I’m officially stranded.
Alone now and a little tipsy on a country road in the Old World, with no clue as to the direction of Stedwick Village other than ‘back,’ I begin to walk. At least I have a general direction. It’s better than nothing.
I pull out my Scotch bottle again, twist off the cap, and then pause and sigh before screwing it back tight without taking a swig. Sobriety is sure to be an asset when I eventually reach the town, which hopefully will be within a few hours.
Luckily, or perhaps it was something more (I’m always open to those possibilities these days), I awoke in time to save myself a day’s walk, and the driver was accurate with his less-than-specific directions. The glow of morning is just cracking the sky when I see the first lights in the distance, and as I put another half mile behind me, I soon see the first triangles of rooftops piercing up through the mountain. As the hillside town comes further into focus above me, I meet a road which meanders into a shroud of trees and appears to lead up the mountain.
The mountain road is steep, and it’s less than a mile’s walk before I reach the entrance of Stedwick Village. The town is labeled by a huge arching sign that spans from one side of the road to another. It’s a large, ornate carving illuminated on the tops of the far posts with old-fashioned oil lanterns. The letters that spell out the name are foreign to me, probably from a language lost to most of history, but they’re similar enough to my own tongue to know I’m in the right place. It’s as if I’m walking into a village from a thousand years ago.
I can’t help but think of Gretel and smile. She always knew she would come back to the Old World. To a place like this. Dark and quiet. Mysterious. She loved this land when we came as kids, that feeling of living in a time that had been lost to the rest of the world. If not for the Klahrs and the threat of the witch all those years ago, she would have never left. It was where she belonged.
I have seen my sister only twice since she left the Back Country; once was at mother’s funeral, and the last time was about a year later, a year after Gretel left the New Country for good to begin finding her place in the world. On that occasion, she had been living in a much larger city, in an apartment not much bigger than a tent, and though she had seemed genuinely happy to see me, there was still pain in her eyes when she looked at me. Memories that she couldn’t hide. And no doubt blame.
Over the years since then, based on details she has conveyed in the occasional letter, Gretel has traveled much of the Old World, usually sleeping at communal campsites or on floors in the homes of temporary friends. Until eventually she landed her here, in Stedwick Village, one of a hundred small towns tucked tightly at the base of the Koudeheuval mountain range, the largest range in the Old World. It was the Koudeheuvals my mother scaled all those years ago, bravely, impossibly, eventually finding the cure to her sickness, only to discover the cure had been in the Back Country all along.
It’s still early, and as far as I can see, the tiny streets of Stedwick are deserted. Evidently, the bustle of the day has yet to start. I reach the first building at the edge of the town and make my way down the street until I come to the first signs of life. It looks to be a general store, still closed judging by the sign on the door, but it appears about ready to open for the day. I can see the movement of shadows inside.
I walk slowly to the storefront window, careful not to startle the occupants, and mime a knuckle knock on the glass, hoping to catch the attention of an elderly man who is arranging cans on a shelf just to my left.
He lifts his eyes for just a beat, and then double-takes and catches my look. He looks around the store as if searching for an exit, or perhaps an ally, but finding neither, he drifts slowly toward the window and stares at me.
“May I come in?” I say loudly, not able to gauge whether he can understand my language or even hear me.
The man narrows his eyes and shakes his head, a look more of confusion than an expression of denial.
I point to the door and gesture a turn-and-pull motion.
He gives an uncertain look now, seeming to understand my gesture but not ready to agree to the suggestion.
“I’m looking for someone. Can you help me?”
He shakes his head again, and it now seems to me that the problem is one of language and not volume.
“Her name is Gretel. Gretel Morgan.”
The man’s look slowly bleeds from confusion to one of desperate recognition. He swallows down a large lump in his throat and begins to back away from the door, feeling behind him as if searching for an escape hatch. His hand grabs something, and without looking away from me, eyes as wide as eggs, he brings in front of him a shotgun, barrel-shortened, similar to the one Gus described having used to threaten Gromus.
I put my hands shoulder-height and slightly in front of me, palms open. “Gretel is my sister,” I plead. “I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
The man lowers the gun slightly and I hear footsteps approaching behind me. I’m not willing to turn though, afraid that any movement will provoke a blast from behind the storefront glass. Instead, I hold my pose as still as ice.
“Who are you?” the voice behind me says. It’s a young voice, feminine.
“Hansel. My name is Hansel Morgan.”
The man in the store lowers the gun a notch, and seconds later the source of the voice is standing beside me, pushing her palms down toward the ground, signaling to the man to lower the weapon completely.
I steal a look at the woman beside me and see that she is striking, beautiful even, and I notice instantly in her giant dark eyes a resemblance to the man in the store. “Friend of yours?” I ask.
She looks at me confused, not sensing the sarcasm. “No. He is my grandfather.”
It would have been my guess.
“What do you want here, Hansel Morgan?”
I’m feeling unjustly challenged at this point, having strolled innocently into town, and I’m not quite ready to assume the role of interrogated prisoner, despite the armed man behind the glass. “Is it a crime to walk into Stedwick Village?”
