“I found it mother. I found your...nest...or however it is you think of it. I know about what you’re doing. I know now where your pain has brought you. And what you’re planning to do. It doesn’t have to go this far. You need help. You need it very badly. And I know you said you’ll never see a doctor again, but stop and really think about what it is you’re planning to do.”
“Move Hansel,” Anika said. She exaggerated the enunciation of my name, holding the ‘L’ between her teeth and sticking her tongue out forward like a serpent.
I stood my ground, suffering the growl that ended my mother’s last sentence. “Even if you are willing to do this, even if you do have it in you to kill the most innocent of people, to murder someone who has taken care of your children in the harshest of times, you will never be able to re-create it. You do realize that, right mother? It will never work.”
Anika blinked several times and shook off my words. “It was the animals. They were the problem. Their innards are not proper. They were pollution to the mixture. But I tried, Hansel, I really tried to be humane, to spare lives.”
There was sincerity in Anika’s words, in the rationalization about what she was prepared to do.
“But I always knew deep inside that it would never work. Not with animals.”
Her final words came without the quality of desperation, or even remorse. Instead they arrived as if read from a checklist, and she had now come to the next item to test her theory.
“But think about it,” I said. “You saw it mother. You know better than anyone that what you’re about to do will only be murder with nothing on the other end. You don’t understand it. Gretel barely understands this part. And you told Gretel and me about how long it took Marlene to use...”
“DO NOT SAY THAT NAME!” mother screamed. She pulled the gun away from Mrs. Klahr’s head and held the trigger of it against her own, the barrel pointing straight to the sky. She then squeezed her eyes shut and let loose another incoherent screech. The noise sounded like some abominable fusion of pain and frustration. She brought the gun back down to shoulder level and pointed it straight at me. “Move now, Hansel.”
I was stunned, dismayed, for the first time in my life looking back at the black hole of a gun’s shaft. I had no conscious thoughts enter my mind, but my voice said, “I’ll help you.”
Mother blinked twice and her lips twitched slightly, and the trajectory of the gun lowered just a fraction. I wasn’t absolutely sure, but these were all indications that Anika Morgan was intrigued, if only vaguely.
“I’ll help you hide the body when we’re done,” I continued. “However, many bodies it takes.”
Anika snorted and then lifted the gun again to its previous spot. “You’re lying, Hansel. I understand you and I understand lies.”
I was unflinching in my charade, committed to it as if I was leaping across a chasm with a thousand-foot drop. “I’m not lying. But there’s a price for you to pay. I am expecting something in return.” I paused, waiting for another line of resistance, or perhaps the report of the gun and the end of my existence. When none came, I said, “You have to promise to let me have some of it too.”
Anika flinched, as if pinched or stung by a bee. She dropped my stare and looked away. For a moment I could see the traces of humanity that still existed inside her, that could be brought to the surface with the right combination of words. She was disgusted at the thought of me becoming addicted to the thing that had both saved and ruined her life. “No, Hansel,” she whispered. “Not you.”
“Yes. Of course, me. Who else, mother? But we have to do things properly. You can’t kill her now. If you kill her now, without extracting the fluids properly, the mixture won’t be potent. Remember?”
“I don’t believe in that,” Anika replied, but her words came weakly, without conviction and slightly confused. “The witch was torturing me. For her enjoyment. She could have killed me at any time and whatever she needed would have been fine.”
“Okay, mom, we’ll try it that way first. And if it doesn’t work, you let me help you find another source.” In most situations, my concession would have sounded like condescension, but my mother was in another place, on another plane where such nuanced verbal cues are lost.
Anika was shaking her head steadily, fighting acquiescence, but I could almost see the seeds of willingness being implanted in her mind.
“Why should we resist this anymore? This is our heritage, right? Our family created—or at least we discovered—this magic. Our birthright is this secret of secrets that humans have searched for throughout history.”
“I don’t want to live forever, Hansel, I just want the pain to go away. I just want—” Anika’s eyes were soft now, pleading.
“Yes, mother, but that’s the beauty of this. You know of the beauty. You can feel it. You can have both. We can have both. We can have everything. Your pain will be gone forever, but your life—our lives—will continue on for as long as we wish.”
“Hansel, I...”
I was willing to hear out all the protests and counter them with what I believed Anika wanted to hear, but she broke short her final remonstration, and I took control. “Let’s go, Mrs. Klahr,” I barked, and then I took my gamble. I turned my back on Anika and Amanda and began to walk, leading them to the shore, all the time feeling the gaze of my mother upon me as I strode confidently down the orchard path. I felt as if she was judging the sincerity of the proposition I had just offered with every step I took.
About a third of the way between my mother, her hostage, and the canoe, I stopped and turned around. “Let’s go, mother, the sun is rising. Back Country eyes will be opening soon.”
There was something of a stunned look in my mother’s eyes when she began her initial hike down the path, but as she came close to me, with Amanda in front of her, the gun again now securely placed at Mrs. Klahr’s head, Anika’s expression turned to something resembling acceptance. Hope even.
