by L. L. Soares
“A fondness… Jesus, you don’t mean she—”
“No.” Anders read the revulsion on Paul’s face, knew he was still thinking in modern terms. Except the reality of the situation was far worse than perversion or molestation. “Do you remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? Like so many others, it’s based on fact. From July to December, Gryla wanders the darkest woods of the Earth at night, looking for children to lure back to Winterwood with promises of candy and treats. But now, with the feast approaching, she’ll be busy in her kitchen, preparing her—”
“Stop it!” Anna turned to her husband. “She’s going to turn them into fucking pies, Paul. Our children. Cooked and served for dinner, goddammit.”
“No.” Paul shook his head. “No. I refuse to believe that will happen. We’ll get out of here. We’ll find them. There has to be a way—”
A door slammed in the distance and someone in the back of the cell sobbed. “Quiet or she’ll take you next,” another voice said.
A shadow appeared, short and wide, moving along a wall of the corridor.
“It’s the cat!” The children in the cell moved back against the far wall, cowering in a group. Anders’s heart gave an abrupt bang and his hand went for his pills, but the pain didn’t repeat.
The shadow grew larger and then resolved into a familiar form.
Ulaf.
“Hurry now,” said the elf, taking the key from its peg. “We don’t have much time.” He thrust the key into the lock and pulled the door open.
The sight of the person who’d betrayed them ignited a fury in Anders, but when he tried to stand a ripple of dizziness sent him back to his knees and forced him to watch while Anna strode forward and slapped Ulaf across the face.
“You bastard! You left us to die and now my children are gone.”
Ulaf rubbed his face and effected a distressed expression. “I’m truly sorry for my actions. But what choice did I have? Dead to rights they had you. And what good would I be in helping you escape if I sat behind the bars as well?”
“Bullshit.” Anna stepped past him and then paused. She glanced in both directions before fixing her gaze on Anders. “We don’t need him. You can find them.”
Anders took Paul’s proffered arm and slowly got to his feet. He shook his head carefully, wary of bringing on another dizzy spell.
“Listen to your father. He knows you’ll never find your kin without me,” Ulaf said.
“Screw you. I’ll find them myself.” She took a few steps to her right and stopped again when neither Anders nor Paul followed. “What are you waiting for?”
“We need him.” Anders pointed at Ulaf, hating his words but knowing they were true. “Otherwise we could end up wandering the castle until we either get caught again or end up like…”
“Me,” Ulaf finished. “And then you, too, will be trapped here for eternity.”
“Paul, they’re our children.” Anna turned her gaze to her husband. The flickering light of the scattered torches turned her into a living corpse. Anders hoped it wasn’t a foreboding of things to come.
“What if he’s right?” Paul asked.
“I am,” Ulaf said.
“Why should we believe you?” Anders felt as torn as his son-in-law looked. The elf had already deceived them once. Or had he? Was he telling the truth?
“Why would I come back, risk my own neck?” When no one answered, Ulaf sighed. He glanced down the corridor and then continued speaking, “Listen then. I’ve told you a little of how I came to be here. ’Twas the first night of Yule when they caught me. But not just me. They took my brothers as well. Six of us. They put me in the stables and sent the rest to work tending the fires. I never saw them again. Eaten, they were. Cooked into stew by that damn hag. I never knew, not until ’twas too late.”
Ulaf placed a hand on his belly. Anna’s eyes went wide and she turned away. The horrified look on Paul’s face showed that he, too, understood the ghastly implications of Ulaf’s story.
“Aye, they’re a part of me forever now. When I found out the truth, I vowed I’d have my vengeance someday. But never did I have an opportunity. Not until now.” He held out his hands to Anders. “Alone, neither of us stands a chance. But together…we can make the witch pay for what she’s done. To all of us.”
Anders took a moment before speaking. Every word the elf spoke made sense. And were they any worse off casting their lot with a possible traitor than bumbling their way through the castle on their own?
