Gretel (7 page)

“We’ll never find her like this,” he whined. “I want to go home!”

The fruitless searches had clearly traumatized her brother, and Gretel suspected there would be something akin to a revolution tomorrow morning when their father told him the plans for the day.

“We’re home, Han. Let’s go.”

The next morning Hansel woke first, followed by Gretel, and they both performed their daily tasks as minimally and quietly as possible, making every effort to ensure their father continued sleeping. And he had, almost until lunchtime, before he finally ventured out to the main area of the house, clumsily fixed a plate of eggs and toast, and retreated back to his room. No mention was made of a search effort, and neither child reminded him.

But Gretel was now torn. With a full night’s sleep, in the clarity of the day, she thought her father had been right last night: they had to look for their mother. Who else if not them?

Gretel had been exhausted after the ride from Deda’s, and it had made her selfish, but if her mother needed help, and if her father was right about The System not doing anything for days, then of course they had to go look for her! Were they to let her die in a ditch somewhere in the Northlands? No, they had to go.

But go where?

The truth was they had looked in the only place they knew—along the Interways—and though the daylight could certainly be the difference between spotting a footprint in the mud or a stray piece of fabric lingering on a branch, Gretel didn’t suspect this would be the outcome. By now, if her mother had crashed the car along that stretch of road—not a major thoroughfare, to be sure, but not empty either—someone would have noticed. Certainly there would be some indication of an accident. She or her father would have seen it. On the way back from Deda’s it had been dark and impossible, but driving
to
his house there had been plenty of light, and they had stopped everywhere it seemed. And had found nothing.

What Gretel also knew was there was little chance of getting help from anyone personally. Her father had already made all the calls to friends and family, including even the most fringe members of both sets, and according to him no one had heard anything or was in any position to help. Of course not.

Her mother’s extended family consisted of Deda, who apparently offered nothing new during her father’s conversation with him (though her father hadn’t told Gretel any of the specifics), and the few members left of her father’s family were either far away, feeble, or on less-than-stellar terms with her father. In some cases it was all three. The Morgan family—that is, her father’s kin—as far as Gretel was concerned, did not extend beyond her family’s cabin’s walls.

And then there was The System of course, who Gretel, like most children in the Southlands, rarely, if ever, saw. Her father had told her they never patrolled the Back Country unless there was cause or summons, neither of which, if it could be at all helped, occurred here. The land policed itself for the most part, and this value of self-reliance was well-met by The System, who preferred to stay tight to the cities where their oversight was much more condensed and efficient. Whether they were respectful of Back Country rules or indifferent to the plight of its people, The System stayed away.

But they weren’t completely foreign to Gretel. She had, in fact, seen their cars on two different occasions, and one of those times had been in the Back Country when the Stein farm had caught fire and Jonathan Stein’s grandmother was killed. Gretel recalled the sight of the blood red car racing past her cottage, its siren blazing loudly as the black ghost of the exhaust lingered in the coupe’s wake. Gretel had been struck most by the car’s color and its stark contrast to the Back Country landscape, and the dark black tint of the windows. She had never actually seen a System officer, but had been told they were men of enormous size.

The reputation of The System was one that inspired fear in the general citizenry, but The System itself kept itself in the shadows as much as possible. They relied on local law enforcement—and in the case of the Back Country, the people—to deal with the lower crimes and complaints, focusing instead on the more serious, complicated situations. This enforcement formula had given The System a somewhat mythical quality for Gretel, as it did for most of the residents of the Southlands, particularly in the Back Country. And Gretel understood very well that this was kind of the point.

But as far as Gretel was concerned, The System was also corrupt and inadequate, and she knew of no incidences when they had actually helped anyone she knew. In fact, if there was one thing she believed about The System, it was that they did not exist to help her, her family, or anyone in her community, though she had come to realize years ago that most of her viewpoints about it were based on her father’s beliefs and not her own experiences.

