick lately—she’d never been in denial about the truth of that, but it was a sickness that until now had seemed not to affect his mind. Where did this depiction of her mother’s childhood come from? Old kings and emperors? Peasant classes? He was describing a world hundreds of years before her mother was born.

  “But there were other peoples in these lands,” he continued, “groups that existed outside of the classes—villages whose families could trace their ancestors as accurately and distantly as the pharaohs of Egypt. They lived beyond the kings’ reaches mostly, in the hills and forests or other grueling geographies abhorred by soldiers and uncharted on most maps of the time. These were places thought to be strategically and culturally irrelevant, and so were largely ignored by leaders and forgotten by historians. Even tax collection was considered folly in such lands, since the cost to reach them was often far more expensive than what could be seized. Those clans that made their homes in these regions were considered at the time to be primitive, tribal, unlearned in the modernity of things like architecture, weaponry and fashion; and indeed, by the standards of the ruling classes and those beneath them, they were comparatively uncivilized in those subjects.

  “But in many areas they were genius, intensely curious of the world, scientifically sophisticated and meticulous in their calculations. And perhaps more importantly, they were literate, and therefore able to pass on their discoveries not only through speech and pictures, but through the invention of hundreds of unique written languages, each containing uncommon alphabets and symbols, languages that were frequently known only to the tiny society in which they were formed, where members often lived and died having never spoken a word to a person outside the territory. It was in a place like this that your mother entered the world.”

  “That’s enough!” Anika screamed, rising to her feet once again. “You’ve gone mad, Papa! I won’t listen anymore!” She stifled the sob boiling in her chest and breathed deeply. “I don’t understand, Papa, your mind was well when I left you, your memory as nimble as ever. What’s happened to you?”

  Marcel gave a patient look to his daughter and offered a subtle gesture for her to sit, a command she obeyed with a sigh of aggravation.

  “I won’t argue that I’m not insane, Anika, to you the evidence must seem quite staggering at the moment. But what I’ve told you, and everything I’m going to tell you, is true.”

  “You’re speaking of Mother as if she were born in medieval times! What...what are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you now, Anika. If I may continue?”

  Anika gave a permissive nod and listened.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I’m not here to nurse your father,” Odalinde began, “not primarily anyway.”

  Gretel studied the woman’s face, which seemed now to have become softer, more innocent. But Gretel’s wariness remained, and she even left open the possibility that this conference was a trick, though intuitively she knew it wasn’t. “I don’t think I ever believed that,” she replied, “I don’t think I’ve believed most of what you’ve said since you came here.”

  She could feel Hansel’s eyes on her, wide and disbelieving, but Gretel’s eyes stayed fixed on Odalinde.

  “I’ve tried not to lie to you, Gretel, to either of you. I’ve been brusque at times, I realize that, but...”

  “Why are you here then?” Gretel interrupted, not interested in rationalizations or anything resembling an apology.

  “To put it concisely, I’m here to protect you.”

  “Protect us?” Gretel snorted, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Protect us?” She repeated the phrase, as if offering Odalinde a chance to rethink her word choice.

  “I know that seems odd to you right now, but...”

  “No, Odalinde, it doesn’t seem odd right now, it actually seems insulting and deranged right now! Protect us. How have you protected us? By starving us? By threatening us?”

  “I’ve never...”

  “You’ve done nothing to protect us! Hansel and I have been protecting ourselves since the day father got sick. And every day after. And you coming here has made it all worse!”

  Gretel stopped abruptly and stared at Odalinde, waiting for her to fire back with shouts of her own, or perhaps with one of her moderately concealed threats. Instead the woman stayed silent, her hands folded in front of her as if encouraging Gretel to finish.

  “Why is my father still sick?”

  Odalinde nodded, as if understanding this question was inevitable. “Your father is a good man,” she said, “and I’ve grown very fond of him.”

  “Very fond of him? Have you grown fond of him? You’re marrying him! I should hope you’re fond of him!”

  Odalinde looked away. “Yes, well, we’ll need to discuss that as well.” She looked back to Gretel and waited for another barrage, but Gretel had, for the moment, said her peace. Odalinde then leaned forward conspiratorially. “But to answer your question, I’m keeping your father sick to protect you from him.”

  Gretel’s face again twisted in anger and disbelief at the woman’s brazenness, and all the blood in her body seemed to hurtle toward her head, flooding her brain with the energy it would need to defend her father from this villainous slanderer.

  “As I said, Gretel,” Odalinde added, holding up an open hand in anticipation of Gretel’s eruption, “your father is a good man. A good father and husband. I know that. And so do you. And what you also must know is, that above all else, he loves you both. Very much.”

  Hansel was now crying, the combination of fear and love and anger too much for him to contain all at once. Gretel put her arm around his shoulders and offered a reassuring shush.

  “Then why...” Gretel could no longer arrange her thoughts into a rational sentence.

  “But your father is also weak. Weak emotionally, temperamentally, and, increasingly so, physically. He would never withstand the temptation once offered. There are few men who could, and your father is not one of those men.”

  “Temptation? What temptation?” Hansel asked, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s a very long story, Hansel—centuries old—and most of it doesn’t concern either of you. Or me for that matter. But some of it does. Some of this story involves you both quite directly. So I suppose the place to start is at the beginning. Or at least at the beginning of when it matters to you.”

  “And when is that?” Gretel asked.

  “It’s the day I met your grandmother,” Odalinde said.

  She paused a beat and tilted her head slightly forward, narrowing her eyes, making sure the children understood that what she was about to say was true, and that she, Odalinde, recognized the preposterousness of how it sounded.

  “Long before your mother was born.”

  “BY THE TIME YOUR MOTHER was born the elixir was already discovered and, as your mother recounted to me many years ago, it was spoken of throughout her early childhood, though apparently none in her particular village knew the precise recipe at that time. Or even if the stories were true.”

  Marcel seemed adrift in his chronicle of an era to which he’d never belonged; Anika thought he looked almost melancholy, sad that
his experience of the time would never be more than vicarious and obscure.

  “It was a bit of legend at first I suppose, the elixir, but most believed in it, believed at least that there was some truth to it, though the full extent of the power was surely doubted.”

  Anika’s skepticism was unshaken, but she listened carefully, resigning herself to hearing the tale. Besides, she’d never known much about her mother’s youth, her schooling and adolescence and such, and even considering the setting in which she now found herself—imprisoned for the second time in as many days—there was comfort in the idea that even a portion of what her father was telling her might be true.

  “It was not until your mother reached sixteen or so that the magic was revealed to her explicitly.” Marcel paused and stared intensely at his daughter, as if considering whether to continue with the revelation.

  Anika could see in her father’s eyes that he believed every word he was saying. And that his madness was rampant.

  “The magic came in the form of a book, written in a language spoken by so few people that the number could have been measured in dozens. And among those who spoke it there were even fewer who could read it. Your mother was one who could.”

  The excitement had returned to Marcel’s voice, signaling the impending climax to his tale.

  “It was true magic, Anika. Of the kind you’ve always read about in stories. It was, in fact, the unearthing of the most quested possession since the birth of humankind. Truly! And not one whose value was found only in the sentiment of religion or culture, like the Holy Grail or some Pharaoh’s sarcophagus,” Marcel grimaced at the insignificance of such things, “but one of true power. Life unending, Anika. Immortality.”

  Anika sat stone-faced, disinterested, a complete opposite reflection of her father’s face across from her, which was alert and grinning maniacally, his eyes carefully searching his daughter’s face for the look that conveyed, due to the marvel of his story, that she now understood his motives and forgave him his actions.