Into the Woods

by Lyn Gardner

  Storm held her tight and whispered, ‘I’ll always look after you, Any. I’ll always protect you, whatever happens.’

  Any was already snoring.

  Storm laid the baby back on her starry blanket and crawled out from under the table. There was a flash of lightning and it was as if a light bulb had lit up in her brain.

  Storm’s heart knocked in her chest. She suddenly realized that the children who had disappeared were the plumpest in the orphanage, and she was positive that they had been deliberately fattened up for some terrible purpose.

  Storm was distraught. Any’s non-stop diet of strawberry cream shortcake, peanutbutter cookies and iced fruitcake meant that she was popping out of her clothes alarmingly. If anyone was an ideal candidate for going missing from the orphanage it was her own little sister.

  She ran to tell Aurora of her fears, and found her sister in a room near the kitchen, piling one huge tray with chocolate and pear charlottes and pecan pies, and another with blancmanges, fairy cakes and lemon cheesecakes.

  Aurora listened while Storm explained her fears and then said airily, ‘Goodness, Storm, don’t fret so. There’s sure to be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why those children aren’t here. They’ve probably been fostered or something.’ She peered into Storm’s worried face.‘You know your problem, Storm Eden? You’ve got an overactive imagination. You don’t seriously think anyone is going to go round eating children in this day and age, do you? It’s preposterous. People don’t do that kind of thing. It is too ridiculously wicked even to contemplate. And I think you’re wicked to go round implicating Mrs Bumble in such a thing. When I think of everything that lovely woman has done for us. She’s even given me her secret recipe for shoo-fly pie. She’s been like a mother to me.’ She paused. ‘In fact, I’m hoping she might adopt me.’

  Storm stared at Aurora open-mouthed, but her sister simply reached into her apron pocket and pulled out some of the little flags used to label the food. ‘Here, do something useful: help me label these,’ she said, handing Storm a pen. ‘You do the pecan pie, fairy cakes, lemon cheesecake and blancmange.’ Storm scowled, and started scribbling impatiently.

  Aurora leaned over and glanced at her labels. ‘You’ve spelled blancmange wrong. It doesn’t have an h in the middle,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, what does spelling matter?’ said Storm irritably. ‘It’s not important. What’s important is—’ She stopped. Aurora had put her head down on the table and fallen asleep, a contented smile on her face.

  Storm groaned. She was sure now that they were all in terrible danger – Any most of all – but she also knew that she would find it impossible to coax Aurora out of the Ginger House. It was as if she was under some terrible spell that had to be broken.

  Maybe if I can just get her outside, Storm thought. She glanced at the wind-swept window, wondering if it would open wide enough for them to squeeze through. It was then that she saw, with a jolt, that an all-too-familiar black carriage was standing in the yard, its horses impatiently stamping the ground.

  Her heart in her mouth, Storm crept over to the kitchen door and tried the handle. It was shut firm. She put her ear against the keyhole.

  ‘I’ll have half a dozen of the little darlings very soon,’ came Bee Bumble’s sugary voice.‘Six succulent little piggies, as plump and sweet as meadow grass. Just the way you like them, Dr DeWilde.’

  Storm stifled a gasp. Dr DeWilde and Bee Bumble were in league with each other! She and her sisters were in even greater danger than she’d thought.

  The voices beyond the door dropped lower and Storm could only pick out the words ‘pipe’ and ‘consignment of children’ and something that might have been ‘mountains’. Then the sounds abruptly ceased and she just had time to duck behind a huge churn of buttermilk before the door opened and Bee Bumble and the doctor walked swiftly through the room.

  ‘The cub’s more trouble than he’s worth,’ Dr DeWilde was saying.

  ‘His heart’s not properly frozen, my dear doctor. You can see it in his right eye. It’s still green.’

  ‘I told that old ice hag she hadn’t kissed him hard enough,’ grumbled the doctor, ‘but she said that any more and she would kiss him to death. She assured me the ice splinter in his heart would bind him to me, but he’s unreliable.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with those mountain witches,’ said Bee Bumble.‘They’re double-dealers. I should know, my sister’s one. If they can cheat you with a half enchantment when you’ve paid for a full one, they always will.’

  The two headed for the front door, engrossed in their conversation. Storm tiptoed out from behind the churn and through the open door to the kitchen. She wanted to have a good look around while Bee Bumble was out of the way.