And there was one other thing she now believed about The System: that ultimately she was counting on them to bring her mother home.

So Gretel clung to hope in The System and their rules, which apparently required at least another full day for her mother to remain missing before they began a search. And when they finally did, Gretel guessed, they would do so under the assumption that their mother had left them for bluer skies and a new life, and not that she was in trouble or dead. Okay. That was fine. At least they would be looking. It was more than she and her family were doing now.

Gretel’s hatred for her father flared with this thought and again she became disgusted with his lack of masculinity and fortitude. She knew her mother would be doing more for him if the situation were reversed, and even if he was hurting physically this morning—which no doubt he was after the chaos of last night—his wife was missing, and he should never give up.

As if on cue, Heinrich Morgan opened the door to his bedroom and walked out, passing through the kitchen to the porch where Gretel had first heard the news of her mother’s absence only yesterday. Yesterday. It seemed like weeks, and Gretel’s spirit was momentarily buoyed by the brief time span.

Heinrich put on his boots, still muddy and wet from last night’s search, and walked toward the door.

“Where are you going, Papa?” Gretel’s voice was calm, sympathetic.

“Check on your brother in a few minutes, Gretel. He’s in the fields.”

“Where are you going?” she repeated, this time with more urgency.

“You know where I’m going. Check on your brother.” Her father opened the door and walked out toward the truck, Gretel right behind him.

“I’ll come with you, Papa. Let me help. Last night it was too dark, but today—”

Gretel’s words were interrupted by a voice Gretel hadn’t heard come from her father’s mouth in quite some time.

“You will stay and check on your brother as I’ve instructed! That is what you will do!” Heinrich frowned and opened his mouth as if to say more, then gingerly stepped up into his old pickup and drove off.

As Gretel watched him drive away, the tears came again in force, though this time in silence. She watched until the truck was out of view, confirming that her father was indeed heading north to the Interways, and then walked back to the house where she sat down on the porch again and began to thumb slowly through her dead grandmother’s book.

It was a rather ridiculous waste of time, she thought, looking through the book, since she couldn’t read a word of it. But it comforted her and made her feel more connected to her family somehow.

According to Deda, the symbols and letters that made up the text were similar to Ancient Greek, and the book itself contained the practices and mythologies of a religion hundreds of years older than Christianity. How he knew all this without being able to read it was still a bit unclear to Gretel, and her grandfather had deflected the question during their powwow in his kitchen. Clearly he had some familiarity with the language, or perhaps her grandmother did, and had explained it to him. Either way, as Gretel now reflected, he had been holding something back.

Gretel tried once again to decipher the sentences, recognizing that many of the letters in the book were the same as they were in English—the ‘A’s’ and ‘N’s’ and ‘T’s’ and such—but it was all gibberish, and her light-hearted stab at amateur cryptography left her brain sore.

Still, the age of the words and the feel of the book kept her rapt, and she looked through the pages slowly, as if actually reading. The book kept her mind off her mother—and her father for that matter—and she suddenly felt very grateful that her grandfather had encouraged her to take it.

Orphism
.

She would research the subject the next time she went to town and could stop in the library. Or maybe she would ask some of her teachers when she returned to school, though she doubted any of them would be familiar with such an exotic text.

If she and her family had still gone to church she would have asked one of the nuns, or perhaps the preacher after Sunday service; certainly they would have some knowledge of a book older than The Bible. But the routine of church-going had come to an abrupt end several years ago, with little forewarning or explanation, and though it was something that Gretel welcomed at first, she had grown to miss church, if only for the gathering of friends.

Gretel read for an hour or so and then closed the book and placed it on her lap. She sat meditatively for a few moments, staring out the window toward the elms in the back, before deciding she had better check on Hansel. Her father had become far too overprotective of her brother lately, Gretel thought, but today she understood.

