The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set)

by Coleman, Christopher

  “Can I come?” I tried to stay composed, fighting the tears developing behind my eyes. “I haven’t seen Mrs. Klahr in a while.”

  As Gretel began to answer, a posture of protest formed in her shoulders and head, and she took a deep breath, stalling the lie about to come. Instead she froze on her first word, and we both became locked in our stances at the sound of the door to the back bedroom creaking open. My back was to the door, and I was ten feet away at least, but I could almost feel the breath on the back of my neck. Gretel’s view was blocked by the wall that partitioned the kitchen from the hallway, but her eyes were wide, frightened, and peering unblinking, as if trying to visually penetrate the lumber to the location of the sound. A full two minutes passed with barely a breath passed between us. And then we both shuddered dramatically, as if a blast of snow had just hit us, at the sound of the door re-latching.

  “I think you should stay, Hansel. In case she needs you.”

  But I needed Gretel. And she left anyway.

  Chapter 5

  “It’s a book of magic then?” Maja is trying to sound casual, doubting, but her eyes are fixed on the book the way only a believer’s would be.

  “I suppose it’s even more than that, Maja. It’s part of the reason why I’m here now, and why my sister is gone and my mother and father are dead. And why Gromus still hunts.”

  It was a gruesome word to apply to the man, but it was appropriate.

  “What’s in it? Where did it come from?”

  These are two giant questions, each requiring independent answers and hours to explain. I, however, am neither qualified to give those answers nor blessed with the luxury of time. “I can tell you what I know of it, what I’ve learned through the years, but it’s not a one-sitting story. It will have to be told on the way.”

  The three look at me blankly, awaiting an expansion of my less-than-subtle suggestion about what will happen next

  “On the way to where. And with whom?” Maja finally asks.

  I stare at the group a moment, meeting each set of eyes before saying, “I’m going after them. I’m going to find Gromus and Gretel. And I need someone to show me where to start. I need a guide to start me off in the right direction.”

  Certainly, I hadn’t expected that I would simply declare my needs and have them be met by these relative strangers in this small mountain village; they have their own lives, of course, and those lives have little to do with me. But I also know about guilt and redemption, and I trust at least one of these three will appreciate my quest, especially considering how their village has been terrorized by Gromus for generations.

  “I have a business to run,” Cezar whines, chuckling as if the thought alone is absurd. “I could never go with you. To where? There is no one to oversee my hotel.” He shakes his head in pragmatic defiance, but the look on his face tells me his true fear has little to do with his business.

  Maja and Kacper look at each other but say nothing. I can sense their consideration of my request. I ignore Cezar and focus on them.

  “I understand that you have a business as well,” I say, fully intending the slight toward Cezar, “and if this is something you cannot do, I will hold nothing but fondness for both of you in my memories. You were under no obligation even to give me this much information. But I don’t know this land well. I don’t know where to begin. So if you can provide any help, any at all, I would greatly appreciate that. It wouldn’t be for the whole journey, of course. Perhaps just the first leg. Two at the most.”

  The elderly man and his granddaughter stay silent for a few more beats, and then Maja finally nods. “I will go with you, Hansel. Not for one leg. As long as you need.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Maja!” Kacper shouts.

  “It is his sister, Dedu. What if it were me who went missing in Hansel’s land? Alone in the New Country? Stolen by some beast? And then you were turned away by those who you knew could help? Is this who we are that we don’t help strangers? We are partly responsible for this.”

  Kacper looks toward the horizon, blinking frantically.

  “You can’t go, Dedu. Hansel is right about the store. But I can go. You ran the store for decades without me. And cousin Stefan is always willing to help.”

  “You don’t know the land, Maja.” Kacper’s voice is stern, and Maja gives a slight quiver at the authority in his tenor. “And you don’t know the ways of men.” This last sentence is said through the grit of his teeth.