“All right. We’ll follow you.”
“No.” Anna shook her head, her eyes pleading with him. Her look cut Anders to the bone. First, he’d let her down by trusting the elf to keep them safe. Now, he was doing it again by siding with Ulaf against her. She might never put her faith in him again, but it didn’t matter. Not as long as they got the boys home safe.
“I don’t see any other way. We only have until sunup. This is our last chance.”
Anna’s face hardened but she stayed silent while Ulaf waited for Anders and Paul to exit the cell. He went to shut the door again and Anders put a hand out.
“Wait. What about them?”
Ulaf looked at the children huddled against the back wall.
“’Tis too dangerous. We can’t save them and your lads too.”
Anders stared at Ulaf until the elf turned away. “Ah, fine then. I hope no one sounds the alarm before our task is done. Hurry yourselves now.” Ulaf motioned to the children to come forward. At first none of them moved; then two of them stood up and exited the cage. A few more followed, and finally the rest grew braver and rushed through the door.
“That way lies freedom.” Ulaf pointed down the passage in the direction the ogres had taken. “Through the woods to the widest road ye can find, and then look for the Veil. It’s the best I can do.”
He turned to Anders. “Their escape is in their own hands now.”
“How will they get home?”
“The Veil always returns you to where you belong. Come, we’ve a ways to go.”
Anders fell in step behind the elf, who turned in the opposite direction he’d sent the children. The same direction the witch had come from. As he passed Anna, she turned her head, refusing to meet his eyes.
Please, God, let us find them before it’s too late. All I want is for my family to be safe and whole.
If he couldn’t have that, then life wouldn’t matter.
Only a few minutes into their trek through the castle, Anders was already wondering if he’d made the wrong decision. Ulaf had almost immediately led them out of the main tunnel and down a side branch, explaining he knew a way to the witch’s kitchen far less traveled than the main route.
“Can’t be seen wandering the castle,” he whispered. “Either the cat or the King’s guards will have our guts for sure.”
It made sense at the time, but now Anders wasn’t so sure. Ulaf’s back way turned out to be a narrow, tortuous passage through the very roots of the gigantic tree that formed the castle. The only light came from patches of phosphorescent slime whose glow enabled Anders to make out the shadowy form of Ulaf a few steps ahead, but nothing beyond that. The uneven floor threatened to trip a careless foot with every step, and the tiny rootlets sprouting from the walls and ceiling snagged at hair and clothes with evil delight, each unseen touch more frightening than the last while delivering visions of cannibal trolls reaching through the soil to grab unwary intruders.
Hunched over and with his arms stretched out to guide him, walking quickly became an exercise in torture for Anders. At the same time, the tunnel itself played tricks with the senses. The dirt and wood deadened sounds and twisted them around so that the breathing and occasional frightened gasps of Paul and Anna behind him seemed to come from close by at one moment and then far away the next, so much so that every few yards Anders glanced back to make sure they hadn’t falle
n behind.
A chorus of angry shouts reached them and Ulaf cursed. “Faster,” he urged. “They’ve discovered your escape.”
“Will they follow us?” Anders asked.
“’Tis likely they’ll search outside first, as any sane man would make for the forest. But best we not wait around to see.”
The elf put on more speed, his smaller stature making it easier for him to navigate the narrow space. Anders did his best to follow, but more than once Ulaf turned and motioned at him with an exasperated expression.
Anders’s knees soon began to ache worse than his back and it became harder to breathe. A nervous tingle ran through him at the thought that there might be something wrong with the air. Then he noticed the upward slant of the tunnel and the cause of his discomfort became apparent.
We’re climbing uphill.
The darkness, together with the twists and turns and obstacles to climb over, made it impossible to determine how far they’d gone, but the increasing pain in his legs told him they were moving up through the tree at a fairly steady rate.
“How much farther?” he asked, his words coming out between panting breaths.
