by Niamh Murphy
Gretel
A Fairytale Retold
Niamh Murphy
Published by NIM Publishing, 2013.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are
entirely coincidental.
GRETEL
First edition. July 4, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 Niamh Murphy.
Written by Niamh Murphy.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Wolf Chase
The Fortress
River, Oak, Hill, Farm
Witch
A New Beginning
The Way Back
Further Reading: Dragon Essence
Also By Niamh Murphy
About the Author
For Louise...
Wolf Chase
Gretel caught only glimpses of them.
Taut, spectral bodies, dark shadows, darting in and out of the trees all
around them, surrounding them, but even as they closed in, she continued to
run.
The ground was frozen hard and each footfall reverberated through her
body. Pain seared through her arm and shoulder as Hans pulled her along,
twisting this way and that as he navigated between the bare, black trees.
Her body was cold to the bone and her limbs were numb with fatigue
and hunger. She was struggling to keep moving, struggling to force her
muscles to do what she needed. Hans held her tightly, she knew he’d never
let go, never abandon her in the woods, but her speed was nothing
compared to his. The only thing that kept her going was the fear of those
teeth, those eyes, those demon-like howls, just an arm’s reach away.
Suddenly she fell.
Her foot caught on a fallen branch and her body was yanked from
beneath her. She let out a scream as she tumbled to the earth.
“Gretel!” Hans turned to pull her up, as a shadow, a shadow with teeth
and claws, leapt from the trees.
Hans howled with pain as the wolf tore into his leg. Gretel screamed:
she could do nothing but watch. He kicked the beast away, but it turned to
pounce again, the rest of its pack ready to follow and make the kill.
But there was a sudden, heavy thud. The wolf yelped and twisted its
body as it fell to the ground, an axe buried deep in its neck.
Gretel stared at it. The rest of the wolf pack looked to the woods,
backing away. They were wary, but still eager to claim their prize.
Gretel turned, searching the dark, dense forest for the axe thrower. She
gasped when she saw, just a few paces away, a woman.
She was tall, imposing, draped in furs, with dark hair and darker eyes.
She was a wild woman, staring down at the wolves as if she were their
queen.
Gretel had never seen anyone like her, except in nightmares, dreams
brought about by horrid tales of the beasts lurking in the woods: banshees,
witches, fey. All the dark creatures that lurked in the forest, the creatures
that were known to steal people away, to imprison them, enslave them, or
worse.
In that instant, Gretel didn’t know which to be more fearful of, the
wolves or the woman.
Suddenly the woman snarled and made to run at the wolves, ending the
stand-off as the pack turned and disappeared into the forest. Gretel felt the
urge to run with them.
But as soon as the wolves were out of sight, the woman’s manner
changed. Her face softened, she turned to look at Gretel and offered a gentle
smile, a smile that Gretel couldn’t help but return.
“They won’t be back here tonight,” she said. Her voice was rich and
kind, but her words were firm. “You shouldn’t have run,” she continued.
“They will only chase if you run.”
“What would you have had us do?” snarled Hans.
Gretel had almost forgotten he was there, crouched on the frosted
ground, clutching his leg as blood oozed from the fresh wound.
“Stand still while they tore the flesh from our bones?”
“How bad is it?” the woman asked, ignoring his slight.
“It will heal,” he replied, although it was through gritted teeth and
Gretel knew he was in need of help. She reached forward to take a look, but
he threw her off. “Don’t fuss!” he hissed.
“Can you walk?” the woman asked.
“I can manage.” As if to prove his point he attempted to stand, but his
pale face betrayed his pain.
“Where are you heading?”
Hans and Gretel looked at each other. They weren’t heading anywhere.
They had no destination in mind. They just needed to find a place with
food, and perhaps some warmth.
It had been two days since their last meal, and that had been little more
than a handful of grain between them. They were half-starved and Gretel
knew it wouldn’t be long before neither of them could walk another step
and there would be nothing they could do to stop the wolves tearing out
their throats.
They had suffered through bad winters before, but never one this hard
and this long. It seemed as if the spring would never return.
They had grown up in a village much further north. It had never been
easy there. They’d had good harvests and bad, cold winters and long, warm
summers. They had always managed to harvest enough to get through and
any surplus they had would be stored, in case of a long winter.
Then, three years ago, they’d had a bad harvest. The winter had been
hard, but they had managed. Then the following harvest had been bad
again. They’d lost a lot of livestock in the winter, many of the old or weaker
villagers simply didn’t make it through, and people said it was the hardest
winter in living memory.
