Fairly Wicked Tales (44 page)

Luckily, after only a day’s journey she came upon a small glade in which sat three tiny houses. Ashamed at what she had to do, she nonetheless humbled herself, prepared to beg the owners for some scraps. Before she could knock at the first door, she heard a deep growl behind her and spun around in time to see a large wolf burst from the forest, intent on attack.

It was unfair. Horribly unfair! After all she and her brother had been through, watching the other children butchered by the witch, Hansel chained in a cage while she worked herself to exhaustion cleaning and scrubbing for their tormentor, was she to be devoured by some wild animal? Was Hansel to be left to slowly die, never knowing what had happened to his adoring sister, breathing his last breath while still waiting for her return?

Something deep within Gretel’s soul snapped. A blinding rage descended upon her. She was conscious only of roaring back at the beast and, for the rest, all was a blank. When she came to her senses some time later, she was astonished to find the wolf, dead of a broken neck at her feet. Even more incredible, three fat pigs in cunning little outfits were wildly capering in a circle around her, weeping with joy and begging her to tell them what they could do to express their gratitude to her for saving them.

A sly thought crept into her mind and, in no time at all, she decided what would be proper thanks. She departed the little clearing lugging a heavy sack, leaving three little suits of clothes behind in a pile on the grass and the wolf’s carcass hanging from a tree to keep it safe from scavengers.

Hansel was overjoyed to see her again, even more so when she showed him what she’d brought home. Poring over the witch’s cookbooks, she found a recipe for Pork Three Ways and set to preparing it: baked in the brick oven, wood-smoked, and slow-roasted over straw and forest herbs. Her brother loved it and could not seem to compliment her enough on the dishes. Of course, as was typical, he tried to wheedle larger helpings from her. But she refused as, by this time, he had grown quite thin and she did not want him ballooning up again as he would undoubtedly do if allowed to eat unfettered.

The pork, carefully husbanded, lasted for several weeks and, by the time it was running low, Gretel judged the wolf would be properly aged. She returned to the little clearing for the carcass and, though not as tasty as the pigs, when stewed the meat was not bad. Yet, all too soon it would also be consumed.

Again she set out. This time, she came upon a fairly large cabin hidden deep within the woods. As no one answered her knocking, it was no great matter to break a window and enter. In the living room, she found a curious decor: several almost identical sets of very ornate furniture of differing sizes. There was a large over-stuffed silk couch, a smaller gilt-edged sofa with brocade cushions, and a tiny love-seat covered in deep purple fabric. All the furniture was of the highest quality and looked very expensive.

In the kitchen, she found a well-stocked larder with bags of dry goods and jars of preserves. She found an empty sack or two and was busily loading up on provisions when the furry owners of the place returned home. At first, she was frightened but then, remembering how she had defeated the wolf, she filled her mind with visions of her beloved brother starving to death in his cell and, again, a red fury washed over her.

When she recovered, she found some nasty gashes on her arm, doubtless from the claws of the largest bear. She washed the cuts clean with water from the pump in the yard and then went upstairs in search of something with which to bandage her wounds. To her surprise, she discovered a young girl, huddling terrified under the covers on the smallest bed. The instant Gretel entered the room, the girl began to shriek with terror. At first, Gretel attempted to soothe her and ease her fears, but the child was hysterical and would not shut up. Gretel tried to remain calm but the ceaseless caterwauling became more and more irritating. Gretel’s annoyance at the difficult child bubbled and stewed until it finally overflowed.

In the end, though it meant an extra trip dragging the carcasses from the cottage back to the Gingerbread House, the effort was worth it. Gretel was able to extend the bear meat by several weeks by mixing in portions of the blond girl and her brother never knew the difference. Even better, the bears were far more materialistic than either the witch or the pigs had been. When she searched the house, she discovered several small caskets of coins; most of the wealth was in silver, but she spied the occasional gold piece as well. The older female bear also had some lovely jewelry which Gretel quickly made her own. Ever of a practical nature, once she returned home, she hung the skins from the branches of the now-bare fruit trees. Though she did not know how to properly prepare fur, she assumed that between drying in the sun and the ants picking clean the odd scraps of remaining flesh, the hides would be good enough to serve as blankets should the coming winter be a cold one.

