Gretel (8 page)

A rush of pain shot through Anika’s head, and she lay back down, supine, again feeling her wound and the mushy substance that coated it. It then occurred to her that she was indeed being nursed, but she was also a prisoner.

Suddenly the sounds outside the door—’kitchen sounds’ is how Anika would come to know them—stopped, and Anika could hear the approaching rap of light footsteps followed by the creaking of her door as it opened slowly. The knob on the door rattled as it turned, and when the door finally opened, Anika could see the flat edge of something black and heavy—cast iron perhaps—emerge through the portal, followed by the white deformed hands that gripped either side of the object.

With only one good eye, Anika first marked the object as some kind of blunt weapon, different than the one that had put her in her current state, but just as medieval and menacing. Her heart began to gallop, and she instinctively got to her knees, raising her arms to shoulder height and width in defense, fingers spread, as if prepared for a Roman wrestling match. And then she began to scream.

Anika’s one working eye stayed fixed on the shape in the doorway and, as it began to focus, she realized the object being carried was not a weapon after all, but was, in fact, a tray. With food. A large plate of food.

It was a meal.

With some effort, Anika forced herself to look up from the tray to the face of the person carrying it, but his head was shrouded in a dark hood that was much too large for the figure underneath. He looked like a monk, she thought, and the slow, silent movements through the room only reinforced the image. Anika could only see the tip of the nose and lips—she couldn’t identify a face—but as she studied the shape in full, there was no doubt about it: the figure in the robe was a woman.

Anika let out a sigh, if not of relief, at least of the pressure built up in the previous few seconds over the prospect of being raped and tortured. Something bad seemed certain to be looming of course, but at least a sexual assault and murder didn’t seem to be in the cards. At least not for now. Instead, it appeared, she was about to be fed.

“Where am I?” Anika asked as sternly as possible, “Why am I chained?” She kept her eyes riveted to the cloaked figure and watched intently as the woman walked toward the corner of the room opposite the bed and set the tray on a thin black wrought iron table.

The woman paused for a moment at the tray, making sure everything was just so, and then stood erect, turning toward Anika and lowering her hood. “Which question would you like answered first?” she said pragmatically, without emotion.

Anika was surprised at the normalcy of the woman’s features, expecting something closer to a stereotypical hag from the fairy tales, decrepit and grotesque, slightly green perhaps. In fact, Anika guessed the woman was maybe only twenty years older than she, though her skin appeared more weathered-looking and hardened than that. Anika supposed she would have described the woman as homely, and rather unremarkable in every way, though with a little effort she would have probably cleaned up decently. She did notice, however, her mouth seemed a bit large for her face.

A glint of recognition flashed in Anika’s mind, but it was subtle, and Anika hadn’t the luxury to pursue it at the moment. “Why am I chained?” she answered.

Without hesitation the woman responded, “You are chained because I don’t know you. And though, admittedly, you don’t look like much of a threat, I have been robbed by nicer-looking creatures than yourself. With no intended insult of course.”

Anika detected an aged quality to the woman’s voice, and perhaps an accent that had diminished over time. “So you keep an anchored chain in your bedroom—just in case you meet any strangers?”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on the woman and she smiled, picking up the plate of food and carrying it to Anika’s bedside. “This room was at one time used as a slaughterhouse. Some of the instruments remain.”

Anika was skeptical of this answer, but decided she would be well-advised not to challenge it; besides, the approaching plate of food quickly became the main subject of her focus. She had literally never been this hungry before, and tears filled her eyes at the prospect of eating.

The woman set the tray down at the foot of Anika’s bed and then turned and walked toward the door as if to leave the room.

Anika’s eyes were locked in on the three small pies that sat neatly on the tray, the smells arising from them suggesting a combination of both meat and fruit. Anika’s throat convulsed in hunger, but as the door opened, she resisted her desires for a moment and said, “Why did you hit me?”

