by Sky Sommers
‘Story? Do you mean to tell me that you trying to eat Hans and Greta isn’t true?’ I ask with a smirk.
Everybody knows that story. All the kids are told this cautionary tale about craving too much sweets even back on Earth.
‘You should know better than anyone that not all stories are always true,’ Grizelda looks at me beseechingly. ‘I know you’re not from anywhere in the Magic Kingdom. You think and act unlike the rest of them. I don’t know your whole story, but I’ll bet you’ll tell me. Someday.’
As if.
‘But you should know mine…’ she says. ‘Maybe you’ll feel differently about me then…’ she sighs.
About cannibalism? I don’t think so.
‘Besides, I’m too tired of being the bad guy… Walk with me,’ she says, limping away towards the forest, with the packet of meat into her wicker basket and I have no choice but to follow her, dragging Henry in his toy wagon along.
If she so much as kindles a fire, I can take Henry and bolt for the woods.
Ten minutes of shuffling in silence and I give in. ‘Fine. Tell me your side of the story.’
She chuckles.
‘Please.’
Preferably before we reach too far into the woods.
I still have to get back and prepare dinner.
‘It’s…complicated,’ the witch says.
‘Whose life isn’t?’ I counter.
Grizelda hunhs.
‘So are you from another dimension or not?’ she asks.
‘Such big words you know,’ I say. ‘Besides, that is asking, not telling.’
She hunhs again.
‘Did you manage to get ahold of Ella in time?’ she asks.
I guess building up to telling a story takes time.
‘I thought I should tell you since you and I are the only ones looking out for her,’ Grizelda says.
‘You call stalking Mellie and her godchildren looking out for Ella?’
‘I’m not stalking. I’m keeping my ear to the ground, sussing out what’s going on. I’m looking after them.’
‘Why?’ I ask the obvious question.
‘Ella’s flighty. Just like her mother. It was bound to happen that she’d go off with someone somewhere,’ Grizelda shrugs, shuffling on.
‘Wait, what? You knew her mother?’
‘So do you,’ she says.
What?
?!?
‘She’s…alive?’ I probably look as stupid as I feel.
How come I didn’t know this?
‘I always thought my husband was a widower….’ I mumble like an idiot. I’m lying through my teeth here. ‘When we arrived…’ in the Magic Kingdom from London, ‘We were told that Ella’s mother had run off. We all presumed she was dead.’ We could have presumed that she was alive, but we didn’t.
The witch chuckles, ‘Oh, no. Definitely not a widower. Have you met Ella’s Godmother?’ she asks.
‘Mellie, her aunt on their mother’s side. Yes and unfortunately we keep meeting. Why? Does SHE know where Ella’s mother is?’ I ask.
The witch just smiles, ‘Their mother never had a sister.’
?!?
‘How would you know?’
‘I only had Lydia.’
‘Who?’
‘Lydia, mother to Ella, Hans and Greta. You know her as Mellie.’
‘Wait, what?’
?!?!
‘She’s YOUR daughter? You’re their grandmother?!?’ I cast a quick glance to see if I have alarmed Henry with my shouting, but he’s fallen asleep in the toy wagon.
‘Why do the kids still refer to her as their Godmother? Is this some kind of deal Mellie struck with them? And why did she need to go and reinvent a new name for herself if she was born a Lydia?’
‘She took a new name and a new identity when she came back and they didn’t recognise her anymore.’
‘How long was she gone?’
‘Four months.’
‘She left them for four months? How old were they?’
‘Ella was fifteen and the twins were ten. I didn’t know she bailed on them, otherwise I would have taken them in…or tried to.’
‘Four months…and they didn’t recognise her…’
There could be an array of things Mellie, no, sorry, Lydia, could have used in four months to change her appearance. Botox…Rhinoplasty…Other plastic surgery…? Chemical facial alterations..?
By the sly look Grizelda is giving me I must have said those things out loud.
‘Given the opportunity, I’m sure she would try all that, but tell me, does she look the same to you every time you see her?’
‘Nobody looks exactly the same every time you see them.’
‘With her, she should. She makes an effort to look the same to the same people.’
That was a weird comment to make. Out loud I say, ‘I always thought she had a penchant for colouring her hair one too many times and that she must have a yo-yo weight problem…’ I think of that one time when her sizeable butt shrunk down under her floaty skirt and then ballooned back again.
‘Melisandra has this ability…’
To annoy the hell out of people.
‘To glamour anyone into believing she is what they expect to see and who she wants them to see. And it helps that she has this rule with her clients that they never discuss what she looks like. A bit theatrical, if you ask me, but who am I to judge?’ Grizelda points to her gypsy attire.
‘Huh?’
Grizelda pats my arm. ‘She’s not a shapeshifter. At least I don’t think she is. But she can make you feel like she’s the bees knees, the prettiest, cleverest, most gorgeous human being you have ever met and want to befriend.’
‘Not for me she isn’t,’ I say.
‘Well, that’s because you seem to be immune, dear. You see through her glamour. I don’t know why…’
Because I’m immune to magic.
