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

by Christopher Coleman

  “Mr. Dodd?”

  Officer Dodd shook off his visions of magic and fantasies, of living for another two or three centuries like a god. “Yes, thank you Ben, I heard you. I was just wondering, though, this is a long way to come to tell me this. Why not just call us?”

  Ben looked away, ashamed, and then stared back at Dodd with a pleading look of innocence. “He said he didn’t trust the System. Except for you and the overseer. He didn’t want to risk leaving a message with someone else. He still thinks the witch is alive, which is crazy, I know, but he does, so he asked me to relay the message to you.”

  “Ben, what are you saying?” The voice came from behind Dodd, and he turned to see Petr Stenson walking quickly toward him.

  “Petr?”

  Petr stayed focused on Ben, staring daggers at him.

  “What is going on, Petr? Ben?”

  Petr sighed and slumped his shoulders in defeat. “Did he tell you? Did he tell you about Gretel?”

  Dodd nodded slowly and said nothing, staring at both boys with a look of obvious suspicion.

  Petr gave another malicious look in the direction of his friend and then turned back to Dodd. “I came to tell you. That’s why we’re here. But...”

  Petr paused, and Dodd thought he saw a tear form in the boy’s eye.

  Petr sniffled and took a deep breath. “But I had second thoughts after I saw Overseer Conway leaving and told him about Gretel. My distrust in the System flared. I felt like I’d betrayed her or something, even though I’m just trying to find the... Anyway, Ben told me it was too late and that I needed to personally tell you that she was back. That I’d told you I would and had to honor that promise. And we were here and I’d already told Conway, and if we left then it would seem suspicious or something.”

  Petr was racing now, the words coming like the confession of a child.

  “I didn’t care. I told him we were leaving.”

  Petr shook his head and rolled his eyes in disgust.

  “He said he needed to use the restroom before we left, so I waited in the car.”

  Dodd’s suspicious look flattened a bit, and he just stared at the boys for a moment, waiting to see if there was any crack in the expressions or story.

  “And then I saw him talking to you.” Petr looked to Ben. “How did you even know who he was?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Petr.” Dodd intercepted the bickering. “I’m glad you told me about Gretel. And I don’t blame you for your apprehension. I would feel the same way.”

  “Please don’t let her know I told you. She doesn’t know I’m here. I just...”

  “You didn’t tell me, Petr, your friend Ben here did. Remember?”

  “Right. I guess I’m off the hook on a technicality.”

  “In this business, Petr, technicalities are everything.”

  Petr smiled, and Officer Dodd reciprocated.

  “And your friend Ben also told me some other interesting news about the Morgans.”

  Petr’s mouth opened and he looked at his friend, his face of anger now drawn into one of dread and betrayal. “What was that?”

  “He tells me Anika Morgan is coming home soon as well. As you know, she was the main witness in this case, so I’d like to talk with her as well. Any ideas when exactly she’ll be arriving in the New Country?”

  Petr’s eyes narrowed now, and he looked coldly at Dodd.

  Dodd felt a shiver at the base of his skull, and he dropped the boy’s gaze, looking back at Ben to see if he had anything to offer.

  Petr smiled now, a glimmer of life returning to his eyes. “In a week or so, I believe. I’ll let them know that you still have a few questions. Just to give them notice that you may be stopping by at some point. Certainly, you’ll allow several months though. They need to get back to their lives here.”

  Dodd knew there would be no grace period for the Morgans. Not even a day. Once he returned the book to Marlene and brought the news these boys had just delivered, she would wait only until she believed Anika had returned. Another week. Maybe less. And then his life would begin again. Forever would begin.

  “Of course, Petr. We will give them all the time they need.”

  DODD CHASED HIS CRUISER up the driveway, almost clipping the boardwalk below the porch as his tires skidded on the soft dirt. His news was urgent; it was what they’d been waiting for. She was here—Gretel—and the other one was on the way.

