I smile quizzically. “Of course not. What would make you think that?”
“You’re obviously restless, and I imagine eager to begin searching for your sister. And now that I’ve given you a name—a name which, based on your reaction, I believe you’ve heard before—perhaps you’ve decided to proceed without me.”
“Well you’ve misinterpreted. I didn’t make that decision.” It’s technically the truth, since I was only considering the idea. “I’m just taking a walk. But the name you gave me is helpful, so if you’ve changed your mind about coming with me, I understand. You can just tell me where to find him, Noah, and I’ll leave before the sun is up.”
“Do I look like I’ve changed my mind?” Maja hefts up her backpack and smiles.
“So you were trailing me? Ready to go at a moment’s notice?”
Maja laughs. “Maybe a little.” She assumes a more earnest look. “But truthfully, I’ve wanted to leave here for a long time. I love my home, but I want to get beyond the villages and see what other lands await, what other people there are to know.”
“I think you’ve misunderstood, Maja. I just need your help to find Noah. How far do you plan to go?”
Maja drops her eyes.
“What is it?”
“I won’t be coming back.”
“Listen Maja, I...”
“I’m not expecting anything of you. I’ll go my own way once we find him if that’s your wish. But once I leave here I’m not coming back. I’m leaving forever.”
I give her words a moment to linger, letting her know I understand. “May I ask why you’re not coming back?”
“I suppose for the reasons you would expect. There are only a limited number of compelling opportunities to leave a place in someone’s life. And if I come back, I doubt I would ever leave again. I would tell myself that I will, but I won’t. I’ll take over my grandfather’s store and my life will be determined.”
“What about your grandfather?”
Maja sighs. “Something tells me he knows. I think it’s why he was so resistant to me helping you find your sister. The guide Noah isn’t far from here. And I was not embellishing my directional skills and map reading. I’ll keep us on the path, and if he is where I’ve heard him to be, we may find him rather quickly. If the weather holds, I could be there and back in three days.”
“So you’re telling me he wouldn’t normally be worried about you embarking on such a journey? With a strange man? I find that hard to believe.”
“Worried yes. But I’ve never kept my wanderlust a secret, and I suspect he knows that you are my reason to pursue it. I’ve been given a quest, even if my portion of the journey only goes as far as finding Noah.”
There is a question hiding in Maja’s statement, about whether I will want her assistance beyond finding Noah. I may, but at this point I can’t say one way of the other. I ignore the innuendo. “What about your parents? Are they still...”
Maja shakes her head, a signal for me not to pursue the subject. “They’re gone.”
I want to follow up on what happened to them, but I take the hint and don’t push it. “So do you think we’ll reach Noah by tomorrow?”
“Yes, it’s possible, but we need to leave now.”
“Now? Why? I was hoping to get another hour of sleep. And I don’t have my things together.”
“I’ll follow you back to the hotel so you can gather your belongings. And we’ll sleep in a few hours, once we’re out of the village.”
“And the ‘why’ part? Why do we need to leave now?”
“Because your presence here has suddenly created stirrings in the village. I can’t tell you specifically if it has to do with you, but after hearing the story of Gromus, I don’t trust some of the people here.”
“You mean Cezar.”
“Yes, perhaps, but there are many Cezars in Stedwick. Opportunists who would give up much for a lot less than the promise of immortality.”
“Immortality?” I hadn’t mentioned that part specifically.
“It’s what your book is about, yes?”
I give a confused squint, trying to lead Maja away from the subject. It’s an inevitable one to broach, of course, especially if she stays with me throughout my search, but it’s too big to deal with right now.
“I understand your reluctance, but it doesn’t change my point. You showed us the book, and if I was able to figure it out, Cezar could too. Word will spread, and they’ll be coming.”
“Okay. I don’t have much to get, but what I do is important. Let’s go.”
We move quickly back through the streets toward the hotel, passing a few early risers on the way. They greet Maja kindly and give me a confused look. It’s a reasonable reaction given that one of their own is out in the streets with an unknown man in the middle of the night, and wearing a backpack, but I can’t help feeling suspicious of them. Had I never met up with Maja I wouldn’t have given them another thought, but her reasoning that they could be after the book now seems sound.
We reach the hotel unmolested, and I climb the stairs two at a time, my mind having now created monsters around every corner. I open the unlocked door and instantly see a woman, old and haggard, standing in the far corner of the room. Her back is to me, so I can only see the long gray mane of hair draping down her back. She’s wearing a thick black robe that flows around her feet like a velvet puddle.
My mind conjures the face of Marlene and my instinct is to run. But I fight it. “Who are you?” I say.
The woman turns to me, and I brace for the face of an ogre. “I...um...oh my, is this loft seven?”
Her face is ugly, gnarled and worn, the signs of a hard life advertised in every fold and wrinkle. But her eyes display a sweetness that keeps me engaged.
“Why are you in my room?” My voice is stern, demanding of an answer, though I’m not trying to frighten the woman.
“Oh dear! Your room? Oh dear. Cezar. Uh! He gave me these directions to my room. I must be confused. I didn’t see any numbers.” She settles and stares at me, taking me in from foot to head. “You’re the brother,” she whispers.
