The voice has come from in front of me, generated from the direction of the stone building. I lift my gaze to the top of the wide stairs that rise up from the ground to the front of the building, and there I see a girl standing outside the door.
It’s Gretel. And Gromus is standing directly behind her.
Chapter 26
Gretel had taken her own copy of Orphism, the one given to her by Deda, off to school with her. About that I had no doubt. But I had never considered that the other version—the witch’s version—had ended up with mother. With Anika. And she was now using it for her own blending purposes.
I was still staring at the book when I heard the truck pull into the top of the driveway and begin its descent down toward the house.
I began furiously to pile the stones back on top of one another, in a pattern that was certain to in no way match the stack previously. But it didn’t matter now; I was out of time. I’d misjudged the minutes and my ability to hear the truck from the Interways, and now I was caught in a trap of my own mischief.
As I built up the small stone mound, I kept my body low to avoid mother as she walked to the cabin. And in that position of vulnerability, I reflected on exactly what it was I had discovered. Anika was using the book in an attempt to make her potion, that was clear to me, and it was also obvious that she was attempting to craft it with wild animals. This was folly, of course, and Anika would have known this better than anyone. The witch had told her how delicate and exact the recipe was, and Gretel had confirmed this from the translations. She knew there was no possibility of success with this concoction, and yet her obsession drove her on.
And it was also obvious to me that her trip to the pharmacy was to do with the potion as well, an attempt to locate those ingredients that couldn’t be found in the woods of the Back Country. But that was foolishness too. She’d be lucky to find aspirin at the small, country pharmacy in town, let alone whatever obscure sorcery was listed in the pages of Orphism.
I heard the truck door open and then shut in a slam of anger, an interpretation that was immediately confirmed when I heard the scream of, “Nothing is ever fine!” The shout was then followed by the heavy clap of footsteps climbing the porch stairs and, finally, the opening and crashing shut of the cottage door.
It was a blessing, I knew, her current mania, as it would allow me time to make my away from the bank and get back up to the house. But it was also one more sign that the end of my life as I knew it was near.
I made the decision then, lying on that ground, that I would talk with Mrs. Klahr the following day, immediately, before work began, about moving in to the spare bedroom, just as Gretel had insisted. If Mrs. Klahr was accepting of that—which she obviously would be, as she’d been practically insisting on it for a week and a half now—I would move in that same night.
The problem of mother’s consent still existed, but my concern now had little to do with legal custody or hurt feelings. My concern now was far grimmer.
Mother was spiraling quickly, and after witnessing for myself her kitchen of slaughter, it was apparent to me that things were even worse than I’d believed. It was as if Gretel’s leaving had the opposite effect from what she’d suspected, and instead her departure had released the chains that were keeping Anika in control.
“Hansel!”
The scream boomed from across the porch railing, sounding as if it was focused toward the lake where I lay frozen now, nearly belly-flat on the dirt. I was fighting both the stench of the dead animals and my instinct to run from this calamitous ground.
“Hansel!” she called again and then, after a pause, screamed one word so loud that it sent a dozen or more birds flitting from their perches. “Ungrateful!” she screamed and then returned to the cabin.
I waited until I heard the porch door close before I finished stacking the last of the stones, reassembling them to the best of my recollection. Finally, I made my way up to the shed where I would sleep for the night, the door propped slightly open for air.
A tarp, a section of which had been cut away, was my blanket.
Chapter 27
“Why are you here, Hansel? How did you find this place?”
Gretel is nearly unrecognizable, her body emaciated, and the dirt and blood caking her face and hair is almost absolute in its coverage. She’s coherent, but her voice sounds deranged with fear and trauma.
“Gretel. You are alive.” I’m inundated with emotions; on top of the dread that became of this village, I’m suddenly reunited with my sister, though a reunion isn’t quite what this is. “Are you hurt?”
Gretel closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly, the magnitude of the question too much for her to conquer right now. “He’s going to the village.”
