“You’re not even from the Old World.”
“That’s right, I’m not.”
“How do you know me?” Noah’s eyes continue searching, and the turn of his head tells me he’s close to figuring out the answer on his own.
I begin to unzip my bag, preparing to bring out the letter my mother sent with proof of my connection to Noah, when Maja speaks.
“I suggested we seek you out,” she says, appearing beside me, tall and confident.
Noah’s eyes linger on me a few seconds longer and then he looks to Maja, squinting, as if confused by her boldness
“You are the best tracker in the Koudeheuvals, yes? That is your reputation anyway. And my friend has come a long way to find his sister, as you’ve accurately judged. And despite the grim beliefs of these men, we have faith that she is still alive.”
“Why is that?” Noah asks. His question is genuine, without doubt or sarcasm.
“Because she is special.”
To this point in our journey, I’ve told Maja very little about my story, and even less about Orphism or the powers that Gretel derives from it. It’s not that I’m keeping secrets, it’s just that the story always seems too big to begin. But Maja’s proclamation that Gretel is special tells me she’s at least gathered that much.
“Do you think our children are not special?” Dawid asks.
Maja turns to him. “Are they? Beyond the fact that you love them deeply and they are special to you, is there anything about them that is unusual? Exceptional? Any reason that Gromus would have wanted to take them?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then I suppose that is your answer.”
“Maja,” I scold, shocked at her inconsideration.
“So it is your sister then,” the first man in the group says, whose name I haven’t yet heard.
I turn to him, confused. “My sister what?”
“We have to go back to the village square. There is someone you need to talk to.”
Chapter 13
Maja and I are seated in the back room of a store that appears to make and sell furniture. The building forms the southwestern corner of the city center, and the two of us await anxiously for the ‘someone’ who apparently has news about Gretel.
Our journey back to the city center was without incident, thanks in large part to the phalanx of three men, plus Noah, who quietly agreed to see out the resolution of this mystery in the town square. My belief, however, is that the mystery he is truly eager to solve is that of me, and who I am exactly.
“They looked like they could have been one move away from attacking us when we arrived,” I say to the first man, whose name I now know is Artur.
“That is probably a fairly accurate assessment. This was once a friendly town, welcoming of strangers. But no longer. Your friend Maja probably knows of this change. Certainly Stedwick has reacted similarly.”
Maja nods at Artur, the sad smile that forms on her face enhancing her beauty once again.
“But they must have recognized a strength of character in you both, otherwise there would have been no hesitation to see that you didn’t find your way in at all. I realize I never learned your name. What is your name, son?”
I look at Noah, who is staring at me, hanging on my answer. I turn back to Artur and say, “Hansel. My name is Hansel.”
I can feel the tension from Noah behind me, but otherwise there is only silence in the room. It lasts only a moment.
“Your sister was taken by him.” The words come not from Noah, or from anyone I’ve heard up to this point in my journey. Instead they drift in melodically from the entranceway that leads to the front of the woodworking store. The voice is young, mild, that of a boy perhaps, or a young teenager. “She is, I wonder, the reason for this emergence of Gromus.”
“Hansel Morgan,” Noah says from behind me. He sounds adrift, still sorting out the meaning, but my eyes are fixed on the doorway, waiting for the secret boy to reveal himself. “You are Anika’s son. Anika Morgan. Your sister is Gretel! You are looking for Gretel.”
“He knows you?” Maja asks. “Noah knows of you? How? Do you know him?”
I shake off Maja’s questions, and as Noah slowly unravels the revelation of my identity, a boy of about twelve walks through the doorway and stands calmly, staring at Maja and me who are both seated as subjects would be before a king. He is short for his age, pudgy, and his skin and hair are much darker than his fellow Zanpie residents, as if his heritage is from an area of the Old World much further east.
The boy looks up from our faces and behind us toward Noah. “You are the guide, yes? Noah.”