Though the larder was full, the pantry eventually emptied. And so, with gold in hand, Gretel set out for her home village.
No one would recognize her now
, she thought. She’d left as a girl several years ago; she was now a young woman who looked far older than she was. The time spent scrubbing and carrying had taken its toll on her young body. Though she had discovered an ability to develop freakish strength when angered, she had little control over it. Mostly, she found herself walking with a stoop to ease the aches in her shoulders and lower back. The pain was dull, but constant and over time her mouth had assumed a more-or-less permanent grimace of discomfort with twisted lips and bared teeth, gritted against the pain.

Her own clothing had long since been reduced to rags. Since she obviously could not show up in the village market naked, she resorted to covering herself with things that had belonged to the witch. But Gretel was a much larger-boned woman than the old crone had been and nothing quite fit. She compensated by clumsily ripping apart garments and sewing them onto other clothes to make them larger. The result was a haphazard mish-mash of unmatched scraps. Yet, when she looked at herself in the tarnished glass the witch had used for scrying into the future, she thought the bizarre outfits seemed strangely suited to her.

Just before she left the Gingerbread House, as luck would have it, a neurotic chicken came banging at the gate, hysterical about some imagined cosmic disaster. With some leaves from an old bay and a few of the mushrooms which grew wild on the trunk of a fallen tree, he made a lovely rich stew. Even if Hansel failed to control himself and ate the whole of the pot she’d put in his cage at once, it would be enough to tide him over for the few days she planned to be gone.

Half-buried under the collapsed structure which had once served as the witch’s barn, she found a rickety cart large enough to carry home anything she might buy. With the addition of some straw, it would easily do double-duty as her bed along the way. Unfortunately, any horses the barn might have once housed were long since dust and so, taking up the yokes under her arms herself, she set off, dragging the little wagon behind her.

In the end, she took longer than she’d hoped to find the village, but she kept track of her missteps and figured, the next time, she could make the trip in two days at most. Unselfishly, she’d left the entirety of the chicken for her brother and so was forced to scrounge for herself on the journey. Luckily for Gretel, the forest was dry this time of year and finding firewood was not difficult. She reached the village with a full belly and the fortuitous addition to her wardrobe of a darling cape which, though a trifle small, was a lovely shade of scarlet.

In the marketplace, the stall-keepers seemed polite enough, yet Gretel could not quite put her finger on the sense of unease she felt. She was purchasing some old cookbooks from a bookseller’s cart when the cause for her discomfort suddenly dawned on her. While the merchants showed no hesitation in taking her money, none would look directly at her. The stall-keepers were not the only ones to avert their gaze. All of the people around her, the other villagers, seemed to be deliberately avoiding her, lowering their heads to examine the ground whenever she drew near. It was only when they thought she wouldn’t notice that she saw them huddled together, throwing furtive glances her way, and making strange hand gestures in her direction.

She was more puzzled than offended by the villagers’ reactions. Perhaps her outlandish garb caused their bizarre behavior. Or, she reluctantly acknowledged, perhaps it was simply that, living alone with her brother so deep in the woods as she did, she was not quite so attentive to her personal hygiene as strangers would prefer. She decided to ignore the stares and whispers and gestures and continue her shopping. There was no one here she needed to impress anyway.

The bears’ gold should have been more than enough to buy all the supplies she needed but it was spent far more quickly than she had expected. Until she had returned to the market several times, Gretel would not realize how she was being cheated with each purchase. Once she became aware of the dishonesty, she took steps to make sure it would not happen again. But, on this first trip, by the time she reached the butcher’s stalls, she had just about run out of money. Nevertheless, she examined the trimmed racks of beef, the plucked chickens neatly trussed, the smoked hams hanging from poles and the glossy fish in their beds of melting ice. Oddly, nothing seemed appetizing to her. So, instead of parting with what few coins she had left, she shrugged off the merchants’ ceaseless patter and prepared to return home.