  He ran in through the cabin door, expecting the woman would be either sitting in her chair in still meditation or toiling around in her kitchen as she often did, baking her little flour and syrup cakes that she seemed to subsist on almost exclusively. Upon Marlene’s insistence, Dodd had eaten one of the cakes just yesterday and was surprised at how delicious it tasted.

  Marlene was not in the main room of the cabin, so Dodd headed to the back bedroom, dreading his entry, fearing the Klahr woman would be conscious and eager to torment him. She had rarely been fully cognizant since he had arrived, but on the few occasions he’d been alone with her when she was awake, the guilt she foisted upon him was prodigious.

  Dodd cracked the door a couple of inches and peered through. The prisoner was asleep, bedpan full, and her body turned so that her head was at the footboard. Her face was contorted in a way that made her tongue hang loosely against the side of her open mouth. She must have had a double dose, he thought.

  Dodd opened the door fully now, remaining outside the threshold.

  Marlene wasn’t inside.

  Dodd tried to remember a time over the past few days when the woman hadn’t been at the cabin at all, but he couldn’t think of one. He went back down the front porch steps and then around the side of the house to check if the Klahr’s truck was still there. He couldn’t have imagined the woman taking the risk of driving a missing truck on the main road in the middle of the day, but he supposed it was a possibility. She was deranged, after all. He had to continue reminding himself of that.

  Dodd had insisted on pulling the Klahr truck to the back of the house, where it now sat covered by an old tarp. It was probably a pointless precaution, he knew, especially considering that if anyone from the System came to investigate the cabin, they would have found it easily after only a few minutes. But Dodd had insisted anyway, and he had driven the vehicle to the back edge of the yard himself before covering it with the large gray canvas.

  He now took soft, quiet steps as he walked along the short length of the house, eventually reaching the corner where the back and side walls met. The shape of the truck under the tarp appeared first to his senses, followed by a slurping, crunching sound that drifted violently into his ears.

  Dodd looked to his left and saw a woman kneeling—Marlene he presumed—her back turned to him; the foxtail weeds that surrounded the woman nearly reached her shoulders, obscuring his vision of her.

  Dodd moved in closer and knew immediately by the black cloak and the crusty locks of hair, that it was Marlene. Who else would it be? he thought. “Marlene,” he called, invoking his System officer voice that was designed and honed to freeze the citizenry.

  The woman paused.

  Was she eating?

  “Marlene. What are you doing back here?”

  Marlene stood slowly and turned toward Dodd, her face almost black with blood and dirt. A string of rubbery flesh hung from her mouth, another from her forehead. She looks like a toddler with a plate of spaghetti, Dodd thought.

  “Good god,” Dodd whispered. “Who is that?”

  “Shall I wait for Him to answer, Officer Dodd—God I mean—or would you prefer it if I did?”

  The woman’s mouth opened in full with every word she spoke, as if exaggerating her enunciation for someone who was deaf or less than fluent in the language. But there was no irony in the way she spoke, Dodd noticed, it was automatic, animal, a side-effect of whatever transformation she’d evidently gone through since he’d been away.

  And her teeth. With every word, they seemed to point at him saying, you’re
next if you have a problem.

  “Is that...?”

  “The Klahr woman?” Marlene interrupted, her eyes wide, almost infant-like and playful.

  The piece of flesh that had clung to Marlene’s hair finally released its grip, and she watched it as it fell. It was the way a satiated bear might watch a salmon jump from a stream.

  “I know it isn’t her, I saw her in the room. She looks almost dead.”

  “You meant Gretel then?” Marlene asked, ignoring Dodd’s observation about Amanda Klahr. “I’m not a fool, Officer Dodd. This...” Marlene paused and looked down at the body below her and then glided an upturned hand over it, as if presenting it to an audience for the first time. “This is not how it will be done with Gretel and her mother. You know that, of course.”

  “Who is it then? And why?”

  “Because they were here!”