“Why are you in my room?” I ask again.
“I didn’t see any numbers,” she repeats, her eyes now locked in on my face.
I didn’t see them either, and I don’t think it was a mistake that Cezar’s directions led this woman to my room. “It’s okay ma’am. I’m just gathering my things. You can have the room. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“No, please. Please don’t leave on my account.”
“It’s not on your account.”
“Stay just a moment. Please. To talk.”
I’m feeling trapped now, interrogated. I switch the narrative. “Are you from out of town?”
She laughs. “Me? Heavens no. I’ve lived in Stedwick Village for most of my adult life. I was born in the New Country though.”
I register this fact as an interesting one. “Why are you staying at a hotel then? If you live here, I mean.”
The woman’s eyes flash for a moment, and I detect her fighting a smile. She shakes herself into focus. “Ah yes. It is a good question. My daughter has come with her children. To live with me. Three teenage boys. Her husband is...well...he has a problem with the drink sometimes. You know how it is with men.”
I nod absently. I can relate.
“And now there’s no room for the old woman!” The woman’s laugh is a wet cackle. It sounds genuine and it makes me shudder.
“I see.”
I smile and walk forward toward the old woman, moving past her to the bed which is up against the far wall of the room. I pick up the few items that I’ve unpacked, including my sister’s letter. I can’t remember how I left it—folded or unfolded, face up or down—but a feeling of dread rises up inside me. I scan the room for anything else I may have left behind, and I can see in my peripheral view the woman following my eyes.
“You should stay a bit longer,” the woman says, her voice calm and restrai
ned, no longer that of a jovial old grandmother.
I keep my eyes focused and throw the bag over my shoulder and take the short walk back to the open door of the hotel room. It’s time to go. “No, thank you. Enjoy the room.”
“Hansel.”
I stop at the threshold, my breath frozen in mid-inhale. The woman’s voice is now a clear contralto; all the residue of age and disease has faded. And more importantly, I sense the evil in it. She’s old and frail-looking, so my instincts to prepare for a physical attack remain inactive. But Maja was right, we needed to leave.
“Hansel, we need to go. What is...?” Maja stops in midsentence and I turn to see her at the bottom of the staircase. “What is taking so long?” Her voice trails off in a trail of suspicion.
I remain in place at the entrance, a statue in the doorway, and I can see the look of fear in Maja’s eyes and the recognition of danger on her face. I hold up a hand, telling her to stay put.
“I have heard of your sister’s story,” the woman says behind me. “I know of your secret book.”
I don’t know if she’s familiar with my sister’s story from legend, or if she’s heard it in the last few hours since I’ve been here, but in any case, it was an obvious mistake to include Cezar in my earlier discussion with Maja and her grandfather.
I turn to the old woman now, my teeth clenched, eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”
“It matters not. I have a daughter. You can take her for your own. Or one of her boys if you would prefer that. And I can get you young girls too. As young as you like.”
The woman’s voice is changing again, this time squawking insanely as she offers her sexual gifts for the secrets of Orphism, as if the acquisition of this monstrosity were as easy as bartering it in a sex trade.
“Who are you?”
“Maja knows me.” The woman nods over my shoulder and I turn to see Maja standing beside me. “Don’t you, dear?”
“She’s crazy,” Maja explains, but her voice is wary, unconvincing.
The woman laughs again. “Perhaps I am, Maja, but not in the way you mean.”
I hear Maja snicker behind me. “Did she tell you she has a daughter? And grandchildren?”
I nod.
“She has no grandchildren. And she did have a daughter, once, but that poor girl was never able to grow up to have children.”
“Shut up you bitch!” The woman spits the last word out like a sour berry.
Maja holds the woman’s stare steady, absorbing the venom pouring from her eyes.
“Tell him, Gisla.”
The woman stays quiet this time and finally drops her cold stare.
“Do you have everything, Hansel?”
I nod slowly, keeping my eyes on the woman. “But I’m not leaving until I know what she knows about Gretel.”
“She doesn’t know anything. I told you, she’s mad. I’ve known her my whole life, and my grandfather has known her most of his.”
“She knew my name. And she said she knows my sister’s story and about my book. How would she know these things?”
“I told you people were talking. It’s why we need to go. Cezar is a gossip.”
“I wish you would have told me that before.”
Maja pulls at my shoulder, encouraging me to leave, and I start to turn when the old woman—Gisla—speaks again.
“I know things about you that you don’t know, Hansel. And Gromus knows more.”
I await some kind of sinister laugh of evil, but the woman’s face is calm, just the hint of a smile lining her mouth.
Maja shakes her head quickly. “Don’t believe her, Hansel, this is what she does. She’s lying. Let’s go.”
I want to believe Maja, but I feel the truth in the old woman’s words. I pull away from Maja and step directly to the woman, grabbing her by the collar of her cloak. “Where is Gromus? Where did he take Gretel?”
Laughter from the woman again, and then she brings her hands out from beneath the thick robe and in her right hand she’s holding a large knife.
“Hansel!” Maja screams.