“Shut up!” The hulk of a man behind Gretel puts a hand on the back of my sister’s neck and squeezes, and then puts his long, thin cheek up beside hers, closing his eyes as he smells her skin, his body pressing up against her. He then pulls his face back and smiles before forcing Gretel to the ground, jerking her neck violently as he bends forward and pushes Gretel’s cheek to the stone porch. He removes his hand from the back of her neck and puts the bottom of his foot in its place, and then stands back tall, Gretel now beneath him under the vice of his shoe. She makes a weak move to get up, but her exhaustion keeps her in place.
“Gretel,” I whimper.
Gromus removes his foot from my sister’s neck. “Stand,” he says.
Gretel lies on the ground for a moment, exhausted but unencumbered by the foot of Gromus, and then makes her way to her knees where she rests a beat before finally rising to her feet.
“If you don’t like the feel of your face hitting stone, you will not speak again.”
“Noah,” I whisper for no other reason than to know he is still there. Still focused on the task. Recognizing that despite the horror that has occurred in Lyria, Gretel is still alive and we can save her.
“I know, Hansel,” Noah replies, the distress in his voice having now turned to resignation.
Gromus walks forward to the edge of the steps that lead to the hub building, ushering Gretel along as he comes, and I instantly recall the twisted description of the man Gus described. With every crooked step Gromus takes, it’s as if the bones he’s using to propel forward are breaking apart, or perhaps dislocating inside him, working the wrong way, fighting all the natural connections of his muscles and tendons. It is quite difficult to watch, and were it not for the speed with which he moved, I’d wonder how he’d ever walked this high into the Koudeheuvals.
He is larger in stature than I’d expected, possessing a body more animal than man in shape. He is as tall as Noah, but under his dark coat he is carrying at least a hundred pounds more of flesh.
Gromus reaches the top of the wide stairs and stops, scanning his new visitors with a look of delight and enthusiasm. And then he opens his mouth wide and begins to laugh.
I avert my eyes from the man’s face, the hideousness of his look almost unbearable. I look over to Gretel, numbed in the clutches of Gromus; she looks at me defeated and then closes her eyes before silently coughing out a few cries of fear and disgust.
I slowly look over at Noah. His eyes are still locked on the man in front of him, studying his movements. He’s looking for the vulnerability, I think to myself. He has the look of calculated hate.
As abruptly as he began to laugh, Gromus stops, continuing to stare out at the small crowd before him, looking back from Maja on the hill to Oskar, Noah, and me just beneath him.
And then he speaks.
“You’ve done well, young Emre,” he says, staring out now to the midway point where Emre has been standing alone. The voice is high-pitched and throaty, cracking on every other syllable, the words fighting to make their way out of his mouth with as much difficulty as his legs demonstrated when he strode. “I didn’t expect you to be here with them, but here you all are. I suspect the book is with him. The book, yes?” I don’t turn to see Emre, but I
assume he’s signaled to the monster with an affirmative nod, as Gromus follows up his words with, “And your reward is forthcoming.”
I expect Noah to look back at Emre, to direct his hate there, and then to begin a full sprint toward the boy, catching him as he begins to retreat, throwing him to the ground before strangling him with his bare hands.
Instead, Noah maintains his position, standing tall, never taking his eyes from Gromus, the rucksack on his back positioned high and still at attention.
Gromus then looks down at this group of three men standing below him at the foot of the steps. “And I assume you played your agreed upon part in this too...” he hesitates, searching for the word. “Your name: it is Oskar, yes?”
I look over at Oskar who is shaking his head furiously, eyes wide and full of tears and fear. “No, there was no this agreement. Not this.”
“No this agreement?” I ask, whispering in disbelief. “But there was an agreement?”
Oskar puts his hand to his head and begins to rub, unsure how he’s come to find himself in this position.
“This is why you were so eager to see this place.”