“I am. And who might you be? The Emperor of Zanpie.”
The boy ignores the last part of Noah’s response, though the derision seems not to be lost on him. “I’ve not seen you this far in the village before, though I’ve heard talk that you were here. There is also talk that you plan not to stay. Or to help us.”
“I’m a guide. I help people find places. If you need help finding people, you should find a detective.” Noah’s response sounds reflexive to me, as if he’s used this same line dozens of times since his arrival here, and perhaps in other villages who have likewise been affected by Gromus. He pauses a beat after speaking, and I can feel his eyes land on me from behind, studying me. “But perhaps I’ve changed my mind. Perhaps I do have help to offer.”
“That’s wonderful. I’m sure the men here are pleased.” The boy smiles at the men and then Noah before his eyes come back to me. He studies me for a moment, saying nothing, and then he shifts his attention back to Noah. “You mentioned a name just a moment ago. Anika. Young Hansel’s mother, I believe you said. Your moment of discovery suggests that you have a history with her. How did that come to be?”
“Who are you?” I say finally, not liking the aura of inquisition this pre-adolescent has imposed on the room.
“My name is Emre. My grandparents are the owners of this store.” The boy’s voice is calm, matter-of-fact.
“Hello, Emre. I’m Hansel.”
Emre smiles and nods knowingly.
“You seem to know a lot about a lot. Especially for someone so young. You look barely twelve if I had to guess.”
Emre doesn’t confirm his age and instead stares at me smiling.
“I suppose the word I’m looking for is ‘wise,’ yes? ‘Wise beyond your years’ people like to say.”
Emre grins and splays his hands out as if to indicate that word is as good as any.
“The questions then are: Who are you? Why was I brought here to talk to you? And how do you know my sister?”
“The last of those three questions is quite easy Hansel. I do not know your sister.”
“Is that so? Because these men—Artur and Dawid—seemed to think you might know what is happening based on the fact that I have a sister who was taken by Gromus. Maja mentioned my sister, and the fact that she may be somewhat extraordinary, and they quickly insisted I need to talk to you. So what do you know?”
“I know of a prophecy. One that has been spoken of in my family from generations as far back as our tradition goes, and from a land as far from here as any on the planet.”
“A prophecy?”
Emre nods.
I stand slowly and begin to walk towards the back door where we entered the store. “I don’t have time for fables or folk legends. From the East or anywhere else. My sister is missing and we are wasting time.”
“I think you should listen to him, Hansel.” Noah’s voice booms from behind me, and I have a sudden, vague flashback to my father, Heinrich, scolding me as a child for ignoring my mother during some unspecific incident during my previous life in the Back Country. “If your mother were here, I believe she would insist on it too.”
I stare at Noah defiantly, but he only smiles at me and nods, softening his eyes as he does. I frown and walk back to the bench and sit beside Maja, who still hasn’t taken her eyes off Emre.
“You know
of a prophecy,” I repeat, encouraging the boy to continue.
“That’s right,” Emre continues. “My grandfather has spoken of it in our home for as long as I could remember, before Gromus ever appeared here. And when the children started to disappear, I told of his prophecy to everyone I could throughout the village. Telling it to all who would listen.” Emre looks at Artur, who nods at the boy. “But people here have had similar responses as you just had. They have ignored my words to this point, but apparently they have heard them.” Emre looks slowly at each of the three men who brought us here. There is no mockery or contempt in his voice, simply a recital of the facts as he has seen them.
“But I’ve heard the stories of Gromus,” I say. “He’s known by many. And to hear others tell it, he’s been around for decades at least, maybe—
“Gromus has been living for over one thousand years,” Emre says flatly. “That is my grandfather’s estimate.”
The three men who formed the posse outside of Noah’s house and who insisted I meet this boy begin to shuffle and grumble, and I can sense their reluctance to believe anything as fantastic as what Emre is describing.
