Gretel watched the taxi’s taillights disappear as it turned east from the driveway. Normally the car would have been visible for several hundred more yards as it sped from sight, but their farm fields had grown over wildly since she’d last been home, and the once maintained landscape was now blanketed by gorse and fescue.
Gretel suddenly felt terrified and alone, incapable. If something terrible had happened to the Klahrs, it would be she who was responsible for everything that happened to her and Hansel going forward. There was no one else. Her decisions would determine their lives. She’d been here before, in this place where adulthood was foisted upon her, but during the worst days, with Odalinde acting the role of evil stepmother and her father incapacitated and useless, Gretel always believed there was someone out there who would help before things got mortally bad. The neighbors, perhaps, or Deda or even the System would whisk the children away before any real tragedy struck. This last thought—of the System—brought an icy shiver down the back of Gretel’s neck, which she trapped by closing in the blades of her shoulders.
But the world was different now. Or maybe it was just that Gretel had learned the truth about the way things always were. If you were lucky, you had a handful of people who you could absolutely rely on for help and loyalty. For Gretel, besides her mother and Hansel, there was only the Klahrs. That was it.
Except for Petr. Maybe she had Petr.
“Gretel, it’s open.”
The sun was only a few minutes away from setting completely, and Gretel could barely see her brother standing at the front door of their house, his hand on the knob.
“Why is it open, Gretel?”
Gretel was still lost in her thoughts, which were careening toward panic.
“Gretel!”
“Yes, I’m here, Han, quiet down.”
“I couldn’t see you; it’s dark. Did you hear me? The door is open.”
“Yes, I heard you. What do you mean open? Open open, or unlocked?”
“Yeah, unlocked, I mean. Why is it unlocked?”
“I didn’t get here before you, Han. So, I don’t know.” The last four words snapped from Gretel like a whip, and she regretted her tone instantly.
“Why are you yelling at me?”
Gretel resisted apologizing to her brother, and instead walked up to the door and stared at it with Hansel beside her, his hand still on the knob. “I think she was probably here. I think that’s why it’s unlocked. I don’t have any way of knowing that, but I think when we go inside, we might find out for sure.” She turned to her brother. “I wasn’t kidding about what I said on the boat, Han. I wish you could have stayed with mother, I really do. But you’re here with me, and I need you to be ready to act in whatever way is asked of you.”
“I told you I’d be ready, and I will be.”
Gretel nodded.
Hansel pushed the door, and before it was a quarter way open, the stench hit the children like a bomb blast.
“Oh god, Gretel.” Hansel turned away, cupping his hands to his mouth and nose.
Gretel paused and turned away instinctively as well, but she pushed forward into the house.
“Gretel! What are you doing? What if she’s here?” Hansel asked, his voice muffled.
Gretel ignored her brother and walked completely inside, leaving the door ajar to release some of the horrible odor. “Stay there. It’s okay. I don’t think she’s here now. She may have been recently, but not now.”
“I can’t imagine the smell if she was here!”
Gretel smiled at her brother’s joke, feeling somewhat buoyed by his ability to find humor in such a crisis. He may be helpful after all, or at least not the burden she originally feared.
Gretel walked through the kitchen to the sliding door of the screened porch and opened it, stepping out to the sealed off area before shutting the door behind her and breathing in the fresh air. By now, daylight was almost completely gone, so she scanned the porch quickly for any signs of intrusion. Finding no evidence that the witch had been to this area of the house, Gretel took another deep breath and went back inside to the kitchen, opening the first drawer beneath the counter and removing one of several flashlights her father had always kept there for their frequent power outages. She pressed the metal power button and strode back through the kitchen and out the front door to the porch. Hansel stood, eager for news.
“Where is she? Is it her?”
“I don’t know. The smell is really bad, so I just checked the kitchen and had to get out to the back porch. It doesn’t look—or smell—like anyone was out there. I grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen, and I’m going back in to check the rest of the rooms. Luckily, our house is so small I should be able to check them all in one breath. At least on this level. There’s still the basement.”
“What is the point of going back in there, Gret? What are you looking for?”
“I just need some kind of proof that the putrid smell isn’t just the result of a family of raccoons who snuck into one of the air ducts and got stuck. Or even some vagrants who heard about the abandoned Morgan property and decided to make camp.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Not really, but I have to be sure it’s her. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
Gretel took a gaping breath of air and pushed back through the front door, walking straight ahead to the living room and then left to the back bedrooms, which were only four or five steps farther. She was quick but thorough with her inspections and made sure to shine the beam of the flashlight on every bed and floor space and to open each of the closet doors. But there was nothing specific—other than the smell—to indicate the witch had been there.
Gretel came up for air again through the front door and revealed her assessment to Hansel.
And then she went back in to inspect the lower level.
As Gretel descended the open stairway leading to the basement, her suspicions were confirmed immediately, first by the increased putrid odor emanating up the staircase, and then by the dirty, brown nest of blankets and pillows that were piled up in a far corner of the L-shaped room. The rumpled mass of cloth was littered with bones and hair, and Gretel could only imagine what the brown stains puddled on the bedding and around the encampment consisted of. It was her turn to feel sick, and she dry heaved on the steps before turning back and running up the staircase and out the front door.
