The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel #1-3)

by Christopher Coleman

  She was the real reason he was on his way now to confront the System. About that he was sure. When Petr began his plan to search for the truth of the witch’s disappearing corpse, he told himself that his father was the reason—that he had a responsibility to him to ensure the woman was truly dead and that justice had been served. But that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe not even mostly. He had cared deeply for his father. Despite the aloof and demanding nature of the man, Petr had always felt love from him. But his betrayal was devastating to his legacy, and it had cushioned Petr’s feelings of mourning considerably. Or perhaps those feelings had just been transmuted from grief into something else, something more closely resembling anger.

  With Gretel, his purpose was different, his pursuit more urgent. Petr loved Gretel. It was a feeling that swelled with each day that passed. If there was any chance she was still in danger, even if that chance was remote, he was going to protect her and push through any barriers to do so. She, too, deserved justice for what the witch had done to her and her mother, but with Gretel, Petr wasn’t motivated by justice. Justice didn’t inspire the same frenzy to action that preservation did.

  As he approached the barracks, Petr mentally rehearsed what he was going to say once inside. He had to be confident, stand tall, and look into the eyes of everyone he spoke with and state his purpose for being there with expectance in his voice. Most of the agents and administrators in the System knew who he was, of course. The son of the officer murdered by the immortal witch of the Northlands was not going to fly under the radar in this building, but in some ways, it worked to Petr’s advantage. When he told them his suspicion, that the Witch of the North was alive, they would internally dismiss it as the misguided notion of a vigilante—a grief-blinded idea from a child consumed with his father’s death.

  They would think that, but they wouldn’t ignore him.

  His father’s death entitled him to be heard. And even if most of them rolled their eyes at him in their hearts, they would still talk to him, if only to appear sympathetic. And when they spoke, if there was a cover-up about the details of the woman’s death, someone would let it slip, and Petr would hear it immediately. He was certainly as familiar with the official report as anyone in the System, including the officers first on the scene.

  On the other hand, if the reports were accurate and the woman was dead, he’d accept it, move on, and try his best to contribute to his life at the Klahr orchard in the depths of the Back Country. He would continue to miss Gretel and ache for her return, but he would be content in the knowledge that she was no longer the subject of a hunt.

  Petr knew the truth, though. The witch was alive.

  The call had come three days after the night in the cannery. The voice on the other end of the line had been that of a woman, though it was not feminine either in tone or language. She spoke quickly and directly, without introduction, and said only five words before immediately hanging up. The call lasted maybe ten seconds.

  Have you seen her body?

  The message was cryptic and out of context, but Petr never had any doubt as to the meaning of the rhetorical question. They had never found her. The System officers on site at the cannery the following morning never discovered a body. She was alive. And Petr wasn’t the least bit surprised. He’d seen her in the flesh, terrifying and wicked, her strength beyond what any human could possess, her giant white teeth enveloping her face when she smiled. He had no doubt Gretel had injured her in the cannery, perhaps badly. But not mortally. No, she was alive, and it was now his duty to find her. To find her and kill her, forever this time.

  Petr pulled Ben Richter’s truck slowly into the lot of the barracks and parked in one of the isolated spots at the back, keeping his distance from the massive chrome cruisers that lined the front of the broad, charmless building. He felt his bladder and bowels strain, and the recent memory of the witch pulling back that black tarp to unveil his father’s cruiser flooded him. She had been so measured and cocky that day, taunting him, completely void of sympathy or fear as she descended from the top of the porch staircase.

  He sat quietly in the pickup truck and took five or six deep breaths, slowly and deliberately, until he felt somewhat composed. This was a technique he’d discovered recently, this deep breathing, micro-meditation method, and it had gotten him through many of his more solemn days. Sometimes it took ten breaths, sometimes two, but the pause was critical, and it grounded him to the moment.

  He stepped from the truck and walked to the front of the System barracks, passing a pair of disinterested officers as he climbed the steps to the large, glass doors of the entrance. The height of the doors suggested the building was designed for some ancient race of giants, long dead perhaps, their stronghold now overrun with a human police force known as the System. These types of designs were no accident, and they certainly helped to disseminate the System’s reputation as towering, futuristic soldiers—men of few words and many weapons. Of course, Petr knew the truth—that they were just regular people of ordinary size, and he would always just laugh and shake his head when his friends in the Back Country spoke of them mythically.

  Petr stepped into the lobby and was immediately struck by the modernity of the place, as he always was since his days as a small child. A wall of televisions showing a rainbow of young people acting out various public service announcements greeted him, the subtitles suggesting they were giving tips on things like safety and civic responsibility. Along another wall, more TVs showed news programming and weather forecasts, as well as a running account of all the crimes that had been prevented because of the System’s diligence. Petr could never quite figure out how anyone calculated “prevented crimes,” but there it was on the monitor, its electronic form somehow making it seem more official.

