Anika screamed and toppled from the seat, but she didn’t fall into the water as I’d anticipated. To my amazement, she wasn’t even unconscious.
“Hansel?” she said, and then stood up in the boat. The gash on the left side of her head was enormous, and the impact was clearly brutal, as blood was flowing from her eye sockets and nose.
Mrs. Klahr sat in place, still staring forward, a stunned look on her face. She never turned to see my mother take one stumble to the right and then topple over the side of the canoe into the lake.
Chapter 31
The buckshot catches Gromus in both thighs and a large part of his left knee. The shriek that comes from him is minimal compared to the pain he must be feeling. But his focus is pure and concentrated on the necklace that has just been destroyed in front of him. He continues to crawl forward, clawing at the dirt and pushing uselessly with his legs.
Noah walks up from behind me and puts his boot on the ogre’s face, stopping him from proceeding. “You’ve killed too many to die this easily, Gromus,” he says somberly, “but we don’t have time to bury the bodies here, and thus we don’t have time to draw out your death.”
“Marlene,” Gromus says, seeming not to hear Noah’s words.”
“Look at me, man.” Noah reaches down and picks up one of the teeth, drawing Gromus’ face to his. He places the tooth between his own teeth, holding it in his bite, forming a crazed smile. Gromus stares at the tooth, which isn’t quite Noah’s eyes, which I realize is what Noah truly wants.
But it’s close enough.
“For Lyria,” Noah says, and then blasts Gromus’ head from his body.
Chapter 32
“We have to save her, Hansel! Turn the boat toward her.” Mrs. Klahr was staring over the side of the canoe at my mother, who had regained consciousness and was trying to avoid drowning.
I had turned the canoe around and was now heading back to the orchard, giving myself a wide enough berth that I wouldn’t come close to Anika as we passed by her. I kept rowing forward.
“Hansel, I understand what’s happened, but you can’t let her die.” Mrs. Klahr’s voice was calm, consoling, trying to bring the situation from emotion to logic, hoping I’d see the mistake I was about to make before it was too late to correct it.
I stopped and looked over at my mother. Her face was blank, absent of humanity. The oar had caused too much damage for her ever to recover. The blood in the lake surrounded her like a halo of death, and she was spitting and slapping at the water, screaming gurgled, incoherent cries of help.
Mrs. Klahr stood and began to take off her shoes, and I moved to her, first grabbing her arm, and then wrapping my arms around her.
And then we both began to cry, watching together as my mother drifted below the surface of the lake.
Chapter 33
“I’ve been here once before and I know what they want. You have the books, right?”
I hold the witch’s copy of Orphism high so all can see, and Gretel reveals hers as well.
Noah, Maja, Gretel and I stand beside an ivy-covered wall that, had we been walking in these woods alone, would have been completely concealed. Beyond the wall, according to Noah, is another village, one which is more ancient than the one we just left. That village was a day’s walk from Lyria and was a bustling community of commerce and sophistication. They had welcomed us with the excitement of royalty arriving, with smiles and handshakes all around. Noah was beloved amongst them, it seemed, and they all appeared to know the story of Anika Morgan.
That was the village that had become legend throughout the Koudeheuval region, and the one that all of Noah’s clients believed they were seeing when they saw Lyria.
But beyond that place, miles higher into the mountains and shrouded in the dense forest, was another place. This was the Village of the Elders, which lie just beyond the ivy wall where we now stood.
“This is where my mother came?” Gretel asks, “When she was sick? How could you have known to come here?”
Noah shrugs. “It is a long story, Gretel, but, in short, we didn’t know. They did.” Noah is referring to the people of the initial village, who had ushered my mother back to this place as they’ve just done with us. “She was sick, and needed help, and they knew the people here could help her.”
“Why are we here now?” Maja asks.
“I don’t know exactly, but since we were so close, and Hansel and Gretel had their books, it felt right to come. When Anika was here, when she was seeking her cure, the elders instructed her to bring the book back to them.”
Gretel nods, her eyes widening. “Yes! Yes, I remember mother telling me that. She said that the elders wanted her to bring the book to them because they were the only ones who could read it. They were the only ones who could cure her when she was sick.”
I wasn’t familiar with this part of our family’s tale. “But she never did bring it back,” I say.
Gretel looks at me for a long time and smiles, and then a tear falls down her cheek. “And she never did get better.”
The blame on Gretel’s face is tragic.
“I told her they were lying when they told her that. That they were being self-serving and just wanted Marlene’s book for themselves. But they weren’t lying. I did something wrong. I interpreted something wrong in the book.”
“You don’t know that, Gretel. You may have been right. Maybe it was just too late for her. Or maybe the cure doesn’t always work.”
Noah walks to Gretel and stands in front of her, towering above her. “I don’t know whether or not what you’ve said is correct, but I can hear in your voice and see in your eyes that you loved your mother as much as she loved you. So please don’t ever question yourself. You are a rarity in this world, for many reasons, and you must walk through life with this absolute belief.”
Gretel frowns and nods at the man, and then looks over at me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Hansel. It wasn’t fair for me to leave.”
I look away, shaking my head, trying to avoid the tears that are welling inside.
Gretel walks over to me and positions herself inches from me. “It was my fault that she died, and if it felt like I blamed you for all these years, it’s because I did.”
I look up at her, astonished at the admission.
She smiles. “But I was wrong to, and I only did it because I was a coward, and admitting that was much more difficult than blaming you. You saved Mrs. Klahr’s life. And your own. And I know it wasn’t easy to do what you did. I can’t imagine it, Hansel.” Gretel’s eyes glisten at the thought. “But it was right.”
