Gretel & Hansel Part 5

Weeks passed. I grew taller as though I were being stretched. There was no meat on my bones but my arms were strong, honed by the hard work, sweeping and cleaning. Hansel was different. His muscles grew flabby for the witch treated him like a pet, a precious morsel who sat all day on a shabby cushion while I fetched for him and the witch fed him small treats. He thought he ate marzipan and sweet fruits but he was deceived by the witch’s spells.  In truth, he ate boiled eggs and slivers of chicken meat from the scrawny fowls she made me catch and kill while I lived on broth made from their boiled bones.

As I grew, it seemed the witch shrank. In the beginning she matched me, eye to eye but, as months passed, she began to look wizened and small. In the evenings I caught her watching me, a strange expression flickering across her face. Sometimes I saw flashes of the girl she had been before age and hardship had withered her skin and bent her ancient spine. I envied her nothing except her power and spent the few idle moments I had in making plans to escape. I thought I could steal away in the dead of night but I knew I could not leave without my brother. He was all I had now although every day the witch took him further from me as she petted and cajoled him with soft words. He was taught to demand my service, to command me to feed him and to complain if I were tardy or slow.

At midnight I was allowed to curl up on a pile of old sacks and sleep for a few hours. Hansel was already snoring, twitching and murmuring on his soft cushion, dreaming of sunlight and running through the forest. I had no dreams. Every night I tried to think of some way to escape the witch and pay her back for my enslavement. Every morning I had to accept that there was nothing I could do while she held Hansel under her enchantment. He thought her wonderful and would hear no word against her.

The seasons passed. By early summer there were only two chickens left to kill and I wondered what we would do once they were eaten. I caught the witch staring at Hansel in a different way. It was the intent look of a cat, waiting at the mouse hole, whiskers a-twitch. Instead of petting him, she began to squeeze his arm and mutter to herself. She made me gather branches from the forest and build a pen for him in the back yard. His muscles were so weak that I had to drag him from the house, half-carrying him to his new abode. I could have lifted him with ease but I did not want the witch to know how strong I had become.

She stopped petting him once he was installed outside. He was one of the chickens, now, a creature to be fed so that he would, one day, feed her. Each morning she checked the width of his flabby arms and pinched his neck as she gauged his weight. I scurried around my tasks, head down and shoulders slumped, hoping she would be deceived by my submission, knowing I would have only one chance to vanquish her. Success would depend on my speed, my strength and her surprise.

The day came when she decided that Hansel was ready for the pot. She had me build a fire of fir cones and old branches and boil up a large cauldron full of water. She was distracted by the thought of the meal to come and I sensed that her power had weakened. The cauldron took an age to heat and I wondered why she did not force it along with some magic but she seemed content to wait, savouring the pleasure of filling her belly with Hansel’s flesh. Sickened, I trudged out to the yard to check on him. He whined when he saw me, like a dog which has been kept on a leash for days. I found I had no sympathy for his plight but only a calculation as to the part he might play in my plans.

The witch came out and ordered me to bring him to the cauldron. I opened the door of his cage and began to drag him out but pretended I was too weak. Impatiently the witch came over to help, pushing as I pulled so that we rolled the boy like a barrel towards the fire.

‘He’s too heavy,’ I moaned. ‘I can’t lift him.’

The witch shoved me aside and pulled at Hansel’s bulk. Hunger had weakened her and she had little strength left in her arms. She would have to use her magic to lift him and I waited for the moment. She closed her eyes and murmured strange, misshapen words into the air. Her bony fingers wove a circle around Hansel’s head and slowly he began to rise like the balloons we saw at the fair. Her attention was all on him and I took a step back and to the side and pushed her with all the force I could muster. She was caught off balance and tumbled forward. I bent and grabbed her ankles, forcing her headlong into the pot of steaming water. With a shriek which echoed through the forest, she splashed into the cauldron and disappeared into the bubbling depths.

Hansel dropped to the ground like a felled tree and lay, moaning with pain on the scabby grass. I peered into the pot. There was no sign of the witch. I took a ladle and stirred the pot but all I could find was a handful of bones from the bottom of the cauldron.  Behind me the last remaining chicken clucked as if in warning. I caught its eye, a beady yellow gaze which reminded me of the witch. It nodded its beak towards Hansel and pecked at his legs. A scratchy voice in the depths of my brain spoke.

Pickings enough for two or more months if you eke him out.

I looked down at my brother, lying at my feet, and thought of the meal which would start to fill my aching belly. Slowly, with a tongue yet unaccustomed to the words, I started to repeat the witch’s chant, waving my fingers in the same complex patterns I had seen her use a thousand times.

Around me the forest went quiet.