Gretel

by Christopher Coleman

  She stared wide-eyed at the pages and instantly saw that the writing was foreign to her—Greek perhaps—and that the surrounding margins were littered with handwritten notes. In fact, she noted, all of the white space was taken up with pencil and pen marks, including above and below the type. The space between the lines was wide, so the letters were perfectly legible, and as Anika studied the text further, she saw this writing was in English. Cursive, sloppy, and grammatically atrocious, but definitely English. In some instances there were just single words, often capitalized and underlined or with exclamation points. But most of the words seemed to be a translation of the text and not the aimless writings of a lunatic. And as Anika continued to read, she now realized one thing was certain: there wasn’t much time left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gretel’s first week back at the orchard was bittersweet; she was happy to be with the Klahrs again, working and feeling productive, but there was an anxiety that nagged, lingering in her belly, reminding her that things at home were tenuous and unresolved. That her father may be dying. Perhaps being murdered slowly.

  She thought of Hansel almost constantly, imagining the unbearable guilt she would forever live with if anything happened to him. There hadn’t been any further mention from Odalinde concerning the swan figurine, and apparently father had kept the cabinet breach a secret, but Gretel perceived a difference in Odalinde since that night in the kitchen, a new sort of quietness that implied restraint and plotting.

  Still though, it was nice to be back at work, and compared to the madness of the weeks during the harvest, Gretel had it easy. All of the workers were gone, having migrated to further corners of the region where various other crops were about to be born, so Gretel’s work mainly consisted of cleaning the Klahr house to the point of sterilization, dividing the newly picked fruit for their various uses, and helping prepare the meals for Mr. and Mrs. Klahr.

  Petr was staying on for a few weeks more, but apparently would only be making appearances on Fridays, as well as the weekends. So in addition to not being particularly busy, Gretel’s first week back was also quite lonely.

  But she worked hard and tried to stay occupied, and Mrs. Klahr, bless her heart, seemed to make the point regularly to Gretel that her presence was critical to keeping the Klahrs out of the graveyard and the house from crumbling to splinters. Still, she wasn’t used to the downtime and boredom that filled much of her day, so when Friday finally came and Gretel saw Petr standing on the bank of the orchard as she eased her canoe to the shore, she couldn’t help but smile and wave. She was instantly embarrassed by the act, of course, and was still blushing when she walked up to the boy, who himself wore the look of giddy unease.

  She’d barely spoken to Petr since that day in the Klahr kitchen—she’d been so focused on her work and the harvest—but she had always been keenly aware of his presence at the house and felt a nervous comfort whenever he smiled at her or offered to help with a chore, only to be told “No, thank you” in a way that implied everything was exceedingly simple to Gretel and in her complete control.

  Now, though, having spent a mostly restful week away from the orchard and returning to find the feverish regimen of the place substituted with an almost placid routine of thorough maintenance, Gretel regarded Petr as an old friend, a domestic soldier like herself, who’d fought beside her in some recent battle and now waited for her in the clearing dust.

  “You’re here early,” Gretel said, arching her eyebrows to show she was mildly impressed.

  “I got in last night. Something came up and it was the only time my father could drop me off.”

  Gretel nodded, still smiling, and stared at Petr, measuring him, until finally he looked away, embarrassed.

  It was strange. As beautiful as Petr was physically, Gretel was not at all intimidated by him. Of course, she didn’t really know him well, so there was still a certain self-consciousness she felt around him; but whenever they met, within a minute or two she always felt like she had the upper-hand. Even on that first night in her kitchen, when she first collided with those sky blue eyes and dark curls, she had been more stunned by his looks than threatened by them. Not that she normally came unhinged in front of boys anyway, but she would have thought a boy like Petr would have made her far more uncomfortable than he did.

  “It’s good to see you, Gretel.”

  Gretel’s smile widened with this brave revelation, as if she was proud of Petr for his boldness, and she let out a good-natured laugh. “It’s good to see you too, Petr. Are the Klahrs awake?”

  Gretel and Petr split the chores evenly that day, with Petr taking on most of the outdoor duties and Gretel minding the interior of the house. But by Saturday, the two children decided the work could be done in the same amount of time if they tackled the tasks together, and they would enjoy the added pleasure of companionship. Mrs. Klahr met this suggestion with a thin smile, and then an exaggerated nod signifying the resourcefulness of the idea. Petr and Gretel both knew what she was thinking—that love was blooming or some such thing—but they initiated no corrections to this assumption, as they were both just happy to have a friend to work with and conversation to fill the day.

  And if love blossomed, that was fine too.

  “What do you do on your days off?” Petr lifted a full bucket of pears onto the flatbed of the Klahrs’ truck, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

  It was an unseasonably hot day for the Southlands, even for early summer, and though he’d only worked two full days that week, Gretel could see the boy was tired and looking forward to Sunday. Unlike Gretel, Petr technically had to work on Sundays, but the work was laughably light, and even he understood his pay for that day was mostly charity.