“I could have saved her, Gretel. I could have gone back for her. I lived with Mrs. Klahr for four years after that day, and she never talked about what I did, but I always felt that she blamed me. That she was...afraid of me even.”
Gretel pulls me toward her and grabs the back of my head, pulling me tightly against her chest. I’m crying in full now, letting out years of guilt onto the shoulder of my sister.
“I don’t know about that, Hansel, but if she did blame you, or feared you, she was wrong too. You are the kindest most courageous person I have ever known.” She pushes me away and looks in my eyes. “Look where you are. You saved me! You came for me and rescued me! If I had any other brother in the world, I would be dead.”
I smile.
“Bosomari,” a voice says, and I turn to see the face of the tiny guide that led us to this ivy fortress. He has opened the camouflaged entrance to the sealed village and is waving us forward.
“What does that mean?” Maja asks.
“It means ‘time to talk,’ Noah replies. “It means the elders are ready to see us.”
“Have they agreed to the deal?” Gretel asks. “Did you tell them what we wanted?”
The tiny man listens to Noah’s translation and then looks back to Gretel and nods.
We make our way through the narrow ivy wall and enter into the Village of the Elders, where we instantly see a row of men seate
d in front of several large stones which form a large circle. Inside the middle of the circle a large fire rages.
As we walk toward them I ask to no one in particular, “What was Gromus going to do here? To all these people? And the village that lies outside of this one? Was he going to kill them all?”
“I don’t know,” Gretel replies. “I think it may have ended up that way. But he wasn’t coming here for that. Not to start. He seemed to think because of his familial connection to this place that they would help him...I don’t know...understand how to create the recipe that Marlene had discovered. I think he believed they would be eager to help him.”
“I think he was wrong about that,” Noah says. “Though I don’t know that for sure. But it doesn’t matter now.”
Gretel and I walk to the men, each with our copies of Orphism in hand, and lay them down on the stones, just outside the fire.
“These will never again leave this place,” Gretel says, Noah translating behind her. “And you will give me as much information as you know about the other books that exist.”
The men nod almost in unison, and a woman exits from a hut about fifty yards behind them. She is carrying a small satchel, tied at the top with what looks to be a weed of some kind.
She hands the bag to me, and I untie it, pulling out a list of what appears to be names and places. There are perhaps fifteen rows in all.
“Is this all of them?” I ask.
The men nod again and then stand. The man in the center picks up the two copies of Orphism and walks back toward the huts from where the woman just emerged.
“Can you read them,” Gretel asks Noah as I hand him the list.
Noah looks at the list and immediately starts nodding. “I can. Most of these places are quite far from here though. Far from the New Country as well. Some of them in distant lands like those Emre spoke of in the East.”
Gretel looks at me and smiles, and then she nods. “I think Hansel and I need a few months to rest. Maybe even a year. But once things are back in order, we’ve got some work to do.”
“You’ll not go without me, of course,” Noah says. “As long as that is understood.”
“I would like to come to,” Maja adds. “I’ve nowhere to go until then, but whenever you begin, I would like to help.”
“You do have somewhere to go, Maja,” Gretel says, “if you wish. Have you been to the New Country?”
Maja shakes her head, fighting to conceal a smile.
Gretel looks at me for approval and I nod, not concealing my smile at all.
“But what was the deal you made?” Maja asks. “Why were they so willing to give up the names and places of the people known to possess Orphism.”
“The deal was their continued isolation from the rest of the world,” Gretel replies. “The books are evil in the hands of most, and they must be brought back to the only place that should ever have them. And if they would have refused the names, then Noah would have made their village a popular tourist attraction. And this time it would have been for real.”
We walk back through the ivy wall to the forest, and then make our way to the forward village that fronts that of the Elders. A carriage awaits us there, ready to bring us down the Koudeheuval Mountains to the docks at the base. It was on those docks that Anika Morgan left in sickness so many months ago, taking a similar carriage down the mountain and then sailing the ocean for days, arriving back in the New Country just in time to help slay the witch Marlene.
For much of the ride down the mountain road, the four of us iron out many of the details relating to our future quest, that of locating and bringing back the scattered ancient texts. Where we will meet and start. Who else we might recruit. And how we’ll finance it, though this last part becomes something of a nonissue when Noah reveals to us that he has amassed a small fortune over the last year and a half.
For the remainder of the ride, I sleep, dreaming of a life years from now, where guilt and fear are a distant remembrance. A normal life. With Gretel. And perhaps Maja.
We arrive at the docks and Noah leads Gretel, Maja, and me to the platform to await the arrival of the next vessel that will take us back to the New Country.
“You’ll be ready to meet us then, Noah, whenever that time might be?” I say to the guide, feeling the pang of his absence already. “We’re going to do this. Our decisions are made.”
Noah smiles. “I will think of nothing else until the day arrives. You’ll send word when you are on your way?”
I nod, and then, after a pause, I pull myself to him and hug him. I feel a bit childish, him being a full eight inches taller than me, but it feels right. “Thank you for everything you did to save my sister.” I pause and then add, “And my mother for that matter.”
Noah stays silent, despite what I know are his urges to defy me and tell me it was I who saved Gretel. And I know it’s from a fear that he’ll begin to cry.
I look at Maja and ask for the last of a dozen times, “Are you sure about this? Where we’re going is a long way from home.”
“I told you back in Stedwick Village, Hansel,” she replies. “I’m never going back home.”
I look out toward the horizon and see the first images of the steamer that we’ll be boarding shortly, eastbound for the New Country. “Well I am, Maja. I’m going home today. And I can’t wait to get there.”
THE END
About the Author
Christopher Coleman lives in Maryland with his wife and two children. He received his degree in English Literature from the University of Maryland and has been writing professionally for over five years.
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