Gretel (19 page)

The boy looked up at his sister and sighed, catching her eyes for just a moment before looking away.

“What’s the matter? Are you upset about the book? This is good, Han. I’m just excited to know what it’s about, that’s all. It doesn’t mean that Odalinde is bad. I mean, it
is
strange that she has the same book that Deda had, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It could just be a coincidence.”

“There’s more, Gretel.”

Gretel’s face twisted into confusion. “More what? You said you didn’t know what the book said.”

“I’m not talking about the book.” With that Hansel met his sister’s stare and held it. “I’m talking about the bag.”

The bag. Odalinde’s bag! It was the main reason Gretel wanted to get into the cupboard in the first place, and now she had completely forgotten about it. She’d gotten so excited—elated—about the book she’d forgotten there was anything else in the cabinet and assumed the book was all Hansel would have cared about as well.

Gretel sat down next to her brother slowly, mimicking his Indian-style posture, and scooted close to him, resting her hands in her lap. She saw the seriousness about him and wanted to offset it by assuming a relaxed manner.

“What did you find in the bag, Hansel?”

Hansel looked down into his own lap and then looked over at his sister. “I found another book, a smaller one, with names and stuff on it. Like a phone book, but one you write your own numbers and names in.”

Some type of organizer, Gretel got it. “And did you see a name in there that you knew?” she asked.

Hansel nodded.

Gretel waited for it, deciding to let her brother reveal the name without any further questions.

“There were lots of names on the pages in the book, and I didn’t know any of them at first. Why would I, right?”

“Right.”

“But then I was closing it, to put it back in the bag and be done with it, and I saw a name written on the inside cover, down at the bottom.”

Hansel stared warily at Gretel, preparing her for the name.

“Officer Stenson, Gretel, that officer from The System who came out here.”

“What?” Gretel’s reply was a reflexive whisper, her mouth lingering wide, her eyes alert. Clearly not a name she was expecting.

Hansel nodded in confirmation. “I saw it written there, Gretel, with no first name either, just Officer Stenson. And there was a phone number next to it.”

Hansel paused as his sister digested this latest morsel.

“I guess it could be another Officer Stenson, but I don’t think it is.”

Gretel didn’t think so either. It wasn’t impossible, of course, but neither was a spaceship landing on the roof of their house.

She conjured the image of Officer Stenson now in her mind—not the breezy, affable man she’d first met at the door, but the cold-mannered lawman that walked out of it, so completely unaffected by her father’s demeanor and subtle threats. Amused by them almost.

And she also recalled Petr’s words that day as she stood on the porch watching the boy walk away admonished:
I don’t think he’s here to help you.

“Why do you think Odalinde has Officer Stenson’s name in her book, Gretel?”

Snapped from her reverie, Gretel stood quickly, giving the indication that it was time to leave. “I don’t know, Hansel, I haven’t one clue,” she said absently.

“Are you going to ask her?”

“No!” Gretel replied sharply, “and neither are you!” For the moment, Gretel was done with any fragile emotions still brewing in her brother. “Let’s go.”

Hansel helped Gretel fold up the tarp and they carried it back to the canoe before pushing the boat back into the water and paddling away from Rifle Field. It was the last time Hansel would ever set foot on that particular piece of land.

Gretel was quiet until they reached the shoreline of their property. “Hansel,” she said finally, “I’m going to need your help.”

Gretel stood with her hands stuffed in her pockets, the key on the tips of her fingers, and watched casually as Odalinde scurried about the kitchen, double-checking that she had all her things in order before her mysterious Thursday excursion. It was just as Hansel said: she was leaving for the evening, and the urgency of the woman’s movements led Gretel to believe that the outing was not unimportant. She was shallow-breathed and fidgety, all the time having a whispered dialogue with herself as she glanced at the clock about every thirty seconds.

It was strange to see her in such a fuss, her default demeanor being one of such weariness and indifference, and Gretel played mentally with the possibilities. A lover was certainly not unreasonable—perhaps she had a standing tryst with some young ram from town, a weekly roll in the field to satisfy nature’s insistence. Maybe it was even Officer Stenson who was on the receiving end.