“I don’t mean to offend, Emre, but you don’t look to me like your family comes from these parts of the Old World. Originally, I mean. Is this prophecy of your grandfather’s something he formed after coming to the Koudeheuvals? Or is this something he carried with him from somewhere farther away?”
Emre smiles. “There is no offense in being observant, Hansel. As you note, the roots of my family are tied to another land. I was born in Zanpie though; my mother and father came from a region thousands of miles to the east. They brought my grandparents along with them. Sadly, my grandmother died on the way and my parents not long after.”
I resist the words of sympathy that emerge in my mind.
“And yes, Gromus’ legend is known, but not his purpose. Not his reason for being.”
“And what of this prophecy?”
Emre smiles quizzically at me, as if noticing something for the first time. “I feel there is a lot of pain in your past, Hansel, tied to what it is we’re talking about here today. As though you know much more about what is happening than we know.”
I say nothing in response to Emre, but his implication allows me a moment to reflect about what I believe has happened to Gretel. Her disappearance is connected to Orphism and my family’s heritage. To my grandmother and Marlene. Orphism, and all of the powers surrounding it, is something that I never fully understood. And as the years went by, I spent less time trying to understand. I wasn’t meant to, that much I knew to be true.
I also have no doubt that Gretel made this connection to the man who was following her. She came back to the Old World to escape her past, but her past was waiting for her here. It was a more ancient past, one she hadn’t experienced herself in this life, but it was here all the time. A legacy leftover from ghosts of a prehistoric world. Waiting. Hiding. Emerging once again in the form of a man named Gromus.
Maja looks at me now, observing me as I reflect, anticipating the story that she’s been promised but that hasn’t yet materialized on our particular journey. “Hansel,” she says. “Are you okay?”
I blink my way out of the reverie and turn back toward the boy. “I wasn’t brought here to tell you my story. I was brought here to hear yours. A prophecy, Emre. You brought up the subject, and you believe it’s connected to my sister. And to the scores of other people who have been stolen from their homes, I would imagine. Stolen from their families, only to be tortured and murdered by some inhuman ogre.” My voice is guttural now, thinking of the ordeal my mother endured and imagining something similar—though likely worse—happening to my sister.
Emre nods and his face turns dour. “The story that has existed for as far back as my family’s history is certainly older than that. And the prophecy that accompanies it, though it is not written, is a narrative that has been memorized and recited orally with great diligence for hundreds of years.” Emre lets the impact of his credentials settle in before continuing. “What is happening here, in this village and throughout the Koudeheuvals, is very similar to the gruesome story of my ancestors. And thus, the prophecy that follows it must be considered.”
I stare, saying nothing, my silence encouraging Emre to continue.
“I will not spend your time by reciting the entire story. There isn’t the time and something tells me that you have already heard a good deal of it. Perhaps what you have heard is even more accurate than what my grandfather has passed on.”
I think back to the story Odalinde told to Gretel and me that evening in our kitchen, when she revealed the legacy of my grandmother and the powers inherent in the black book that has brought so much misery to our lives.
“You, your family, I imagine that none of you have lived on this land for many years. But you are connected to this land in a way that no one in this room—perhaps in this village—are. And you have heard of Orphism.”
Emre says this last sentence as an undeniable statement.
“And if you have heard of Orphism, and know about all that it entails, you, of course, understand that what is happening to this village, to all the villages and your sister, is connected to it.”
In spite of myself, I nod, feeling the sting of a tear form at the corner of my eye.
“It’s your book!” Maja says. “Isn’t that the name of the book you showed us?”
Emre puts his hand to his mouth, and then, as if disguising what might be considered a gesture of weakness, begins to rub his chin in a false display of contemplation. “You...you have the book? Orphism?”
“What book is that?” Artur asks, his voice dripping with confusion and fear.