I see it immediately and push the old woman away from me, slamming her shoulder blades up against the wall. She stumbles to my left, but unbelievably, she stays on her feet and holds onto the knife.
The woman clutches the blade high now, ear-level, with the business end pointed straight to the sky. The metal shank is brown, corroded; it looks like a museum piece, something found at an archaeological dig site from a civilization long since collapsed.
“Gromus is everything,” the woman proclaims. “The son of Tanja will have his book again.”
The woman crosses her arms in front of her face, making an X at her wrists, with the knife gripped tightly in her right hand. The blade is now on the opposite side of her head with her right hand closer to her neck. She gives one last broad smile and pulls her arms apart, spreading them wide, her hands heading back toward their original positions. I don’t see the slice of her throat as the blade glides below her chin, but the sheet of blood that glazes the front of her chest is glaring. Maja screams and then stifles it with her hands, an instinct to keep away any other vultures who may be circling. There is nothing else to do in Stedwick. It’s time to leave. It’s time to find Noah.
I’ve been back in the Old World just over two days, and the curse of Marlene has already found me.
Chapter 10
One sip of the potion remained. I knew it, and so did Anika.
Her sleeping had increased since the second to last dose had been used, as if she understood that hibernation was the only way she could put off the inevitable. But I wouldn’t be the one to administer it. Not this time. It was Gretel’s turn. As far as I was concerned, I had paid my dues.
I heard the sound of the sliding door in the basement and immediately sprang to action, dashing out the front door to intercept my sister on her way to the lake. Gretel had recently moved to the basement to have her own space, and the back door provided easy access for Petr, as well a convenient escape from the normally inevitable daily routine of family interaction, though mother had long since reached the stage where she didn’t care about either of these teenage manifestations.
“Where are you going?” I stood off to the side of the door, ensuring Gretel wouldn’t see me as she exited, purposely trying to startle her.
“Damn you, Hansel!”
I felt the sting of her words immediately. The trials of Marlene had hardened me to most of the world, but I still felt the nettles of my sister’s anger as severely as ever. “I need you to help me with Anik...mother.”
It was Gretel’s turn to feel the sting now, hers being brought on by a cocktail of guilt and abandonment. “I was planning to...I mean, I will...I just need to go...”
“No!” I retracted the exclamation. “No. She’s in there now. And she’s awake. There’s one dose left, Gretel. What are we going to do?”
Gretel closed her eyes and put her hand to her forehead and then started to rub. She sighed, “I don’t know.”
“Maybe Mrs. Klahr has an idea abou—”
“No! Mrs. Klahr cannot know about mother’s condition. She’s still recovering herself. She doesn’t need this burden.”
“So then it’s all mine to bear?”
“Not yours. Both of ours.”
“Well, while you’re running off to the safety of the lake, off to spend a quiet evening with Mrs. Klahr—”
“I’m caring for her; we’re not having tea and biscuits.”
I ignored the correction. “I’m the one that has to deal with our mother’s...sickness.” Madness was the word I wanted to use. “Sometimes I can’t even sleep in the house anymore, Gretel. Do you know that?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“You don’t hear her because you’re downstairs. But I do. I hear her talking about it. But not about it really. Talking to it.”
“Talking to what, Hansel? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s ad
dicted to the potion, Gretel. You know she is. You knew it the first night you gave it to her. It’s why you leave at four a.m. every morning and barely come home at night.”
Gretel looked away, the weariness in her now showing through.
“I see you from under the stairs on the nights I sleep outside. I’m sure Mrs. Klahr doesn’t need you that early. You told me you only arrive after sunrise. How respectful you’ve always been of Mrs. Klahr’s sleep.”
Gretel didn’t offer a retort; she just gazed at me with a look that asked, What do you want me to say?
But I had her attention now, and I wasn’t letting it go easily. “And I never even told you about the other night, when she was standing on the bed. Asleep but not. It was like she had been resurrected.”
“What were you doing in her room?”
I hesitated. “She called for me,” I lied. “But she was just talking in her sleep. It doesn’t matter. It was just peculiar, that’s all. She was standing in the dark on top of the mattress. And walking around the room.
I leave the story there, not mentioning the part about me rummaging through her closet for the necklace.
“She’s been through a lot though, so I’m not putting too much weight into the incident. But today I need your help. I can’t do this alone. This is it. This is all that’s left. Once this dose is gone ...I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The tears welled in Gretel’s eyes and she reached for me, pulling me into her. “Okay, Hansel, you’re right, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Gretel and I walked together through the basement door and up the stairs that led to the kitchen. As we reached the landing, I peeked toward the cabinet that previously held Odalinde’s mysterious belongings, which included a copy of Orphism. But today it held something far more nefarious.
Thoughts of Odalinde suddenly flooded me. Those days when she had first arrived—before making her eventual transformation to the caring warrior that saved our family—had seemed as dire as any I had ever lived. Mother was missing. Father was dying. And Gretel and I were on the brink of starvation. And yet, at that moment, staring at the cabinet at the top of the stairs with my sister beside me, I longed for those days.
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set) Page 65
