Order of Swans (The Blue Swan Duology #1)

Chapter 11

11

Sojee didn’t take the path he’d used earlier, but led them through the forest. It wasn’t easy walking across the fallen branches. The ground was covered with vines that seemed to grab at Kaley’s feet. When she was struggling to free herself, Tanek put a strong arm around her waist and pulled her out. He set her down and they continued walking.

When they came to a little hill, Sojee motioned for them to get down. They stretched out on their stomachs, with Kaley in the middle. Just below them, in a beautiful forest setting, was the gingerbread house. It was more enchanting and enticing than any storybook had ever pictured it. The walls were soft and warm-looking, and the roofline was edged with hundreds of dancing gingerbread figures. Their happy faces were outlined in colored icing. There were boxes made of candy that were filled with icing-covered flowers. The dirt was chocolate. The windows of the cottage were made of layers of crystallized sugar that seemed to promise even better treats inside.

What no book had been able to convey was the heavenly scent. It was apple pie fresh out of the oven, muffins, cakes, doughnuts and the spicy gingerbread. The smells wafted up to them. Kaley closed her eyes for a moment then started to get up. Two hands, one from each man, pressed down firmly on her lower back.

“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”

“What do you know of the owner?” Sojee asked her.

She noticed that he didn’t say “witch.” Was it a forbidden word? “She has very bad eyesight. She...” The reality of the old story that she’d heard since she was a child came to her. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “There was a boy and a girl. She put the boy, Hansel, in a cage and fed him a lot. She wanted to fatten him up so she...” Kaley could hardly say what the story told. “So she could eat him. Each day, she had him hold up a finger to see how fat he was getting. But Hansel found...” Kaley swallowed. “In the back of the cage were bones from past children she’d murdered. Hansel held up a finger bone to show her he was still thin. The woman was angry that he wasn’t gaining weight.”

“And the girl?” Tanek asked.

“She was worked half to death,” Kaley said. “And given very little to eat.”

The men looked at each other and nodded in silent agreement. Sojee spoke first. “I’ll draw her out, then you and Tanek can go in through the side of the house. Once I’ve dispensed with the woman, we’ll send the children home.” He was looking at her in question, waiting for her agreement.

“Yes,” she said.

“Stay here until I signal you,” Sojee said.

He made it sound simple and she lay beside Tanek, both of them watching as he went down the side of the hill and put himself in front of the adorable, fragrant little house. How could anything bad be in there?

“Come out!” Sojee bellowed. He looked like the giant he was as he stood there, sword at the ready. He was a formidable opponent.

In the next second, out of the chimney came sparkling balls. They were the size of a softball and were so cute that all they could do was stare. The silvery spheres looked like they would taste good.

Sojee seemed as mesmerized as Kaley and Tanek were because he didn’t move, just watched the balls slowly come down. It was very much like fireworks.

But then, one of them came within a foot of Sojee and burst into flame. Hot, red, angry flame. When Sojee’s shirt caught fire, Tanek was up and running in an instant.

The sparkling fireballs doubled in number, aiming at both men. Kaley stood up. There was nothing at the sides of the house, and all attention was on the men. She knew she had to use the time the witch was focused elsewhere to get into the house.

As Tanek swatted a fireball away, he saw Kaley and nodded. It was as though he could read her mind.

She stepped into the shade of the forest and ran toward the far end of the house. The hill was steeper there and she half ran, half scooted down. When she looked around the house, she saw Tanek make a leap into the air as he redirected a ball away from Sojee. Her eyes widened as his jump was so high that his feet were level with Sojee’s head. Like a swan , she thought. She turned back to the side of the house. In picture books, the gingerbread house had flat sides, as though giant slabs of the cake had been baked in an enormous oven. But that wasn’t the case here. There was a frame to the house and the walls were six-inch square slabs of gingerbread that overlapped like roof tiles. It would be easy to pull them off. But then it had been built to trick kids into eating it.

The problem was that the witch was still inside. She needed the woman to get out ! Kaley went to the corner of the house and waved her arms to Tanek. When he looked, she made a motion of going in. He understood.