“Two more levels to the kitchen,” Ulaf said. “But now the danger grows worse.” The elf turned sharply to his left and disappeared. Anders hurried around the corner and almost walked right into the smaller man, who’d come to a stop. Anna and Paul pressed in behind them a moment later.
With their bodies squeezed against each other in the confined space, Anders experienced true claustrophobia for the first time in his life.
If someone discovers us now, we’ll be sitting ducks, flapping our wings and quacking while we get taken one by one.
Anna’s hand found his and squeezed. He felt her arm trembling, and her fear served to calm his anxiety. He needed to be strong for her. For the boys. He squeezed back, hoping his gesture returned some comfort.
Ulaf put a finger to his lips.
“Hush now. Through this door is the castle proper, and we must make haste to avoid being seen or scented.”
“Gryla?” Anders asked.
Ulaf nodded. “Aye, but not just her. Her cat roams these halls, and soon the King will be back. He’s a nose for human blood, and it won’t be long before he catches a whiff of tasty morsels such as yourselves.”
With his warning hanging in the air, Ulaf opened a normal-sized door Anders hadn’t been aware of. Light flooded the tunnel, momentarily blinding them. When Anders’s vision cleared, he saw no sign of the elf.
Where did he go? Once more, unwelcome thoughts of abandonment and betrayal surged through Anders’s head, and he hurried forward through the opening, half expecting to find a line of guards waiting for them.
Instead, he found an empty corridor illuminated by dozens of blazing torches set along both walls. Unlike the root- and slime-infested warren they’d just traversed or the clammy, putrid dungeon far below, the new hallway was easily twenty feet wide and ten feet high, its wooden floor and walls polished to a gleaming sheen. Intricately carved doorways, none of them marked, were irregularly spaced on both sides. Warmer air, scented heavily with burning pine, produced an almost holiday atmosphere, to the point where Anders felt he could close his eyes and wake up back in his parents’ family room, his brothers and sisters gathered around him on the floor while they listened to Oma tell tales of the Black Forest and the dangerous mystical creatures it held.
“Nie in den Wald zu gehen, wird die Hexe erhalten Sie.”
Anders stumbled and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. With a start, he realized he’d been lulled into a half slumber, a walking dream, by his exhaustion.
You were right, Oma. We went into the woods, and the witch did get us. Now we have to find a way out.
Cursing himself for letting his guard down, he checked in both directions before motioning for Anna and Paul to join him.
“Where’s Ulaf?” Paul asked.
Anders bit his lip, loath to admit he’d been wrong about the damned elf again, that they’d been abandoned, when a nearby door opened and Ulaf peeked out.
“This way. Make haste.”
With relief lending new strength to his legs, Anders hurried across the hall and into a dark space filled with shadowy objects. He stepped to one side so Anna and Paul could enter, and then froze when Ulaf shut the door, cutting off the light from the hall.
“Here we’ll be out of harm’s way while we wait,” Ulaf whispered. Anders heard him moving around and wondered how the elf could see in the complete blackness.
“Where is here?” Anna asked. “And why are we waiting? We should be looking for my boys.”
“’Tis one of the witch’s pantries,” Ulaf said. “One level up from the Great Hall. And wait we must, for the King will return shortly from the Hunt. And if we were to be caught in the halls by him or his men, it would be straight into the ovens for us.”
More rustling sounds reached Anders, and then a spark of light appeared. Ulaf held up a glass jar filled with some of the phosphorescent slime from the burrows they’d traveled through.
“’Tis too dangerous to risk a torch, but this will stave off the dark just a bit.”
“How long?” Anders asked, sitting down next to the elf. Anna and Paul did the same, the four of them forming a circle around the tiny glow. With the door blocking the warm air from the hallway, the temperature in the room dropped quickly and Anders pulled his coat tighter around his neck.
“Too long to stay on our feet, too short to nap,” the elf said. “We can converse, but softly. This room is not used much during the Yule, but better safe than sorry.”
“Where is the witch?”