The woman looks away for a beat, embarrassed, and then she reloads her stare. “No, of course not. But you are unknown here. And we have had...well, we are wary of strangers.”
I change my tone, altering it from sardonicism to empathy. “I understand. Believe me I do. It’s the way you should be.”
“Where did you come from, Hansel. People do not arrive here without notice. Not to this village. Not without a purpose.”
“I am here for a purpose.”
The woman stays silent, waiting, but I’m not willing to reveal my plight at this point. I don’t know this woman, and the grandfather hasn’t exactly been a modicum of hospitality. I shift away from the subject.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t ask your name.”
“I am Maja. My grandfather is Kacper.”
The sun is now up and the streets of the town have started to hum. A small crowd of women has formed just across the street from the general store, with a few of the ladies conspicuously pointing at Maja and me. “Do you think we could go inside?”
We step inside the store, which consists of one large room lined with low shelving that forms five or six aisles. Almost everything seems to be constructed of wood, beams and two-by-fours that are bowed and knotted. But the place is clean and organized and has a homey smell of something vaguely familiar. Maja sits on a long bench at a table next to the sales counter, and I take the seat opposite her.
“I’m looking for someone. My sister. I think your grandfather recognized her name.”
Maja blinks a couple of times and then looks away, searching her mind, and then she turns back and stares in my eyes. Her jaw drops and she puts her hand to her mouth. “Gretel?”
“Yes!” I can’t help but smile, though my subconscious tells me a disturbing revelation is about to come. “So she’s still here then. And you obviously see a resemblance. She’s not quite as good looking as I am, but I guess there i
s a likeness.”
“Gretel.” It’s Kacper, standing at attention behind Maja. His gun has been put to rest for now, but it remains in sight, butt down and poised less than an arm’s length away from its elderly master. He gives me the same look as his granddaughter and nods.
Maja whispers something to her grandfather. The words are foreign to me, but I can sense the import and solemnity.
“What’s wrong?” My smile has evaporated. “Where is she? Where is Gretel living?”
Maja holds my stare for a moment, and then her eyes begin to glisten as she looks away.
“Where is she?” I’m feeling lightheaded now, anticipating that whatever comes next will be grave.
“I...I don’t know where she is now.”
I let these words hang for a moment and compose myself. I need to be more precise with my questions.
“Has she been harmed in any way?”
Maja swallows. “She has been...taken.”
Panic floods my body and my mouth fills with saliva. My head starts to throb and a sharp ache forms behind my eyes. Settle, I tell myself and take a deep breath. She’s not dead. She didn’t say dead. “Who took her? Where did they go?”
“I don’t know where they went.”
“But you do know who took her.” This is a statement.
Maja shakes her head. “It was a man, that’s all I know. An awful-looking man.”
“So you saw him?”
Maja shakes her head again. “No, not me. There was only one in our village who saw him. He was there when the man came. It happened about three weeks ago. But he doesn’t talk of that day with anyone.”
It was Gromus, of course, the man who took Gretel, I already know that much of the story. But I still want to talk to this man. If I’m going to find my sister, I’ll need more to go on than what Gus gave me.
“Take me to him.”
I FOLLOW MAJA THROUGH the drab and austere streets of Stedwick Village, which, as the sun has risen higher, have begun lining with more and more people, their marionette-like stares and finger points invoking in me some bizarre sideshow memory.
“You would think I just landed here in a spaceship,” I say flatly, unconcerned with the attention we’re receiving, my focus now narrowed toward Gretel.
“As I said, we get very few visitors.”
I study the people as I pass them. There is a seriousness on the faces of the adults, a shifty nervous look that can only come from a lifetime of suspicion and fear. Even the children lack the joy and ease that is typically universal in their ilk.
“Why is everyone so scared?”
Maja looks at me and cocks her head. “What makes you think they’re scared?”
I can’t help but snicker. “Because I have eyes and I can see them. Look at them. They’re barely talking to each other. And they’re watching me the way you’d watch a rapist being paraded through the streets on his way to the gallows. And keep in mind, this is in the context of your grandfather whipping out a modified twelve-gauge.”
Maja stays quiet as we walk off the main drive and then pass through a small alley that empties out into a narrow street. This street is nearly abandoned of life other than for a broken-down horse that has been tied up outside of a ramshackle structure.
“We’re here,” Maja announces.
We stop in front of a narrow, three-story building that has a pair of staircases zigzagging across the façade. At each landing is a door, indicating the building is some type of motel or boarding house.
“This is where Gretel was staying?”
Maja nods. “The rooms don’t look much better on the inside. The owner and landlord is Cezar. He was here when...when it happened.”
We walk to the only door on the ground level and push it open, and then squeeze into a small room that appears to be acting as the lobby of the establishment. There is a long, bar-high countertop that runs from wall to wall. The door itself can’t quite be opened to its widest point without hitting the counter, and there’s no one to greet us when we wedge ourselves inside.
“He’s not here,” I say.
