Gretel & Hansel Part 4

The witch snapped her fingers and I was able to move.  Stiffly, like a clockwork soldier, I marched towards the cottage, unable to resist her will.  I felt it, like thunder in my head, a rumbling, grumbling force which threatened to blow me apart if I did not comply.  As I neared the cottage door I realised that the luscious gingerbread house was, in reality, a broken-down place, tiles hung with moss and criss-crossed with spiders’ webs.  My stomach rebelled as I saw that what I had delighted in eating was nothing but rotting wood, mould and black fungus.  Despite the witch’s control, I turned aside and heaved up everything until there was no more to come.

I heard her voice inside my head.

‘That’s right, dearie.  I thought there was no fooling you.  You see clear, but it won’t help you now.  Inside with you and clean my floor.  Wash my dishes and mend my sheets.  If you work hard there will be black bread and bone broth for your supper.  If not, you will go hungry.’

My legs were force to march again, into the dark cottage where Hansel sat, eyes glazed, stuffing himself with the burnt bread and rancid potatoes.

Stop! I wanted to cry.  This is all a trick, a spell to keep you here, a willing prisoner. 

But the words hammered in my brain without any sound, locked inside my head by the witch’s magic.  Stiff and uncaring I marched past and took the broom from behind the stairs.  It leapt to my hand and fastened there so I could not put it down.  I bent to my task and began to sweep the stinking straw which covered the cottage floor. The broom knew its work and pushed it all into one great heap by the back door.  Mouse droppings and tiny bones were swept up into the pile until it loomed over me, as tall as a man.

‘That’s the way, dearie.  A clean sweep for a fresh start.  Now out with you and take it down to the midden while your brother finishes his dinner.’

Without a word I opened the back door.  The broom leapt unbidden from my hand and propped itself beside the door.  I gathered up an armful of muck and took it down the path to the midden, a stinking heap beside the earth closet behind the witch’s cottage.  A few scraggy chickens, pecking at the barren earth, ran towards me, necks outstretched, hopeful of a handful of corn.  They fought over the rotting straw like dogs over the butcher’s barrel, eager for anything which would keep them alive.  One stopped, atop the pile, and gave me a sideways glare from its beady eye.  A scratchy voice, hardly more than a fleeting thought, whispered inside my head.
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Stay alive and there is hope.  Do what you have to do to survive.