Hansel and Gretel and Hansel and Gretel

PART THE FIRST, OF TWO PARTS

Twice upon a time, a poor woodcutter's first of two wives had two sets of identical twins. First came Hansel and Hansel. One Hansel was named after the poor woodcutter's father, Hansel; the other Hansel was named after the poor woodcutter's grandfather, Hansel.

About 2 years later came Gretel and Gretel. Gretel was named after the poor woodcutter's mother, Gretel; and Gretel was named after the poor woodcutter's two sisters, Gretel and Gretel.

And it came to be that a terrible famine befell those who lived near the forest, and Hansel's, Hansel's, Gretel's, and Gretel's mother died of double pneumonia due to her heart complications from beri beri. The remaining five of the household tried as best they could, but times grew doubly tough.

One day, the poor woodcutter came home with a surprise announcement. He had met someone who wasn't named Hansel or Gretel, but who was called Lisha.

Unlike their fair mother, Gretel, Lisha was, first--red of hair and had a ruddy complexion. Secondly, again unlike their fair mother, Lisha was alive.

But Lisha was a cruel and petty stepmother, just two criteria away from wicked, according to the Grimm-Göttingen Wickedness & Loathsome scoring system. But being bipolar, additional criteria fell like double-dog dares, making her full-fledged.

Lisha began questioning why she had combined her own meager resources with a household of five others during an unrelenting famine, and simple arithmetic gave her the answer. Imagine what they had now, she reasoned, divided by two rather than by six! Although she had not been properly schooled in ratio-and-proportion, she intuited that there would be more for her and her poor woodcutter husband. Half for her, at least; and half for him. Maybe.

"Janus," she called, for that was the poor woodcutter's name. "Open up the fingers of your right hand." He readily obeyed, for Lisha was not someone to be kept waiting. She eyed the poor man's fingernails whittled down to the nailbeds under them. No wonder, she thought to herself, I won't let him put his hands on me. "Now your second hand, please."

"My left?" he asked, to confirm, for he had well-learned to be careful not to make any move without a guarantee he was doing everything perfectly and to her liking." She nodded but thought very judgmental thoughts.

She grabbed his right hand. "See all these fingers?"

"Of course," Janus answered.

"If all of us here--you, me, Hansel, and Gretel--"

"--and Hansel--"

"Yes--and Gretel...were to want to eat fingers and we divided up your fingers, there wouldn't be enough fingers to go around."

He thought for a moment. "What about the other hand?" he asked.

"That's us," she answered sharply.

He thought again, regarded his left hand, and began counting in his head. "There are," he said hesitantly, tentatively, "six of us." She grabbed his left hand firmly.

"That's not the point, buffoon!" She picked out two fingers on that hand and gave him a challenging look. "Get it?"

He didn't.

She grabbed the first finger on the "us" hand. "One, right?" she asked. He nodded. She grabbed a second finger. "Two, right?" He seemed perplexed. "Right?" she asked again. "You can count to two, too, can't you? The point is, my poor imbecile Janus, is that two eating five fingers is a lot better than five."

"Or six," he corrected her, then quickly regretted it.

"Yes!" she screamed angrily. "Exactly. What an intellect! I married a genius."

"That was a good game, my love," he said, hoping to defuse the animus.

"Oh, fie! It wasn't a game. It was a parable. An allegory. It was symbolic."

"Of what?" he asked.

"Of just you and me eating the same as what six would eat."

"Fingers?" he asked, bewildered. "Are fingers good?"

"Anything, idiot!" She paused, unfurrowed her angry brow, and then smiled, beguiling him like she always could. "You and brains," she mused, "the twain shall never meet." Now she looked him in his two eyes. "Just you and me in the household, Janus. No one else. More for you and more for me. I am tired of being hungry.

A realization slowly crept on his face from his eyes downward. "Our children," he said.

"Your children," she said. "And it's gotten to the point that some pruning is needed here or we're all going starve as surely as the next winter will come." She waited for his response, but she lost patience. "How the deuce are we gonna have enough to eat with all these children alive?" she blurted.

"Alive?"

"Around. I meant around."

"I may be simple, but I see your plan. You have a black heart, Lisha."

"No," she said, "just a hungry one. And your love is not enough for it." She chortled when she said the word "love." "The children are thin, but they're fine children. Many folks would love to have children like ours." Now she whispered emphatically. "We can thin out the herd a bit, y'know. Get rid of one Hansel and Gretel or two Hansels or the pair of Gretels. Or the whole lot. The options are many."

"My children," he cried.

"We can get them back after a while. Take them to the forest. I have kinsfolk there who will find them and feed them and take care of them. Even so, we know how to make more children. It's easy." Janus allowed his hunger to cross a red line, and she knew it.

"It's not right, I fear, Lisha. It's a sin against God."