The woman stopped at the threshold of the door, as if surprised at Anika’s restraint, and turned back toward the bed. This time the woman did not smile, but instead looked sympathetic, caring. “We all need to eat,” she said, and then walked out.

Anika watched her leave, and then dug her fingers into the pie closest to her, shoving irregular pieces into her mouth, barely swallowing between bites. The tastes were delicious, and though Anika realized her hunger probably clouded her judgment, she could think of nothing else she had ever eaten that tasted quite this good. Moments later, before Anika had devoured the last pie, the cloaked woman entered the room again, this time carrying a large black pot.

“Your toilet,” she said placing it beside the bed. “Summon me when it needs emptying.” The woman turned to leave.

“Wait.” Anika shoved the last piece of crust into her mouth. She swallowed the last morsel without chewing it, and then, “Thank you, these were delicious. You’re quite talented.” Anika was still unsure of the woman’s motives, but she figured flattery couldn’t hurt. And the pies
really were
amazing.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m feeling much better. Food and rest: what better medicine is there?” Anika paused, waiting for some reciprocation to her attempt at rapport. The woman stayed silent. “Perhaps you could show me back to the road.” Anika looked down at the chain around her ankle. “Clearly I’m no threat.” She snorted a laugh at this last notion.

“You’ll need more rest; and your wound will need another application.” The woman’s tone suggested there would be no further discussion, and she walked quickly to the door, opening it and then pausing. “And the road,” she said, “you can see it from here.”

The next morning Anika woke to the sound of wood being chopped just outside her window. There was a deliberate, grotesque nature to the sound that she had never noticed before, no doubt now occurring to her because of her current circumstances. Her first thoughts were of her children, and then her ankle, and she immediately thrust her leg away from the wall to reveal what she already knew: the chain remained.

The fresh smells from the kitchen continued to drift into her room, and once again her appetite was activated, the memory of last night’s pies momentarily nudging its way into her mind. But Anika had eaten heartily only hours ago, and now that her hunger—along with the other necessities of warmth and sleep—had been appeased, the idea of escape strengthened and quickly positioned itself to its proper place at the helm of Anika’s concerns. It was clear the woman intended to keep her; what her intentions were beyond that was still the question.

Geographically, Anika was close to the Interways, that much the woman had revealed. In which direction she could find the road she didn’t know, but working on that mystery was putting the cart before the horse. As long as she remained chained to the cabin floor, she might as well have been on the moon.

She had already assessed the thick clasp of metal that was wrapped around her leg, and it looked on its face that the only way out of it—other than cutting off her foot—was with a key. Or else an extremely hearty tool, which she doubted would be conveniently resting somewhere nearby.

Instruments from a slaughter house.

Anika knew her share about slaughtering animals, she had been killing chickens since she was younger than Hansel and had never seen anything like the set up in this room. And it wasn’t just because of the furniture. A slaughterhouse attached to the main living area? Who would ever design such a thing? What type of person would allow the gore and filth and violent noises that accompanied the killing of animals to be only paces from her kitchen and sleeping quarters? And there wasn’t even an entrance to the room from the outside. Why would a woman want to herd filthy pigs and goats through her home when a door built into the wall was a much easier solution? Anika told herself it was possible that the room was originally intended as a bedroom and was later converted to a slaughterhouse, but on some level that theory was even more frightening.

Anika’s mind leaped back to the current situation. She needed to get her bearings and plan out what to do next. Was it two days since her accident on the road? That seemed right, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. She’d taken a blow to her head—a considerable one—and it was possible she’d been unconscious for longer than a day. Either way, Anika figured the longer she stayed locked in the room, the more her chances of escape diminished. She had to figure something out soon.

She suddenly realized her vision was improved and once again felt the area above her eye. She was astonished at how small it felt, shrunken and compressed and immediately reconsidered the length of time she had been out. She’d received her share of shiners after all—they were an accepted part of life on a farm, particularly as a child—but the injury she’d sustained in the forest was blunt trauma, a deliberate strike with a weapon. And this injury appeared to be healing in a fraction of the time of any normal black eye. She couldn’t see her eye, of course, so there was probably still some discoloration, and judging by her fingers, the white paste was apparently still being applied while she slept, but the swelling was virtually gone.