She took a deep breath and walked outside to the front stoop, leaving the book behind her on the chair. The air had quickly thickened with the emergence of the afternoon sun and the humidity stung her lungs instantly. Gretel looked off toward the fields and saw Hansel sitting in the dirt, playing with one of his many stick creatures that her father had made for him over the years. He was still such a young boy, she thought, and her eyes filled with tears.

Gretel cupped her hands around her mouth and lifted her chin, and as she inhaled to call her brother in from the fields, she noticed the cloud of dust that was rising from the end of the half-mile road that led past the fields to their cottage. It seemed to appear spontaneously, as if suddenly erupting from beneath the ground like a geyser of powder. The glare of the sun reflecting off the particles made it impossible for Gretel to see the source, but as the cloak of earth dissipated she saw the unmistakable red metal explode from the dust and go speeding insanely past Hansel toward the house. It looked as if the devil were coming, Gretel thought. But she knew better.

There was no mistaking it. It was The System.

Anika fidgeted and grimaced, then rolled to her back and screamed. Reflexively, her left eye opened and the scream devolved into heavy breathing. She stared searchingly at the beams that ran along the ceiling above her, trying desperately to get her bearings. The daylight shone in from a small lunette window over her bed and illuminated the room, but nothing was familiar.

She touched her head where she had been struck and thought absently that it was probably a good sign of her condition that she even remembered the attack. The feel of her forehead made her dry heave. Her right eye was swollen shut and felt enormous; the entire area around it having the texture of a ripe plum, and probably looking about the same, she imagined. Anika pulled her fingers away from her head and looked at the white doughy substance that caked her fingertips. It had the consistency of batter, and she guessed it to be some type of moist medicinal powder.

Lying on her back, Anika surveyed the room and took note of the accommodations. They were far from charming, or even sterile, but they appeared fairly adequate—the wool blanket, sheeted bed, and apparent medicine on her wound even suggesting she was being nursed. It was a pleasant thought considering the attack she had received. Perhaps whoever assaulted her had done so mistakenly and was now atoning, believing perhaps that Anika was the wild creature she herself had imagined was lurking in the dark of the forest. Or maybe Anika had been unconscious for days and had already been rescued from her assailant.

Neither scenario seemed quite right to Anika, but whoever brought her to the comfort of the bed in which she now lay was certain to reveal himself soon. Her scream moments ago had been wild and echoing and, judging by the sounds of movement and clanging pots outside the door, there was definitely someone else in the house. And smells had begun to seep into the room, incredible smells that filled Anika’s mouth with saliva and churned her stomach.

Despite the pain and fatigue gripping her head and muscles, she was eager to get up. Anticipating a rush of pain to her head, Anika lifted herself gently to a sitting position in the bed and pulled the wool blanket off of her lap. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much protest from her body, though her head hurt badly, both inside and on the surface. But Anika was now confident she could get to her feet.

She swung her legs toward the floor and immediately felt the jolt of resistance on her right foot. Anika shrieked, immediately thinking someone had grabbed her from beneath the bed. But as she looked down to her feet she saw the black oval links running between the wall and the mattress before ending in a thick metal tube around her right ankle. She was chained.

She kicked her foot once, but there was little slack in the chain, and the effort was feeble. Now in a panic, she quickly cleared the blankets entirely from her legs and grabbed at the metal around her ankle. The clasp itself was fairly loose, but the metal was thick and appeared impenetrable to Anika.

She followed the chain from her ankle to the balled up quilt that had collected at the wall by her feet. She moved the quilt aside, looking down through the gap between the wall and the bed. There she could see a large metal plate with six thick bolts connecting the chain to the floor. She scooted down toward the foot of the bed, gripped the chain tightly with both hands and pulled up, again having no success as the length of the chain offered little leverage. The cold dark metal in her hand conjured thoughts of slavery and brutality, and only some primal sense of survival kept Anika from screaming again, though it was obviously no secret to her captor where she was being held.