Chapter 8 Gretel
Chapter Eight
Gretel
Another bolt of lightning comes down. It’s so close to the cottage that it blinds me. All I can do is blink until the spots clear. My heart is a dull pounding, like everything has slowed. And yet it pains for Hansel.
Tears prick but don’t fall. Fear exists but it’s silenced.
I can’t move. I can’t move at all. This isn’t like being frozen in place by fear, or trying to stay still during a game of hide-and-seek.
This is being frozen by magic.
I don’t know how I’m still alive. I don’t know how a body can be this still and keep living.
Am I going to die?
I try to curl my fingers, then my toes. I can’t do either. I try to flex my hands. Not that, either. Time is slowed and yet I can do nothing.
Panic swells inside my chest, but it has nowhere to go. I can’t run to let it out. I can’t scream. I can’t do anything but stand here, barely touching Hansel.
But I can blink, and if I try, I can move my gaze to look around the cottage.
As I focus, the vision on the door becomes clear.
She’s a beautiful witch. Her gown is flowing and pale, and looks too light for the winter. At the same time, it looks sturdy and warm. I can’t tell which is real, or if the dress is an illusion.
Is she an illusion?
If she is, she’s a kind one. Her expression is kind, and her eyes are kind.
There is no malice in her face at all. That might not mean anything.
The witch had looked kind in the beginning as well.
She had offered us sweets and shelter. She had seemed harmless until she shut the door and refused to let us leave.
But then her face had transformed, and all her hatred was there on the surface.
This witch though, her expression is calming. Even as I stand entranced, the fear dims.
I watch for signs of it on the beautiful witch’s face, but there are none. She smiles gently at us, then glances around the cottage, seeming to see it for the first time.
This witch looks nothing like the witch who hurt Hansel, and who I thought was going to hurt me. She doesn’t seem familiar with this place the way the evil witch had. This was her home, after all, so it would make sense that another witch wouldn’t know it.
Unless she’s pretending.
I can hear my pulse rushing in my ear. I need answers, and I need them badly, or else I might faint.
I’m not completely frozen, I realize. I’m still breathing. So is Hansel. We have our lungs, at least.
The beautiful witch doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to speak to us. I don’t know what that means. Is it because she has her prey where she wants us, or because we’re not prey at all?
God, I want to know.
The witch waves her hand and the flames dim, what once was burned comes back whole and finds it’s place around us.
The damage we did is undone. In only a wave of her hand, the rage and harm against the cottage is reversed.
In a blink of an eye, it’s as if nothing happened.
The flames in the fire crack and then subside to a warmed inferno.
A nonthreatening and comforting heat. She waves her hand again, still silent and observing.
The light from the oven’s open door brightens again. Whatever spell paralyzed me falls away, and I throw myself into Hansel’s arms. He folds them around me and holds on tight.
“Gretel,” he whispers, too quiet for the witch to hear and with no voice behind it. I don’t think he can make a sound.
I clear my throat, but that doesn’t make any sound, either. I cling hard to Hansel’s shirt.
The witch waves her hand again, and the door closes behind her.
The wall behind us rattles, and the spaces Hansel made around the window close up, stopping the frigid draft.
She pats at her hair, shakes out her shoulders, and folds her hands in front of her, looking between us as if we’re her guests.
The light cloak around her seems to drift in a wind that doesn’t exist as she moves towards us.
“Hansel and Gretel, I presume?”
I nod, although I do not want to. My body obeys the powerful being.
We’ll get through this, I promise myself. We’ll both get through this.
Hansel’s hands spread out on my back as if he can hear my thoughts. We will get through this, but Hansel’s heart is pounding in his chest. He’s tense, and obviously doesn’t trust her. I don’t trust her, either.
She bows her head, accepting my answer, then looks at us once more, an apologetic slant to her mouth.
“I do apologize for the silencing, but I’ve found mortals don’t respond well to unexpected visitors.
You didn’t care for the candlelight and the supper.
” The witch gives a shrug, looking slightly disappointed at how we treated the food.
She adds, her brow perking, “I thought they were delicious, myself.”
I don’t know what to do. Tears well in my eyes. My heart races, all out of rhythm. The feeling I get from this woman is one of safety and peace, but how can I be sure of that?
I have Hansel’s arms around me. For now, that has to be enough.
It’s a small comfort. It lets my heart settle down a bit, beating softer. It’s still going far too fast.
Moment by moment. Question by question.
The witch studies us, then lets out a quiet sigh. A flick of her hand, and the cottage is transformed. All the dark, dusty wood is replaced with whitewashed plaster walls. Fresh flowers spring into a vase near the sink.
Fresh flowers, in the middle of winter. If I cared to let go of Hansel, I would go over and touch them, because—
They’re impossible.
The iron oven disappears. A cozy fireplace appears in the wall where the oven used to be.
This is all impossible. For a moment I question my sanity and if I’ve slipped into the depths of sleep again.
But it’s all real. I know it in my heart. I don’t know if I can stand another heartbreak. It would be one too many, and for Hansel…
I don’t think Hansel could stand it, either. I think he might finish tearing the cottage to the ground no matter how many times this witch repairs it.
He might insist on trying for the rest of his life.
I wouldn’t blame him for that, either.
The witch glances around and smiles at her work. “That’s better. Perhaps I should have redecorated before you came. Though…I also know what you did before, and I couldn’t risk that, could I?”
Neither of us can answer, and I don’t move. I just want to stay close to Hansel and feel his heartbeat. I’ve needed him so much since my father took me away, and now every second I have to touch him is worth—
It’s worth more than anything to me. It’s worth my life. I don’t have an answer for the witch, anyway.
She glances between Hansel and I, her lips pursed, then seems to make a decision.