  “I sleep mostly. And row. That’s the bulk of it. The two things that keep me away from my…my father’s nurse.”

  Petr stared at Gretel for a moment and then heaved another full bucket to the unhinged tailgate. “Is she cruel?” he asked bluntly. “Your father’s nurse, that is.”

  Gretel glanced sideways at Petr, not really wanting to get into her home affairs. She liked Petr, and they seemed to have enough in common to become real friends, if not more, but her instincts told her it was too early to fully trust him. Especially with his father’s name (maybe?) etched in Odalinde’s address book.

  “Maybe,” she offered, “I’m not sure yet.”

  Petr nodded as if understanding not to push it further, and then changed the subject. “Well, I was thinking…if you…if you are going to be around tomorrow…I only work until noon, and my father won’t pick me up until around four.” The boy looked away and swallowed hard. “So I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch tomorrow. With me. A picnic maybe.”

  The corners of Gretel’s mouth turned up slightly, reflexively, and she cocked her head in a move indicating both flattery and delight. “I…sure…I would love to.”

  “Okay! That’s great! Do you want to meet somewhere here in the orchard?”

  Gretel thought for a moment and then said, “Do you know Rifle Field?”

  Petr shook his head.

  Gretel was suddenly embarrassed for Petr, and realized she had just hijacked his plans by inserting Rifle Field into the date. “I’m sorry,” she said, “it doesn’t matter. The orchard is fine.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m not sold on the orchard. What’s Rifle Field? It sounds great.”

  Gretel smiled and recognized a new sweetness in Petr. She saw a mature quality, one that just wanted happiness for the ones he cared about and didn’t need to control the feeling or be credited for bringing it about.

  “It’s just on the other side of the cannery. From here you can only get there by boat. If you want I could pick you up and we could go there.”

  After the suggestion had left her mouth Gretel realized how forward she must have sounded, but she felt comfortable in the offer. “Or, again, the orchard’s fine too. Wherever.”

  “No! No, it’s fine. Rifle Field sounds perfect. I’d
really like to see it.”

  “Okay then, I’ll pick you up at noon.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Anika’s mind spun as she read the gruesome recipe in front of her, the matter-of-fact tone in which the steps and measurements were explained only adding to the horror.

  She frantically began to investigate her incisions and scars more closely, desperately craning her neck over her shoulders, trying to figure out what had been taken already. And what surgeries were still to be performed. Surely she wouldn’t survive these procedures much longer! Specifically the removal of her liver, which, apparently, judging by the bookmark and what she could decipher of the markings, could occur any day. Maybe this day. The woman had said she’d ‘take more tonight,’ and though Anika didn’t get the sense that the ‘more’ she was referring to would be the death blow necessarily, she simply couldn’t risk waiting any longer. Even if the woman ‘only’ tapped her spine for a few driblets of fluid, she could easily sever a nerve or crack a vertebra. And what good would survival be at that point? She had to get out of there today.

  As Anika read further, she saw that the book also contained ingredients for the pies she’d been eating.

  As she suspected, those pastries indeed seemed critical in making the final product (which is how Anika now thought of herself) and contained a bizarre assortment of things. Some of the ingredients hadn’t been translated, and others Anika had never heard of, but even the sounds of them had a sinister quality. Goose Proventriculus. Aged Lynx Bladder. Baneberry. Not exactly the stuff of Christmas desserts, she thought. And where this crazy old woman even found such things or knew where to look for them, baffled Anika.

  But really, what was the difference? The ingredients could have been candy canes and jellybeans for all it mattered. The planned conclusion was for Anika to die, painfully, and if she wanted to thwart those plans, she had to move soon.

  Anika closed the huge black book, poured the glass of water into the bedpan, and began on the pie.

  As she ate, her thoughts surged with the idea that this was the last pie she would ever eat in her life, whether that life ended today or fifty years from now.

  The taste of the thing was horrible, of course, but she took down every shard of crust and sludgy finger scoop of black saucy meat, using all her will to suppress her constant gags. As she finished and wiped her mouth and hands on the bed sheets in long streaks, Anika mentally finalized her plan.

  The inside of the bowl was still slick and hard to hold, but she resisted cleaning it—when it dried it would become sticky and create the perfect grip. She placed the heavy ceramic bowl by her hip beneath the sheet and waited. The woman would be home by nightfall, Anika presumed. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  ***

  The old woman had waited for just such a morning to make the journey. A cool day at the end of a long dry spell. It had been eleven days since the last rainfall, so the floor of the forest was well-parched and navigable. With her strength as it was, long morasses or wide creek beds would have been impassable. But on a day such as this, she felt confident about the trek. As long as she could find what she sought quickly.