I avoided Mrs. Klahr’s face entirely, fearful that if I made any kind of eye contact, my mother would notice some silent exchange between us, real or imagined, and the whole situation would revert back to start. Better to be safe and hope Mrs. Klahr deciphered what was happening here.
My mother and Amanda Klahr made their way to the bank, and before any further words could be exchanged, I picked up the single oar that mother had used to row the canoe across the lake and said, “I’ll row us across,” holding the oar above my head.
Our canoe had been fitted with oarlocks for double-oar rowing—it was the kind of sport rowing that Gretel loved so—but for the skimpy trek across the lake, I had always sculled with a single oar; and thus, the single oar was what mother had found in the canoe and used to get to the orchard.
I tossed the oar in the hull and pre-launched the boat, pulling it toward the shoreline until the bow was in the water. “Let’s go,” I said, my voice commanding now, serious, letting my mother know that the decision we’d just made together could not be reversed.
Mother ushered in Amanda first, pushing the woman to her knees on the dirty floor of the hull. Anika then followed immediately, stepping gingerly as she entered the boat before taking her position in the stern seat above Amanda. I shot a quick glance at Amanda, to judge her condition, and saw that a type of serenity had set in. Whether it was borne from knowing my true intentions or from acceptance of her imminent death, I couldn’t know, but I was relieved she had at least found a moment of peace in the midst of this nightmare.
I launched the boat in full and took my place on the bow seat, my back to the women now as I rowed the first stroke toward the opposite bank. I continued rowing, putting the oar starboard of the canoe for a few strokes and then switching to the port side for a few more, alternating this way as we made our way toward our property.
The journey by canoe from the Klahr orchard to the Morgan shore was a short one. Even at a leisurely pace, the time it took to cross from one side to the other was only a few minutes at most.
/>
So what I was planning to do had to be done quickly.
Chapter 29
“Has the choice been made?” Gromus asks. He’s standing at about the middle of the staircase that leads to the Hub building entranceway, with Gretel in front of him held tightly against his chest. The disgusting figure’s face is only inches from my sister’s as he speaks, and I can only imagine the stench coming from his mouth.
Maja and Noah are on their knees in front of me now, and I am above them with Noah’s shotgun pointed directly at them.
Oskar is dead. The bullet had entered his abdomen above his hip and never came out. The bleeding was fierce, and whatever damage was done to his organs was severe. He died within minutes of Maja and Noah reaching him. While they tended to him, I retrieved Noah’s gun from his rucksack, all the time moving very slowly per Gromus’ instruction.
“They’ll both die, it’s only a matter now of deciding what the order will be.”
“You know I can’t do this,” I say, my words directed toward no one.
I explained to Maja and Noah the choice given to me by Gromus, and neither of my companions hesitated to sacrifice themselves for me and Gretel. In some ways, I could understand Noah’s loyalty, with his connection and history to my mother, but Maja was no less willing to die for us, having no knowledge we even existed a few weeks ago.
“If that is your decision, then I take your sister in my grasp, leave this dead village, and kill her with my hands. And what I do with her body after that I shall just have to see how I’m feeling. My interests do change from day to day.”
I shake my head and stare up a Gromus. “No.”
Gromus raises his eyebrows in surprise, the snarl of his teeth just shining through his lips. It’s an angry gesture that he’s trying to hide. “No?”
“You’re going to kill her anyway. When we get to the village. And you’re going to kill me too. So this way you’ll just take Gretel and the rest of us will live.”
“Do you know what I will do to her?”
I close my eyes, trying to concentrate away the thoughts. I pause and then say, “I don’t want to imagine that Gromus, but you’ve left me no choice. I won’t kill these people, not for you and not for Gretel’s life.”
I’m gambling now, and Gretel is the chip with which I’m playing, but I really do have no choice. I simply don’t have it in me to murder the two innocent friends that have helped lead me to this place, and I can’t shoot Gromus now, knowing that will be my sister’s immediate death.
As long as we’re still breathing, though, we have hope.
Gromus erupts into laughter, staring back and forth between the three of us below him. He then begins to walk down the stone steps, Gretel in front of him continuing to act as his shield. “Of course you can’t, Hansel,” he says, now at the bottom of the staircase. “But it was almost so, yes?”
And then I understand. He didn’t really think I would go through with these murders and become part of his trek to the village. He was always intending to take Gretel alone. This stopover in Lyria was just Gromus means of tying up loose ends. For him to dispose of Emre and Oskar, and anyone else who might be in pursuit, which turned out to be Maja, Noah and I. My murder of Noah and Maja would have been an added bonus, as would I coming along to the village and becoming an addition to the potion.
“What about the book, Gromus? What about Orphism?”
“You’ll be following, I’m sure. As long as I have your sister, and you know she is alive, you will bring the book to me.”
Gromus starts walking backwards toward the hill; he has a huge clump of Gretel’s hair in his hands and is pulling up on it as he walks, stretching her taller to give him full cover. I raise the shotgun up to my shoulder and Gretel shakes her head. “No, Hansel. Not like that.”
If I didn’t know Gretel the way I do, I would have thought she was shaking me off out of fear of pain and death. But that wasn’t it. She had faith in another way. Some way in which we all lived.
And then I remember it.