“You there.” With a graceful hand, she points at me. “Gretel. Speak.”
The magic she had used to silence me fades. I hadn’t realized I could feel it in my throat and only notice it once it’s gone.
“Please.” I’ll never say anything more important. I don’t care about myself. I just need her to leave Hansel in peace. Although Hansel cares about me. I should beg for my life, but my throat is too tight. My voice is too raw. I love him too much. “Please don’t hurt him.”
The witch’s face softens, and she lifts one hand as if she wants to touch us, to comfort us.
“Oh, sweet child, I don’t intend to hurt either of you. This—” She gestures around at the now-gorgeous cottage, encompassing the door to the bedroom, too. “Does this look like pain to you?”
Tears of hope prick my eyes although I don’t trust the relief her words promise.
I can’t speak, though the spell no longer stops me.
Of course it doesn’t look like pain. It looks beautiful.
But the cottage had not looked truly dangerous before.
I don’t know how to trust anything anymore. I don’t know how to trust her.
The witch seems to sense that, because her gaze turns even kinder.
“It is not,” she says reassuringly. “This is healing.”
“Healing?” I choke out in blasphemy. I can’t deny that some of the time we’ve spent here has been healing.
It was at least a gift I’ll be grateful for as long as I live.
I didn’t even want to live this much before Hansel opened the door and let me inside.
I would have been so lonely without him. “You brought us here to heal?”
“You brought yourselves here,” she answers gently. “But…I may have helped you along.”
“Did you—you left those stones at my house, didn’t you? You left them on the path, and you left them in my living room so I had to see them.”
“I did,” she confirms, looking only a little sheepish. “But I promise to you—I had no evil intent.”
My throat closes, and I can’t speak. I thought she was coming back. I thought I had brought her back to the village, and I couldn’t live with that. I’d already lost my father, and I’d lost Hansel, and I couldn’t lose what was left of my life again.
“I do have sorrow that I have caused you pain,” the witch says. It sounds like a true, sincere apology, with real sorrow in her voice. “I did not wish to frighten you. I only desired to right the wrongs that had been done.”
“You’re not her, then?” Hansel says brusquely. He doesn’t sound afraid although his voice is rough and low. He sounds as if he’s still ready to defend me from anything—even magic. I’m more in love with him than ever, and I’ve loved Hansel for as long as I can remember.
“I am not the witch who dwelled here before,” the beautiful witch answers.
“She is dead, and will not return. But the damage she did to both of you has lingered, and deserves to be repaired. I felt that the two of you needed to return to this place to see that you had grown in spite of what happened here, and I feared that without a hand to guide you, you would never come to that conclusion on your own.”
“Repair?” I echo, my mind working slowly after the rush of adrenaline and fear.
“You are meant to be together.” Her bright blue eyes stare through me.
“There is no one on earth who is better suited to either of you, and I cannot let that precious love die from the harms of that evil creature. It is my duty and honor to do what I can to offer true love a chance to survive, and to grow.”
Tears slip down my cheeks. I watch through blurry vision as the witch takes something from around her neck.
It is an amulet with a dark red gem shining on the surface. I recognize it immediately and all hope is paused. My heart misses a beat at the sight of it. The beautiful witch holds it up in the light, and as we watch, it snaps in two in her hands.
She drops the pieces to the floor, but they disappear before they land.
“Was that keeping her away?” I ask, my voice shaking with emotion. “You don’t mean for us to face her, do you?”
“She is gone,” the witch promises. “I have not lied to you. The amulet represented the harm she did in her living years, and now I hope you will be able to let go of the pain she caused you here. There is still good in the world, after all—and the most powerful magic is love. You carry that between you wherever you go.”
Hansel straightens, like he’s just waking up. “You aren’t here to punish us? There’s no one to fight?”
The witch steps closer and puts her hand to his cheek. She does the same to mine and looks into my eyes, then returns her gaze to Hansel. “You’ve been fighting all this time. The battle is over.”
Hansel makes a rough sound. “So you’ll let us go?” he questions.
She nods solemnly. “You were only children back then,” the witch says. Her eyes are so kind. There is nothing in her touch that speaks of the evil witch. “You can let it go now. You can have your happily ever after.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, and close my eyes, unshed tears spilling. Relief spreads through me although a part of me will not trust her until we are gone.
Hansel holds me tighter. I inhale, trying not to cry, and when I exhale, the heat of the witch’s hand is gone.
I open my eyes.
The witch is gone, too. The cottage is quiet around us apart from the cracking of the fire, and remains transformed. It’s bright and clean with a basket of apples on the table and a pastry cooling in a dish near the sink.
But it’s the glass jar on the windowsill that catches my eye. The firelight reflects off of it, and inside—
“Hansel,” I manage to say. “Look.”
“What is it?” he says into my hair.
I turn both of us so he can look without letting go of me. Hansel’s eyes move over the room and all the transformations the witch made in the blink of an eye.
He takes a quick breath when he sees the jar and guides me closer, one hand steady on my waist, the other reaching out for the jar. His hand trembles as he lifts the lid and sets it carefully aside, then reaches in.
He plucks one of the pieces from the jar, folds it in his fingers, and smiles down at it.
Then he holds it in front of me and opens his hand.
There, in his palm, is a perfect twist of pure white wax paper, wrapped lovingly around a piece of orange-and-yellow taffy.
It’s the color of the sunrise. It’s the color of a brand-new day.
“I need you Gretel,” Hansel whispers. “Please stay with me forever.”
Lifting my chin I look deep into his eyes, “I’ll never leave you ever again. I love you.”
As he kisses me, I hold him like he’s mine forevermore. Because he is.
He was always the love of my life.
He breaks the kiss and breathes deeply, repeating over and over, “I love you.”