But then the next harvest was even worse. There were simply no
reserves: many of the villagers were still starving from the winter, even the
wealthiest farmers were losing animals, and it came to a time when there
just wasn’t enough to go around. It was then that Hans and Gretel were
forced to leave the village, and the people they had known all their lives, in
the hope that there would be work and food in the south.
Many people had thought the same thing: entire villages lay
abandoned and they were forced to travel further south than they had ever
even heard of. At each farmstead they crossed they were greeted with the
same story: no food and no work. When they did manage to find work for a
day or so, it was gruelling, back-breaking labour, only serving to make them
hungrier, and as Gretel received just half the pay that Hans did, it felt as
though they were travelling ever closer to starvation.
They had taken to the woods in the hope of winter foraging and
poaching, but had been there two days without luck. The trees were bare
and silent. There were no birds or any other animals they could eat, the
rivers hardly ran, just a trickle of water and empty of fish. They had
counted themselves lucky for having avoided
bandits but then a single
piercing howl had told them why. With the last ounce of their strength they
had run for their lives and now it seemed they could go no further.
“Is there a village nearby?” Hans asked.
“Seven miles or so west,” the woman replied.
At the thought of walking another step Gretel felt ill. She was so weak
and tired that she wanted to sleep amongst the leaves and broken branches
where she had fallen, and never wake again. She knew Hans would never
make it far either, not with his wound, oozing fresh blood as they spoke.
“Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” the woman asked.
“No,” Gretel said quickly.
She knew Hans would lie and she wasn’t willing to walk any further
without rest. The thought of spending another night in the woods made her
want to cry with exhaustion and misery. If this woman was aware of even a
cowshed or a hovel where they could stay, then she was willing to take it.
The woman looked at them long and hard, her jaw set firm. Gretel felt
she was weighing them up, considering whether or not she should trust
these strangers, whether she should help them and risk them taking
everything she had, or if she should leave them to certain death in the
forest.
The woman looked like someone who would not be made a fool of,
she was not to be trifled with, her features were strong, her eyes narrowed
into a frown. Yet Gretel felt sure that there was a kindness in her manner.
She desperately hoped the woman would see beyond their vagrancy and
offer them the help that they so urgently needed. Gretel willed her, with all
her might, to offer help, to tell them where they could stay, somewhere safe,
somewhere Hans could heal and they wouldn’t fall prey to the wolves.
“You can come with me,” she said finally.
Gretel’s heart leapt. She hoped she would be led somewhere warm and
safe, where she could sleep soundly, just for one night. She also hoped,
dearly hoped, there would be food.
“No,” said Hans, suddenly. “You have done enough. We can ask no
more of you.”
Gretel was aghast, betrayed by his pride. “Hans!” she said. “We have
no choice!”
He looked at her angrily. “We can ask for no more,” he hissed through
clenched teeth, both anger and pain making him more fearsome than usual.
“And what would you have us do? Wait for the wolves? At least they
won’t go hungry.”
“We will go to the village, it is but seven miles and we have walked
further than that today already.”
“No,” Gretel said, more pleading than angry. “I can go no further, I
need rest, please, Hans.”
“You will come with me to the village,” he said firmly.
“You won’t make it, Hans! You can barely stand, let alone run if we
are attacked again.”
“Then we will get to the village on the morrow.”
“We will die if we stay in the woods again. Let us at least take this
woman’s kind offer, just for one night.”
Hans looked from Gretel to the woman. He tried to stand again but as
he leaned hard against a tree and tried stretching his calf, he winced in pain
and fresh blood seeped out. He shook his head angrily and looked away
from them both.
“One night,” he said, and Gretel knew that decision went against every
ounce of his being.
“Thank you,” she said, relieved. If he’d insisted, she would never have
been able to leave his side, even if it meant risking the forest at night again.
Gretel turned to the woman who had been silently watching the two of
them, waiting patiently for them to decide if they would take her up on her
generosity. As Gretel looked at her dark, watchful eyes, she felt an equal
trace of fear and excitement. Something about this woman, this strange
woman of the forest, made her heart beat faster and the hairs on the back of
her neck stand on end. She was pleased to have the chance to learn more of
her, even if for only a few hours, but she thought she ought to be cautious.
“Can you show us a place to rest?” she asked, trying to suppress the
desire for blankets and broth, knowing well that she might be offered
nothing but the corner of a barn.