But if that were the routine, Gretel would have expected Odalinde to be a bit more adorned than she was at the moment. She wasn’t an ugly woman by any stretch—in fact Gretel thought she had the natural makings to be rather pretty—but there was a vacant, weathered look to her, and she always wore her hair and face with such plainness. And since her arrival, her wardrobe had gradually descended into outright sloppiness, with tonight being no exception. There was little to distinguish her appearance from any regular day around the house, her clothes wrinkled and large on her frame and her hair and face in need of washing.

The other possibility Gretel played with was that Odalinde was off to meet her lawyer or accountant, or perhaps some business-minded partner who would aid her in snatching the Morgan farm out from under the shoes of its familial heirs—namely Gretel and Hansel. It certainly fit with the impression Gretel had of Odalinde as cold and ruthless.

But that fantasy didn’t quite make sense either. Odalinde and her father were engaged after all, and once they were married, the farm would essentially be Odalinde’s anyway. And after father died, which he most certainly would before Odalinde, she would have full authority and ownership of the property. Why would she risk all the fighting and legal tanglings for something that would more or less belong to her in a matter of months?

But then again, patience didn’t appear to be Odalinde’s most renowned characteristic, and the more Gretel considered conspiracy as the back story behind her rendezvous, the more it felt like the truth.

The whole business of staging a diversion to steal the key from the satchel was far easier than Gretel had imagined, and all the planning she and Hansel had done for that purpose now seemed laughable. Odalinde had been so anxious and intent on leaving for the evening, that Hansel’s scream from the bathroom, and the subsequent appearance of a two-foot garter snake in the tub, was more than enough to engage her long enough for Gretel to raid the bag and secure the key.

The only real issue had been the timing: Hansel had to be sure that Odalinde had already taken the bag from the cabinet before sounding his alarm, and Gretel had to be out of the room when it happened, since it was unlikely the woman would have left her alone with it.

But in the end it had all been synchronized perfectly, and by the time Hansel and Odalinde finally wrangled the reptile and secured it in an old hat box, Gretel had the key at the bottom of her pocket and was back outside watering the flowers.

“Will you be gone long?” Gretel asked.

Odalinde gave a measured look toward Gretel and held her eyes, all the time continuing with the details of her departure.

“I only ask because I’m usually not here at this time and I wanted to know if there is anything I need to do for Father while you’re away. Medications and such.”

“He’s fine,” Odalinde replied flatly, dropping her gaze and focusing it on Hansel, “and your brother knows what to do if he has any pain.”

Gretel noted that Odalinde hadn’t answered her original question and decided not to arouse further suspicion by pushing it. She’d really only asked because she thought it might appear suspicious if she took
no
interest in Odalinde’s outing, being that Gretel had yet to see the woman ever leave the house for any reason other than to shop. Besides, Hansel said she was usually gone for several hours, and Gretel figured that if the answers she sought were to be found in the cabinet, she’d need less than a half hour or so to discover the real story of why the nurse had invaded her family.

“Have you and father set a date yet?” Gretel asked, silently cursing herself immediately after for continuing to engage Odalinde. It was in her own best interest to let the woman get on with her evening, but Gretel couldn’t help herself. Her displeasure and suspicions about the marriage had been on full display over the past week, and she rarely missed an opportunity to highlight them with a snide remark or probing question. In this case, the question was innocent enough, but the suggestion of accusation was unmistakable.

“We’ve got a few in mind,” Odalinde replied tersely, “I’ll be sure to let you know the moment we decide.”

The quick smile on Odalinde’s lips was contrasted by the uneasiness in her eyes, and Gretel grinned, proud at the jab she’d landed.

Gretel stood tall in the kitchen and watched her stepmother-to-be glance at the clock one last time and then shoot a reflexive peek at her before leaving without another word. Just to be sure, Gretel loped to the bedroom window and watched the truck drive off. She was taking no chances.

Once the old Morgan truck was out of sight, Gretel immediately raced to the kitchen and found Hansel waiting eagerly next to the cabinet.