I toss the shotgun to the ground beside me and drop to my knees, tossing my backpack from my shoulders and unzipping it furiously.
“Yes, Hansel, even better now!” Gromus screams from behind me. “Give the book to me now! It is part of your destiny to do so!”
I pull my hands from the pack and stand up straight, turning toward Gromus, and I hoist my arms straight in the air above my head as if it were I that had a gun pointed toward him. Draped in my fingers is a necklace. Gromus and Gretel have stopped walking, and they’re both staring at me with looks of confusion.
I take a few steps forward and stop, and then I hold the necklace out in front of me, dangling it like a lure on a fishing line. “Do you know what this is, Gromus?”
Gromus moves Gretel forward a few paces. “It looks like...jewelry. But I’m supposing it is more than that?”
“Not to me it’s not, but I think it may mean more to you.”
Gromus stays quiet, but his head is leaning in, trying to get a better look. He moves Gretel toward me again, a few more cautious paces, and squints at the necklace, which I hold steady now. “Teeth,” he says.
“They’re the teeth of your sister. They are the last thing that remains of her. My mother pulled them from her mouth just after she killed her. She polished them quite nicely, yes?”
Gromus closes his eyes for a beat and twitches dramatically, raising his shoulders and shuddering epileptically. He swallows and tries to regain his focus. “You’re a liar.”
“What am I lying about? That these are her teeth? Or that my mother shot her dead?”
“About all of it!”
“You know I’m not lying about her death. You could feel it when it happened, right? Isn’t that one of your Orphism powers? We were all wondering about this mythical part of Emre’s grandfather’s story.”
Gromus closes his eyes again and starts shaking his head steadily, giving no real answer on this subject. Gretel is still at the end of his grasp, bearing the brunt of his breakdown.
“And you know I’m not lying about the teeth either. You can see them. How big they are. They look a lot like yours. And I suspect you can...smell her in them.”
Gromus opens his mouth now and starts to pant like a dog, as if he’s suffocating on his own tongue.
“But you’ll never see this necklace again, Gromus, and the last remnants of Marlene the Cunt will be buried forever in this godforsaken town. Along with all these people you’ve murdered.”
I pull on the string that holds the teeth in formation, wrapping it around my fingers for leverage, until it snaps like a dried-out bone. The teeth explode outward in all directions, free of their nylon captor.
“No!” Gromus screams and charges toward me, leaving Gretel behind him. “Marlene!”
I look at Gretel’s face during Gromus’ charge, but she’s looking past me, over my shoulder. She smiles and nods, and then I hear the blast of the shotgun.
Chapter 30
We were halfway across the lake when I stopped rowing and turned back to look at my mother and Mrs. Klahr. Anika met my eyes with a wide stare, and I couldn’t tell if the look meant she was suspicious of, or excited about, what I’d proposed we embark on. Or perhaps it was something else.
“Mother, do you remember when we used to go out to Rifle Field? With father and Gretel and all of us? Look at it over there with the light shining on it. It looks so pretty in the morning.”
Mother gave a disinterested glance in the direction of Rifle Field and then back to me. “My memories of Rifle Field are not good ones, Hansel.” Her voice was irritated. “Let’s go.”
Rifle Field was where Anika and Gretel had ended up after their first battle with Marlene, where they’d escaped to after Gretel put a hammer in Marlene’s head at the top of the Weinhiemmer Cannery.
“Yes, I know,” I said, still staring at the women in front of me, measuring the height difference between where Mrs. Klahr was sitting on the floor
of the boat and my mother on the stern seat. There was a good two feet between the top of Mrs. Klahr’s head and the top of Anika’s. “But I think we should visit there some time. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but when it gets a bit warmer. Remember the picnics?”
“I don’t care about picnics!” Anika raised the gun again and this time put it under Mrs. Klahr’s chin. The old woman opened her mouth as if to scream, but she choked on her fear, managing only a sound of coughing distress.
I kept my eyes fixed on Anika and held up a hand, encouraging calm. “Okay Mother, we don’t have to have a picnic. But please put the gun down. Do you remember how stress affects the potion? You told me yourself that Mar...she was always worried about that with you. That it was important to keep the source as stress free as possible.”
Reflexively, Anika took the gun away from Mrs. Klahr’s chin, and the flame of rage in her eyes dimmed slightly. “Please just go, Hansel. Why are we stopped here? What are you looking at?”
I stared just a beat longer, drawing the picture in my head as tightly as possible, knowing there was no room for a miscalculation, and that there would be no opportunity to try again. I flashed a look at Mrs. Klahr, keeping my expression neutral, and then turned back around and picked up the oar. But I wasn’t preparing to row.
Instead, I grabbed the oar like a baseball bat, right hand over left, and squeezed it tightly. I took a huge breath, letting the air exhale fully, and then, in one motion, I stood and turned, swinging the oar out as wide as my arms would allow.
And then I smashed it against the left temple of my mother’s head.
The impact was square, and I saw bloody pieces explode into the air. I thought I was seeing bits of my mother’s skull at first, but then I realized the shards were from the oar that had broken length wise, leaving only half of the device in tact.
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel #1-3) Page 78