The woman nodded and walked over to the corpse of the wolf, still
lying on the ground. She pulled the axe from its neck and looked to Gretel.
“You carry your husband, and I’ll carry the wolf,” she said.
“He’s not my husband,” Gretel said quickly.
“I’m her brother,” Hans corrected.
“Either way, I’ll carry the wolf.”
The Fortress
To Gretel’s surprise, the woman had little trouble lifting the great dog from
the ground and slinging it over her shoulder.
She looked down at Hans and Gretel as she passed. “I won’t wait,” she
said and marched off through the woods.
Gretel heaved her aching body off the ground and went to lend a hand
to her brother.
“I can manage,” he said, shakily moving forward a few paces, limping
heavily. But it was just a few steps before he buckled and Gretel rushed
forward to catch him, propping him up and taking almost his full weight on
her shoulder. They said nothing to each other as they made their way slowly
through the woods.
The woman stayed true to her word. She did not wait and her pace was
remarkably quick for someone carrying such a dead weight. There were a
few times when Gretel thought they would lose sight of her and the smell of
blood would bring the wolves swiftly back. Each time her figure
disappeared into the thick trees, Gretel felt the panic rising in her stomach,
but within seconds she would catch sight of her again, just up ahead,
steadily heading east.
They stumbled forward and eventually came to the side of a deep
ditch. They managed to scramble down, but Gretel felt sure that they
wouldn’t have the strength to haul themselves out the other side. She started
to worry that they would take too long to find the woman again, and they
would be abandoned in the forest with the sun falling ever lower in the sky.
They tried to clamber up the bank, the hard, cold earth providing
nothing for them to grip, their thin leather shoes sliding against the frozen
mud. Hans stumbled forward and let out a cry as the impact ricocheted up
his wounded leg.
For a moment, panic overwhelmed her, but the feeling was gone in an
instant. They were so close to shelter, so close to being safe that she
couldn’t fail her brother now. Gretel let go of Hans and crawled up the
bank, clawing at the hard earth. She found a tree root and grabbed hold of
it, pulling herself up. The moment she was over the top she turned to help
Hans. Taking hold of his arm, she hoisted him up. He struggled to get a
foothold with his uninjured leg, but Gretel pulled with all her strength and
he eventually crawled over the side of the bank and they sat, exhausted and
trying to get their breath back.
“It’s a fortress!” Hans gasped suddenly, taking in the view behind
Gretel.
She turned to see that the di
tch surrounded a small, wooden fort,
carefully hidden amongst the trees.
There were wooden stakes driven into the ground, sharpened and
pointed outwards, encircling a fence, taller than a man, which ran all the
way around the perimeter.
The woman was nowhere to be seen, and Gretel could only assume
that this was where she had intended to lead them. She scrambled to her
feet, helping Hans to stand and together they edged around the fence,
hoping there was a way in. They came to an open gate and, with a cautious
look at each other, they went in.
The fort enclosed a few ramshackle stone buildings, weeds grew in the
cracks of the walls and the empty, shutterless windows were gaping black
holes, like open wounds torn into their sides. They surrounded a quaint
cottage. Although it wasn’t large, Gretel had known families of a dozen or
more squeezed into smaller. It was newly thatched and had a solid wooden
door painted green, with shutters to match. A thin wisp of smoke drifted
slowly out of the chimney and the garden, which should have been bare,
had several rows of plants. Only the cold and the deathly silence, reminded
them it was winter.
“Go straight in.”
The voice made Gretel jump. The woman had appeared from one of
the outbuildings and was no longer carrying the wolf: she indicated the
cottage before heading back to fasten the gates.
Gretel helped Hans over the threshold: the moment she opened the
door the heat hit her. She had become so used to the icy numbness of her
flesh that she had forgotten how it felt to be warm.
The cottage was simply furnished: a table, a few chairs, a door
indicated another room and there were a few storage jars lined up against
the wall, but Gretel’s attention was immediately drawn to the cooking pot
simmering over the fire. Her body cried out for food, her stomach twisted in
on itself in anticipation of a meal and she wanted to rush forward and pour
whatever was in that pot down her throat.
She forced herself to remain civil and helped Hans into a chair by the
fire.
“I’m not sure I like this,” he whispered nervously.
“It’s warm and safe, what more could you ask for?” She was surprised
that he could be nervous of what she found so delightful.
“We don’t know who that woman is,” he said, with one eye on the