GRETHEL

EINS | GRETHEL

A CHILD RAN through the woods. Sharp rocks tore at the silken skin of her feet, roots snatching out to ensnare her ankles and drag her down, but she didn't dare stop. Hair as brown as bark streamed behind her, tangled in the gnarled fingers of the trees, and still she ran. She was crying; her eyes were red, swollen, leaking rivulets of purity that watered the gnarled forest, blinded by her own weakness. The forest snapped in her wake.

Her brother had always told her to beware of the forest in the night and she'd never known better than to heed his warning — until now.

The lady in the trees had sung to her in a voice so beautiful, it had captured her childish attention. The first night she came, Grethel had been woken in the middle of the night by a wonderful, lilted voice. Too small to reach the window, she'd fetched a stool on silent feet, fearful of the punishment of being found up in the moon hours and yet drawn to the enchantress, and peeped through the ragged curtains over the window sill to see the lady bedecked in flora and moonlight at the forest edge. Little hands did little good to hide the gasp. Her breasts were full, plentiful in womanhood, and her waist sloped smoothly and curved into wide hips, barely containing her other assets, where thighs littered in tiny claw marks, inside and out, framed her more delicate features. Her skin was spotless: clean shaven and porcelain, accented by a sharpness in the hollows of her collarbones, the bone of her cheeks, the petite narrow of her wrists. A great antler protruded from her hair, the size of an elk's, weaved with pale flora and branched off in natural splendour, its other half razed to a stump. Her slender neck bobbed with each captivating note. Grief swept cold over Grethel at the sight.

As Grethel watched her sing for a time, a subtle movement caught her eye. A branch slithered from the shadowed foliage behind the beautiful woman. It curled around her ankle, tentative, and slipped up her youthful thighs, stark in contrast to her moonlight skin, but the woman didn't seem to mind, as it disappeared between the apex of her legs. Even blinded by her youth, Grethel knew she shouldn't be watching, but she couldn't take her greedy eyes away. Slow drops of blood dribbled down the witch's inner thigh, and still she didn't move. Not as the forest around her recoiled, nor as the moon began to fade; not until her song had reached its cadence and she walked off, silent, into the woods.

Every night the witch (for that was what Grethel cleverly named her) would visit her, and as the sinner she was branded, she would watch. With each visit, her stomach grew, and grew, and grew, until it was so full the little girl thought she might burst. Still, she thought the witch to be beautiful.

Except as time passed she noticed an addition to her scene: behind her, another figure lingered, a male, taller than her and with a bareness akin to her witch's own. He emerged from the darkness and his hand brushed away her dark hair as he lowered his lips to her neck. Still, she sang. His other hand fell down her body, gentle touches, along the curve of her breast and down the swelling plain of her stomach. Grethel could see hints of curved horns break from his hair. His hands took as the trees around him had, greedy, with no thought for the witch or her purity. He took her against a tree in brutal strokes. Her delicate flesh scraped the harsh bark with each thrust. The witch's melody turned to moans, screams, wicked pleasure, crescendoing louder and louder. Fear overcame Grethel, discomfort at the sinful thievery she was witness to, and she knew she should look away, but the woman's eyes bore into her own as he fucked her. Coals, that was the only way to describe them. So dark, and deep, and delightful–

"Grethel?" Hansel rubbed his eyes and sat up, but Grethel had already fallen back in surprise, drawing the curtains with her as she tumbled. "Grethel, why are you awake?"

"Hans–"

Grethel didn't remember much after that, and all that she could was a distorted mess. Screams lingered on the edge of her consciousness, a child crying for her mama, a shadowed beast with fangs and claws that roared and breathed fire. The faint smell of burning wrapped around her whenever she recalled it.

The woman didn't visit her after that.

Grethel missed her: her unending voice, the soft caress it brought with it, her motherly doting and her mesmerising beauty. She missed it dearly. That was why she left for the woods in the dead of night, why, under the guise of dusk, she crept across the open plain of her house to the forest's edge, shielded from the cold only by her father's oversized coat, and why she was now running from the great forest guardian. Her ancient legs crumbled beneath her and the dirt wormed its way beneath her fingernails. Breaths surged from her brittle lungs, sputtering and dying, but the thundering had ceased.

She was alone.

The trees whispered amongst themselves in a language she couldn't understand. Despite this, she inquired after her witch in her doe-eyed innocence, and the trees quietened upon hearing her polite manner. Eagerly, she listened. Her tiny hands grasped at the trees' spindly fingers and they lead her down a path deep in the shrubbery.

Hansel had found her not long after, curled asleep on a bed of leaves. He'd shook her awake, speaking in mumbles as he checked her thoroughly for injuries and scolded her for disobeying his orders, and hugged her close. She only rubbed at the tug of sleep and held her arms out to him. He carried her through the dense forest, where the monsters could watch but couldn't get to her. The trees waved to her as she was carried by and she waved back. Leaving the threshold of the forest, a soft breeze tousled her hair and she could've sworn a lady lingered in the darkness, watching, but when she swiped her hair from her face, nothing was there.

She'd see her witch soon. Cross her heart and hope to die.