She had some concern that her brother’s feet would get cold about what they were doing, that he would feel he was somehow betraying Odalinde and would then be saddled with this secret throughout his childhood. But his posture and expression indicated only that he was ready to get on with it.

Gretel fished the key from her pocket and kneeled in front of the forbidden cabinet. She slid the key gently into the lock and turned it clockwise. The click of the latch sounded refreshing in her ears, and she looked up at Hansel and flicked her eyebrows conspiratorially.

The light from the kitchen flooded the inside of the cabinet and Gretel saw instantly that it did not contain anything resembling the bulky tome that was
Orphism.
In fact, the cabinet was empty except for a small address book, presumably the one described by her brother.

Hansel stood behind Gretel, his head nearly resting on her shoulder, and he became immediately defensive by the book’s absence. “It’s not there!” he cried. “It’s not there! But it was! I swear!”

“Of course it was,” Gretel replied, “I believe you. She obviously moved it.” Gretel couldn’t hide her disappointment, and even though it obviously wasn’t Hansel’s fault the book was gone, she was annoyed at him.

“It was there.”

Gretel had to bite her lip to keep from snapping at her brother to forget it and was glad when he didn’t add on further to his deflated words. Besides, all was not lost. There was still the address book. It wouldn’t be the Rosetta Stone to
Orphism
she was hoping for, but it might answer some questions about Odalinde and her business there.

Gretel’s first observation about the book was that, though apparently well-traveled, it was rather new, certainly newer than she had imagined. Gretel had envisioned something more exotic—a homemade piece with a leather jacket and filled with parchment paper perhaps—something more closely resembling her
Orphism
book. But this book was ordinary, cheap, the type found in any dime store.

She flipped through the thin pages and found nearly every line filled with names, with only a few blank pages scattered throughout. She stopped randomly on several of the pages and scanned them, looking for any name that she recognized, but found none. There were, of course, several familiar names, but they were common surnames and no matches with first names that she could see.

Gretel finally dropped the wad of pages to the back cover and stared at the name “Stenson” on the inside of the front cover, just as Hansel had said. But it wasn’t
exactly
as Hansel had said. There was the name ‘Stenson,’ and there was also a phone number, but instead of the word
Officer,
only an ‘O’ was written. It was understandable her brother would have made that connection, but it was possible there were other possibilities.

“Hansel, get me a piece of paper.”

“For what?”

“Just do it! Hurry!”

Hansel fetched a small leaf of notepaper from the porch and handed it to Gretel, who checked twice the phone number of
O. Stenson
and then transcribed it to the sheet. She flipped through the organizer one last time and then placed it back in its exact location in the cabinet, checking one last time to see if, perhaps,
Orphism
had magically appeared in the meantime, which, of course, it hadn’t. She then locked the cabinet and stuffed the key back in her pocket where it would rest until later in the evening when it would reappear for the presumably more difficult trick of being returned to Odalinde’s bag.

But this first task was done. Easy enough. Gretel wasn’t completely satisfied, of course since she still couldn’t decipher her book, but something about seeing the inside of the cabinet and the seeming innocuousness of it made her feel better.

“Gretel?”

Gretel let out a yelp and snapped her head toward the deep rasp that blasted through the kitchen. It was Father, standing hunched in disbelief at the threshold.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

Gretel was silent and looked to her brother, as if he alone held the answer to their father’s question. But Hansel only looked to the floor.

“Answer me, Gretel. What are you doing?”

Gretel closed the cabinet door and locked it, and then rose to her feet, locking eyes with her father, trying to gauge his anger and lucidity; but his face implied only a jumble of emotions which resulted in something closest to confusion.

He wasn’t right—still—after all these weeks of convalescence from a common spleen injury—a serious injury to be sure, but certainly not one which normally resulted in such lethargy and feebleness. He looked as old and disoriented as the days following his collapse, as if he were healing from a stroke or some other brain trauma. Something was perverse about her father’s recovery, and the lingering doubts that Gretel had about Odalinde’s culpability in the matter were now erased.