There was no longer any question in Anika’s mind that she was being nursed back to health, so perhaps the woman’s intentions weren’t sinister, just incredibly cautious. Why else would she be healing her? Maybe she really was harmless. Mad and harmless.

Either way, Anika thought, she was being held prisoner, and whether it was for the rest of her life or a few more hours, she had a right to know why. No more stalling or cryptic answers: the next time the woman came to her room, Anika was going to find out what was going on.

A surge of replenishment suddenly filled Anika, and she felt the need to get on her feet. The chain on her ankle was too short for her to dismount and stand beside the open side of the bed, but she thought if she were able to push the bed away from the wall and create a small gap there, she might be able to stand on the inside.

Anika could tell the bed was sturdy and well-made; there was very little wobble in it when she shifted, and it felt dense to the touch. But it also wasn’t very big, and she figured with some effort she could scoot the legs just enough.

Anika wedged her right foot in between the wall and the frame of the bed, and with less force than she had expected, was able to leverage her body enough to pry the frame from the wood of the cabin wall, creating a small space between the wall and the thin mattress. She wiggled her foot down toward the floor, the metal clasp just clearing the gap, and moved her body upright.

She was now standing on one foot.

She nudged the bed further away with her right knee and dropped the other foot to the floor. She now stood erect against the wall, the chain snaking limply on the floor at her right foot.

Anika felt the ecstasy in her legs, as well as the weakness and atrophy, and a sudden sense of claustrophobia nipped at her nerves, as though she would lack the strength to regain her position on the bed when the time came. With all the strength in her unbound leg, Anika drove the foot of the bed away from her, pushing out with her left foot and sending it toward the middle of the room. She let out a long steady breath of relief and gave an internal prayer of thanks.

There was now enough space for her to squat and get some stretch in her muscles, so she did this several times, limbering her arms simultaneously with wide, rotating movements. The burn in her thighs and chest was both harsh and relieving, and Anna could sense the blood flowing throughout her body, giving her the alertness and energy she was chasing.

She stooped down again, and this time grabbed the iron hitch that connected the chain to the floor, wriggling it to test its permanence. The fastening was as she suspected, heavy and tight, sturdy in its feel and look, and the eye bolt that connected to the chain was as thick as her finger. She studied the wooden floorboard to which the hitch was connected, judging whether or not—over time of course—she would be able to pry it up, and with it the iron attachment. Anika figured if she could secure any type of tool—a spoon perhaps that the woman didn’t notice missing from her empty meal tray—she could hopefully work up the plank. She would still have the problem of a chain around her ankle, but at least she would be mobile. She just needed to reach the road.

But the floorboards seemed solid as well, and even if she were able to get hold of some kind of instrument, with her ankle bound, she wouldn’t have the range necessary to jimmy the boards at the proper angles. It was as if the contraption were built for just this purpose, she thought, and with that image Anika gripped the chain tightly with both hands, her knuckles bulging taut and white. In a controlled panic, she began to pull up on the chain, hoping to summon the extraordinary strength that she had always heard existed in everyone, but only erupted at just the right moment during times of crisis.

Her biceps strained as she desperately tried to hold her hands stable around the metal links and lift the chain from its anchor. Or at least bow the floor board slightly, just to give her hope. Her effort, though, was feeble, as her palms, sweaty and slick from both exertion and fear, kept sliding up the metal cable. She needed leverage.

Anika sat down on the floor and faced the wall, her back straight, straddling the square bracket. She wedged her ankles at the juncture where the floor and wall met, the soles of her feet flat against the wall and her toes pointing to the ceiling. She wrapped the chain once around her right wrist and grabbed it with both hands near the anchor. It was a bit awkward with her ankle bound, but she now had the strength of her thighs. Anika pushed her body out with the last of the stamina that remained in her for now.