  What Petr didn’t see were people. When he had last been there with his father years ago, and every time before then, an officer was always at the front, about twenty paces beyond the doors, positioned in a way that naturally drew visitors to the desk as they entered. But this setup was different. Instead of the scowling heavyset woman of his youth, there was an electronic bulletin board containing a digital listing of all the departments and their locations within the building. It seemed like a strange adaptation for a police barracks, but in a way, Petr was relieved, since he could now advance farther into the building without having to dive right into his theories about the zombie witch.

  He perused the barracks’ electronic directory for a few seconds and decided he would just head to the farthest area at the back of the floor, looking for someone important who’d be willing to talk to him. Perhaps he could get straight to the captain. And if he did happen to get that far, surely the teenage son of a fallen officer warranted a few minutes of his time.

  Petr started toward the large frosted door at the far end of the barracks when he felt a hand fall on his shoulder.

  “Can I help you find something, son?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Don’t touch me!” Petr blurted, shuddering the hand from his back and spinning toward the assailant.

  “Whoa buddy, easy,” the man said in mock fear, “I’m just trying to help. Don’t swing.”

  Petr vaguely recognized the man, and the bemused look on the officer’s face turned to a squint of searching, seamlessly replacing the scowl of mistrust.

  “Petr?”

  Petr nodded.

  The man’s playful tone dropped to a somber baritone. “Petr, how are you? I...what’s wrong?”

  Petr shook his head slowly, giving up the puzzle of the man’s name. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

  “Dodd. Officer Dodd. Your father and I were friends.”

  Chapter 8

  Hansel sat quietly in the far corner of the room he shared with his sister, his arms folded across his chest, his head tilted slightly forward in a posture of pouting.

  Gretel had been watching him on and off for several hours now, occasionally asking him if he was ready to talk—about their
travel plans, their mother, or any subject he chose—to which he simply responded, “No” or shook his head in dissent. Other than this single-word response, he said nothing at all.

  “Hansel, it will be okay.” Gretel tried again, not convinced of her own statement.

  Hansel said nothing.

  “We’ll be back together before you know it.”

  “Why does she want us to leave?” Hansel finally blurted. “I don’t understand.”

  Gretel had sat with her brother while their mother told Hansel about her sickness and about the hopes she had of tracking down those who could cure her. About the unknown journey she had to make—alone—to the isolated tribal lands of her ancestors. She had explained it all in the simplest way possible, which wasn’t very simple at all.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she had told him. “I’m sending you home. And I have every intention and belief that I will join you there one day. One day soon.”

  But their mother’s optimism hadn’t penetrated either of her children. She had found a pair of their distant kin—or so they claimed—to take her on the journey. One was to navigate and another was to translate upon arrival. Gretel normally would have felt extremely distrustful of this arrangement, like her mother was being lured into some con to be robbed and raped. But the trust she felt for these distant Aulwurms was deep, and it seemed like, in a matter of only a few months, they had come to love Anika like a daughter.

  But despite their sincere intentions, Gretel didn’t feel great about the prospects of success for this upcoming journey her mother was about to take. The Old World Aulwurms were always so positive and philosophical, but it was unclear to Gretel if they even understood what their mother sought, let alone how and where exactly she would find it in the mountains beyond the borders.

  And then there was the journey itself; though not terribly distant as the crow flies, by the telling of it, the terrain and ascent could be rather treacherous.

  Everything suddenly felt very vague to Gretel, and the more she weighed the odds of seeing her mother again, the more she suddenly wanted to join with Hansel and talk her out of it.

  But that option was no longer on the table.

  “It’s time for us to go home, Hansel. And mother must try to live. It’s as simple as that. We can’t go with her where she’s going, so we have to go back to our lives.”

  “I don’t want to go back!” Hansel was crying now. “I never want to go in that house again!”

  Gretel moved to her brother and put her arms around him. “We’ll stay with the Klahrs for a while. The migrant workers should be gone by the time we get home. They’ll have plenty of room for us. They’ll be overjoyed we’re home.”

  Hansel’s sobs lessened just slightly.

  “And you’ll see your old friends. You really haven’t made any friends here, so that will be nice, right?”

  “I guess.”

  Gretel closed her eyes for a few beats, considering her next words, and then said, “Listen Hansel, I can’t tell you for sure that mother is going to be okay.” She paused to gauge her brother’s reaction, and sensing none, she continued. “But I do know that this decision she’s made will give her the best chance of being with us for as long as possible. We can trust her as far as that is concerned, right?”

  Hansel nodded.

  “We just have to trust her.” Gretel said this last sentence to Hansel, but she was really speaking it to herself.

  Hansel was quiet now, and Gretel kept him embraced.

  “I get feelings sometimes Hansel, feelings that are almost impossible to explain. The only way I can describe it is that I can sense when certain forces in the world or the universe or something are guiding me toward what is true or right.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not describing it properly.” Gretel sighed and shook her head quickly as if to reset everything she’d just said and was now starting over. “Okay, remember when we were little and we would play hide and seek? And you would always accuse me of cheating because I would find you almost immediately?”