  “I know the lands better than you think. I’ll have the maps which I’ve learned to read quite well over the years. First in my class in directional sciences three years in a row. And I’m as capable as any man in terms of my stamina and strength.”

  I’m not quite sure how this last part could be true, about Maja’s strength—she’s only a hand taller than a young teenager, and slighter than a girl younger than that—but her defiance is impressive, and for the first time I realize that she is the one I need to help me find Gretel. Old men are good for knowledge and clarity, but my instincts tell me I’ll need a young person’s energy and will for this journey. And Maja she seems to have plenty of both.

  But I know it’s not the first part of Kacper’s stated concerns that he is truly worried about—he certainly knows of his granddaughter’s capabilities—it’s the second part, about the evils of men, and that, no doubt, includes me.

  “You don’t know me, sir,” I interrupt, “I understand that, and as I’ve said, I haven’t the time to tell you the legends of this book or the tribulations of my family. But I’ve lost everyone I loved, save two. The first is an old woman who lives across the lake from the house I grew up in, and the second is my sister. There is no one else.”

  “You seem like a nice boy, Hansel, but your words mean very little to me.”

  “You’re right. Of course they don’t. They’ll mean nothing at all if you don’t believe me. But I’ll say this anyway: I know the value of life and the meaning of family, and I will never intentionally put your granddaughter in any danger. I have no motives other than to find my sister alive.”

  “And if I forbid it?”

  “Then I will go it alone.” I stare in the old man’s eyes now, a slight grin forming on my face. “But, if I may make an observation, sir, it doesn’t sound to me like you’re in a position to do that.”

  Kacper glances at his granddaughter and drops his look to the dirt.

  “I’ll be fine, Dedu,” Maja reassures, “it’s our land I’ll be travelling, not the jungles of the southern continents.”

  Kacper frowns. “Our village does not represent the land at large, Maja. And your maps don’t either, other than what they tell you of distances and topography. There are places where mystery and evil still loom large. Where men like Gromus are as normal as mosquitoes on a summer lake.”

  I, of course, know that Kacper’s warnings are not to be taken lightly. Stedwick Village is not anywhere close to where Gretel and mother and I lived during our time in the Old World, when we came seeking answers to Orphism. But they are part of the same range of mountains that loom over most of this land, the mountains where mother came to find a cure for her sickness. Surely it’s why Gretel chose to come live here, to find answers to the lingering questions that remained.

  Questions about mother. Marlene. Orphism. Herself.

  “It’s late,” I say, “but I’ll be leaving in the morning at first light. If you’re here and ready, Maja, we’ll go. If not, if you have changed your mind, I will understand.” I turn to Cezar, “I’d like to stay in Gretel’s apartment for the night. How much will that cost me?”

  Cezar smiles, assuming his businessman persona. “You should stay there for no cost, my friend. It is the least I can do.”

  I consider if there is anything less he could do, and decide he’s right—it is the least he can do. I simply nod my thanks and follow Cezar back to the office to get the key to the apartment.

  “I’ll meet you here,” Maja says from behind me.
“At first light.”

  I keep walking and call back over my shoulder, “Don’t be late.”

  “And I know where to start.”

  I come to a stop as my body stiffens and my breathing intensifies, though at first I’m not sure why.

  “There’s a man. A guide who knows these mountains very well.”

  “A guide?” I turn and face Maja.

  “Yes. He’s quite well-known in these parts, mainly for an adventure he embarked on years ago. His name is Noah.”

  Chapter 6

  “Hansel!”

  The sound of her voice pierced the thick morning air, stinging the back of my neck like the lash of a whip. I closed my eyes, praying it would be the only time my name would be spoken; in my head, I summoned her back to sleep with a mantra of commands.

  I had begun staying out well past dark, sometimes sleeping beneath the porch until morning.

  “Hansel.”

  My name rang again, just as loud the second time but with less urgency, her voice now muffled by fatigue and sickness. If she called again, I told myself, I would go.

