I stalked ahead, furious with Hansel.  Our second day out in the forest and we were going to die of hunger.  He was sure he had been so clever, using our meagre supply of dry bread to leave a trail of crumbs.  He thought we could use them to find our way back home, even though I told him it would never work.  As usual, he was certain he knew best.  I would have laughed at his disappointed face when the birds swooped down and ate every tiny crumb but our situation was too serious for the smallest smile.

I could hear him crashing through the undergrowth behind me, blundering around, tearful and weak.  He called my name but I ignored him, concentrating my anger so it formed a hard steel ball in the pit of my stomach.  Let him suffer and whine.  I had no time for it.  Or for him.  My skin felt as if it would scorch leaves as I pushed through the brambles and bracken on the forest floor.  My rage felt as if it alone would keep me alive.

And then I smelt it.  A wonderful scent of honey and gingerbread, threading its way through the tall trees, like a promise of paradise.  Entranced, I lifted my head and sniffed, breathing in the glorious smell.  My stomach rumbled and my mouth filled in anticipation.  I forced my way past nettles and broken branches, ignoring everything except that enticing scent.  Soon, my path became easier and ahead I thought I could see a beam of sunlight.  The sweetness in the air mingled with the harsher scent of wood-smoke.  I burst from the undergrowth, into the light, and saw a small cottage, the chimney wreathed with blue smoke.

I stopped, mouth agape.  The cottage roof was covered in slates of luscious gingerbread, dredged with icing sugar which sparkled in the feeble sunlight, like snow in a dream.  The walls were made from sweet biscuit, iced with delicate patterns, and the window frames were formed from black liquorice.  The pebbles on the smoking chimney were made from red and green and yellow sweets, glistening like the stained glass in the village church.

Behind me, Hansel stumbled from the dark forest, blinking in the sunlight but I ignored him and darted forwards, eager to snatch at the crisp edge of the porch.  It broke, crumbling and warm in my hand, the most wonderful cake I had ever tasted.  I reached for more and filled my mouth, mindless of crumbs and sticky fingers.  Hansel held back, looking unsure.  I turned from him and pulled biscuits from the windowsill, pink and white wafers which were more delicious than the cake.
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‘Here,’ I called and threw one towards him.  It fell on the ground and vanished, leaving a wisp of green smoke curling in the air.  With a moan, Hansel ran forwards and fell on the doorstep, cramming the sweet gingerbread into his mouth so that I thought he might choke on it.  I realised that I must look like that, too.  After two days without food it seemed we would never feel full again.  No matter how much of the sweetness we ate, it did nothing to fill the void.

Behind us came a voice.

‘Well, well.  Deary, deary me.  And what is this I find?  Visitors?  And ones who do not even ask permission before they disturb my peace and destroy my property.’

I turned.  An old woman, with a withered arm, stood at the edge of the clearing.  She was dressed in black, with long white hair falling from an untidy coil on top of her head.  Her bony finger pointed at us, accusingly.  I knew, in an instant, what she was.  A witch and one with a magical cottage, a lure for hungry children.  And I thought:
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She is old and alone.  We are two.  We can defeat her if we stick together.

Our stepmother hated us.  I knew it as soon as she came to the house, leaning on our father’s arm as if she were too helpless to stand alone.  She came in with a bright smile and glittering eyes and, with a shock, I recognised malevolence. It was like meeting a foe in battle.  She did not want us, the children of a previous marriage.  She wanted to destroy our family and keep our father to herself.  Hansel, of course, realised nothing.  He sickened me with his eager acceptance and brought her flowers, gathered from the forest edge.  I was coldly polite and waited, sure that my father would see through her cloying protestations of love, but it seemed that I was the only one who could see how empty all her promises were.

When Father took us into the forest and tried to leave us, Hansel cried and begged to go back.  I did not.  The home we knew was no longer a sanctuary. Our father had changed, was no longer interested in us but eager to return to his young wife, with her honeyed smile and stinging eyes.  He told us to go and gather mushrooms, he would come back later and take us home.  All the while, his eyes were dull and glazed, like a pigeon that has been torn from the sky by a sparrowhawk.  He had to prise Hansel’s grasping fingers from his coat before he strode away.  Hansel tried to follow but could not match the pace of our father’s long legs.  Desolate, he flung himself to the forest floor and wept.

I had no tears.  I had used them all when our mother died.  Now I had only rage, coiled in my stomach like a viper.  I vowed that someone would pay for everything the world had taken from me and spat into the leaf litter, to make the vow stick.  Hansel knuckled his eyes.

‘What shall we do?’ he asked.

‘Survive,’ I answered and turned on my heel and walked away.

The shoe lay on the ground, half hidden in a clump of sprawling blue periwinkle. It looked like a Cinderella slipper, a high-heeled fantasy, sparkling like a wish or a promise.  For a moment, I forgot my advanced age and dreamed of the girl I used to be.  Of a time when everything lay before me and anything seemed possible.  Time telescoped, the decades seeming no more than minutes of my life.  Where had that girl gone?

Then reality clamoured, releasing me from the spell of yesteryear.  Why was the shoe here, incongruously nestled in the undergrowth?  I looked around for some kid with a hidden camera, lying in wait to see what I would do.  There was no sign of anyone nearby, no tell-tale rustling in the wood, no hurried breathing or smothered giggle.  Even the birds had stilled their song.  As far as I could tell, I was alone.

I hesitated a moment longer then bent down, using my stick as support.  My knees ached, protesting the unaccustomed action, but I ignored the pain and reached for the abandoned shoe.  It felt light in my hand, a cobweb of silk and sequins, insubstantial as a dream.  The contrast of the smooth silk against my withered hand caught me unawares.  I felt a sudden acid stab of anguish beneath my ribs.  So many years gone by since I had danced in shoes like this.  So many dreams destroyed by careless promises, leaving me alone and disappointed.  And old.

I knelt in the leaf litter with the shoe in my hand and wished, with all my heart, for a chance to go back, make different choices.  Above me, a robin sang and in my head I heard other music, the band striking up that final waltz, the last dance, last chance before all hopes were broken.  I saw his hand reach towards me and stretched out my own, not realising that it was not to me that he reached but to my friend who did not care for him but, flushed with triumph, left me alone and unpartnered as the waltz began.

Tears ran unheeded down the furrows of my face before a second, sharper pain took my breath and huddled me closer to the ground, the shoe falling from my grasp.  Now the robin’s song sounded a shrill trill of warning as pain clenched my heart.  I knew then, that my time was done.  There was nothing left to me but this final pain and the sight of the silver shoe, a sparkle like dewdrops on the grass, misty and insubstantial like all my dreams.