by A. B. Keuser
“I love you, Gretel, but if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to knock you out for your own good.” The words came through gritted teeth as Gretel’s swinging legs buffeted the front of her. “At this point, we can count it as self-defense.”
The gate had locked behind them and there was no way she could jump over it with Gretel on her shoulder.
She considered throwing her over first and jumping after before Gretel could scramble to her feet, but with the way she was kicking and flailing, Hazel was certain she’d be injured by the fall.
Struggling with her hold, she finally let Gretel back down to her feet.
Gretel lunged, trying to get past her and though she braced against the sudden impact, her boots slid in the dry dirt. Gretel's face was contorted in pain, her aching cry was heartrending, but Hazel could not let her stay.
Holding tight to Gretel’s arm even as she tugged and tried to wrestle herself free, Hazel wrenched on the gate's release. It didn't budge.
She kicked at the hinge-free side, but it only knocked her off balance and sent her sprawling into Gretel whose tugging brought them both down a the moment of confusion.
Trying to crawl away on her elbows, Gretel kicked out and nearly caught Hazel in the face. Hazel popped up to her feet and dragged her back even as she screamed.
A shrill sound echoed around them and Hazel’s blood ran cold.
The door creaked open behind her.
*
Gretel fought with Hazel until the shriek of poorly rusted hinges popped the enchantment like a bubble. The ugly realization of what had been happening to her was soured by the knowledge she’d had no control while the enchantment had held her in sway.
It had been like someone else’s will had shoved her own mind out of the way and taken control.
When she stopped struggling, Hazel finally let her go, and Gretel turned back to see the woman who’d enchanted her. Shrouded in a heavy cowl, she stepped out of the shadows, hunched and teetering with each step. It reminded her of her father’s insistence that power found its home in the most unexpected of places.
When she reached up to pull back her hood, she did so with gray-skinned hands that bled to black at their points.
“What deliciousness has the forest provided me today?”
When her face finally turned upward, she glared at them with antimony-slicked eyes and glowered at Gretel.
“Are you wearing a corset, girl?” she tottered forward and again, Gretel couldn’t move.
When the witch’s claws raked over the leather around her stomach, she clicked her teeth and shook her head.
“That will not do. It’s the first thing that goes.”
Hazel stiffened beside her and opened her mouth, but the woman’s attention turned to her and the startled gasp that came from the woman’s cracked lips was shrill enough to make them both grimace.
She pointed, holding her hand in a rigid half-clench, like a spider dead on the ground and her brow furrowed as she reached out again, crooking her finger, commanding her to move forward.
Hazel took a step back. Gretel was just as startled by the old woman’s clawed fingers. Knobby knuckles cracked and bloody, with tarnished rings that had turned her skin green reached out and she stepped back again.
“You are something special, aren’t you, Boy?”
Sharing a glance with Gretel, neither one of them correct her.
Hazel looked nothing like a man.
Even with her long hair pulled up as it was now, and in the trousers she preferred, there was no mistaking the ways her body curved.
The witch—and there was no mistaking she was just that—took halting steps, her cane sending up little puffs of dirt each time it pounded into the dry soil. She circled Gretel and, helpless to do anything with the spell that wrapped around her, Gretel fixed her gaze on Hazel. She'd pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it in her bow. Scowling, she kept it trained on the ground.
Standing behind her, the witch ran cold fingers down her neck and tapped a staccato rhythm at her pulse point before sinking her claws into Gretel's shoulder.
Whimpering, Gretel dropped to her knees. No part of the witch's spell would have stopped them from buckling with the searing pain that coursed through her.
The witch forced her to stand and turned her around so that her back was to Hazel, and again, she traced her sharp fingers over skin. Looking over Gretel's shoulder, her fingers moved to the thin skin over Gretel's windpipe.
“Magic isn’t the only way to control someone.” Her cruel smile resurfaced and Gretel tried to move away as the claw pressed into her throat.
Snapping her fingers, the door to her right flew open, slamming against the exterior wall. Pointing inside, the witch barked a single command. "Inside."
Hazel did as she asked, shoving her arrow back into the quiver and clenching tightly at the bow, but the witch stopped her before she'd taken five steps.
"Throw that away. You won't need it."
When Hazel hesitated, claws bit into skin, and the bow and quiver flew across the lawn to rest at the base of the fence, tangled in a rose bush.
"Good boy," Pushing Gretel forward, the witch followed Hazel into the house, still using her as a shield.
The inside of the crooked house was dark and cluttered with debris. Paint peeled from the walls and dark patches of mold bloomed against the bare surfaces left behind.
Gretel had to hold her breath against the smell of decay and something much worse.
The ceiling was a patchwork of holes, smoke blackened stucco and slats that filtered in a gloomy gray light and a chill breeze.
Broken stairs spiraled upward and crooked furniture seemed to be slowly sinking into the sagging floor, its wood felt spongy underfoot.
They passed through a foyer that held doorways to three rooms. The one to her left was closed off by a pair of paned doors, cracked and broken windows shrouded its dark interior from view. To her right, a moldering sofa sat in front of a table broken in two at its center and looked toward a window so thickly covered in grime that the light that shone through was dark and a murky green.
The witch pushed them straight through to a wide open space with no furniture. Its floor was covered in rubble, and their footprints left dark slashes in the thin film.
Unlike the front rooms the witch steered them through initially, the kitchen was all heat and humidity. Its walls were caked with soot and the table set to the far side of the room was covered in dirty pestles and cracked glass vials oozing dark liquids. But the thing in the room that could not be ignored was the squat cage tucked against a wall beneath the buckled slope of a crooked staircase.
A single form huddled inside, and with a snap of the witch’s fingers, the lock vanished.
Again, she said, "Inside."
Scowling, Hazel glared at her, but her mouth softened when her gaze fell to Gretel and the hand still at her neck. After that moment's hesitation, she stepped inside, jaw flexing and eyes scouring the room.
The little girl from the forest cowered in the corner, head covered with her hands and arms.
"Don't follow me" she'd said, and now Gretel knew why. She hadn't listened and now they would all pay the price.
The witch shoved her inside and she stumbled, falling into Hazel, and though Hazel caught her, they both slammed into the hard bars of the cell.
"I have work for you, girl. As for your boy..." She walked away, licking her lips a maniacal cackle following behind her.
Standing was difficult, so they sank to their knees and Gretel finally sat down, brushing the dirt from her front where the lawn had come apart beneath her as Hazel had tried to drag her away.
"I'm sorry."
Hazel shrugged, staring at the girl. “It’s not your fault.”
Reaching out, Gretel gently shook her knee and the girl peeked out from her arm-shield. Her eyes did not go to Gretel or Hazel, they went to the witch beyond the cage. She shivered and shrank further back. "You shouldn't
have followed me."
"If I hadn’t, would anyone know you’re trapped here?"
The look she received was one of consternation.
Hazel leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her knees and looked down at the girl. "I'm Hazel, this is Gretel. What's your name?"
Gretel hadn't thought of it but it seemed like the most obvious question now that she heard it.
"Edina, and I tried to warn you." She looked at the witch, and shook her head furiously.
Glancing toward the oven where the witch worked, she swallowed heavily and said, "Now we're all doomed."
*
Edina’s proclamation had left Hazel with more questions. But she didn't voice them now. She watched the witch work in the kitchen, her movements halting, her leg dragging when she didn't use the cane. Stone and metal dishes clattered as she shuffled the mess around, making room for what she needed to work, scraping off rotting remains from one plate before she used it for something else.
“What happened to her?” Gretel asked, leaning toward Edina to whisper.
Shrugging, the little girl said, "She's two hundred years old. Her body breaks down unless she can do the renewing spell, but that takes an ingredient she doesn't often get."
The witch turned on them suddenly and for a moment, Hazel was worried she'd heard them talking.
But when she stopped at the bars, she pointed a crooked finger at Gretel. "I need more bunglewort and you're going to get it for me."
Snorting, Gretel shook her head, "I don't think so."
"Compelling you would be easy, but a waste of my energy. Do it of your own free will and you won’t die today."
Gretel spat at the old woman, but her hand flew up. She caught it in her open palm before it hit her face.
"That's rude, girl."
With a snap of the witch’s fingers, Gretel's face was covered in a glittering clockwork muzzle and she clawed at it like a cat with string wrapped over its head.
Hazel tried to help her pry it off, but the lock in the back would not budge.
Scraping the spit from her hand into a small bowl, the Witch grinned down at her bony fingers, "Now that you're properly quiet, do as you’re told and get me what I need."
Before Hazel could react, the witch pulled her hand back and Gretel was dragged across the cell and out into the kitchen.
Hazel hit the bars as the door slammed shut and the lock clicked back in place.
Clucking at her, the witch waggled a boney finger. “Behave, boy. I can do all manner of things to your girlfriend. None of them would kill her, but she’d wish they did.”
Dragging Gretel into the kitchen, and grumbling unintelligibly, she waved things in her face and made her nod.
Swallowing the ugly bile that forced to her throat, Hazel watched as the witch shoved a basket into Gretel’s hand.
When she was done, she propelled Gretel ahead of her and pushed her out the kitchen door, disappearing into the front of the house.
Edina was huddled in the corner, knees pulled up to her chin and covered with dirty fabric, she kept her face buried until the door clanged shut again.
“I’m sorry. I told her not to follow me.” She scooted away and straightened out of the ball she’d been curled into.
“What has she done to you?”
“Carcenia? Nothing except when I should have known better.” She said, the word followed by a hiccup of a breath. “She only makes me collect the things she needs for her brews. She never does the bad thing, except to the boys.”
Hazel pursed her lips, “What does she do?”
“She eats the boys.” Staring through the bars, she shivered, hugged her knees closer, and began to rock. “I had five brothers and they’re gone…. They’re all gone.” Her little face crumpled and she glared at the floor.
And as long as the witch thought Hazel was a boy too, she might soon find herself on the end of a fork.
“Why doesn’t she control you? She always controlled the boys… if she thinks you’re one, why hasn’t she spelled you yet?” Edina asked, her little face screwed up in a scowl.
Hazel paused, and then, she lied, “I don’t know.”
Royal blood was not just a pair of words used to flaunt birthright. It meant that she had a touch of fairy in her… it meant she was not susceptible to the same sort of enchantments as full humans. But it gave her one very helpful clue to Carcenia’s magic. She might wield fairy magic, but she was not one herself. She’d known that simply by looking at her. Deformed as she was, she still looked too human to be fae.
With Gretel gone, Hazel was marginally less worried about what the witch would do. She doubted the woman’s powers extended to killing at range.
And with Edina’s revelation of the witch’s intention, she needed more information.
“How long do I have?” She asked quietly.
“Until she gets hungry.” Edina shivered. “It’s been two years since my brothers… that’s why she limps so badly. She fattened them up before she ate them, but you don’t look like you need that.”
Glancing down at her waist and hips, Hazel shrugged. “I’ll just have to find a way to convince her I’m skin and bone.”
“I hope you do.” Edina looked from her to the oven set into the wall. “The screams… I still dream about them.”
Carcenia shuffled back in then and Hazel decided it was best not to speak around her. The less the old woman knew, the better. She had no idea what the witch would do if she realized her quarter fae boy, was actually a quarter fae girl.
She rooted around the cell’s dirt and straw floor, and found nothing but bones and a single piece of gnarled clockwork.
The metal had a sharp enough edge and she honed it on the strap of steel bolting the cage to the floor.
Watching the witch with every scrape of metal on metal, she saw the methodical way the woman worked. She might have been blind, but that did not hinder her from productivity. In the first hour, she cleaned and butchered a hare, her knife’s blade was sharp, but rust feathered at its center.
Methodically she gutted the carcass and separated its organs into jars that held already macerating examples of the parts she harvested. Her hands turned red with the spent blood and as she worked, Edina buried her head further into her lap, pressing against the bars as though they would save her from the ugly things in that kitchen.
Safety was not something Hazel imagined likely in the darkness that surrounded them. If Carcenia wanted to kill either of them, she could. If it came to that, Hazel would put up one hell of a fight.
“Are you watching, boy?” Carcenia said, stepping around the table. She held the skinned hare in her left hand and pointed with the knife in her right. “Some witches would skin you alive before they put you in their ovens… I happen to like the crispy skin.” Dropping the knife on the table, she replaced it with a straight rod and skewered the rabbit through.
With a smile that showed her chipped and brown teeth, she moved to the massive oven and set the small animal on the arms of a spit rest.
“Your turn will come.”
With a broken laugh, Carcenia turned away and picked up a butcher’s knife. Hidden behind jars filled with cloudy eyes and the decaying purple heads of milk thistles she worked noisily, and seemingly with no purpose.
Holding the metal in her hand more tightly, Hazel scraped the metal until pain shot through her fingers, and then she scraped harder. The witch worked away, oblivious to Hazel’s creation.
When it was sharp enough, she began to carve.
FIVE
The hare came out of the oven, with heat rising from its cooked meat in wavering clouds of vapor. Carcenia plucked at it, heedless of the temperature and shredded the carcass onto two plates.
Licking a clawed finger, she turned to look at the cage. “Not as good as the boy jerky I just ran out of… but it will do for the time being.”
Her laughter filled the too-cramped space and again, Edina seemed to shrink further back. If the gi
rl got any smaller, Hazel was certain she’d melt into the hard dirt floor and never reconstitute.
Humming a tune that grated with dissonance, the witch moved around her kitchen with purpose, grabbing this jar and that. When she dropped them all on her table with a heavy thunk, Hazel craned her neck, trying to get a better look. Whatever she was putting together was just out of sight. All she could see was the battered rim of a tin plate.
Five minutes later, the witch brought her a plate full of the shredded meat from the hare, a pile of pickled beets sat beside a loaf of bread sliced half way through six times. Each slice was stuffed with a pat of butter.
“Eat it all. I don’t like my boys scrawny.”
Hazel looked down at herself as the witch set the plate down on the floor and slid the plate under the space between the cell door and the floor. Hazel had never been called scrawny. Her frame was large, and Gretel called her deliciously plump—the huntsman reminded her she was fat every day she’d been in his service.
That hadn’t bothered her. She was happy with her body and with her size.
The witch’s demands, and her clear misunderstanding of both Hazel’s gender and size left her certain that the magic that gave her some otherworldly sight did not allow her to see the truth of what and who she was. The only thing she knew the witch knew for certain was that her inability to see was due to the fae blood in Hazel’s veins. Why she thought eating her would help… Hazel had no idea.
Hazel didn’t move toward the food as the witch took up another plate and disappeared upstairs.
Edina looked around, as if unsure the witch was gone and relaxed visibly, though she did not move out of her corner.
“She didn’t give you a plate.”
Shaking her head, Edina looked at the offering. “I’m allowed a bowl of broth morning and night, and a slice of bread in the evening.”
“Not today.” Hazel shared the meager food the witch gave her with Edina and worked at carving her pile of discarded bones into something useful.
The first thing she carved was a monkey. It might not have seemed practical to anyone else, but seeing Edina smile was worth the effort and time.
As she started to work on something more useful, she said, “I’ve never heard of a witch that was two hundred years old. I wonder how she got that much power.”