‘Mellie’s kids are not immune to her charms?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘But wait…you’re their grandmother. You tried to eat your own grandkids?!?!’
Grizelda laughs, but it’s a mirthless laugh, sad and dejected.
‘You promised to tell me your story. Now, spill it.’
Grizelda nods, looking pained. ‘We fell out when she was fifteen. She took up with some scallywag and I didn’t approve, she was too much in love and chose wrong. He dumped her when he found out she was pregnant with Ella and that was that.’
‘That was Mellie’s story, what about yours? How come everybody thinks you are a cannibalistic witch, sorry, a reformed cannibal that almost ate Hans and Greta?’
‘It was winter. They were five and alone in the woods, without overcoats.’ Grizelda lets that sentence sink in.
Mellie wanted to get rid of the twins when they were five?!?
I close my eyes as if slapped.
‘Greta was running a fever and Hans was near-faint with hunger. When they came up to my wooden - not gingerbread - house and started gnawing on the shutters, I took them in, got Greta’s fever to subside, fed Hans for a few weeks until he was healthy again and considered not returning them to whence they came from. They were just so homesick and I couldn’t bear it be known that they had perished in the woods. So I sent them home. If I had only known…’
‘Who started the cruel rumour?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Mellie? Why?’
‘I guess she needed to cover up that she was the one who sent Hans and Greta into the woods in the first place,’ the old woman shrugs.
‘Sent them? They did not wander off and get lost?’
Grizelda shakes her head from side to side.
‘Why couldn’t she have just sent them to live with you?’ I ask the obvious que
stion.
Grizelda shrugs again, ‘We were and are on non-speaking terms.’
‘And that justifies sacrificing her kids instead of turning to family for help?!?’
I swear, I just don’t understand that woman.
‘I suspected she was either counting on them finding me and living to see another day. Or - and I still have trouble believing this myself - she sent them to die because she believed this was the best course of action. You know, not like the twins are better off dead, but like the world would be better off if they weren’t in it,’ the witch says darkly.
I look at her like she is deranged.
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she says. ‘Seeing that she never expected to see them again, I’m leaning towards the second option. Finding out they were alive was a bad surprise. Mellie had already dismantled their cots. Did you know that since age five, they have been sleeping in sleeping bags on the floor?’ she asks.
I hadn’t, but it explains why Hans and Greta take such good care of their new room and make their beds without having been asked to do it. Why even before they came to stay permanently, they didn’t mind working at the restaurant and staying in our pantry when that meant staying overnight.
‘Why? Why would she do that to her own kids?’
Grizelda shrugs. ‘She isn’t home that often. I guess it’s easier to get Greta to wash their sleeping bags than for Mellie to get the lice out of the mattresses and bed linen…’
Unbelievable. Why am I surprised she didn’t think twice about stigmatising her own mother?
‘By way of gratitude for feeding her kids and returning them to her, unharmed, Mellie spread vicious lies about you being a cannibal? Her own mother?’ I ask.
Grizelda nods, ‘Nobody knows we are related. When she left home, she made sure she distanced herself from me in every way possible. Change of name, change of face, just change.’
‘Even if you weren’t related, why would she spread vicious lies about a woman who saved her kids?’ I ask.
Grizelda shrugs, ‘Maybe she sent them my way and then changed her mind? Maybe she just didn’t want me to be the good guy.’
‘Maybe in her mind I could never be the hero who saves them because that means she made a mistake getting away from me, not to mention it would make her look like the bad guy.’
I understand. More than you know.
Mellie lives on attention and adoration.
She couldn’t stand to be loathed and avoided like the plague, if it became known that she had sent her own kids to die in the woods.
‘This story also precluded any future contact with you,’ I state as fact and the woman nods.
‘So, I couldn’t take them back, even if I had my doubts why she sent them off like that.’
‘That’s why you…’ spy ‘…look in on them every once in a while…?’ I ask, taking her elbow and snatching her wicker basket away from her. ‘Let me carry that!’
Grizelda pats her gypsy skirt and continues her shuffle through the woods.
‘And you’ve been living in the woods because you were ostracised after…’
‘No, I used to live in the woods already before. More convenient. For me. Back to you. Because I know for a fact Peter is not the scallywag and Mellie’s baby daddy, no matter what fairy tale you two have concocted,’ she winks at me.’I’ve met the scallywag, remember?’
‘Maybe he’s Hans and Greta’s father and Ella…’
‘No. Lydia…Mellie let it slip that all her kids have the same father. When I came to visit and she threw me out, saying she will have her happily ever after with the father of her children.’
Hang on, if Mellie has an ability…
‘The powers thing, is that hereditary?’ I ask Grizelda, thinking of Ella.
She nods, understanding the term.
‘Ella and Hans and Greta all have abilities,’ Grizelda confirms. ‘Ella for sure. The little ones, I’m not yet sure if they’ve got theirs already. I’ve been keeping an eye, but from afar… Tell me, has Mellie started sending the twins your way more often already?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Maybe they are developing their powers. Lydia got her powers and left home when she was fifteen. Ella is seventeen. The twins are twelve. They might get theirs early. If she was afraid and wanted to get rid of them when they were five…’
‘You said Lydia got her powers at fifteen and you said Ella for sure. Ok, so she has a power. Anything I should be worried about?’