“Gretel, what’s wrong?” Hansel shrieked. “Is she there?”
Gretel exhaled and began coughing before catching her wind. She shook her head, wide-eyed. “Not now. But she was. And she’s mad, Hansel. Truly mad.”
“She wasn’t mad before?”
Gretel ignored her brother and tried desperately to shake the scene she’d just witnessed from her head. With her suspicions now confirmed, she had to decide what to do next. “We have to go to the Klahrs, Hansel. And I’m warning you now: things may be very bad over there.”
“How bad?” Hansel choked out.
“I’m going back inside to get you a flashlight of your own, and then I’m going for the pistol under Papa’s bed.”
HANSEL AND GRETEL WALKED to the edge of the lake and scoured the shoreline with their flashlights, looking for signs of the canoe. The panic began building in Gretel once more; the missing boat implied several possibilities, most of which terrified her.
“Are you sure you left it behind the house, Gretel?” Hansel asked. “Maybe you left it down here and it drifted away while we were gone. You remember how high the water rose during storms.
“I left it where I always do. It didn’t drift away.”
“Well where is it then?”
“Where do you think I think it is, Han?” Gretel snapped.
Hansel pondered the question for a moment, genuinely mystified, and then it registered. “The witch? But...I thought she could fly or something. Why would she need a canoe?”
Gretel shook her head, trying to stay focused, annoyed at the childishness of her child brother
. “It doesn’t work like that,” she mumbled, not interested in engaging with him.
“How are we going to get there? We don’t have a car, and there’s no way I’m walking the road to the Klahrs.”
Hansel was panicking now, and Gretel was compelled to remind him of his promise. She steeled her voice, holding the flashlight up like a microphone and shining it on her face for effect. “You told me you could do this, Hansel, and I’m expecting you to uphold that agreement.”
“I will, I just—”
“Hansel! That’s enough! We don’t have any space for excuses. It’s you and I right now, so you will be ready for what is asked of you, and that’s it. Do you understand?”
Hansel nodded.
Gretel was tempted to snap at him again, to insist he answer her verbally, but she decided to let it go. This wasn’t the moment for breaking him completely; they still had to figure out how to get across to the orchard, and she would need him to be energized and united with her, if not confident. “Good,” was all she said.
“Can we swim it?” Hansel asked, pouting slightly, but with a trace of pride in his voice.
“I thought of that, but it’s deeper than you think, and it begins dropping off quickly just a few yards in. There’s no place to bail out if one of us gets tired. If we go, we have to go all the way.”
“I can make it,” Hansel declared, a slight challenge in his tone.
Gretel smiled. “Okay, but we’re obviously going to get wet too. And it’s not like we can change our clothes when we get to the orchard. You’re going to be uncomfortable.”
“I’ve gotten wet before, Gretel. I think I can handle it.”
Gretel considered the alternatives for another minute and then made the team decision that they would swim the width of the lake. The distance was barely ten rows of her oars in the canoe, but she’d never done the conversion to swimming. Neither she nor Hansel was going to win any competitions in the water, but she figured they were both decent enough to make it without a struggle. And, in fact, Gretel had to admit that between the two of them, Hansel was certainly the stronger swimmer.
“Let’s go, then,” Gretel said finally. “Leave your shoes on; it’s going to make it a little heavy to kick, but we’re going to need them on the other side. And we’re going to stay together. This isn’t a race, so don’t go swimming off without me.”
Gretel knew her backhanded compliment would bolster Hansel’s confidence, but she meant it. If one of them got in trouble, the other could hopefully pull them both to shore.
Without any more discussion, Gretel led the way into the lake, wading in until she was waist high. “It’s cold, but we can do this.”
Hansel followed his sister until he was next to her, and they both continued walking, their feet on the bottom for two or three more steps before pushing off into the deeper water where they began their swim in earnest.
The flashlights and pistol weren’t waterproof, Gretel was almost certain of that, so she doubted they’d have much light or protection when they reached the other side. But she made the attempt to keep the items salvageable and did her best to insulate them by putting the gun down her pants and the flashlights in Hansel’s shirt, tied beneath his armpits. If they held, great; if not, it was only a prayer anyway.
As for their progress, they were doing fine, alternating between taking a few long exaggerated swimming strokes, and then easing up, pulling themselves gently toward the shore as they breast-stroked under the dark water, gliding their arms outward slowly, trying to use as little energy as possible. There is no rush, Gretel thought, not really, so let’s just get there. Their shoes and clothes were weighing them both down a bit, but they were going to make it, and she was thankful they’d made the decision to swim.
“How you doing, Han?” Gretel finally asked, now confident that speaking wouldn’t upset the balance of their journey.
“I’m fine. A little cold, but okay. How—?” Hansel paused. “Do you hear that?”
