Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“What can I get for you? Water?”
He waves me off, which sends him into another coughing fit.
“Tea,” he barks finally, and takes a threadbare cloth from the mantel and lifts the kettle off its hook over the fire. I help him to the table, where he prepares a pot of tea, which he lifts up and shows to us both. “Warm up,” he orders. “I have to rest.”
“Let me help you.” I step forward instantly.
“I’ll be all right.” Hansel’s father puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. His eyes are sympathetic, though he’s the one who doesn’t seem well at all. “Good to see you, Gretel.”
His breathing is labored on his way to the bedroom, and once he closes the door, the coughing starts up again.
I turn around to pour the the tea, and Hansel blocks me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, looking up to find his eyes black with hatred. “I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t—”
“You shouldn’t have come.” He lets go of my wrist like I burned him. “But here you are. What do you want?” I can’t deny that it pains me, to see him struggle so. To know what became of the village. I was able to flee, but Hansel couldn’t.
I drop my hand to my side. I’d wanted to talk. To tell him how sorry I am, and how I know it’s been difficult. I’d wanted to sit together the way we used to.
That’s not going to happen now.
“I need you to come with me. You—you remember what she said before we did what we did. Before we did what had to be done.” A chill runs through my body. It’s like a confession. One only he would understand the weight of.
Hansel crosses his arms over his chest. His face is so unfamiliar to me like this. It’s like looking at a stranger. “Before we killed her. The witch is dead.”
“Hansel. She’s come back. I know she has. I can feel it.” My heart pounds. The witch isn’t here—I can see that with my own two eyes—but I’m still terrified. “Something’s happened, and I’m scared.”
Years ago, he would have taken my hand. He would have asked me what he could do to help me feel less afraid, and then Hansel would have done it.
His expression doesn’t change. The hardness that stares back at me is unbearable.
“She can’t come back,” he says flatly. “If she could, we’d be dead by now. We’d hear her. The screeching.” His eyes go dull and faraway. Hollow.
I would give anything to go back to when his eyes were bright. Anything. But there’s no magic that will take me there. I curl my hands into loose fists to keep myself from reaching for Hansel.
“She cast a spell when they killed her.”
He looks away, his shoulders tensing, then looks back at me. “That was long ago. Why do you think she’s back now?”
I pace in the small kitchen and whisper, “I had a nightmare.” It makes my stomach hurt to think about it. The dark path. The black branches covering the sky. The sounds in the forest all around us. “I thought it was real. I thought I was back there.”
“A dream doesn’t mean—”
“And when I woke up,” I interrupt, too loud, the dream back in my head. It’s not easy to shake it off and keep going. “There were rocks leading to my door.”
Hansel scoffs. “Someone else could have—”
I step closer and lower my voice, but I want to scream. “They didn’t stay outside the door!”
“So you brought them in?”
“I didn’t! I—” I glance at the bedroom door. It’s still closed. “Either I’m going crazy, or she’s beckoning me back. I’m scared.” We left the small rocks to find our way back home. The rocks have come back to haunt me. Every night for over a week.
“You’re going crazy if you think—”
“She’s been leaving rocks in my living room! Exactly like the ones we left so we could find our way back! Straight to my door. Beckoning me here!”
His mouth drops open. “What?”
“I swear. They’re the same stones.” The chill captures my body and it has nothing to do with the winter outside.
Hansel shakes his head. “Stop it.” For a moment, his eyes flash. I know the pain he went through. He took the brunt of it. He saved me. He was everything I needed and then he decided we were nothing. Nothing but the past.
“I wish I could. I wish it would stop. But it’s not stopping. It’s been happening for weeks.”
“Stop it, Gretel. I don’t know why you came here, but it’s not—”
“I came here for this,” I hiss at him. “Because this is happening, and I can’t stop it without you. And I thought you deserved to know. She’s not gone. She’s back,” I warn him with tears pricking my eyes. I wish it wasn’t so. But the fear is unrelenting. “I wouldn’t come, unless I had no choice.”