  Dodd reached for his sidearm and pulled it from its holster, pointing it at the woman. The rage on her face was terrifying, unlike anything he’d seen from any perpetrator during his time with the System. Her face appeared to stretch, as if made of dough, and her eyes, smiling still despite the fury going on around them, seemed poised to fall from their sockets.

  Dodd’s hand wavered, but his training kept him locked in time and place. Nothing had killed more officers over the years than a lack of ability to focus on the situation in front of them. Too often they thought of the potential outcomes, and that was fatal.

  “Calm down, Marlene. I just want to know who they are. That’s all.”

  “Do you think I’m an animal, Officer Dodd? Is that what you’re thinking right now?” Marlene’s voice was calm, inquisitive.

  “All I’m thinking now is that I need you to calm down, show me your hands, and let’s go inside and talk about what’s happening.”

  “You see, Officer Dodd, you may think I’m just an old lady, one who has found some secret that I’ve grown to treasure, yes? Some hermit who prefers to be alone, baking pies and biscuits and things. Perhaps does a little knitting! Is that it Dodd?”

  “No.”

  “Cakes and pies aren’t enough, Officer Dodd. As I told you, I crave. I crave the young ones most. Even outside of the concoction, I have an urge for them.”

  The long syllables poured past her jagged teeth, spittle flying. Dodd swallowed hard.

  “I’m not the weakened prey of you and your ilk, Officer Dodd. I’ll never be that again.”

  “No, you’re not, Marlene. The fact that we’re having this conversation tells me there is much more to you than that.” Dodd was still now, his composure fully regained.

  The woman narrowed her eyes and nodded, a gesture that indicated she, perhaps, beyond the obvious madness, understood Dodd’s logic. He saw this as a small advantage, a hint that maybe the eroding situation could be turned around.

  “Yes there is,” the Witch of the North whispered, and then, as if a great vacuum had been positioned beneath her, the woman dropped from sight, disappearing into the ground cover of burned grass and tall weeds.

  Dodd was momentarily stunned, almost skeptical of what his eyes had just communicated to his brain.

  He was brought back to reality by a brushing sound to his left, and he flinched in that direction, just in time to see the weeds shake in a wave as something scurried through them toward the house. Dodd could only see the arched back of the woman’s cloak, but he shivered at the grace and speed with which she moved. It looked like he had disturbed a wild boar in its shelter.

  With his sidearm still brandished and locked in the direction of the house, Dodd sidestepped his way toward the mutilated body. As he did, he listened closely for the opening of a door, either to the cabin or his cruiser, as well as for any rustle of leaf litter out beyond the perimeter of the property. But he only heard silence.

  When he reached the spot where Marlene had been standing only seconds before, he looked down reluctantly at the carcass beneath him and then vomited directly on top of it. It was an embarrassing reaction, not to mention an egregious violation to the crime scene. But none of that mattered did it? If this body was ever discovered by the System, it would mean Dodd was already dead.

  The head of the man’s body was missing, and the torso faced down, with two separate holes dug into the back where the kidneys had been dug clean. Blood and sinew puddled everywhere around the body, and a section of the man’s spine was exposed in a prehistoric skeletal smile.

  Dodd put a clenched fist to his mouth but held off any further spew, and he continued to scan the property for any sign of Marlene.

  “This can be worked out, Marlene,” Dodd called, trying his best to sound friendly.

  Tone and Command was a training course all System officers were required to take when they first came on the force, and though Dodd always thought it was a bit of a silly class and one not practical to the field, he now searched his memory for some of the techniques.

  “Look, I know this is who you are. You’re strong—magical even. That’s why I’m here. Remember? You just caught me off guard a bit.”

  Dodd stopped and thought about what he’d just said aloud. That’s why I’m here. His System instincts had taken over, but the truth was that he still wanted to be a part of this deal. His brief foray into the world of witchcraft and sorcery—which thus far consisted of little more than a vague conversation and becoming an accomplice to kidnapping—was enough that he still wanted this life. He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything. There was nothing in his life thus far that had come close to this feeling. He could still salvage this scene. He felt sure of it.

