GRETHEL

FÜNF | HANSEL

HANSEL GRIEVED THE DEATH of his sister – even if he'd been the one to do it. He'd had no choice, he'd decided when the grief whispered too harsh or the guilt choked him too tight, not as she'd stared at him with that crazed glint and he'd known, buried in his bones, that fate hadn't enough stars to conclude such a story.

Sickness had descended on her, crooked hooks of branch-like fingers, and he'd been a fool to ignore it.

The grief struck him harder across the face, slashed in black ribbons, and he screamed. His hide dented under grief, as did the wall beneath his fist.

It'd been seven nights since, sleepless. Never did he dream he'd be the mastermind behind the death of his family. Now he dreamed it nightly.

It'd started with a witch, and so it had ended, too. Even in his mind, she warped and become and stood as real as she had to Grethel's eyes. Her black hair inked every shadow, eyes watching from the upturned soil, and she captivated him there, where he'd only see her and not the truth at his feet. Soft as the night's sky, her voice whispered and scratched at his door, begging to be let in. Sometimes, he heard Grethel, a voice small and tired, and those nights only the iron lock kept him from insanity.

His Grethel.

Rock chipped and crumbled as he freed his knuckles from the wall and pressed them to his eyes, catching on stray tears.

The witch was protecting them. No, Mutter and Vater had abandoned them, just children, in the woods with nothing but their wits and a wooden structure. Resent had carved its place in the hollow of Hansel's chest, and that fire had burned steady through the harsh winter, the warmth where none was given, until spring would come and breathe new life into his husk of a spirit, and he had lived -- survived.

No more did they have their childish games; their game was life. His Grethel had played, and his Grethel had payed.

No. She was outside in her garden, lying in her flowerbed, surrounded by what she loved, made of her blossoms and her life. Her wheat hair was garnished with her favourite flowers – cornflowers she'd once tried to force into Hansel's hair. Dirt caught in the crescents of her nails, a testament to her hard work and love. A connection to nature. He'd call her in soon, and she'd spring across the fresh grass, eyes flowing rivers and smile as pure as the edelweiss. Only recently, together they'd dug a new bed for a new flower – wheats and reds and black.

She'd exist like that for eternity. His heart couldn't bear to witness her remains, her ashes.

Touched by tainted soil even when at peace. It wasn't what she deserved. Grethel deserved the blue skies, to be sun-blessed, to grow older and older without the confines of a forest and it's wooden casket – he hadn't even been able to do that right. Anger scratched steel nails into the bark, clumsy swings of an axe, eating away at chunks of flesh, and he looked at his arms, lacerated in mimicry of the trees from an unmarked event in his mind's time. He, too, was insane and no lie was told to himself.

Now, in confrontation, it was more apparent than ever.

Gathering the flowers in his fist, hearing their spines snap beneath the pressure, he approached her.

Even at her burial place, marked by makeshift gravestone, piled rocks, tree roots still snaked for her. She'd once described the way they moved, the way they bent to their mother's will, schön, only Hansel saw no beauty in it. As if they'd dig her up, rip her from the earth, tear her remaining limb from fragile limb, inflict more damage on what little was left and take the last piece of Hansel as a trophy.

Perhaps they would, revenge for ruined plans: the death of a mother, a matriarch and an heir. He'd never been able to read the trees like Vater. He could count the rings of the trees, determine their age and their minds, and they'd trade life for his knowledge. Grethel wasn't much different; he could count the rings in her eyes, every dream they correlated to and every reality, every cycle that would exist only on her body, only in her mind. But her rings disappeared, left without a trace, and...

Grethel was dead.

Hansel kicked it, the gravestone, everything it stood for, took the top stone clean off. Sent it careening into the woods, into the darkness, into the night.

And he didn't look back as he walked to the house.

He gathered what little supplies he had, slung his rifle over his shoulder, stopping only for Grethel's surviving necklace – a cheap thing, rusted and cold – and paused in the doorway.

His knuckles rapped against the wood of the house, and the hollow answered.

Satisfied, he closed the door. Satisfied, he followed the stepping stones down the path. He didn't look at the grave again. Didn't balk at the trees towering over him, whispering behind spindly fingers and exercised superiority, wearing their leaves like the dresses of upper women, and their posture the men.

Civilisation was sure to catch up sooner or later, so Hansel left the woods.

❖

NaNo didn't go well and I've been needing to update this soo....
This is possibly the end – I know I know, short story – but maybe I have a few tricks up my sleeve...