  The room was huge, dominated by a vast range over which hung dariole moulds, copper jellyrings, fluted pie dishes and pastry cutters. Next to the range was the biggest oven Storm had ever seen. It was big enough and hot enough to roast a person. And, like in the dining room, the floor of the kitchen was covered in a thin layer of sugar.

  Storm’s eye was drawn to several huge sacks of flour in the corner. The coating of sugar on the floor around them was disturbed, as if the heavy bags were frequently moved. She hurried over to the bags and, with a grunt of effort, managed to shift one. Underneath was a trapdoor. Storm grasped its metal handle and opened the lid. Peering in, she could see rough-hewn steps descending into darkness. An oil-lamp sat on the top step.

  Casting about, Storm spotted a box of cook’s matches and quickly fired up the lamp. Then she ran down the stairs and found herself in a narrow passage. The passage looked like it passed right under the entrance to the Ginger House and, sure enough, as Storm crept along it, she heard Bee Bumble and Dr DeWilde’s muffled voices overhead. She ran lightly onwards.

  The passage continued for several hundred metres in a straight line that ended at another small flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs was another trapdoor, sealed with a strong bolt.

  Storm was worried that she had already been quite long enough and that Mrs Bumble might return to the kitchen and catch her, but she was also excited to have discovered a possible way out of the Ginger House. She drew the bolt, lifted the trapdoor and found herself in a rectangular bricklined room with a staircase spiralling around the walls, upwards into darkness.

  Storm realized immediately where she was: the crier’s tower in the market square. It must be how they smuggled orphans out of the Ginger House without arousing suspicion, she decided. For a second Storm was tempted to walk to freedom. But now, more than ever, she couldn’t leave Aurora and Any in the clutches of Bee Bumble. She turned and raced back down the passageway and had just heaved the flour-sacks back into place, and was attempting to smudge the sugar trail around them, when the kitchen door was flung open and Bee Bumble strode in, followed by Dr DeWilde.

  Storm’s heart hammered with fear, but she tried to look nonchalant. ‘Water. I needed a glass of water,’ she spluttered.

  Bee Bumble eyed Storm suspiciously. Storm looked directly back. The matron’s face was as smooth as glacé icing. For a tiny, fleeting moment Mrs Bumble’s eyebrows knitted together and a frown cut her forehead. It was as if a land slip had suddenly occurred on her face. Her eyes narrowed to slits and the pupils flashed red. Then Dr DeWilde pushed past her, a malicious little smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

  ‘So, Storm Eden, we meet again. Nothing, I can assure you, could give me greater pleasure.’

  ‘I know what you two are up to: you’re in league with each other,’ shouted Storm recklessly.

  ‘And I am going to tell. You’re wicked and evil. You’re fattening up children to eat them!’

  Dr DeWilde’s smile broadened. ‘My, what an imagination you do have, Storm Eden. I think you’ve been reading too many fairytales,’ he drawled pleasantly. He turned to Mrs Bumble.‘Do you think that we have a spy in the Ginger House, Mrs Bumble?’

  ‘Indeed, I think we might, Dr DeWi
lde.’

  ‘And what do we do with spies, my dear Mrs Bumble?’

  ‘Why, my dear Dr DeWilde,’ squawked Bee Bumble excitedly, ‘we put them in the Hansel, of course.’

  A Meeting with Hansel

  Aurora stood in front of the Hansel, a huge chocolate truffle in one hand and a large slice of Madeira cake in the other. A bolt of lightning hit the spunsugar tower and for a moment the room was engulfed in a dazzling brightness.

  ‘Oh, come on, Storm. Eat! It’s for your own good. If you don’t eat you’re going to fade away to nothing.’

  ‘You’re just trying to fatten me up,’ said Storm, shivering in her underwear atop a crude bed of dirty sheets in one corner of the wooden cage. She’d draped one of the sheets around her shoulders, and tried to wrap another around her legs.

  ‘Of course we are,’ said Aurora, smiling at Mrs Bumble, who sat beside her on a chair which, apart from the cage, was the only piece of furniture in the otherwise bare room. ‘We’re worried about you. You’re all skin and bone. Poor Mrs Bumble has been beside herself. She’s put you in here to try and help you. But you’ve got to help yourself. She’s made these especially for you. If you eat everything you’re given for a week, she’s going to let you out of the Hansel.’

