GRETHEL

ZWEI | GRETHEL

GRETHEL STARED OUT the small cabin window, now eleven years her own senior, and waited for the return of her brother. Hansel had left early that morning, before her own awakening, with only a short note finalised in his signature scribble and the family rifle missing from its prop at the door.

It was a regular occurrence. He'd leave with the moon and not return until the sun was at its highest, each time his head would shake as his tired fingers did long before, and today was no different.

Hansel ambled through the door, rifle hanging from his limp fingers. Her smile fell. Another day wasted, as he would say. But still she remained optimistic, "Did you find anything?"

"No, Grethel."

On days like this, he couldn't bear to look at her. He said her name as if were an incantation to summon the devil, a cursed slur. She began to wonder if it was so.

Hansel had run out after her the night she'd searched for the witch — when he found her empty bed, he didn't want Mutter to find her missing, because when Mutter was disobeyed her skin would burn red and taint the children's skin wherever she struck hard enough. So perhaps more so for his own safety, for Mutter would beat him too for allowing such a thing to happen. In the end it wouldn't matter, for upon returning to the house by Hansel's stone trail, their parents were gone. Missing, as if they were never even there. He had tipped every piece of furniture despite the impossibility of two full grown adults hiding anywhere in their frail cottage, and when he knew for certain (upon his fifth inspection, he believed) there were no signs of their departure, he sat down and he cried.

She'd never seen Hansel cry before, and the memory, although vivid enough to evoke the almost empty smell, almost seemed fake. Hansel didn't cry. Hansel never cried.

Grethel, still only a child, thought that maybe tears were magical, as she watched Hansel become a man not long after, but her tears were worthless. Every night she'd cry and nothing would come of it. So she stopped crying.

Whilst Hansel taught himself to hunt, it was a phenomenon that Grethel ever set foot outside the cottage at all. Mutter had taught her from an early age how to sew, and although her hand was unsteady, she managed to sew up some of Papa's old clothes for Hansel never stopped growing. 'Look what you've done, schweine!' She could feel Mutter's insults upon seeing her patchwork brother, the waves of stitching that rivalled the sea, her hands as real as the pestering draft that ruffled his slightly oversized shirt. Still, Grethel took pride in her handiwork.

Hansel swept away the blanket on their family chair; she'd taken to sleeping on a pile of withered cushions they called seating, not daring to touch their parents' room — what would Mutter do if she found out Grethel had been sleeping in their bed? His paper skin creased above his brows, smeared black as he wiped at the sweat with the back of his hand, eyes closed so delicately he could've passed as dead were it not for the twitch to his fingers and the great inhale he'd take approximately every half minute. He wore defeat under his tired eyes.

She decided all at once, "I'm going out there."

His eyes fluttered open, reflections of the skies he spent too long gazing at. "There's nothing out there."

The idea had already rooted in her mind. She tugged at a ribbon she kept wrapped at the strip of cloth securing her apron in place and began to braid her hair, down her neck and over one shoulder, pausing briefly to rest Hansel's leather pack in the nook of her elbow. Oftentimes when Grethel had an idea, and that was not so often in the decrepit cottage, nothing would stop her. Not even Hansel, in all his pleading.

He caught her by the wrist. "Grethel. There is nothing."

She shook her hand from his grip, chin lifted high — as she did when she wanted her way and knew she would get it — and tied her withered cloak around her neck. "If there is nothing then you shouldn't be afraid."

He sighed, but relented under her stare. "Not without me," and indeed he held firm to his word, retrieving his trusted rifle and a small axe he kept tucked with his shirt in his waistband, before following her down the petite trail and into the woods.

They walked for some time under the canopy of nature. Flowers peeped at them as they passed, like fascinated children in the streets, but withered away whenever they neared. From time to time, Grethel would point to them, and Hansel would answer with their names in his painfully numb voice. New was a luxury to his eyes. When she fell before a family of mushrooms, Hansel hissed and roughly dragged her away by the clothes on her back. His love may have been rough, but it was love nonetheless. White-knuckled, brutal love – just as Mutter's had been – to her pestering smile and Papa's heart.

He was so caught up in himself that his ears didn't recognise his name, not until her hands pulled at his shirt and, as if the trees had whispered it to him, he suddenly remembered who he was. The trees were closing in around them, wringing their old hands in the sunshine – crooked backs and stubborn pride. Grethel took off ahead, into the thick. Her laughter bounded along beside her, but still she couldn't coax Hansel to her side.

She came to a halt when Hansel's sight failed him and she waited for him. Little bread crumbs scattered the trail, and she mindlessly kicked at them in her frail shoes. "Hansel, I told you not to waste–"

But he shoved her aside, immediately, his rifle unslung from his shoulder. His hands shook as he took aim at the crumbs, as if they'd jump to life and rob him of everything he owned, life included. "That wasn't me."

She said what he couldn't. "That means..."

"Scheiße." It slipped from his mouth before he could stop it.

"Hansel!"

"Something else is here."