  “Hansel!”

  I nearly fell back on my haunches with the last scream. This one sounded closer than before, angry and impatient, and my vision became blurred by the tears in my eyes. I stood and walked to the base of the porch stairs and stared up into the darkness. I took a deep breath before I began the short journey from there to the back bedroom of the cottage where mother spent the vast majority of her days now. It was less than three years ago when father had lain in the room similarly, injured in a farming accident and then drugged by his nurse who, it turned out, had come to protect Gretel and me from him. But my father had been barely noticeable then, an invalid really, and Gretel and I had felt mostly sympathy for him and a longing for his return.

  The situation with my mother was different. I had grown to hate her.

  Of course, I didn’t hate the person she had been only months before—I would have given almost anything for that Anika Morgan—I hated who she had become.

  “I’m coming,” I said to the darkness, barely whispering.

  I walked up the wooden staircase and opened the screen door. The main door was already open to relieve the stifling heat of the cottage.

  I toggled the light switch to the up position and instantly screamed at the horrifying sight of my mother standing tall in the kitchen, rigid, positioned as if she were a funhouse mannequin. Her hair was caked with oil and dirt and fell forward in long strands across her forehead, nearly covering her face entirely. The filth of her hair matched the stained nightmare of her gown, which hung in tatters on her emaciated frame. Through the gaps in her hair strings, I could see her eyes; they appeared yellow in the light, the sockets crusted and wrinkled. But they were alive, glaring.

  “Mother?” Instinctively, I kept my tone flat, trying not to display the nausea developing in my gut. “How long have you been up?”

  She stared at me for a few beats without answering and then turned back toward the hallway and her bedroom. The odor from within had already penetrated the foyer. “Since you didn’t come when I called.”

  “I was...” My voice cracked this time. “I was coming. I think I fell asleep.”

  “You have a house to sleep in, Hansel,” she said, her voice weary and dry.

  “Are you feeling better? What did you need?”

  Like a spring-loaded trap, my mother spun toward me, her hair now fallen back on her shoulders, revealing the extent of the potion’s damage. Her front teeth, once white and beautiful, were now brown and dusky, matching the spots that had spread throughout the skin on her cheeks and forehead. She looked more than old and sick; she seemed, quite literally, to be falling apart.

  She took two steps toward me but I held my ground. If I were to run now, I thought, that would be the submission. The admission that she was gone forever.

  “I need you to come when I call you,” she said softly, just above a whisper. “That is what I needed. That is what I always need!”

  With this last sentence, my mother shook her head violently, her hair flailing in every direction, and opened her mouth wide on the word ‘always’ (alllllllllways!). I stared into the chasm of her mouth and could see the first signs of the large, triangular fangs developing in the rear of her upper jaw. Every instinct told me to go, now, to the orchard and Mrs. Klahr. But rumors of my mother’s deterioration had begun to swirl, and there would be no mercy for her if those suspicions reached the wrong ears. I trusted Mrs. Klahr with my life of course, but stories like Anika Morgan’s have a way of spreading, and the Back Country had seen enough horror to last a generation.

  “Yes mother, I’ll bring it. But you know the agreement. You can never know. If you know, it all goes away. Forever. Go back to bed.” I held her stare as I spoke, telling myself that if I did nothing else, I would keep my eyes from dropping.

  My mother grimaced at the threat of ‘it all goes away,’ but then she smiled, and for a moment I could see the shadow of Anika Morgan, the fearless heroine who had slayed the monstrous Marlene and avenged so many of her victims.

  I waited for her to leave and then fished the key from my pocket and proceeded to unlatch the cabinet where the vial of potion rested. There were two more servings, the one for that night and then one more. And then it was gone forever.

  It would all go away forever.