  Storm looked at Aurora despairingly.

  ‘Aurora, that woman has bewitched you. She’s in league with Dr DeWilde. She’s a witch and the Ginger House is under some kind of enchantment. Think about it! The way it’s made entirely from cake and sweets, the way the sugar towers don’t melt whatever the weather, the way the children eat the food and grow fat and content.

  The way they mysteriously disappear. Something truly dreadful is happening to them. Please believe me!’

  ‘A liar, as well as a troublemaker who listens at keyholes,’ sighed Bee Bumble, shaking her head sorrowfully, the malicious gleam in her eyes hidden from Aurora.

  Aurora nodded sadly.

  ‘Sometimes, Storm, I think there’s something terribly wrong with you, the way you go around making things up. You’re a fibber.’

  ‘She is, my delicious Aurora. She is a dreadful fibber. She lied to dear Dr DeWilde about the pipe, too. She told him terrible porky pies. Such a pity.’ She leaned forward confidentially towards Aurora. ‘I don’t like to see dear Dr DeWilde in a temper. You never know what he might do. He is so very volatile.’ She paused and looked Aurora sympathetically in the eye. ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea where the pipe might be, my little cupcake? You’d be doing me such a service if you did. Dr DeWilde is growing impatient. I’d show you my secret recipe for baked Alaska …’

  Another flash of lightning lit up the room, but Storm’s face was already bleached white. She felt the pipe glow hot around her neck.

  For a tiny second Aurora hesitated and then she said, ‘Of course, dear Mrs Bumble, it’s around her neck. That’s where she keeps it.’

  ‘Aurora, how could you!’ cried Storm as Mrs Bumble advanced towards the cage.

  Storm’s struggles were to no avail. She fought like a tiger, but it was hopeless. Within seconds a triumphant Mrs Bumble held the pipe, jiggling it from hand to hand as if it was a hot potato just taken from the fire.

  ‘Come,’ she said to Aurora. ‘We will leave your sister to reflect on what happens to nasty little liars.’

  Aurora looked at the food in her hands. ‘Come on, Storm, please have something to eat.’ Storm made a noise like a wild animal. Aurora sighed. ‘Well, if you won’t eat it, I know someone who will.’

  ‘Any?’ asked Storm sharply.

  ‘Yes, it’s lovely the way she’ll eat anything. She’s turning into the most delicious little piglet, all plump and juicy.’ Something in Aurora’s words struck a chord with Storm. She remembered how Mrs Bumble had used almost exactly the same words about the orphans when talking to Dr DeWilde. Horrified, she pleaded with her sister. ‘Aurora, please don’t give any more food to Any. She is getting so plump and it is putting her in terrible danger.’ But her words fell on deaf ears. Aurora simply picked up Storm’s dress and cardigan from the floor and followed Mrs Bumble out of the room, a sweet smile upon her face. Storm fell back against the rumpled sheets, racked by a feeling of utter misery.

  Mrs Bumble was waiting in the corridor for Aurora, struggling to hide the cunning look that was creeping over her features.

  ‘Here,’ she said, giving Aurora the pipe.‘Put this in your pocket. Keep it safe for me. Neither your sister nor any other parties with an interest in the pipe will guess that you have it. I know that I can trust you completely, my little sugar plum.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aurora earnestly. ‘You can trust me, Mrs Bumble. I would do anything for you.’

  The following night, just past midnight, Aurora was busy in the kitchen. She’d just put a Dundee cake into the huge oven and was about to give her sister’s dress a good wash. Storm had no need of it in the Hansel, so it was the perfect opportunity to give it a scrub and darn one of the shoulders which had a large tear. Aurora emptied out the pockets carefully, putting the contents – a box of matches, a twist of gunpowder, a half-eaten sweet and a small metal file – in one of the kitchen drawers. Then she washed the dress thoroughly. It didn’t take long, but it was enough to make her feel dozy and, after she’d laid the dress out to dry, Aurora sank wearily into a chair. She felt tired all the time lately, even when she first woke up in the mornings. Tired, but content. Her mind drifted, her eyelids fluttered and within seconds she was asleep.

  A few minutes later the door of the kitchen opened and a thin figure made a cautious entrance. Looking anxiously around to check they were alone, he walked across to Aurora and gently shook her by the shoulder. Aurora’s eyes slowly focused.