"You're a Lutheran, Janus. Just confess it to the pastor. It's what all Lutherans do. Won't be the first time anyone who's well-fed did that! In any event, it's either them or me."

Now the gauntlet had been thrown.

"You have kin there?

"I believe I do." She raised her eyes to the ceiling in contemplation. "I'm almost completely positive. Just about absolutely certain."

"And we should just drop our children off and hope for the best? Is that really a good plan?"

"Just temporary. Take heart, the children will be found."

"Not drop all of them off, right?" he asked timidly.

"Sure. Some of them's a good start."

Hansel and Hansel had heard every word through the thin wall that separated the two rooms of their meager dwelling, in spite of being bedecked generously with woodcut ornamentations.

"We've got to tell Gretel and Gretel," Hansel told Hansel.

"Yes," agreed Hansel. "I've never heard of kinsfolk in the forest.

The parental scheming went on into the night, and each of the two sets of twins took turns listening while the others doubled up, pretending to sleep. Once the plans seemed to gel, they whispered counter-schemes, wrenches to throw into the works, anti-machinations, and sabotage, subterfuge, and duplicity. In the end, however, hunger superseded all their conniving, and they fell asleep hopelessly like they did every night.

It would be a fortnight before Lisha felt the timing was right. The snow had finally melted, and the outside environs would be less cruel for what had been planned. That's when Janus prepared the empty wagon and instructed Hansel and Gretel to join him on the ride through the forest where he had planned on felling some trees. Lisha joined them for the send-off.

"You've never needed us before," said Hansel.

"Yes, Papa. Why this time?" asked Gretel.

"What about me?" asked Hansel.

"And me?" asked Gretel.

"You two will have your turn," Lisha explained.

"To help Papa?" asked Hansel.

"Yes," Lisha answered.

"We want to help him now, with Hansel and Gretel," Gretel complained. "He'll have twice the help," she added.

"Maybe," Lisha said, "but I only had enough provisions for them. I wouldn't want you to go hungry."

"You mean we have food for us to eat here, instead?" Hansel asked.

"Then why not pack it for us to go with them now?" Gretel asked.

At this point, Lisha beat them both with a stick and they complained no more. Lisha just wasn't clever enough to disguise her plan that the remaining two would be backup if the nefarious delivery of Hansel and Gretel to the wicked witch went awry.

It should be noted that Janus knew nothing of a wicked witch. His understanding was that he could drop off Hansel and Gretel and promise to return a little later, but only return after Lisha felt their fortunes had turned enough to allow it. He depended on Lisha's assurance that some kind of forest kin she claimed to have would take them on during their time of need. Of course, she knew better. She knew all about the witch of the forest.

By the time the day was half over, Janus was already on his way back, without the children with whom he had begun.

PART THE SECOND, OF TWO PARTS

"Hello, children," the wicked witch of the forest soon said, greeting Hansel and Gretel. She could smell children easily from her unique house in the forest.

"Hello," said Hansel.

"Hello," said Gretel. "Who are you?"

"My name is Twila," she answered. "What are your names?"

"Hansel," answered Hansel.

"Gretel," answered Gretel.

"God is gracious," said Twila to Hansel. And to Gretel, "A beautiful pearl you are." Hansel knew God had been doubly gracious with him and his brother, and Gretel knew beautiful pearls came by the pair.

Hansel counted the bumps on Twila's crooked nose. Gretel counted the hairs on the gnarly crone's unsightly chin wart. They were somewhat familiar with the Grimm-Göttingen Wickedness & Loathsome scoring system, under Category: Crone, and couldn't really remember if only two bumps or two hairs met the criteria. Lisha had had one each.

"Hungry?" the wicked witch asked.

She had said the magic word, the one thing that could cause all reason to escape the higher executive centers of their famished brains. From then, they were duly hypnotized, temptation wafting toward them from Twila's gingerbread house with candy trimmings. For they could smell sweets easily from anywhere.

Hansel ran up the path toward the smell. Greta raced him. Twila cackled.

At the house, Hansel and Greta began deconstruction and salvage operations, hog-bellying every edible edifice esculent. They ate and ate until they slipped into a sugar coma. Twila smiled, for she would eat like a queen that night!

She had a double oven, a construction she had invented for such purposes, for often children came in pairs or even more. She kept the ovens burning, each plume of cooked remnants coalescing into a common chimney stack.

She walked the groggy Hansel into the kitchen, where the bottom oven was open. Before he could resist, in he was shoved, the door slamming shut. The screams ended quickly enough, and Twila turned her attention to child number two.

Gretel was snoring quietly when Twila awoke her.

"Huh?" she mumbled.

"Come to bed, honey," she offered and led her into the kitchen.

"This isn't the bedroom," Gretel said meekly. "This is the kitchen. It sure smells good in here, though. Mmmm, what are you cooking?" she asked.

"Do you like Hansel?" she asked Gretel.