Gretel heard it the second the words left her brother’s mouth. It was the familiar sound of steady oars chopping through water. She’d grown to love the sound over the months, when her life had deteriorated and rowing had become the only good thing in her life.
Now the sound was as ominous as an approaching tornado.
“Stay quiet, Han. Get your head down.” Gretel sank her head so that her nose was just above the water line, though a lot of good that would do if the boat came within ten yards or so of them. At that point, they’d be seen and escape would be impossible.
The slap of the oars was visible, and Gretel watched in horror at the shadow of the canoe as it made a slight turn and came directly toward them.
Chapter 21
The scene just beyond the clearing was nothing short of spectacular, and it was nothing at all what Anika had expected.
The moment when Noah pushed through the last of the lush foliage and announced to his benefactor that they had arrived, Anika’s first thought that there had been a terrible mistake. That she had not properly communicated the details of where she needed to go or whom she needed to find.
For several moments, the three travelers stood silently, watching from atop the bluff, Anika in wonderment, believing that her guide had not led her to the ancient land of her ancestors but instead to some other magnificent civilization. It felt as if they had stumbled upon an entirely new land, a previously undiscovered territory where all the benefits of the modern and the beauty of the primitive had converged into one community.
As she looked down upon the bustling crowds of people, Anika’s first assessment of the surreal society was that there were simply too many people. She couldn’t possibly be in the right place. It wasn’t the size of the Urbanlands, of course, not even close—there weren’t cars and paved streets and such—but this mountain society was nothing short of a town. Perhaps even a city.
Anika’s expectations were based loosely on tales from people who basked in hyperbole and were largely uninformed—that when she reached this place, she would barely notice a society at all, and that quite a bit of effort would be required to even to find a person with whom to speak. But here they were, people by the dozens, in the throes of their days, crowding the busy streets. And there were presumably more people in the surrounding homes.
But she was shocked by more than just the crowds; it was the modernity of this place. From what she could see, they all seemed to wear clothes that were far too modern for this place, this isolated territory that had been shrouded in the hills of the Old Country for centuries. Perhaps millennia. Modernity had reached across the seas, of course, but not to the ancients—at least not according to Anika’s father, who had told the wild story of her mother during his demented confession in the warehouse all those months ago.
But as she looked down upon these people, she saw modernity thriving.
“I don’t think this is the right place, Noah,” she said to the translator as they stood at the top of the clearing, the panic in her voice clearly audible.
But Noah had only nodded and said “Here. Aulwurms.”
It was the right name, and as Anika would soon learn, it was indeed the right place.
With Noah at the front, the three travelers descended the hill of the gradual bluff with confidence, and once they made their first contact with a woman selling some type of cauliflower, Anika’s journey toward her cure began.
It only took a few questions and a short conversation with the woman and some remedial directions from the man buying the cauliflower before Oskar learned the names relevant to Anika’s quest. Within the hour, Anika stood in the home of one of the village elders—a tall, dark-skinned woman with large, friendly eyes.
From what Anika could decipher of Oskar’s initial conversations with the woman, other than their names, the translator hadn’t revealed much information to the host regarding where they had come from or why they were there.
Whatever he had said, though, had been enough to warrant
a warm home in which to rest and a meal consisting of a meatless cuisine that left Anika feeling refreshed and almost euphoric. Anika hadn’t been sure which meal she was eating—with the daylight hours that seemingly never ended, and Anika’s sleep limited to little more than two or three hours a night, she had lost all track of time.
Anika, Oskar, and Noah sat in a circle around a stone table that had been prepared just for them, and as Anika finished the last crumbs of what must have been the sixth course of the meal, she was eager to get on with the business of their company.
“This was wonderful, thank you. You’re very generous.”
Anika moved to clear some dishes away, for which she was shooed back to her seat.
“Very well. Thank you again. And if you have a few moments, perhaps when you’re done in the kitchen, I would like to talk to you. I would like to explain why I’m here. Why we’ve come.” Anika had stared at the woman anxiously while Oskar translated.
The woman bowed slightly and muttered a few words, which Oskar had translated as, “We speak another day. To now you go snore.”
The translation was rough, but Anika got the idea, and despite the temptation for her to press the issue, she allowed the woman to walk her to her shelter for the night after cleaning up. It was a solidly built wooden structure just east of the woman’s home. The woman unlocked and opened the door, holding out a welcoming hand and encouraging Anika to enter, the way a gentleman might hold the door for a lady entering a shop. Oskar and Noah had been shown to other quarters.
The next morning, Anika awoke to a box of food and a pitcher of water, as well as a bedpan, delivered to her door. She spotted the small covered opening at the baseboard of the structure through which the items had been passed.
Yesterday, when the woman had offered the dwelling with a soft, inviting gesture, Anika felt welcomed and thankful. After all, it was unlikely this community got many visitors, and she and her companions could just have easily been met by some warring, savage tribe, one familiar with the Orphic ways and eager for outside organs to blend. That was not an impossible scenario; in fact, it was probably far more likely than the one they’d encountered.
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set) Page 44