  Standing in front of her was the boy with odd eyes. He was paler and thinner than when she had last seen him at Eden End, blue veins clearly visible beneath his white skin. He looked ethereally beautiful. He looked ill and frightened. Aurora’s heart skipped a beat; she felt sleepy and confused.

  ‘You!’ she breathed.

  ‘My name’s Kit,’ whispered the boy. ‘I’m here to help you. You and your sisters are in serious danger.’

  Aurora stood up unsteadily and tossed her mane of golden hair. ‘Help? I don’t need any help. I’m perfectly well. We’re all fine. Mrs Bumble is very kind to us.’

  The boy eyed her pale cheeks, her dull, vacant eyes. ‘Have you been eating the food?’ he asked urgently. ‘You have, haven’t you?’ He sighed sadly and his face crumpled. ‘Oh, Aurora.’

  Aurora stood stiffly beside him, her eyes glassy. For a second the boy hesitated, then he tilted her face upwards towards his, cupped his hands around her cheeks and kissed her very tenderly on the mouth. Gently, he let her go. For a second Aurora stood very still, swaying slightly, and then a look of shock and surprise animated her features and, like a stone statue that has been magicked into life, the colour crept back into her skin and the sparkle reappeared in her eyes. She yawned, blinked and stretched like a cat.

  ‘I feel so strange,’ she laughed. ‘I feel as if I’ve been in a long deep sleep.’

  ‘You were enchanted by Bee Bumble’s magic potion,’ said the boy, reaching into a huge spunsugar flowerpot and showing her a small bottle of murky liquid. ‘She’s a witch. She puts a drop into every batch of cakes and puddings. It makes people sleepy and content.’

  Aurora stared wonderingly at the boy. ‘You woke me up, didn’t you? How did you break the spell?’

  The boy blushed.‘No time for that now,Aurora. Your sisters are in dire danger. Dr DeWilde is on his way here to tell Bee Bumble he wants another consignment of orphans. We must hurry. Where’s Storm?’

  ‘Locked in the Hansel.’

  ‘Then you must help her escape at once,’ Kit said, with a worried frown and his green eye troubled.

  Aurora gave him a suspicious look. ‘How can I be sure that you’re trustworthy? You tricked me before at Eden End when you stole the pipe.’ Her eyes widened as she realized somethi
ng.‘You were trying to take it to Dr DeWilde!’

  ‘I didn’t want to … he made me,’ said the boy, so miserably that Aurora had to resist the urge to fling her arms around him and comfort him.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because you need a friend and I need one too. Very badly.’ He smiled his melting smile, like the first ray of spring sunshine after a hard winter. He put his hand on Aurora’s and said softly, ‘You can trust me. I promise.’

  Aurora was flustered. She wanted desperately to believe him, but he had tricked her once and he might do so again. ‘Prove it, Kit,’ she whispered.

  There was a tiny cough from the doorway.

  ‘A pretty scene!’ sneered Dr DeWilde. He was leaning insolently against the door-surround, watching them. Fear flashed through the boy’s emerald eye and he dropped Aurora’s hand as if it was a red-hot coal. Dr DeWilde took a step, leaned forward, locked the curved handle of his cane around the boy’s fragile neck and pulled him close.

  ‘Plotting, cub? After everything I’ve done for you?’ He pulled the boy right up to his face and hissed, ‘You’re my creature, cub. Mine entirely.’ Then he pushed the whimpering boy to the ground and looked hard at Aurora. ‘You would do well to remember that, too, my dear.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of coloured sweets that looked like bright gems. Kit’s icy-blue eye had a ravenous, greedy look. Eagerly he reached for the sparkling gems. Dr DeWilde laughed and aimed a vicious kick at the boy.

  ‘See!’ he said lazily. ‘He will do anything for a handful of my precious sweeties. Anything that I ask. Anything at all. The greedy little pup would even betray you.’ He picked the crumpled figure off the floor by the scruff of the neck and said, ‘Come, cub, I have work for you.’

  The boy’s beautiful face flushed red and Aurora averted her eyes as he meekly followed Dr DeWilde out of the room.

  Aurora stood for a moment looking thoughtful, then she went to the drawer where she had put the contents of Storm’s pockets and took them out. She reached for a mixing bowl and two of the small flowerpot-shaped dariole moulds and began to make chocolate madeleines. When she had put them in the oven, she got down another bowl and started to make a pie.