  And besides, he’d come too far to go back now. His old life was over; the secrets that he’d kept hidden were enough on their own to send him to the gulags.

  Another sound, this time opposite the house, out by the tarp. It sounded as if something had fallen from the trees.

  Dodd turned and pointed his gun at the truck, then quickly lowered the pistol, trying to display his interest in bringing back a dialogue. If she was watching him, he hoped to reel in the mad woman and bring her back to the shores of sanity.

  “Is that you, Marlene?”

  There was no answer, and Dodd began to creep his way toward the truck, keeping his head on a swivel, back and forth from the house to the tarp.

  Dodd reached the side of the truck and placed his hand on top of the tarp where it covered the left fender. He peered over the hood and checked the opposite side of the truck facing the woods. Nothing. He walked around to the front of the vehicle now, and then to the passenger side. Still he saw no one. Dodd then walked the length of the passenger side until he came upon the bed of the pickup. He walked to the back and stood frozen as he stared at the covered bed.

  There she was.

  With the tailgate dropped, Dodd could see the toe of a shoe sticking out of a gap between the tarp and the truck, just beyond the fringe of the dried canvas.

  He stepped back from the truck bed now and raised the gun once again. “I see you there, Marlene. You don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want to hurt you. Remember? I just want our deal. I just want a little bit of what you have. We can talk through this. Renegotiate.”

  Again, there was no response. Something was off with the scene. Something beyond the dead body in the yard. Dodd couldn’t have said exactly what it was, but the stage was definitely wrong.

  He moved closer to the edge of the flapped open tailgate and pushed the shoe that was peeking out from the tarp. It fell to the side with no resistance, and Dodd knew instantly what was wrong: this wasn’t Marlene.

  He quickly moved back to the side of the truck and grabbed the tarp in one motion, pulling the fabric up and back toward the cab.

  The body of the young girl was seated in the bed, legs stretched forward, her back against the outside of the truck’s cab. Her face was blue; her eye sockets were dark, empty voids at the top of her face, and a large chunk of flesh had been ripped from her neck. She couldn’t have been older than sixt
een.

  Dodd closed his eyes and threw the tarp back down over the girl and then doubled over, trying to catch his breath. “What have I done?” he said aloud, and two tears dripped down to his shoes, leaving clean, empty circles in the dirt that had collected on the top of his boot.

  “You’ve done nothing, Officer Dodd. That’s why you don’t belong here.”

  MARLENE WATCHED THE stone sail perfectly through the air, and then heard the sound as it landed in what must have been a crisp pile of dead leaves. She had failed to hit the truck, but the thickness of the tarp would have likely dulled the sound too much anyway, so it was probably better she missed. She almost released a laugh at the man’s reaction to the noise—his face so stunned and filled with angst.

  Marlene watched in delight, drooling at every step the man made toward the truck, watching him as she would a mother watching her child about to open a birthday surprise. And this surprise, she noted, had been prepared especially for Mr. Dodd.

  As he peered over the hood and then shuffled to the opposite side of the truck, Marlene left her station next to the house and pattered quietly through the brush to the woods on the opposite side of the yard.

  She positioned herself behind a large oak and peeked around it, smiling, almost exploding in applause as Dodd flung back the tarp to reveal the young friend of Gretel Morgan. Marlene closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, imagining the smell again.

  She opened her eyes now and saw the System officer vulnerable, hunched over, no doubt wearied with pain and regret. She moved along the tree until she was only a foot away. And then she waited.

  “What have I done?”

  She moved behind the officer now, her wooden cane raised, looming. “You’ve done nothing, Officer Dodd. That’s why you don’t belong here.”

  She swung the cane like a bat across her body, as if she was beating the dust from a rug that had been hung out on a line. It connected perfectly on the wrist bone of the officer, and he dropped his sidearm, the scream of pain exhilarating in her ears. It was loud enough that even her heavily drugged prisoner may have heard him.