Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
“She tortured you,” Gretel argues, her voice breathless. She clears her throat. The fire rages behind her in the bedroom. Our time is running out. “She tortured you, Hansel. Why do you think I’m willing to let her live? I’m not going to let her—let her taunt me. She can’t spend the rest of her life trying to scare me into anything. We have to kill her. Or I have to kill her. She has to be dead. That witch can’t exist in the same world as us anymore. I can’t take it.”
“I love you, Gret. I always have.”
Shock shows in her widened eyes and for a moment it’s like I cut her deep. Or like I kissed her for the first time. The sound is so packed with emotion that I can’t decide what it means.
Gretel wouldn’t have let me touch her if she didn’t feel just as strongly. If she didn’t trust me with every part of her.
She cares about me so much that she wants me out of here, just so being within these walls doesn’t cause me any more pain. The fire cracks in the other room and it catches both of our attention.
“If we’re going to leave, then we should leave now.”
It’s not enough though. Not enough to burn every last scrap in this nightmare. I stalk past Gretel and drop the next pile onto the flames.
There’s still no sign of the witch and I’m convinced as I toss the dishes in the flames that it is the house. This cottage is damned with baneful magic.
I wasn’t strong enough when I was younger. I’m strong enough now. I’ve pushed all my anger deep down inside and saved it up so it could become strength.
“We can pretend,” she insists. “We don’t have to think about this place anymore, whether its here or not. When we go back home—”
“I’m not going back home while this cottage is still standing.”
Gretel’s huge eyes follow me as I go for another round. “Hansel, please. We can go right now. We can—we can talk. We can regroup. We need to make a plan to find her and kill her, and then—”
“This first.”
“She could be coming for us right now.”
“And?” Ripping the house apart feels like it’s meant to be. Like I have to do it. It’s a release I didn’t know I needed until it was happening. “She could have come for us any time, if that’s true.”
“You really think she’s dead?” she questions and I do. In the depths of my soul I know we banished her from existence. Whatever this is, this magic, it’s something else.
“I know she’s dead! I killed her. We killed her. We put her in the oven and burned the body. I know she’s dead. I know she’s gone. And now her house will be gone, too.”
Gretel presses her lips together, silencing her protest and hurries for the table. She stacks the remaining plates and bowls into her arms and carries them into the bedroom, then dumps it all on the fire.
“Thought you said we had to leave,” I say as she rushes back across the cottage.
“I’m not leaving without you. And if you really mean it—”
“I do really mean it. God, Gret, why else would I have come here? I want you to stop thinking about that night. It’s never coming back.”
“If you mean it,” Gretel says, louder. “Then I’m helping you, because I don’t think we have time.”
“Nobody’s coming. She’s dead.”
“We don’t know that. And there’s clearly magic here. The fires—”
“Can’t be from her if she’s dead.”
“If she’s alive, the magic might have called her here!”
I catch Gretel around the waist and pull her in for a fierce kiss. When we break apart, she’s gasping, a deep flush in her cheeks.
“If she comes here, she’ll die,” I tell her. “I’ll kill her again with my own two hands. But dead people don’t come back, Gretel. They just don’t. There’s no magic in the world that can bring an evil witch back from the grave.”
“She didn’t have a grave,” says Gretel. “She went into the oven.”
“Back from the oven, then.”
“I really think we should go.”
“And we will,” I promise her. “Just as soon as this is done.”
Gretel helps me as much as she can. The dishes take up a lot of space in the hearth, so after a few more trips, I have to wrench open the oven door.
It’s much hotter than the bedroom fire and chews through wood in a few seconds.
I get one of the window frames out, and a gust of cold air whirls across my face. Somehow, I’ll burn all my memories along with this cottage.
Gretel stops, bracing one hand against the wall and breathing deep.
“Let’s just go,” she pleads, one more time. “Let’s just get the wagon ready and go. We can—”