A Second Helping

Dear Hansel,

Brother, I am so so sorry that I failed you.

I can still see your face when we first found that house. I had never seen you smile like that. Your hunger had been growling for miles through the trees, and then suddenly there was the gingerbread, the icing, the candy. We fell upon it like starving animals.

Things felt eerie as I nibbled my last red gumdrop. I heard footsteps from inside the home. I tried to call your name, but your head was buried in the icing of the window frame, lost in the sweetness.

Then, the window shattered. That wretched, gray arm lunged through the glass and hooked into your shirt. You flailed, sugar-sticky and helpless, as she hauled you into the dark. To muffle my own scream, I slammed my hand over my mouth. And then I ran.

The stench of my cowardice took hold instantly. I ran until the breadcrumbs were gone, either eaten by birds or dissolved by the damp, and I was alone with the trees. I wandered around for hours, circling in my own fear, until the forest spat me back out in front of that house again.

I decided, well, if I was going to die, I wasn't going to die a coward. I ripped a jagged branch off of a nearby tree, sharpened it against a rock, and marched towards the door.

To my surprise, the door was unlocked. I turned the peppermint doorknob slowly, lifting my stick in front of me in preparation for a fight. Inside, the witch was a shadow hovering before an iron oven. She was cackling, sliding something heavy and human-shaped onto the grates. I didn't look. I couldn't. I swiftly moved into the next room and found a cage, shrouded by a curtain. I gulped. I could hear strange noises coming from it.

I lifted the fabric with my stick, expecting to see you weeping. Instead, you were balled up over a bowl of neon-bright candy. You looked swollen. Strange.

"Gretel?" you whispered, your chin stained blue. I pressed a finger to my lips and began to pick at the lock with the tip of my branch.

"Stop," you hissed. "Why? She gives me everything here. Just one more of the blue ones..."

"I am getting you out of here." I whispered back.

"Why? Mt tummy would never growl again if we stayed here!"

"She is fattening you," I whispered back, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I saw her cooking another child. We have to go now."

Your eyes widened, but that didn't stop you from eating the rest of the food in your bowl. "She’s blind, Gretel. Just be quiet. She won't know."

"Good to know."

That was the solution. I see that now. We could have slipped away into the night while she tended her fire. But I was desperate to overcorrect for the girl who ran. When I heard a floorboard groan behind me, I didn't hide. I didn't stay quiet. I stood up and leveled my stick like a sword.

"Who's there?" she asked, her voice like a rustle of dry leaves.

"It's me, just eating my grub!" you had said to her with your mouth full.

"I heard voices. Who were you talking to?" she asked.

"I... um... the rats?" you improvised.

"Me," I bravely said. "I am here for him."

"Ah," the witch crooned, turning her sightless face toward me. "A second helping."

I thought a strike would break her will. I thought the hero always wins the first exchange. I was wrong. I was so drastically wrong.

She lunged. My "heroism" took over. I swung the branch with everything I had, striking her across the jaw. She didn't fall. She didn't even bleed.

"Fool!" she yelled, then simply laughed as she caught the wood in one hand and snapped it like a dry bone. My only weapon was gone.

She bound my wrists in ropes of hardened taffy, bitter and unbreakable. She didn't put me back in your room. She dragged me to a cage in the kitchen, right beside the heat of the hearth.

"Hansel!" I shrieked.

"Gretel!" you yelled back.

"Oh shut up!" the witch yelled. "Boy, I was going to let you ripen another week, but it seems like someone needs to learn a little lesson. And I need a feast."

I listened to the iron door creak open. I heard your scream, and then the horrific, muffled silence as the latch clicked shut. I screamed until my throat was raw, thrashing against the bars, but my "rescue" had only served to light the fire sooner.

Now, she has come back to my cage. She didn't bring a knife. She brought a dog bowl filled with red gumdrops.

The witched neared me as I sobbed into my arms.

"Eat up, little hero," she whispered. "You have to be heavy enough for the next fire."

And so, I wait in the heat, watching the steam rise from the oven, knowing exactly how I brought us here.

And now I await my turn.