On her way out of the village and back into the forest, she found she had picked up a traveling companion. A vacant-eyed youth leading a cow by a length of rope had latched on to her as if she was his best friend. Several times, she tried to shoo him away but he responded with a dopey grin and persisted in offering her some beans he was selling. Gretel tolerated his unwanted company for quite some ways into the wood before she snapped. She managed to control herself, but just barely. The cow was not so old as to have stopped producing milk which she could learn to make into cheese. The beans, she would try to plant in the garden. And the idiot boy would stalk her no longer.

Once home, she was disappointed with her brother’s reaction to the goodies she had brought for him. She delved into her new cookbooks with gusto, creating little culinary masterpieces for his pleasure. But Hansel took no delight in his food. Even with all the care Gretel took to make sure he did not see the kinds of meat she used for her roasts and stews and barbeques, even when she outright lied to him as to the source, he was reluctant to eat. Eventually, she was forced to place small morsels into his mouth and physically move his jaw so that he chewed. She found an old wineskin and filled it with water and, by holding his mouth shut, she could squeeze enough past his clenched teeth so he had a choice of swallowing or choking. Only thus was she able to care for him.

At some point, from sheer desperation, she even resorted to leafing through her cookbooks for a gingerbread recipe. She baked up a huge batch of the hated stuff and joy filled her heart when Hansel nibbled at a few morsels. But he was so thin by then, so very thin. His stomach must have shrunken and he couldn’t eat much. Still, perhaps slowly, she could build up his strength.

As for the leftover gingerbread, though she could not bear to eat it herself, she felt it a shame to let it go to waste. Fortunately, since the roof leaked slightly, she knew what to do. As much as she hated the sight of gingerbread, she found a weird satisfaction in plastering the shingles into place with icing. Once that task was complete, she found herself eying the bare wood siding of the house and considering how she might repair it. It had been a long time since the cottage had been properly maintained and seemed a pity she had let it deteriorate so far.

For a few days, she did nothing. Her hands were full enough trying to look after her failing brother. At night however, in her dreams she found herself fixing things, tending to the cottage with loving care. It was not something she particularly wanted to do, it was something she had to do, but at whose behest or for whose benefit, she could not say. A subtle compulsion began working at her will. She knew not the source but she could not fight it. The only relief—the only happiness—she could find lay in baking, baking large batches of gingerbread with which she slowly began to restore the house.

First, she finished patching the shingles on the roof, then she replaced the slats of the fence, and mended the trim around the cottage windows and doors. As she labored, she found she enjoyed the creativity her work provided. She often mixed berry juice into the icing mortar to provide a little color to the house or molded a small curlicue from marzipan to add interest to a stretch of trim under the eaves. Over time, the house began to look much as it had when she and Hansel first arrived. As she continued making improvements of her own devising, it began looking even better.

The work took her mind off her brother’s plight, though she still loved him and remained deeply worried about him. But his importance to her slowly took second place to the passionate desire to restore the house. For some time, she lay awake nights, wondering where she would find candy with which to decorate as her predecessor had done. There was only so much she could do with baked goods, and the woodland birds simply would not leave the sugar cookies alone. Icing swirls were very lovely, of course, but a peppermint trim would be divine!

During her travels, she happened upon seven little men dragging a cart laden with a fortune in jewels they’d dug from the depths of a nearby cave. She confiscated the bounty and, when they objected, she made sausages as none of them yielded a decent-sized steak. She had hopes their female charge would provide some welcome assistance with the daily cooking and cleaning of the Gingerbread Cottage. However, the girl was completely useless. Since Gretel had no patience for teaching her the proper way to do things, she ended up in the larder next to the remains of the impertinent maiden who used to live in a high tower, and who had not a single redeeming thing about her, save for the lovely long hair Gretel had used to weave the new curtains.