Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
For a while afterwards, I try to figure out whether the fog is getting thicker ahead of us. Is it warning us away, or trying to entice us into a mystery?
Or is it doing nothing of the kind, because it’s only fog?
It’s only fog. Gretel will see.
She stays close as we go. When she’s touching me, even through all our layers and on this hopeless trip, it makes it easier to breathe. Her weight is gentle against my side and I find myself wanting more. Needing more of her leaning against me. Wanting me to provide for her.
With nothing much to look at in the fog, my mind begins to wander.
Back to that night.
Back to the witch's house.
Back to everything that happened there.
“There will be an answer in the house,” Gretel says softly. “I know it.”
I make a sound in the back of his throat. The memories feel like a hard lump. “That's what the witch said.” We will answer for what we did to her.
"That's not all she said,” Gretel reminds me, her voice low and full of fear.
“I know.”
I've thought of it so many times. She cast that spell before her last breath.
I think of the witch again when Gretel’s elbow presses a little harder against mine. I don’t have to do much to guide the horse around what must be a curve in the road, but I lean into Gretel anyway, letting the touch grow warmer. I wish I could wrap my arm around her and comfort her as if the spell was being cast now.
The witch’s words repeat in my mind. I’ve never been able to forget them.
* * *
The most powerful of magic will claim you both, you’ll see.
You cannot escape what is destined, so mote it be.
* * *
For days and weeks, the witch’s threat left me with dread. But it faded with time as I grew older. There was only the witch.
She wanted to scare us. Ruin our lives. Fill us with fear as her final dying wish.
I shake my head, letting out a low scowl.
"What is it?" Gretel asks.
"Nothing," I say.
How am I supposed to tell her that I can’t get that night out of my head? That I dream about it all the time? That all I want to do is forget? The curse might not be real, but what happened to us is very real.
A shape appears in the fog.
"Look," I say, grateful for a distraction.
Gretel looks in the direction I nod to. The shadowy figures of the old barns are barely visible in the fog. She swallows hard, knowing as well as I do that those are the last buildings on the outskirts of the village. Passing them feels like a point of no return.
We can turn back, I remind myself. We can always go home again.
Except there is no home. Not the way it used to be. Not since everything happened.
“The fires.” Gretel moves even closer as she speaks. I don’t want to talk about the destruction that came to our village, but she steels herself. “She made them happen.”
“She was dead.” The witch didn’t do those things. It was bad luck. I lean forward a little, trying to see through the fog. Doesn’t help.
Gretel looks ahead, too.
I can see my horse’s mane, but not much farther. My whole body is sore from how tense I was all night. I wanted to go to her, even if it wouldn’t fix anything.
"How do you explain them, then?" Gretel asks. "All the bad things that happened to our town.”
So much happened.
When we got back from the witch's cottage, we told everyone who would listen. At first we were met with skepticism but when we cried and showed the scars and brought them back to the house, fear spread like the wildfire would.
The next night, alone and scared, I knocked on her door. I was broken, still hurt, and all I could think to do was grab her hand, pull her to me and kiss her. I could taste the salt of her dried tears. I promised myself, if we stayed together, we could protect each other from the terrors of what happened.
I put my arms around her under the full moon and I let myself do something I’d never done before. I kissed her and she kissed me back. With a desperation to forget the pain and simply be loved by someone who knew every piece of you and still loved you.
But right then the door opened, and her father was standing there with bags slung over his shoulders and a look on his face that didn’t mean anything good.
"We're leaving," he barked. "See yourself home, Hansel.” He shoved me back, whatever moment was there, was broken.
“Father,” Gretel protested. “It’s dark. We can’t—”
"We're leaving," he repeated, his voice stern but also full of dread, and shifted the bag to his other arm so he could pull Gretel along with him. The tale of what we went through had spread through the town and fear was potent. It drifted from her father as he rushed them away.