“But I just think...” Oskar begins and then stops, the speed and confusion of what is happening overwhelming him.
“This is why you insisted on the vote. You saw that Maja was intrigued by the place, and you already knew Emre would vote your way.”
I give Oskar a beat to reply, but he continues rubbing his head, staring at the ground, continuing to try to figure out the scene before him.
“But I don’t quite understand. When did you and Emre make a deal together? How could you have made a deal with this boy who lives isolated and more than a hundred miles away?”
“I never see this boy. I don’t know him. I never make deal with this one. I kill him!”
Gromus listens to the conversation from above, letting it play out, seemingly from a place of morbid curiosity.
“He knows you, Oskar. He just called you out by name.”
“Yes! He know me.” Oskar points up at Gromus. “Not that boy. Gromus come to me. Few days before you. With the girl.” Oskar looks up at the sky and shakes his head. “I not know is daughter of Anika.”
I feel a twinge of compassion for Oskar as he says this last sentence, and I fully believe him about Gretel. But even if he didn’t know she was Anika’s daughter, she was still someone’s daughter.
“He tell me Noah coming. Tell me a deal to make. To make you come here. I tell him I don’t know where is Lyria, but he say I will know.”
“Because Emre would know. Emre would find it. That’s why he gave him the potion. He was going to bring the book, and then find this place with his ability to...smell or something. And you were going to be the one to convince us.”
I look up at Gromus, as if expecting him to confirm my theory. The man just sneers down at me.
“After Emre ran away, he stopped right at the entrance. And then we all gathered there and you saw the arch. And that’s when you decided to uphold your part of the deal.”
“He no say this,” Oskar pleads, waving a hand up toward the bodies floating above us, the blood and entrails hanging down like crimson streamers. He puts the palms of his hands flat over his face and then falls to his knees and begins to sob. “I sorry.”
“You will be paid nevertheless,” Gromus shouts down. “Nevertheless.”
“What do you want from us?” I ask, finally addressing the monster of a man directly. “Why did you murder these people?”
“Not just these people,” he replies. “In all the houses. All of them are dead.”
There is a moment after Gromus speaks the last two sentences that time seems to freeze, when every cell of my body tingles, becoming alert and hyper-sensitive, preparing for the reckoning that is about to occur.
From the corner of my eye I see Noah reach his hand high toward the top of his rucksack and grab the zipper which rests at the apex of the bag. He pulls slowly to the right, bringing the zipper toward me and then down the side of the bag. The rucksack is open on the right now, and I can see inside what it is he’s going for.
The shotgun.
It’s the first I’ve thought of it since we left Zanpie, but as I consider it now, Noah certainly would have retrieved the shotgun from his home before we started on our journey. He hasn’t revealed it to this point, and I suppose there hasn’t really been a need to, but the large rucksack is clearly big enough to stash the shortened weapon and keep it concealed.
My mind floods with terror and the possibilities of catastrophe, knowing that Gretel is likely to absorb a portion of the shot and the strangulation of Gromus. And Noah is too far away from the man to make any kind of accurate shot, particularly with a sawed-off shotgun. Even if some of the spray lands perfectly, I calculate, it won’t be lethal enough to prevent Gromus from snapping my sister’s neck.
“Noah, no,” I whisper, barely loud enough to know if he heard me at all.
Noah freezes, his arm behind him now, hand dipped in the bag in a pose that looks like he’s scratching his back. He doesn’t look over at me, but I can see by the look on his face that he has heard me and is considering whether to make this the moment when he no longer allows me to decide how the group proceeds.
“I know, Noah. I can’t imagine how you feel right now. But you can’t get off that shot. Not without Gretel dying.” There’s no point being anything other than blunt.
“What have you in that bag, Noah?” Gromus calls down.
Noah stays quiet.
“If you’d like to prevent any further deaths on these grounds, I would take my hand away from there. There is no need for more violence. Though I can see you had feelings for the people who lived here.”