Maja shakes her head. “Cezar.”
She holds up a finger, and within a few seconds, a disheveled, stubbly face rises above the counter; the eyes and cheeks are painted with a look of booze and sleep deprivation. “Hmmm.” The man rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Maja.”
“Cezar, please.” Maja looks away in disgust. “I’ve brought someone here who needs to talk to you. It’s very important.”
“Mmm hmm. Talk for what?”
I take over. “My name is Hansel Morgan. My sister is Gretel Morgan. Maja tells me she was staying here and that you witnessed someone take her. Is that true?”
Cezar looks at Maja and raises his eyebrows, a frown on his mouth, a look that says she’s betrayed him by bringing me here.
“It is his sister, Cezar.”
“I saw nothing. I didn’t see him.” Cezar squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will his words to truth.
“That’s not true, Cezar.”
Maja sounds shrill now, and the conversation seems destined to devolve into stonewalling. I decide to show my cards.
“Does the name Gromus mean something to you, Cezar?”
Cezar stumbles toward the back wall, pinning himself against it, as if I’d just pulled a weapon from my pocket and ordered him to do so. He shakes his head, vibrating it back in forth, eyes closed, trying to make this moment go away.
“What does that mean?” Maja asks. “Who is Gromus?”
“He’s the man who took Gretel. Isn’t that right, Cezar?”
“I can’t...I don’t...” Cezar looks around the room, searching for a place to flee, but the only escape route is the doorway directly behind us.
“I know about him already Cezar. Whatever you tell me, whatever it is you’re scared of, it won’t make any difference.”
“He knows about things.”
The fear in Cezar’s eyes is real, and I don’t want to scare him off completely. “Things like what?”
Cezar purses his lips and looks away, shaking his head as he does so.
“Do you know about Gretel, Cezar? Have you ever heard her story?”
Cezar looks up at me, intrigued, but his vow of silence holds.
“I didn’t think so. But it’s a story that is quite extraordinary and sad. It’s the reason she came to a place like this, remote and distant from her home, to get away from the whispers and innuendoes that followed her throughout the Back Country.”
I don’t expect Cezar to understand what I’m talking about, and he’s probably never even heard of the Back Country, but it doesn’t matter to me, and my passion for my family seems to penetrate at least a portion of my audience.
“I thought there was something different about her,” Maja says. “Something exceptional, yes?”
I nod my head, not ready to reveal too much more at this stage. “So was the man’s name Gromus, Cezar? Is that the man who took my sister?”
“It was Gromus,” a voice behind me grumbles.
I turn to see Maja’s grandfather standing tall at the threshold of Cezar’s hotel, shotgun gripped low at his left hip.
“And it wasn’t the first time he’s been to the village. He was here before. A long time ago.”
Chapter 3
“I was just a boy when I first saw him.”
Maja stares disbelieving at her grandfather. She is nothing short of stunned at the man’s lucidity, which seemed extremely limited only an hour ago. I have a similar reaction, but mine includes his proficiency in my language, which I would have bet everything I own that he didn’t speak.
The four of us—Maja, Kacper, Cezar, and I—have moved to the back porch of the hotel, off the road from curious eyes, and are now seated around a thick stone table. It’s an area that was probably quite festive in the late-night hours a decade past; now, however, with the full light of the sun illuminating the crumbling stonework, the porch elicits images
of ruins.
“He was the same then as he was when I saw him again. That would be thirty years later. He’d aged not a bit.” Kacper holds a flame to his pipe and inhales it into the bowl, igniting what I assume is tobacco.
“Why did he come? That first time when you were a boy?” I ask.
“And why have I never heard you speak of this before?” Maja adds. “You knew about all of this? You knew what happened to Gretel all these weeks?”
“I didn’t know and I still don’t.” Kacper is instinctively defensive but he quickly adjusts his reaction and softens his eyes. “But I knew of the man Gromus, yes. I knew him the way Cezar does.”
Cezar drops his eyes in shame.
“So why did he come that first time?” I repeat.
“First time? No. It was the first time I had seen him. As my father told me when I was bit older, Gromus had been to our village more than one time before.”
“Why have I never heard this, Dedu?” Maja’s voice cracks like a child’s. The name she has for her grandfather—Dedu—is eerily close to the one Gretel and I had for our grandfather when we were kids. The thought of Deda creates a wave of longing for the Old World and my life before Marlene.
“You have never heard it because we agreed to not speak his name again. It was superstition, of course, our belief that simply by keeping the name from our lips we would prevent evocation, but we know of magic in this world, Maja, even if we don’t like to admit it. And I suspect young Hansel has seen his share as well.”
Kacper stares in my eyes and smiles, and I give a slight nod.
“It appeared to work. Our avoidance had kept him from the village for decades. Until recently. Until Gretel arrived.”
Kacper says these last words without a trace of blame. And he seems to be avoiding my question that I’ve asked twice now. I rephrase it and ask, “Does he steal people, Kacper? Kidnap them? Is that why he comes?”
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set) Page 61