In response to Anders’s question, Ulaf pointed up. “Two sets of stairs to the kitchen.”
After that, no one spoke for a few minutes; then Paul cleared his throat.
“That story always terrified me as a kid.”
Anders frowned. “What story?”
“Hansel and Gretel. You said before it was based on that old bitch, Gryla or whatever. As a boy, it gave me nightmares. All those Grimm fairy tales did. Cannibal witches, giants, fathers selling their daughters to the devil. They were all bad, but Hansel and Gretel kept me up for weeks after I read it. I don’t know how other kids enjoyed those stories.”
“The Grimm’s fables were never meant to entertain,” Anders said. “Long before they wrote them down, people throughout the North knew them as cautionary tales, warnings to keep children safe. But over the centuries they became part of folklore. No one believed them anymore, and what once served an important purpose soon became nothing more than bedtime stories.”
“Like Santa.” Anna’s voice held a note of regret.
“Yes. The Catholic Church would not permit tales that didn’t promote Christianity in some way. So they changed our fables. Turned demons into jolly elves and Old Man Winter into nothing more than a silly face blowing wind on holiday cards. Easter, Christmas, Halloween—everything has a darker truth if you look deep enough.”
“How do you know all this?”
Anna rolled her eyes at her husband’s question, and Anders felt a pang of sadness at her reaction. He imagined her thoughts—oh boy, here goes the old man with another story—and he knew Willa had been right. He’d been a fool to try and raise his daughter the old-fashioned way in a modern world. Still, Paul had asked, and he deserved to know.
“I come from a small town in the Black Forest of Germany. In those days, everyone believed in the old ways. In the weeks leading up to Weihnachten—Christmas to you—the whole village would prepare for the holiday. Wreaths hung on doors to show belief in the Holly King, and a tree stood in the house to represent Winterwood. Boys and girls would be on their best behavior to make sure they had a gift waiting under the tree so the Yule Cat wouldn’t come for them. The whole town would smell of roasting ham an
d duck and rabbit. And the desserts—oh, the desserts. Stollen, lebkuchen, plätzchen. Parents would mull wine, and even the children would get a taste on the coldest nights.”
Anders paused, the memories coming alive after so many years, the sounds and smells real again, as vibrant as they’d been in his childhood.
Anna cleared her throat, and Anders took a deep breath. “I digress. When I was ten, my friends and I snuck out of our houses on a dare. It was forbidden to walk the streets at night during Yule, but we were foolish, the way young boys usually are. We didn’t believe. We almost made it back, but on an empty street, it came for us.”
“What?”
“The Yule Cat. Bigger than a tiger or lion and twice as fast. We had a head start, but it wasn’t enough. It killed two of my friends and then caught me as I climbed into my bedroom window. I would have died right there but my father chased it away with a present.”
“A cat the size of a lion?” Paul’s eyebrows went up. “Are you for real?”
Anders lifted his coat and sweater, exposing the three long scars that twisted across his left side.
“Does this look real? That cat has haunted my dreams all my life. I was lucky. Others were not.”
“I always thought you made that up just to scare us,” Anna said. “Mom told us you got those scars in the war.”
“Your mother came from the city. She wasn’t brought up with the same traditions.” Anders pulled his clothes back down, covering flesh already growing chill. “She said the old ways should be left in the Old Country.”
Paul looked ready to ask another question, but a thunderous trumpeting of horns echoed through the castle, the strident notes amplified and spread by the giant tree’s passages and chambers.
“The Hunt!”
Anders caught a glimpse of Ulaf’s eyes widening before the elf covered the jar of glowing mold and darkness took charge of the room again.
The absence of light only served to emphasize the menacing sounds of the Wild Hunt returning to the castle. A vibration rumbled to life in the floor and grew stronger, a rhythm felt more than heard, yet somehow perfectly in time with the oddly nasal blasts of the horns. An image came to Anders: a hundred enraged elephants stampeding across a plain, their trunks heralding the inevitable arrival of destruction and Death.