Chapter 11
Eleven
Half a mile west of Granny’s, you come upon a brick house with an untamed vegetable garden. Several scarecrows stand vigil, holding signs that say “NO RABBITS ALLOWED >:(” and “CROWS R FOES” and—this one’s good—an illustration of a man asking a slug, “DO U RLY WANT TO MAKE ME CRY?”
Netting that should be upright on fenceposts instead lays like a blanket over raised beds of… cabbages? Maybe? And the tomatoes—well, you’ve never seen a sorrier sprawl of tomatoes in your life.
The woman you met yesterday was right. You couldn’t have missed this if you tried.
You also couldn’t have imagined him living like this.
Warmth rises in your chest. So this is Favorite as a human.
Messy and silly. A bad gardener trying nonetheless.
The swan eating mussels from your hand became a man who gave his scarecrows signs to hold.
The fondness you feel is immeasurable. It might just break open your chest.
A commotion around the side of the house steals your attention from the front garden. Something metal—a bucket?—crashes against a stone, and a man’s battle cry follows.
“We’ve talked about this, Petunia!” he says. You walk around the side of the house in time to spot a gopher loping through the grass. “You have your alfalfa, and I have mine—you can’t eat both! Petunia, get back here!”
The gopher—Petunia, presumably—does not get back here. Instead, she scurries away, until you lose sight of her between the trees and underbrush. And the man is left standing there, sighing so heavily his shoulders droop, wiping sweat with one gloved hand while his singular wing rests at his side.
He glances your way. Then he gestures loosely at your feet.
“Pass me the pruning shears, will you? Petunia’s wrecked my alfalfa. I can’t bear to look at it. I have to work on something else.”
The pruning shears lay abandoned in the grass just beside your boots. You pick them up, then cross the back garden with care.
“Here,” you say, which isn’t what you imagined your first words to him would be. Although you’d tried to rehearse a speech, none of the words were right. In the end, you’d hoped for a spark of brilliance in the moment. Not pruning shears.
“Thanks,” he says. He takes them from you, kneels, and starts aggressively pruning a rose bush.
“I thought I lost these shears, actually. Scoured the whole house for days. Went to the market yesterday to buy a new pair, and then got distracted, as I usually do. Funny thing, isn’t it, that you came along and found them? ”
He turns and looks at you for the first time, smiling and squinting into the sunlight. What a face he has—angular where yours is broad, with flushed cheeks and golden hair like ruffled feathers, dampened by sweat at the hairline.
Pretty, you realize. He’s pretty. With all the elegance of a swan, a dainty neck, narrow, pointy shoulders—he could be a dancer, really—you can’t believe he reminds you of a swan. The prince turned swan turned prince again, with so much of the bird still in him.
“You’re carrying a wolf,” he says.
“Oh. Yes. Just the skin.”
“Just the skin?”
“Long story.”
He snips a bit more at the rosebush, but then, before you know it, he’s looking at you again.
“Do we know each other?” he asks. “I swear you’re familiar to me.”
“We do,” you say. “Or, we used to. It’s been a long time.”
He searches you again. Your beard, thick as lambswool, disguises whatever remnants of childhood remain in your face.
Your thick brows, wide shoulders, barrel chest, biceps as big as melons—he’ll never guess.
You were so small, the last time he knew you.
Still, you let the silence stretch on. It’s more fun to let him guess.
“I know you,” he says, more determined. “Now just hang on. Hang on.”
He drops the shears and stands. A few inches taller than you, he looks down into your eyes, which have been changed by witnessing so much more violence, but then—
“Hansel,” he whispers. “Hansel? You’re alive?”
Your name in his voice shoots through you like lightning.
“You’re alive!”
“What reason did you have to think otherwise?”
“The Fair Queen, when Gertrude asked, the Fair Queen said… No, it doesn’t matter. Not right now. You’re here!”
He wraps you in his embrace too swiftly to stop him. Your head falls perfectly against his shoulder; his arm and wing wrap snugly around your back. Your own arms hang uncertain at your sides, but he clutches you tight, dirtying your shirt with his garden glove.
You thought of me… The words get caught in your throat. You thought of me? You tried to get me back. You wanted me back. Could you still want me back?
Though the motion makes your bones creak with rust, you raise your arms, and hug him so tight he squeals with renewed laughter.