He reached inside his boot, pulled out a thin knife and threw it at one of the sugar windows. There was a scream of outrage from inside and bursting out of the front door came a hideous old woman. She was as ugly as she was portrayed in books. Wiry gray hair stood out from her head. She had a big nose, large, crooked teeth that had probably never seen a toothbrush, and a dumpy body. She was surrounded by hundreds of the fireballs—and she was aiming for Sojee.

Kaley wanted to do something to help the men, but instead, she frantically began tearing the gingerbread slabs off the side of the house. It took only seconds to get through. Inside, it was small and warm, but that was probably from the giant oven against the wall. In the corner was the cage and inside was a very plump little boy.

When there was a movement to the side, Kaley reacted by picking up a skillet, ready to use it as a weapon. But a little girl, thin to the point of emaciation, and filthy, heaved herself off a wooden shelf and stood up. “I’m sorry,” was all Kaley could say.

She went to the cage and to her horror, she saw no door, no keyhole, no way of opening it. The boy came to stand by the bars. “How do I get in?” she asked him, and saw that he didn’t understand. It looked like the thing that had been planted in her arm didn’t know their language. Outside, she heard yelling, and blasts of light flashed through the candy windows. “Hansel?” The boy’s eyes lit up. It was a word he knew and he nodded.

She pantomimed how to get the door open, but he shook his head. She looked at Gretel. Did she know? No.

Kaley saw a slop bucket in the back of the cage. When they first arrived, the boy had been locked inside and left there. The children had probably been too frightened to pay attention to the opening and closing of a cage door, and it didn’t appear to have been opened since.

She looked around the little room. There were shallow shelves with dirty bottles on them. She picked up one. It was full of eyeballs. Another seemed to contain tongues. She tossed them to the floor in disgust.

There were more shouts outside. Voices she’d come to know well were yelling something to her. A warning. In the next second, she heard a sizzling sound and half a dozen silvery balls fell inside. Gingerbread wasn’t good at keeping out fire!

Gretel threw her skinny arms around Kaley’s legs. Help me , she thought, then said loudly, “Someone please help me!” Smoke was beginning to fill the room.

On the wall with the nasty jars a light appeared. It was tiny and the smoke nearly hid it, but she saw it. It was the light that had guided her to Collan’s house! It landed on something hanging on the wall. It had a string, like a necklace. At the bottom was a half-round pendant that looked like something from her father’s car repair shop. Very ordinary and unremarkable.

When the light flickered, Kaley grabbed the necklace and took it to the cage. “Please,” she whispered, coughing at the smoke. Gretel was holding on to her so tightly, Kaley could hardly move, but she didn’t dare send the girl outside into the fireballs.

Kaley touched the pendant to the cage but it didn’t open. The smoke was making her eyes water. The smell of gingerbread burning black in the fire filled the place with acrid smoke.

Her vision was blurry, but it seemed that the light that wasn’t far from her face showed a tiny woman. She had wings and a dress that glistened. Kaley blinked hard. The woman was still there and she was motioning something. She was putting something over her head.

Kaley understood. She put the necklace on and it instantly felt warm against her chest. Then there was that little electric charge she’d felt from Sojee’s pen. When Kaley touched the necklace, the front of the cage came open and Hansel ran out. He grabbed his sister’s hand, she didn’t let go of Kaley, and the three of them got out through the hole in the side of the house.

Outside, she directed the children to run up the hill to safety. They were coughing but managed to obey. Kaley went around the corner of the house. She was going to do what she could to help the men. The air seemed filled with the blazing silver balls.

When the men saw the children run up the hill, and saw that Kaley was safely outside the burning house, they stopped jousting with the lethal balls and stood still. Kaley felt a sense of panic. The men were going to be hit!

But neither man seemed to care about that. In tandem, they walked toward the hideous old witch. She was screaming what sounded like spells, but the men didn’t stop. When they were a few feet from her, Tanek took a step back. He was letting Sojee take the stage.

Kaley watched as Sojee picked up the little woman, turned her sideways, lifted her over his bent leg and broke her body in two. The sound of her bones breaking filled the air, and Kaley looked away. When the necklace she was still wearing began to feel too warm, she took it off. She wondered if she should throw it into the fire but instead, she put it in her pocket.