Gretel

by Christopher Coleman

  Anika slowly stooped down, blindly feeling for the largest stick in her immediate confines, which turned out to be a stray branch, two-feet long at most and no thicker than a billiard cue. She grabbed it and stood back up without moving her feet.

  “Hello,” she said softly, mildly aware that she was attempting to talk to what she had convinced herself was a deer.

  The night answered back with only the distant chirping of crickets and the light rustle of the trees’ topmost leaves. The moon had returned to the black sky, and Anika’s eyes adjusted. She could now see the silvery reflection of the branches and rocks that crowded the area. If something large was still there, she would certainly see it when it moved.

  Keeping as still as possible, Anika shifted her eyes from right to left, turning her head just slightly upon reaching the limits of her periphery.

  Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

  This time the sound was plodding and aggressive with no pretense of stealth. Terrified, Anika turned toward the sound, and saw only a glimpse of something curved and dull smash down on her forehead, catching her brow above her left eye and splitting it like a grape.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was almost dawn when the Morgan truck pulled back onto the gravel road that led to their cabin, and Gretel’s doubts about seeing her mother again had grown stronger.

  To this point she had been scared, and had concentrated this fear and directed it toward her father in a projection of overdue frustrations. But she hadn’t really believed her mother was gone forever. Forever. She was too tired now to start adjusting to exactly what that meant to the rest of her life. And as much as her body pressured her to cry, there were simply no more tears.

  The drive home from Deda’s had been agony. Her father had stopped at every curve and intersection, every hill and possible hidden entrance, forcing her and Hansel out to wander the shoulders of the highways with him, branching off in opposite directions until he called them back with a barking “Let’s go.” They were the only words he spoke the entire drive.

  And the searches were pathetic and hopeless in the vast darkness of the countryside, with only the narrow beam of the car’s headlights to guide them. The only way they would have found their mother was if she happened to be sitting in the eight-foot wide stretch of light at the exact place where her father had pulled over. The ridiculousness of it made Gretel despondent and she cried nearly the whole time.

  But as her father now pulled to a stop in front of their home, her sobs had been replaced with a more reserved depression and self-pity. If she had indeed lost her mother, then her loss, she knew, was greater than anyone’s. Including her father. Whatever his weaknesses were as a man, he was an adult and was innately better built to deal with such losses. It was part of what separated adults from children, Gretel thought. She was sad for him, of course, but husbands lost their wives every day—or the other way around—it was an eventual fact of life. And with a home and a fair amount of land, he could marry again if that’s what he wanted. Men with property rarely died alone in the Southlands.

  There was Hansel, of course, who was a child, and Gretel did not discount the enormity of the loss her mother would be to him. Because of his age, he was more vulnerable than she was, and she knew there was no worse thing an eight-year-old boy could imagine than losing his mother. It would be devastating for her brother, of that she had no doubt. But she also knew that compared to virtually any girl born in the Southlands, a boy’s life was charmed. And though his sadness would be deep and prolonged, his future would arrive unscathed. He would grow into a teenager and then a young man, and as he grew, so too would the respect of those in the community. Not that he would be any great pillar of society (it was the Back Country, after all)—or even a leader of men, she guessed—it’s just the way it was here. Eventually Hansel would inherit the farm from their father, marry a girl, of which there would be several to choose from, and live as the Morgan men did for generations before him: long and average and in relative happiness. And it would go that way with or without his mother.

  But it was different when a girl lost her mother. A girl truly needed her mother. It was true a girl’s father protected her from physical harm, but her mother was her defender in the community, which, at fourteen, Gretel deemed far more important. And her mother was special, particularly suited for the task of raising a girl to womanhood. How brilliant she was! Having the ability not only to navigate the common pitfalls that consumed most of her friends’ mothers, but also to float above all the ridiculous rules that most women accepted without protest. That role of an indentured servant, mothering unlimited offspring at her husband’s command: that was never to be her mother’s lot in life.

  And until this moment, Gretel didn’t think it was hers. She had anticipated and depended on her mother encouraging and reinforcing these values as she grew, molding her into something proud and independent. Not to lead armies into battle or found nations, but to become her own woman. And Gretel wasn’t there yet. She wasn’t ready to lose her mother.

  She had, of course, considered another possibility: that her mother wasn’t dead. That she had instead left them, fed up with domestic life on the farm. Perhaps she even had the intention of retrieving her and Hansel once she was settled into whatever new life she’d found, one that had been blueprinted and dreamed of for years. It wasn’t an impossible scenario; her father was no prince, and though he was by no measure evil or abusive, charming and inspiring he was not. It was no great stretch to imagine a woman like her mother trading up when the opportunity arose.

  But this prospect, though obviously a better, happier one, didn’t fit, and provided little comfort to Gretel. Somewhere within her, she knew the news was grim.

  Her father turned off the truck’s motor and left the keys in the ignition. He opened the door of the truck and walked to the front door of the cabin where he stood motionlessly, his head hung, staring at the ground in front of his feet.