  Most of the signs that her Source traveled these parts only recently had long since eroded or been covered by leaves. But one clue had endured, miraculously, to quite literally light the way. A food wrapper, small and rectangular, used for enclosing something store-bought and processed. The casing was silver, highly reflective, and like a beacon it flashed just a glint as it caught a renegade ray of sun that had maneuvered past the canopy. It winked at the woman, beckoning. The woman considered it afterward and determined there must have been two hundred feet between her and the small discarded foil, but it had pointed the direction exactly, and without backtracking a step, the haggard woman found the abandoned car.

  Life again delivering.

  There were no signs that the car had been discovered by anything other than Northland fauna, but the old woman opened the passenger door warily anyway, as if suspecting a trap had been set. But if indeed they were responsible for sending her Source, certainly there’d be no point in trapping her. It was she who made the potion. Not them!

  And there was no trap. Instead the door creaked lazily open, and the leaves which had perched between the door and the roof frame fell harmlessly to the ground. The woman stood back from the car and stared inside, searching.

  There wasn’t much, other than an empty mug and the balled remains of what appeared to be an old newspaper. Cars had certainly changed quite a bit since her last experience, but the compartment below the dash—the glove box they called it, for storing a driver’s gloves in case the day was cold—remained.

  She pulled the lever and dropped open the door of the small box, and was instantly greeted with a stack of papers, along with a set of miniature tools and a near-empty container of what appeared to be some type of lotion. The woman fished out the papers and shuffled through them, tossing those she found useless to the floor until she found what she was looking for: Anika Morgan’s identification card.

  Anika Aulwurm Morgan.

  The Source had given her first and last name on that first day in the slaughter room, when she still held a small level of trust—and even gratitude—for the old woman. It was a common enough name, Morgan, and not one she could attach to him in any way.

  But another name had emerged, six nights ago, in the fever of poison, during the woman’s routine room inspection. The young Source had let slip the name Aulwurm. She’d said the name twice, groggily yet distinctly, but had attached it to no other name. The old woman had frozen at the sound of the word, and the tingle in her eardrums had cascaded down her back.

  Aulwurm.

  It was a name the old woman knew well: a surname that formed branches not far from her own on her family’s tree.

  And beyond just her recognition of the name, Aulwurm was unusually distinct. It was the maiden name of her grandmother and, as the old woman recalled, her Aulwurm uncles and aunts had taken great pride in the rarity of their name, claiming that it was born and existed in only a very segregated section of the Old World.

  She’d heard the name only once since she’d been in the New Country—during that one night over a year ago when the men had come. Other than that time, over the centuries now that she’d been alive, the old woman couldn’t remember ever hearing the name outside of her family. And certainly never in the New Country.

  But just as the woman suspected, upon hearing the name ring from the lips of her Source only nights ago, Aulwurm was the middle part of Anika Morgan’s full name—as it had been the middle name of her mother, no doubt—having been passed on through generations to all girls born to the family, by parents who wished to keep Old Country traditions and birthrights alive not only in their male offspring, but in the females as well. Certainly young Gretel’s middle name was no different.

  The moment she’d heard the name the woman wanted to wake her Source immediately, and use all her means to coerce the girl into revealing her family’s full history. But since learning of her fate, the Source talked very little now and was explicitly silent on the issues of her personal life. She asked and answered only those questions that dealt with her most basic needs, and there was little doubt in the old woman’s mind that her Source would die before exposing her children any further. She had considered torture again, another branding to the face perhaps, but she was too close now and didn’t want to risk an infection so close to the end.

  And besides, she wanted to explore for herself the truth of what happened. If indeed this was the Source of her dreams. If the memory was real. If the men had indeed come to her—in the flesh—and not in the dementia of her mind. She wanted to know if they had sent the girl—as her imagination dictated. She wanted to know if it was time to for her to pay.

  She recalled it all again: it was evening, cold, and the old man had sat relaxed in her kitchen, with the younger one beside him, anxious. The old one had explained how it woul
d happen: there would be an accident, and a woman would be delivered to her. She would need to trust in the powers, allow them to guide her, but the Source would come to her, and she needed only take in the prey.

  And then prepare it. Perform the blending which she had mastered.

  How they had known of her cabin—or even her own existence—was a mystery to the woman, and she uttered not a word that night, feigning feebleness and madness, as well as a language barrier. It was the first men she had seen in ages, and she was terrified by the intrusion and aggressiveness, particularly of the older one, as well as the overall surprise of their arrival.

  But the older one had been undeterred by the woman’s condition, and he had simply laid out his plans—as well as his expectations—as she stood quivering, panicked, hunched by the window which overlooked the cabin porch.

  And as quickly as they arrived they were gone; the sound of the departing car engine had roared in her head for days.

  But then the weeks passed and the encounter faded, until soon the woman believed it hadn’t happened at all, but was instead a dream, or one of her many fantasies she played out in the absence of intimacy. It was a strange fantasy to be sure, but so were many of them.

  But then Aulwurm brought it back to reality.

  This strange, surreal meeting had taken place, and now, as the old woman stood beneath the huge Northland trees breathing in the warm autumn air, the entire one-sided conversation flooded back to her, and she knew her time was even shorter than she thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN