Gretel sighed and had to fight the reflexive eye roll that surfaced. “I miss her too, Hansel. And don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything.”
Hansel was quiet for a moment, and then said, “I guess I just never believed it, you know? I always thought she was coming back. Especially on that first day, the day she didn’t come home. I was scared just like you and Papa, but I also thought you were both wrong. I thought when we came here that night that...that Deda would know. I thought Deda would tell us everything was fine, that Mother had just been delayed or...I don’t know. Something.”
Gretel’s eyes welled at the sincerity and eloquence of her brother’s words, and she turned toward him, awkwardly pulling him close and hugging him. “It’s okay, I know.”
With Odalinde sitting unobtrusively beside them, the siblings remained embraced momentarily when Gretel’s eyes flashed open.
“Wait a minute,” she whispered, pushing her brother away. She turned her eyes to the roof of the truck, exploring her memory.
“What is it, Gretel?” Odalinde asked.
“That night—that night Hansel and I came here, when Mother went missing—Deda had nothing to tell us that could help. He never told us anything.”
“We already know it’s Deda, Gretel,” Hansel said, “We know he’s involved in this.”
“But that’s just it,” Gretel shook her head as if fanning away her brother’s obviousness, “Deda didn’t tell us anything. Remember Han? We were shooed to the basement. Deda and Papa wanted to talk in private. Why in private?”
“So we wouldn’t hear if something bad had happened. They didn’t want us to get more upset. Deda wanted to protect us.”
“But protect us from what? If Deda didn’t know anything, what could he have said that would have upset us any more than we already were? And yet, he wanted to talk to Father alone.”
“What are you saying, Gretel?” Odalinde’s voice was low and clear.
“I don’t know exactly,” she replied, “we need to talk to Father. And we need to go now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The old woman sat motionless in The System cruiser, her eyes closed, a long, thin smile drawn across her face. Her breathing was slow and rhythmic and her mind was clear. The smells accompanying her meditation were foreign and wonderful, and the feel of the leather on her palms, so lithe and cool, calmed her even further. And the sound. Those sounds which had surrounded her, which had imprisoned her for generations, were now virtually extinguished by the insulation of this perfectly built machine.
Resting on the seat beside her, contained securely in a bowl no larger than the one she’d been assaulted with, were the remnants of the broth, salvaged with great effort from the floor of her kitchen. There was no need to bury it now, she wouldn’t be coming back.
Almost instantly after turning the ignition, the old woman heard a voice. “Hello officer,” the female voice said, “where would you like to go?”
The old woman instinctively spun her body toward the back seat, teeth bared, looking for the intruder. But the back of the cruiser was empty, and the old witch quickly realized it was not a woman, but rather the car, that was speaking. A robot. To assist her.
The old woman glanced fervently about the cab of the cruiser, looking for some clue, a note perhaps, containing the magic words that would unlock her destination. Did the words have to be perfect? Would there be some alert if she spoke errantly? Or worse, would she trigger some self-destruction mechanism?
No.
This was her new life. Her Orphic life. A life without paranoia, only perfection. A life where only the powers of the universe worked for her, constantly thrusting her forward toward her ever-evolving completeness.
“Anika Morgan,” she said. “Take me to Anika Morgan.”
The robot was silent for several beats, every one of which pulsed through the old woman’s blood as she sat wide-eyed, anticipating.
“There is no match for Anika Morgan,” it said finally. And then, “Do you mean Gretel Morgan?”
“Yes,” the old woman said, almost laughing, her face as cheerful and alive as a child’s on a playground, “take me to Gretel Morgan.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Before the truck was at a full stop, Gretel had opened the passenger-side door, hopped out to the driveway, and was racing toward her house and the boy sitting on her porch steps.
It was Petr.
She had no idea why he was there, and why his father hadn’t come to pick him up, but she didn’t care; a fury had overtaken her, and now that he was here, it was time he filled in his part of the mystery.
The boy stood quickly, a weary smile on his face; it was a look that showed both surprise and pleasure at Gretel’s apparent excitement to see him. “Hey Gretel,” he called, “since I guess my...”
“Who told you?” she demanded, braking the last steps of her run just before slamming into Petr. She was gasping heavily and had to bend at the waist to allow the air in. “Who told you?” She wanted to say more, berate the boy really, but she had to catch her breath, and the three words were all she could manage.
“What? Who told me what? Gretel, what’s wrong? Where were you?”
“Who told you!” Gretel was now only inches from Petr’s face, eye to eye with him, screaming. Over the boy’s shoulder, she could see what appeared to be the outline of a car. It was covered by an old faded tarp, and for a moment Gretel’s mind flashed to her canoe and thoughts of rowing.
“Gretel I don’t know—”
Gretel snapped back to attention. “About my father and Odalinde getting married! You know Goddamn well what I’m talking about!” Gretel took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “I never told you about them getting married, Petr. So who told you? Was it the Klahrs?”
“No!” Petr chirped, quickly, a clue to Gretel that Petr hated even the suggestion that the Klahrs were somehow involved in any of this. But it also signaled that Petr was hiding something, and it was time to come clean.
Odalinde parked the pickup truck and had now arrived with Hansel to stand beside Gretel. Petr Stenson had an audience now, and they were rapt with attention.
“It wasn’t the Klahrs,” he began, and then quickly veered into an apology. “I’m sorry, Gretel, I...”
“I don’t care, Petr. Later I might, but not now.” Gretel’s eyes shifted again to the tarp. What was that?
Peter nodded and continued. “My father told me, Gretel.”
“Your father?” she whispered, and then glared at Odalinde. “You said you never told him.”
Odalinde frowned. “I didn’t Gretel.” Her voice was low and weary, disappointed at Gretel’s continued skepticism about her. She turned back to Petr. “Who told your father, Petr? Do you know?”
Petr looked to the ground and kicked a stray pebble. “I can’t be sure, but I...” he paused for a moment, considering his speculation, and then blurted, “I don’t know. I don’t know who told him. I’m sorry. And what does it matter anyway?”
“Dammit, Petr!” Gretel barked, her patience exhausted, “It does matter, and you do know! Now who told your father!?”
“I told him.”
The voice of Gretel’s father boomed down to the huddle below, startling it to attention like a herd of deer stumbled upon by hikers. Heinrich Morgan stood tall at the top of the porch stairs, his posture healthy and majestic, as if addressing peasants from his chamber balcony.
Gretel stared disbelieving at the man, her face now flush and her throat and mouth as dry as the ground she stood on. “Father?” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d even seen him outside. It had to be months she guessed.
“Papa!” Hansel whimpered.
Gretel turned to the boy in fear as he began walking toward his father. She couldn’t speak, and then almost vomited as she watched her brother nearly bare his teeth when Odalinde grabbed his shoulders to restrain him.
“No, Hansel,” Odalinde said calmly
Hansel’s wil
d stare lingered on Odalinde for a moment, and his breathing was panicked and wheezing. Gretel knew what he was imagining. Their father was back. Finally. And now they had to go to him and reunite. After all, what was the point of all these months of suffering and neglect if they were only going to shun him upon his recovery? What were they doing all of this for?
But Gretel now realized what her brother did not. Things had changed. Her father, it seemed, was the enemy.
“I don’t understand, Father,” Gretel said. “Why...how...” Her thoughts were coming too quickly and they jumbled into incoherence.
Heinrich took his first step down when Odalinde froze him in stride. “We’ll hear your story, Heinrich—from the porch.”
Gretel’s father smiled at what he clearly inferred as brazenness, but he obeyed, and Gretel took this as a good sign. Perhaps he knew of Odalinde’s secret and feared the powers that it implied.
“I think on some level you do understand Gretel, just as you always have. Since you could talk, you always understood things very quickly.”
There was nothing menacing in her father’s tone, but his words now left little doubt in Gretel’s mind that he had participated in her mother’s disappearance. Petr had now turned toward Heinrich, and the group of four stood in anticipation. Gretel’s instinct was to get back in the truck—with Petr and Hansel—and drive away, but she stood hypnotized.
“I didn’t plan any of this, Gretel, not initially. When your mother disappeared that day, I was as grief-stricken and devastated as you were. More perhaps. I loved her very deeply.”
Gretel glanced over at her brother and felt a sense of pride in his attempt to control his emotions. Tears had begun to stream, but he was silent, listening to every word. She looked back to her father. “Then why?”
“This explanation, Gretel, you would not understand. You wouldn’t believe any of it. I don’t suppose I believed it, not truly. Not until today.”
Gretel’s eyes were locked on her father. “What happened today?” she asked, her words slow and suspicious.
“Magic, Gretel. True magic.”
A smile formed on Heinrich Morgan’s face, and as his lips parted, Gretel screamed at the teeth that emerged through the opening. They were larger than before, inhumanly angled.
Petr began backing away, instinctively pulling Gretel’s hand, which she snatched away. “What in...your tee..?”
“Odalinde what is that!?” It was Hansel, his voice resonating with a sound of terror Gretel had never heard from her brother.
“It’s okay. Hansel, it’s often part of it. Your father has the potion. I don’t think it’s much but...Oh my God, he has the potion.” Odalinde was speaking as if to herself, trying to understand how any of this could be happening. “I don’t know...”
“I thought he couldn’t read the language!” Gretel cried. “You told me he couldn’t!”
At this Heinrich boomed out his voice again. “So perhaps you would understand what has happened.” He stood for a moment, silent, studying his daughter curiously, a bemused smile on his face.
“You murdered your wife—our mother—for this?”
Heinrich turned his head quickly to the side, as if slapped, and then returned his focus to his daughter. “I had nothing to do with it,” he said flatly. “It was only after that I...participated.”
“Who did then? Who killed her?” Gretel waited, and then, receiving no answer asked, “Was it Deda?” Gretel could sense the tension in her father, restraining his reflex to look away once again. She was like a boxer offering quick, stinging jabs. “Or maybe you’re lying; maybe you did kill her.”
At this last suggestion, Heinrich became very still, almost frozen, and then, almost impossibly for a man of his age and condition, set off down the steps in a rage, like a rodeo bull ungated. He reached the landing area at the bottom of the porch and turned in the direction of his daughter. Instinctively, Odalinde and Petr both stepped forward, flanking Gretel, preparing to meet the deranged attacker head on. That encounter, however, was averted by the woman now occupying Heinrich’s position at the top of the porch.
“Heinrich!” the woman shouted.
Heinrich Morgan’s feet stopped instantly, as if programmed, but the momentum of his body did not, and he fell forward, putting his hands in front of him to brace his fall and breaking his left wrist as a result. His screech of pain was ignored by everyone. The group instead stood gazing, incredulously, at the stunning woman in the cloak above them. Her heavy robe and clear, white skin gave her an apparition-like appearance, and it would have surprised no one if she simply vanished into the forest—a memory to be doubted later in life. But the figure remained, unmoving, a serene image at the top of the porch, seemingly incapable of the command she’d just barked at Heinrich.
“You’ll not move again, Mr. Morgan until you are instructed.” The woman’s eyes lingered on Gretel’s father for a moment, ensuring he’d understood his orders, and then she looked back to the woman and the three children on the driveway beneath her. “Gretel and Hansel,” she said, “I’ve heard about you.”
Gretel strode forward, pushing past Odalinde and Petr. “Heard about us from whom?”
“Why from your mother, of course. Your lovely, delicious mother.”
“Murderer!” Hansel screamed, and Odalinde again had to snatch the boy back by his collar.
At this accusation, the woman raised her eyebrows and frowned. “I am that, yes, many times over. It’s a title which your guardian, no doubt, assumes as well. Am I wrong on that count?” The witch cocked her head toward Odalinde.
Odalinde stayed silent and looked away, one hand still firmly on the back of Hansel’s shirt and the other ready to restrain Gretel if necessary.
“Yes, well, perhaps that discussion is for another time. As far as your mother is concerned, however, I cannot quite claim her as my victim. At least not yet.”
“She’s alive?” Gretel knew the answer to the question before she’d asked it, and her joy quickly turned to fear when she realized why the woman had come. She took a step back and glanced again at the tarp-covered car beside the house.
The old woman caught the glance and grinned. “My new toy,” she said, “perhaps you’d like a ride?”
“No thanks,” Gretel replied quickly, “unless you want to take me to my mother.”
With this statement, the old woman threw back her head and laughed. The sound was awful to Gretel, much closer to the cackle of the witches of myth than of the relatively attractive woman at the top of the porch.
“If I knew where your mother was, I wouldn’t be here with you.” The witch pondered a moment and then said, “Well, again, at least not yet.”
“What do you want then?” It was Odalinde who spoke now. “We don’t know where she is.”
“Oh, I know you don’t.” She paused. “But,” the woman continued, now pointing at Petr, “I was hoping that perhaps he does.”
Gretel looked back at Petr, and could see by his expression that he didn’t know what the woman was talking about—or at least he didn’t know he knew. “Petr?” she said.
“I never met Gretel’s mother. I don’t know her and I don’t know where she is.”
Petr’s voice was bordering on panic, and Gretel knew he was still shaken by the crazed look on her father’s face only moments ago. And the teeth.
“Oh, but you may, Petr. Certainly your father showed you things. Took you places. Yes?”
“What places? How do you know my father?” Petr’s words were now spoken with nothing less than terror.
The old woman descended the porch stairs slowly, gracefully, and when she reached the bottom, she turned sharply and headed toward the side of the house where the car was parked. Without breaking stride, she clutched the tarp where it covered the hood of the car and walked it back toward the trunk until the full view of the machine was revealed. As Gretel suspected—or perhaps knew—it was The System cruiser.
Petr’s mouth fell open slightl
y, just parting his lips, and he shook his head in a short rhythmic spasm of disbelief. “That’s my father’s car,” he said, his voice vibrational from fear, as well as the shaking of his head.
“Why yes it is, Petr, and he keeps a lovely picture of the two of you right there on the ...hmm...I’m not sure what it’s called! But it’s wonderful at shielding the sun!”
“Where’s my father?” Petr asked, nearly in tears.
The old woman walked back to the front of the car and stood centered in front of the grill. She narrowed her eyes and steeled them on Petr. “Your father is dead. He’s been dead for several hours now.” The tone was aggressive and menacing—nothing less than a dare to the five sets of ears in the range of her voice. “And unless you want to join him—along with your girlfriend and her brother—I suggest you tell me where I can find Anika Morgan.”
“Don’t you dare threaten them!” Odalinde gnarled.
As fast as Gretel’s thoughts could process what was happening, the old woman’s feet had left the ground, effortlessly, and she had flown—literally flown—from the front of the cruiser to the spot where Odalinde had stood only a second before. The cape of her cloak was flattened by the wind as she flew, giving her the appearance of some evil super villain from the pages of any number of comic books. The old woman’s hands were raised above her as she flew, with her fingers pointing to the ground, sharp, spearlike nails protruding from the tips. She looked like a wizard attempting to cast a midair spell on some poor peasant or toad perhaps. As she landed, Gretel could see the woman’s teeth bared to the top of the gumline, wolf-like; except instead of the wide canines and blunt incisors of a dog, the teeth were severe and jagged, like those of a shark.
The event happened in an instant—Gretel hadn’t time even to scream. Instead she stood silently, paralyzed, her mind reflexively beginning to cope with the loss of Odalinde.
But Odalinde was fast too. She’d moved off her spot, two feet or so, just far enough to avoid the slashing fingers and fangs of the flying demon. The old woman’s momentum carried her forward on her landing, and as she stumbled forward, Odalinde clutched both of her hands together and hammered the back of the witch’s head, sending her face-first onto the gravel. “Run! Odalinde commanded. “All of you run!”
The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel #1-3) Page 27