  “You did cheat.”

  Gretel laughed. “I didn’t! I just knew. After a while, I only pretended not to know, but I always did.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know. And that’s just a small example. I’ve always just sort of known. Even when mother went missing, I always felt she was alive. I didn’t know where she was, obviously, but I always knew I’d see her again.”

  “And you feel that now?”

  “I can’t promise you everything will turn out all right, I’m not some kind of seer who can see the future or anything like that, but I know these decisions are the right things to do. Mother has to go seek her cure, and we have to go home and be with the Klahrs.”

  “I do trust mother, Gretel, but more than that, I trust you.”

  Gretel smiled and gave her brother a final squeeze, holding back impending tears. “Good. Mother will be home from her appointment soon, and I want you to talk to her. As soon as she comes in. Tell her you can’t wait until we’re all home together again.”

  What Gretel didn’t speak of was the witch, the idea of whom had jostled some divining rod within Gretel, some deep understanding that what her mother said may be possible and that Petr was right.

  What if she was alive?

  Was it even a possibility? Neither she nor her mother had descended the ladder that night to make sure she was dead. She hadn’t even considered that the woman could be alive. Gretel had swung the hammer like an ancient god, connecting as cleanly and cruelly as she’d believed she was capable. But maybe that wasn’t enough. The woman had demonstrated a strength that Gretel wouldn’t have believed imaginable even in the strongest of men.

  And she had flown. Never forget that part, Gretel, she told herself.

  But she had also bled too. And her face had been badly deformed from the bowl strike during her mother’s escape.And there was no question that she was exhausted outside the cannery that night as she sat and rested on the bank of the lake. She seemed like she could barely move. The woman had vulnerabilities, undoubtedly, and she and her mother—and Odalinde—had exposed many of them.

  But none of those examples meant she was dead. Her weaknesses only suggested that the woman could die. Those were two very different things. Maybe a hammer wasn’t enough.

  Maybe, Gretel thought, the abominable crone needs to have her head sliced from her neck.

  Chapter 9

  “Officer Dodd?” Petr immediately was suspicious of the man in front of him and did nothing to hide it.

  “That’s right, Petr. You don’t know me, but I know you. I meant to talk to you at your father’s funeral but...well, there never seemed to be a good time. Anyway, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “You and my father were good friends?”

  “Well, I guess I wouldn’t say good friends, but we were friendly. He was a great officer. What happened...what she did to him...it could have happened to anyone.”

  Petr had thought a lot about his father’s choices over the past year and came to a similar conclusion to that of Officer Dodd. Petr wasn’t so sure anyone would have fallen victim to the temptations presented, but probably most would have. That belief subdued the sting of his father’s failures only slightly.

  “What are you doing here, Petr? You’re a long way from the Back Country.”

  “You’ve kept up with my life, I see.”

  Dodd frowned at the implication that he was behaving like private detective. “Everyone here knows the story by now, Petr. And considering the folks you’re living with were part of the story, yes, Petr, I know where you live.”

  Petr hesitated, first surveying Dodd’s expression and then the station around him. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” he asked finally.

  “Um, sure. My office is the third door on the left, just past the fountain. Have a seat in there. I have some things to finish up and I’ll be right in.”

  Petr walked to the ope
n door of Officer Dodd’s office and glanced around the barracks one last time before entering, mildly curious as to what ‘things’ Dodd was finishing. He sat quietly in one of the two leather Carver chairs that faced Dodd’s desk, which was a thick bulky piece made from some dark, coffee-colored wood. On each of the walls flanking the desk was a ceiling-high, half-filled bookshelf, both of which seemed to contain books devoted exclusively to policing.

  Petr scanned the office, looking for family photos or memorabilia of some kind, but instead, he only saw the various framed awards and certificates of recognition that every officer in the System no doubt acquired over the years. Petr’s father must have had at least fifty.

  Dodd seemed like a real fun guy.

  He’s probably a bachelor, Petr thought. He seemed the type. The type who was friendly, but in a cold, creepy kind of way. The kind of man who would aggressively pursue any woman that showed him even the slightest interest, wearing her down until she was forced to tell him to screw off.

  But it wasn’t just that there were no family photos. There were no pictures at all in the office. No boating trips with buddies. No Mom and Dad at graduation. No Dodd and the dog at the beach. Yep, real fun guy.

  Petr swiveled his head back over his shoulder to see if there was any sign of Dodd, and then, sensing nothing, he stood and walked to one of the bookshelves. He perused them slowly, looking at the titles of the books more closely—more out of boredom than anything—and saw nothing of interest to him. He walked behind Dodd’s desk, for no other reason than to be irreverent, and made his way to the other side of the office and the opposite case of books. Police Procedures and Investigation, Advanced Law Enforcement, Police Firearms Tactics and Training. All in the same vein as the others. This guy is as square as a chessboard, Petr thought.