Noah clenches his jaws, and I can almost hear the grinding of his teeth as he pulls his hand free.
“But you should know that they were weak-minded. Most of them came to me willingly. One at a time. After only a few days, and the lot of them thought me their god. Or it could be that they feared me and thought obedience was their only chance. But really, what is the difference? Perhaps it will make it easier for you to know that it was peaceful when they died. What you see up here,” Gromus looks up at the bodies, the backs of which are facing him, his face neutral, “this was not the manner in which they took their last breaths. This was for...decoration.”
“Why?” I ask again.
“Hansel.” Gromus turns the entire focus of his immense presence toward me now, eyes narrow, his long bald head tilted slightly forward as if pointing at me with his body. He shows his teeth again, though this time not in the form of laughter. It’s a baring, the way a wolf would show to another not part of her pack.
I feel almost light-headed from fear, but I stand sturdy, eyes high and watching, awaiting my answer.
Gromus breaks off the stare down and waves his hand. “This place, Lyria, was the perfect location to meet before I take you off to the Village of the Elders. The great guide Noah’s secret village. Oskar told me all about this adventure story. And Emre has my scent inside him now. I’m sure he was able to track me easily. Our scent is very strong, as is our ability locate it in others.”
“Why kill them?” I scream the question at him this time, no longer interested in the conspiratorial part of the story. “These people had nothing to do with me or Gretel. With any of this.”
“You’re a smart boy, aren’t you Hansel?” Gromus snaps back. He’s in a lather now, spitting the words towards me. He takes a few more heavy, snorting breaths before calming himself down a notch, but the venom is still evident in every word. “The men here spoke so fondly of Noah. If he had shown up while they were still alive, they would have listened to him, followed his direction and resisted me. He would have, perhaps, been able to even raise an army against me. And that would have delayed my plans for you and your sister quite a bit. It’s time for me to grow younger, and your blood can make it so.”
I want to vomit again, but I keep the c
onversation moving forward.
“I understand. In a demented, evil way, you make sense. But now you have to offer something for the lives of all these people you murdered. Noah and Maja...and Oskar...you need to let them go. I’m here now, and I’m what you really wanted. Me and the book. I have it with me. Orphism.”
Gromus’ eyes twinkle at the word.
“They brought me here, and now you owe them their lives for the lives you took. They have nothing else to do with this and nothing to offer you.”
Gromus keeps his eyes fixed on me, listening.
“It’s my blood and Gretel’s that you want. For the potion.” I pause, letting Gromus drift just to the edge of my words, and then I say, “Just like your sister, Marlene wanted.”
Gromus’ face melts at the sound of his sister’s name, a softening occurring in and around his eyes that I would have never thought possible from such a creature. “Marlene.”
“Let them go and I’ll come with you to the village without incident.”
“What else do you know of Marlene?”
“I know a lot, Gromus. My mother told me a lot.” I rest a beat and then say, “And I saw her die.”
Gromus gasps and makes a move forward, squeezing down on Gretel’s neck, his thin gaunt face scrunching into a look of pain.
“But you’ll never hear how it happened unless everyone leaves here alive.”
The large ogre stops and takes a deep breath and then smiles, looking down at Gretel for an instant and then back at me. “Your sister said she knew nothing at all about how my sister died. But I knew she was lying. She lies as everyone does. All of you. You’re always lying.”
“I’m not lying now. I saw her die. I heard her last words. And you can hear them from me. But you have to take your hands off my sister and let the rest of them go.”
“You’re not going anywhere alone, Hansel.” Noah says, loud enough for Gromus to hear.
“Hey!” I turn to Noah and take a step forward until I’m only inches away from his face. He’s got eight inches on me at least, and my eyes only come level with his neck. “I make the decisions! Remember? That is the deal! You and Maja and Oskar are not coming to the village. You were never coming. This is about me and my family, not you.”
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set) Page 76