Grizelda shrugs, ‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she can read minds.’
There is a long pause.
‘You’ll have plenty of time to replay all your dialogues with her later,’ Grizelda chuckles.
Right.
‘I can see why she turned Ella out. If Mellie ever thought about her motherly duties…’ I say and Grizelda chuckles. ‘…she would give herself away. As for Hans and Greta, you said she sent them into the woods, maybe hoping the world would be a better place without them. Does she know what their abilities could be? Something dangerous?’
Will I find my home blown up or something similar when I get back one day?
‘If you’re wondering about the twins harming your boy, think about this - have they ever given you any signs that they want to harm him?’
‘No, but it might be a spontaneous thing,’ I think back to all the X-men movies I saw in London. ‘Like spontaneous combustion or somesuch.’
Grizelda shakes her head, ‘I don’t think so. If I had to guess, I’d think the abilities Mellie and her kids have are split between them, diluted down the line, if you will. If Mellie has glamour and Ella has mind-reading, the twins might have empathy or healing or something like that.’
A vision of Hans’ wooden toy train sprouting smoke came to mind. Maybe his power is bringing things to life, a version of healing?
‘Why did Mellie think the twins’ powers are something dangerous then? And why do you think it’s these powers, to begin with?’
Grizelda just laughs. ‘They get it from their grandfather. Mellie’s father. When I didn’t see all of his powers repeating in Mellie and her power didn’t repeat in Ella, I thought his powers were divided amongst his progeny.’
‘Who..what was their grandfather?’
Grizelda cocks her head, ‘You know, I’m not quite sure, but he glamoured me good, talked me down a ledge as if he could see inside my soul and was gone in the morning.’
Mellie was the result of a one-night stand?
I sigh.
Some people have all the luck. I had to try for ten years to get Henry.
‘So, you don’t really know what the twins’ powers could be?’
Grizleda shrugs.
‘Perhaps, neither did Mellie. And people have the tendency to fear the unknown.’
I weigh my options and then Hans’ and Greta’s.
‘They have nowhere else to go.’
Grizelda looks at me in the way Shrek’s Donkey used to look before saying ‘Me, me, pick me!’
‘No, I can’t send them to you. And not because everyone would believe I’m the evil stepmother, feeding the twins to a cannibal. We’ll sort that out. Somehow. Soon. I just can’t send them because they also need time to adjust to you before they decide if they want to live with you.’ I say.
‘It would be mighty convenient for me to come visit my grandchildren at yours’. Maybe even get to know them and explain…maybe even have a good relationship with them. Someday. They deserve a family, you know,’ Grizelda says quietly.
I nod, ‘They have one. Peter and I and Ella and Henry,’ I say, noticing her shoulders sag, ‘And you.’
‘Thank you,’ Grizelda says, her eyes glistening.
‘My pleasure. You didn’t deserve everybody be
lieving a lie. You even tried to go meat-free so people would think you’ve changed and…’
‘Weren’t a cannibal any more?’ she finishes for me and chuckles, ‘I can’t handle eating meat more than once a week anyway. Too difficult to digest. That was the easy part. The difficult part was being kept away from them. If I even tried to get closer, everybody thought I wanted to eat them. Even you,’ she says without a hint of reproach in her voice.
‘Yes, even me. I’m sorry. I assumed the story I heard in my childhood applied in this world,’ I say. Grizelda looks interested. ‘I shouldn’t have assumed any such thing.’
Because the Cinderella story is a bit different here than the one told and retold in my world.
Not to mention Belle and the Beast.
Why did I assume Hansel and Gretel here would follow the traditional story-line?
We stop in front of a small dilapidated hut amidst a grove of fir trees.
‘This is me,’ Grizelda says. ‘See, not made of ginger-bread,’ she points at her hut. ‘There might be more holes than plywood, and truth be told, I don’t really know how the whole structure holds together.’
‘It looks a bit light,’ I say.
‘Difficult to get repairmen,’ she shrugs.
I nod. ‘I’ll talk to Peter. He’ll come and help.’
Grizelda smiles at me, ‘Thank you! Thank you also for walking me home. And taking time to listen. And believing me. Nobody else does,’ she chuckles.
‘Have you told everybody else?’ I ask and pat her hand, giving her the basket with the veal.
She shakes her head, ‘I don’t care about everybody else. I care that Hans and Greta know the truth. Know their grandmother. More importantly, that they are not afraid of me. Everybody else can take a hike,’ she says and taps the door. It creaks once and swings inwards, barely hanging off the hinges.
Unlocked. Well, it figures.
Who would dare invade or deface the hut of a well-known cannibal?
Ella
Tuesday, May 7th
I can’t take the pressure anymore!
Mellie is gone with the wind, running after her suitor. Grace has been spending hours at the market every day, talking to the merchants, trying to find out if there is any word from Ailmsworth.