I shoot Maja a quick glare, jaw clenched, but she avoids my eyes, seeming to have realized instantly the potential danger she’s put us in. It was only days ago when Gisla took her own life by running the blade of a rusty knife across her throat, proclaiming Gromus would have his book again. Perhaps mentioning to strangers in a foreign village that I am in possession of the book wasn’t the best idea.
“What do you plan to do with it?” Emre asks, his voice soft and low, his composure which had slipped for just an instant now regained for the moment.
“Do with it? I don’t know exactly, Emre. I guess I’m going to keep it for now. It is mine, after all. And then, if there comes a time when I need it, I will use it. Whenever that time may be. Which will, perhaps, be never.” I am making no attempt to hide the irritation in my voice. “So now that we’ve established that I know the story of Orphism, and of the book of the same name that contains so much knowledge and danger and evil, I think now is a good time—the best time really—to reveal this prophecy of your family’s. Otherwise, I’m going to stand up from this bench and walk out the door. And this time I won’t be sitting back down.”
Emre nods and continues. “Occasionally—and this occasion could be two hundred years or more—one of the ancients will pass. Die.”
“Ancients?” I ask.
Emre smiles. “So, you have not learned everything I see.” He straightens his look and continues. “As one continues living the Orphic life, practicing the beliefs of the book’s words and...using its lessons of deathlessness...that person’s presence grows stronger amongst others who have lived a similar life.”
“What are you saying exactly?”
“The older an Orphist becomes, the more powerful their spirit becomes. And this power is felt by other Orphists around the world.”
“Felt how?”
“I don’t know, really. It’s part of the story. I suppose you would have to be an Orphist to truly understand the feeling. But there is some kind of universal sense that Orphists have of one another. A feeling they pass in the ether. But that isn’t really the important part of this prophecy. What is critical is that when one of the ancient Orphists dies, that death reverberates at the highest frequencies among the ancients. But the death frequency typically builds over time, a
nd the Orphists expect the feeling when it finally arrives. When an Orphist is killed, however—murdered—the vibration is quite shocking to the older Orphists. Almost unbearable. And it resurrects them for a time, brings them to the forefront of a society that, for the most part, they have shunned. Most Orphists, and in particular the oldest of them, live their lives in isolation, as hermits and cave dwellers. But this vibration of death, of killing, wakes them. And instinctively at this awakening they hunt in a way that is bloodthirsty, savage.”
“Gromus,” Dawid says.
“It would seem so. My grandfather has studied what has happened. The man’s movements would suggest that the Legend of the Death of the Orphist is accurate. And it is not just Gromus; many of the other ancients around the world are likely hunting as well.”
“How many others?”
“My grandfather says there is no way to know for sure, but there are not as many as there were in the time of his grandparents, and quite a bit fewer than in the time of theirs. They are dying off slowly. The beliefs and ways of Orphism had spread quite significantly several hundred years ago, but as traditions tend to do, they are being washed out into myth.”
“So when Gromus showed up thirty or forty years ago, that was because some Orphist somewhere in the world died?”
“Maybe, I don’t know the details of that time, my family was not here then, but probably not. Re-emergence doesn’t always mean the death of an Orphist. Orphists, even the ancient ones, need to feed from time to time, and they will emerge, depending on their need, every few decades to find a source.”
I’m all too aware of this part. This was the time of Marlene in the Northlands, and the unlucky circumstances of Anika, my mother, running off the Interways, only to be captured by the cruel witch and used for her own grotesque concoction. Marlene’s potion had gone dry, and she was forced to hunt. And my mother was the sacrificial lamb that had been given up to her by Deda.
“And when they do emerge for the purposes of finding a source, the hunt will usually occur close to where they reside, often in the same town or village. This makes sense, of course, since that is where they live. And in these cases, the emergences are often done very secretly, often without anyone seeing them. And even if there are witnesses to whatever atrocity they commit, the stories are often disbelieved or forgotten over time.”
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel #1-3) Page 68
