Hansel & Gretel #twistfatechallenge

Hansel & Gretel: Twist of Fate

Hansel was woken by the sounds of muffled shouting. He rubbed his eyes with his fist and gave a huge jaw-breaking yawn. His shifting woke his twin, and Gretel sleepily mumbled, "Hansel?" Then she heard the shouting too. "Whas' happening?"

There was a sliver of dull, amber light coming from the slit of the open door, carving out a path through the darkness of the room like a knife. Hansel stumbled to the door blearily, "I dunno Gretel. Mama? Papa?"

"-those children are eating up everything we have left to spare! At this rate we'll STARVE before winter comes to finish us off!"

"But they're children Eloise! Our children! We can't - "

"They are not our children Adam! Or did you forget?" Eloise Baumhauer looked crazed in the flickering candlelight, the meagre light casting shadows across her face, accentuating the hungry gauntness of her cheeks and her sallow complexion. Abruptly, her expression softened and she stepped forward to gently cup her husband's face in her hands and brought his head down so their foreheads touched. Tenderly, softly, she said, "Once they are gone, we can try again, or as many times as it shall take to have our own children. You would like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Adam said, and closed his eyes, as if in defeat. "Yes I would." After a moment of silence, he spoke up again, "but it was me who stole them from their home to raise as my own, to satisfy my own selfish desires. To abandon them now..."

"Shhhhh," whispered Eloise, bringing a finger to Adam's lips, "I'll take care of it okay? You just sleep, and by the time you wake up, everything will be over." Her arms wrapped around his neck, and she leaned in to kiss Adam.

Two pairs of eyes watched from the crack of the door in silence, the eerie reflection of flickering candle-fire in their eyes.

The next morning, the woodcutter's wife roused the children from bed bright and early and packed a basket with one cookie and a quarter loaf of stale bread, telling the two that they were to visit and take care of their sick grandmamma who lived further in the woods. She bent down to tighten the red cloak on Gretel and adjusted Hansel's red cap on his head before walking back to the house. She paused when the twins made no attempt to move.

"Well?" she demanded, "What are you waiting for?"

Hansel beamed at her, laughing, "Silly mama, you forgot to tell us the way!"

For some inexplicable reason, Eloise felt a puzzling sense of unease coil in her stomach. "O-Oh, of course!" she laughed back and gave them some vague directions. Hunger pangs, she thought, must be the hunger pangs. She remained in place as the siblings bounded off into the forest, hand in hand, and she made sure the woods had smothered their figures before returning to the house.

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The moon was full that night. Its cold light seeped through the canopy, illuminating a white-pebbled trail that shone like glittering silver coins. Two children skipped down the pathway, singing sweetly and childishly in the otherwise silent woods. A darker shadow flitted in and out of the trees, following them closely.

Soon, a house came into view, the kind you find typical of a –oh, let's say– a woodcutter's family. Hansel and Gretel stopped before the house. Under the moonlight, their pale, unblemished skin glowed like ivory, and soft blonde locks, bringing to mind the feather down of a white swan dusted in fine gold dust, gently stirred in the cool evening breeze.

From the house, a woman's scream shredded through the silence of the night, alike a wailing banshee. Very soon it stopped.

A dark shape stalked out from the inky shadows of the house.