Chapter 5
YOU MUST TRUST THIS SWAN.
Listen very carefully. Listen. If you want to survive your story, this is the most important rule.
You must trust this swan. In the mire of misery that is yet to befall you, you will have this one shining jewel of joy to return to, over and over again.
On your darkest nights, when you won’t want to survive, this one kernel of goodness will give you hope your life can be better (even if it can never be).
This one crumb of happiness will fill you up when you are starved for goodness—and you will, alas, be starved for goodness.
Because your life, regrettably, will not be a happy one. You’ve sensed that already, haven’t you? So much misfortune in so short a time must have brought you to that realization by now.
That’s because you are not the hero of this story. In stories there are a hundred roles, and you have yours, just as the swan has his.
Yours is not a role that has a happy ending.
Think of this swan as an act of mercy. A gift. Without this swan, there will be no joy at all for you in this life. No goodness. No redemption, or kindness, or love. This swan is the answer to your wish—and though you will never know this, you’ll be the answer to the swan’s wish, too.
You will not get to spend your life with this swan, even though you’ll want to. Unfortunately, there is no version of this story where you are lucky enough to end up together. But if you trust him, in this moment, you will have a few contented months.
It may be less than you deserve, but it is so much more than others get.
You already know you want to live. Don’t you want that life to be more than blood and misery? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a grain of sugar perched forever on your tongue? Don’t you want to be able to say At least I was happy for a time, rather than I was never happy even once in my life?
Then for your own sake—trust him.
* * *
You stare at the swan. The swan stares at you. After a moment, it sinks its orange bill into its snow-white breast, preening. You keep staring. You’ve only ever seen swans skate the surface of a placid lake, and always in pairs. This one is alone. And this isn’t a lake. This is just a creek.
Something about this seems…
You want to say wrong, but strange is the better word.
Wrong implies fear, and you’re not afraid of this swan.
You trust this swan, immediately, implicitly, though you have no reason to do so.
You know this swan isn’t what it seems. The way it looked at you—you can’t explain how you know, you just know.
And you can’t trust things that aren’t what they seem.
Only yesterday, you escaped from a flesh-eating witch who at first seemed like nothing more than a kind old woman. The part of you that’s curious and the part of you that wants to live go to war, and the latter wins. The latter will always win.
You begin to follow the creek downstream. As soon as you turn your back, the swan honks at you. A heartbroken, desperate honk—not a honk at all, in fact, but a cry—that makes you look over your shoulder.
A girl in rags scoops the swan into her arms. The swan writhes so powerfully it escapes her grasp.
That’s when the girl notices you. She’s at least your age, maybe a little older, with grimy hair and an even grimier apron.
She asks you something with her hands, but you shake your head. You don’t know what her signing means.
She reverts to basic gestures. You draw closer when she beckons, and follow her and her swan upstream, hopeful she’s leading you to her village, hopeful that everything you’ve wanted will be waiting for you there.
The swan waddles apace, like a trained pet.
You’ve heard stories of ducklings that imprint on the first person they see when they hatch.
You ask if the swan is a pet, and she slams a hand over her mouth.
Her shoulders quake with silent, restrained laughter.
The swan shakes its head as if it understands you.
Maybe it does understand. You try asking the swan the same question, if the girl’s face was the first thing it saw in this world, and it honks at you so aggressively the girl begins laughing silently again.
Strange. Strange is the word for this, not wrong. It’s all very strange, but you find yourself smiling.
After yesterday, you weren’t quite sure you’d ever smile again.
* * *
The raggedy girl and her swan bring you home. There’s no village.
No family.
No hero brave enough to return to the witch’s house and do whatever heroes do at witches’ houses.
But there is someone welcoming you to share her hovel.
It’s shoddily made, with a roof that leaks when it rains and a dirt floor that’ll turn to mud, but there’s a hearth and a space for you to sleep.
There’s a bright, clear lake where the swan has joined five others.
There are wild fruit trees scattered about, heavy with a promise they’ll deliver in a few weeks’ time.
Most importantly, there’s company that wants you there.
The girl smiles like sunlight when you sit at her table and she claps her hands together.
That’s when you see it—her hands. Each finger covered in blisters, each knuckle red with pinprick scabs, every inch of skin pockmarked with scars.
Your gaze doesn’t leave her hands as she retrieves a stale loaf of bread, a half-empty jar of jam, and a knife.
“What happened?” you ask. “Has someone hurt you?”
You couldn’t save Gretel. You could barely save yourself. But if this girl, who has welcomed you, has known some kind of pain, you want to help her. You want to try, at least.
She looks at her hands. She reaches for parchment and ink and a quill.
“I have no letters,” you say. “It won’t help.”
For a moment, she pauses. Her cheek caves where she’s biting it. Then she sets the parchment down on the table anyway and begins to draw.
Six crowned boys, and one crowned girl.
A witch.
Arrows indicating the witch turned the boys into swans.
The girl, crying.
The girl, collecting thorns.
The girl, beside six shirts sewn from those thorns.
The girl, beside six harvests—six years to complete those shirts.
The girl, putting the shirts on the swans.
The swans, boys again.
“The swans are your brothers,” you say. “You have to save them.”
With tears in her eyes, she nods.
“I had a sister I couldn’t save. You’re very brave.”
She reaches across the table and clutches your hand. Cognizant of all her sewing wounds, you offer her the gentlest squeeze you’re capable of.
“My name is Hans,” you say. “Everyone calls me Hansel. What should I call you?”
Setting aside the quill, she shakes her head.
So her name isn’t something she can draw.
“Can you act it out?”
Her brows knit. Then, with a roll of her eyes, she bares her teeth and holds up her hands, mimicking claws.
After a few useless guesses at different animals, you realize she’s trying to soundlessly growl.
“Grr… Ger…” Gretel? Your heart stops. You don’t want that to be your first guess, so you try a different name. “Gertrude?”
Gertrude’s smile opens across her whole face.
And that is how you become part of a family again.