  Chapter 7

  I sit on the bed where, at least according to Cezar, Gretel had slept only weeks ago. I fish out the two letters I’ve brought with me and place them on the bedspread side by side. One is the letter Gretel sent to me, telling me about Gromus and her fear that he was coming for her. The other is the one my mother wrote; I don’t know when exactly, but certainly after her sickness had swelled, probably over time during short-lived windows of clarity. Those are the times I hold on to; those are the ones I fight to keep at the forefront of my memory when I think of Anika Morgan.

  The mention of Noah’s name from Maja’s lips had immediately brought to mind my mother’s letter. It is a dense piece of writing, twenty-two pages of tiny script that envelops the front and back of each sheet. I’ve read it dozens of times over the years, though much of it still doesn’t make sense to me.

  But pieces continue to fall into place.

  Anika’s life had been ruined by the Witch of the North. By Marlene. The hag had conspired with my grandfather to take away all that was valuable to Anika—to all of us—for the dream of immortality. Kidnapping her and using her body to form a sickening concoction of magical properties. But Anika had foiled the plan of the monster, making an almost impossible escape to freedom and bringing justice to her attacker, with Gretel delivering the (non)fatal blow from the loft of a cannery on Rifle Field in the Back Country.

  And when the ordeal seemed to have finally ended, and the Morgan family was ready to start their lives again, Gretel, Anika, and I had taken the first steps of that life in the Old World, in a region beneath the same mountains that housed Stedwick Village and a thousand others like it. We were on a quest to find answers to the madness that had brought a plague upon us, and it was in this place, legend told, the region of Jena, where it had begun millennia before.

  And the answers came rapidly to us. My sister’s unusual connection to the world around her had grown stronger, and the teachings from those in our ancient family who still lived in the region were quickly grasped by Gretel.

  But the witch Marlene wasn’t dead at all, and news of her emergence found its way to the Old World, as did her threats of those we loved and left behind in the Back Country.

  And the physical ordeal that Anika had endured wasn’t over either. A sickness remained in her from her time in the witch’s lair, and despite the hopelessness of her prognosis, she was determined to find the cure. That cure, she believed, was nestled in the land of an even older sect of our ancestry high and deep in the Koudeheuval Mountains. With the help of local guides, Anika had found the answers she sought and had q
uickly returned home, following Gretel and I back to the New Country where Anika and Gretel ultimately slaughtered the witch Marlene, just in time to save her children and their friend from certain death.

  But her sickness had been replaced by a venom even more sinister, and one which would ultimately lead to her death. To her murder. Of which I am the felon.

  This is the abridged version of Anika Morgan’s life and that of her children, Hansel and Gretel. Each of us has his or her own perspective and experience on the events that occurred, but this is the tale that binds us. This is the tale that has created our infamy.

  And yet, even after Marlene’s death was well behind us—that is, her actual, literal death—we spoke of our tale very seldom. It was all too much to absorb. If there was a specific event that had happened to one of us, an incident which we had not shared previously, then perhaps that story would be told, as unemotionally as possible, just as a way to fully cleanse our consciences. But it was usually told only once and then quietly sealed away in the safety of our unconscious.

  And Marlene’s name was never mentioned again (I consider now that perhaps it was for the same reason Gromus’s name was never uttered in the village after the day at the wedding), and even those we loved—father and Deda and Mr. Klahr, for instance—were rarely the subjects of conversation in the Morgan household. The events of Marlene and Gretel and Anika were by no means buried, but, over time, they faded into the background.

  Except when I read my mother’s letter.

  She never spoke of the letter to Gretel or me, but I know she wrote it to ensure we never forgot our childhood or those we lost. And, most importantly, to keep us from descending into the same poisonous abyss into which she had fallen.

  I thumb through the yellowed sheets of unlined paper until I get to the approximate middle. The letter isn’t quite chronological—there are constant time jumps and long paragraphs of lessons my mother learned from her imprisonment in the cabin, her journey through the mountains, and from other times in her life, years with father before I was born—but I’ve read the letter enough to know roughly where Noah’s name appears.