  “We’ll go again tomorrow,” he said, “when there is light.” He then opened the door and walked inside quietly.

  Gretel sat in the passenger seat of the truck and stared bleakly through the open car door at the spot where her father had stood just seconds before. The thought of another day combing the emptiness of the Interways was unbearable right now, and she pushed the thought aside. She could only pray that he would change his mind by tomorrow morning and let The System do its work.

  But what her father said wasn’t as dispiriting as how he was behaving. For starters, he had left Hansel sleeping in the back of the truck, having made no effort even to wake him, let alone carry him inside: something he had done without thinking dozens of times in his life. Her father was still ill, Gretel realized, and his injuries were far from healed and were probably flaring as badly as ever right now, but he hadn’t even looked at his son. Hansel was certainly no toddler, of course, he was in fact rather tall and stout for his age, having always been a hearty eater and eager farmhand. But her father had always relished carrying his son to bed, whether from the truck after a long road trip or the large sofa in the den where Hansel liked to sit and read his magazines. It was something Gretel had observed in her father with great interest, even early in her brother’s life, since the act was so out of place within her father’s overall character.

  But she was being too hard on him, perhaps. His wife was gone, and whether through force or by choice, the result for the rest of his life was essentially the same.

  Gretel reached down and picked the book off the floor. In the context of the dirt road that made up the front yard of her cottage, the black tome now seemed somehow smaller and incomplete, losing some of its fascination to Gretel. But not all.

  The blackness and sterility of it were still mesmerizing—appearing as shadowy in the dim light of the truck as it did on Deda’s shelf—and the feel of it, that leathery coldness, remained.

  Deda had allowed her to take the book home, and she had only asked to do so because she had seen
the look in her grandfather’s eyes when he saw her with it, struggling to reach it from the precarious edge of the work bench. His face had burst into the same smile she had seen when they first arrived, only this time his eyes were alert, craving. Instinctively, she had asked for it, feeling that doing so was a preemptive strike of sorts, though what exactly it was she was preempting she didn’t know. She had always wanted to take it, of course, but knew on some level that it would be out of place with her outside the realm of the damp cellar. And that now seemed true.

  Deda had told Gretel that the title of the book was Orphism, and according to him it was older than The Bible; how he knew that fact was unclear, since he claimed to have no idea what the word ‘Orphism’ even meant or what the book itself was about.

  “But your grandmother treasured it,” he had told her while they both sat in Deda’s small kitchen, having exited the creepiness of the cellar. Deda’s smile had been warm as he reflected on his deceased wife. “And it’s one of the few possessions of hers that remains. So I have come to treasure it as well.” It had seemed so strange to Gretel to be openly discussing the book that for so long had held such mystery, and she felt a bit silly that she had never asked her grandfather about it before. It was only a book after all.

  “Why did she love it so much?” Gretel asked.

  Deda paused and then said, “It was special to her.” His smile waned slightly as he looked away from his granddaughter, appearing disappointed that she had posed such a question. He forced a cough and rose from the table, making his way to the stove and picking up the teapot that sat on the back burner.

  The awkwardness of the silence that followed Deda’s non-answer was striking, and Gretel had been relieved when her father entered the room. His face was stern and tired. And he had made no acknowledgment of Deda.

  “Gretel, we’re leaving,” he said. “Your brother is in the truck.” He turned and walked out, and the subsequent sound of the front door opening and closing had been deafening.

  The ride back to the Southlands would be tortuous, Gretel knew, but she had been glad to be leaving.

  She’d grabbed the book—Orphism—with both hands and stood up from the table. “Bye Deda,” she said and turned to leave, not really expecting a reply. She had come to accept these periods of moodiness and depression in her grandfather over the years, and though her feelings were often hurt by them, she mostly felt sorry for him.

  “Your grandmother was an amazing woman,” Deda said, his voice crisp and loud, as if he was standing right behind her.

  Gretel turned back toward the kitchen and saw Deda standing at the stove, casually firing up the teapot as he was before.

  “You, Gretel, would have loved her. And she you.”

  “Okay, bye,” Gretel had managed to stammer, and then quickly walked from the house and into the front seat of her father’s truck, which her father had wasted no time shifting into park and driving away.

  Deda’s words had been eerie and out of place, Gretel now thought as she tried gently to stir her brother awake. But they were somehow comforting. She had never known her grandmother—she died when Gretel’s mother was just a girl—but her mother had always spoken fondly of the woman, and that had always been important to Gretel.

  Her mother. Gretel’s eyes filled with tears once again. “Hansel.”

  “We’ll never find her like this,” he whined. “I want to go home!”

  The fruitless searches had clearly traumatized her brother, and Gretel suspected there would be something akin to a revolution tomorrow morning when their father told him the plans for the day.

  “We’re home, Han. Let’s go.”

  ***

  The next morning Hansel woke first, followed by Gretel, and they both performed their daily tasks as minimally and quietly as possible, making every effort to ensure their father continued sleeping. And he had, almost until lunchtime, before he finally ventured out to the main area of the house, clumsily fixed a plate of eggs and toast, and retreated back to his room. No mention was made of a search effort, and neither child reminded him.

  But Gretel was now torn. With a full night’s sleep, in the clarity of the day, she thought her father had been right last night: they had to look for their mother. Who else if not them?

  Gretel had been exhausted after the ride from Deda’s, and it had made her selfish, but if her mother needed help, and if her father was right about The System not doing anything for days, then of course they had to go look for her! Were they to let her die in a ditch somewhere in the Northlands? No, they had to go.

  But go where?

  The truth was they had looked in the only place they knew—along the Interways—and though the daylight could certainly be the difference between spotting a footprint in the mud or a stray piece of fabric lingering on a branch, Gretel didn’t suspect this would be the outcome. By now, if her mother had crashed the car along that stretch of road—not a major thoroughfare, to be sure, but not empty either—someone would have noticed. Certainly there would be some indication of an accident. She or her father would have seen it. On the way back from Deda’s it had been dark and impossible, but driving to his house there had been plenty of light, and they had stopped everywhere it seemed. And had found nothing.

  What Gretel also knew was there was little chance of getting help from anyone personally. Her father had already made all the calls to friends and family, including even the most fringe members of both sets, and according to him no one had heard anything or was in any position to help. Of course not.

  Her mother’s extended family consisted of Deda, who apparently offered nothing new during her father’s conversation with him (though her father hadn’t told Gretel any of the specifics), and the few members left of her father’s family were either far away, feeble, or on less-than-stellar terms with her father. In some cases it was all three. The Morgan family—that is, her father’s kin—as far as Gretel was concerned, did not extend beyond her family’s cabin’s walls.

  And then there was The System of course, who Gretel, like most children in the Southlands, rarely, if ever, saw. Her father had told her they never patrolled the Back Country unless there was cause or summons, neither of which, if it could be at all helped, occurred here. The land policed itself for the most part, and this value of self-reliance was well-met by The System, who preferred to stay tight to the cities where their oversight was much more condensed and efficient. Whether they were respectful of Back Country rules or indifferent to the plight of its people, The System stayed away.

  But they weren’t completely foreign to Gretel. She had, in fact, seen their cars on two different occasions, and one of those times had been in the Back Country when the Stein farm had caught fire and Jonathan Stein’s grandmother was killed. Gretel recalled the sight of the blood red car racing past her cottage, its siren blazing loudly as the black ghost of the exhaust lingered in the coupe’s wake. Gretel had been struck most by the car’s color and its stark contrast to the Back Country landscape, and the dark black tint of the windows. She had never actually seen a System officer, but had been told they were men of enormous size.

  The reputation of The System was one that inspired fear in the general citizenry, but The System itself kept itself in the shadows as much as possible. They relied on local law enforcement—and in the case of the Back Country, the people—to deal with the lower crimes and complaints, focusing instead on the more serious, complicated situations. This enforcement formula had given The System a somewhat mythical quality for Gretel, as it did for most of the residents of the Southlands, particularly in the Back Country. And Gretel understood very well that this was kind of the point.

  But as far as Gretel was concerned, The System was also corrupt and inadequate, and she knew of no incidences when they had actually helped anyone she knew. In fact, if there was one thing she believed about The System, it was that they did not exist to help her, her family, or anyone in her community, though she had come to realize years a
go that most of her viewpoints about it were based on her father’s beliefs and not her own experiences.

  And there was one other thing she now believed about The System: that ultimately she was counting on them to bring her mother home.

  So Gretel clung to hope in The System and their rules, which apparently required at least another full day for her mother to remain missing before they began a search. And when they finally did, Gretel guessed, they would do so under the assumption that their mother had left them for bluer skies and a new life, and not that she was in trouble or dead. Okay. That was fine. At least they would be looking. It was more than she and her family were doing now.

  Gretel’s hatred for her father flared with this thought and again she became disgusted with his lack of masculinity and fortitude. She knew her mother would be doing more for him if the situation were reversed, and even if he was hurting physically this morning—which no doubt he was after the chaos of last night—his wife was missing, and he should never give up.

  As if on cue, Heinrich Morgan opened the door to his bedroom and walked out, passing through the kitchen to the porch where Gretel had first heard the news of her mother’s absence only yesterday. Yesterday. It seemed like weeks, and Gretel’s spirit was momentarily buoyed by the brief time span.

  Heinrich put on his boots, still muddy and wet from last night’s search, and walked toward the door.

  “Where are you going, Papa?” Gretel’s voice was calm, sympathetic.

  “Check on your brother in a few minutes, Gretel. He’s in the fields.”

  “Where are you going?” she repeated, this time with more urgency.

  “You know where I’m going. Check on your brother.” Her father opened the door and walked out toward the truck, Gretel right behind him.

  “I’ll come with you, Papa. Let me help. Last night it was too dark, but today—”

  Gretel’s words were interrupted by a voice Gretel hadn’t heard come from her father’s mouth in quite some time.