"Of course! I love Hansel," she responded.

"Well, then, you're in luck. Would you like to see, child, what smells so good?" Twila responded. And Gretel really did.

She walked Gretel toward the ovens and opened the top one, which was a little too high for her to peek inside. Twila herself was very tall and had no trouble opening its door. "Here, use this stepstool," Twila offered.

She placed the stepstool in front of the ovens, and Gretel stepped up to the top step. Still, she needed tiptoes, which she eagerly engaged. With Gretel teetering precariously, a simple push was all that was needed.

"They do it every time," Twila hacked a laugh, as she threw the bolt that sealed the door. The screams ended quickly enough.

Indeed, Twila ate like a queen that evening. She even went back for seconds! Twice!

PART THE THIRD, OF TWO PARTS, PART ONE

Back at the poor woodcutter's thatched dwelling, Lisha wasn't satisfied. Even with two less mouths to feed, she realized she'd still leave the table hungry. She looked at Hansel and Gretel. Then she turned to Janus.

"Janus," she said with a wink, "did you drop off Hansel and Gretel with their kinsfolk?"

"We have kin?" asked Hansel.

"We have kin?" asked Gretel.

"Yes," Lisha answered. "I'm almost completely positive. Just about absolutely certain. Hansel and Gretel are visiting them right now. I believe they have lots of food, too."

"Really?" asked stupid Janus, but Lisha kicked his shin under the table.

"Oh!" he said, to her kick. He respected the medium, even if he didn't understand the message.

"Oh, yes," Lisha answered. "They are very wealthy. They eat a fatted pig every night." Hansel and Gretel marveled. A fatted pig. Every night. It must have been hog-Heaven.

"Say," Lisha offered." Janus looked at her severely. His look was answered by another swift kick. "Would you two like to visit them, too?"

"Yes!" said Hansel.

"Oh, yes!" agreed Gretel.

"What do you think, Janus?" Lisha asked her husband.

"Oh, my love, I don't know."

"I know," Lisha said sternly as she regarded her barren table, settling the matter.

The next morning Lisha could hardly contain herself, knowing she would be dividing the day's provisions by two now instead of by six or even four.

And it turned out that Hansel and Gretel were dropped off by their papa at the same spot he had dropped off Hansel and Gretel. And it turned out that Twila had smelled their telltale pheromones all the way from her gingerbread cottage. She immediately made out for the spot.

When she saw Hansel and Gretel, she started and took a double-take. After all, weren't these the same two she had cooked up and eaten? Whatever this evil magic was, it was doubly deviling.

"What are your names, children?" she asked hesitantly.

"Hansel," answered Hansel.

"Gretel," answered Gretel. Twila gulped.

If she was seeing double before, now she was hearing double. This was impossible, she knew, for the Hansel and Gretel from the night before were leftovers now, fodder for opportunivores. She looked like she had seen a ghost.

These are bifocal ghouls, she thought, as a panic began accreting in her mind; each time the names Hansel and Gretel earwormed through her head, the panic doubled. Wraiths. Furies, here to dispense justice. Hansel and Gretel, Hansel and Gretel...and me!

"Why so unsettled, kindly woman?" Hansel asked.

A trick question, Twila realized. They either want me to confess my crime or deny it with punishable dishonesty. This is the way the gods trick you into condemning yourself. This is how they extract a confession. She turned and ran, shrieking.

"What have we done?" asked Gretel.

"I don't know, sister. I feel we must have offended her. Perhaps we should follow her."

"We'll have to run, brother. But let's. We shan't trouble her so and then allow her to escape whatever this torment is, unrequited."

They ran down a well-worn footpath until they came upon a house made of gingerbread, and whose finish "carpentry" was of candy. The children's altruism for Twila's torment quickly devolved into the calories they consumed so vehemently. For they were even hungrier than the Hansel and the Gretel from the day before.

The witch knew demons were nibbling on her home. Previous temptation for wayward children who ended up on her table, it was now sustenance for the very ones who were here to condemn her and send her to her rightful reward in Hades. She grew another hair on her chin wart. She added a criterium.

Hansel's and Gretel's hyperglycemia rendered satiety, finally, and then they remembered their mission. Hansel began knocking.

"Be gone, ghouls! Fly, Furies!" Twila called out. Greta found the door open and peeked in. When Twila saw her, she screamed.

"No, no!" shouted Gretel back at her. "Don't be alarmed!"

Goodwill that rots as quickly as it is uttered, Twila thought. They mean to seize me and bring me to the seated jurors of Gehenna. Of the abyss, the inferno, Perdition.

She ran into the kitchen, where both oven doors were still ajar from the night before. The fires in them still burned, for Twila used them to heat her home. Hansel and Gretel followed her. She backed away from them, facing them as she did.

"Have mercy, phantoms! Spare me, demons!" she continued distancing herself until she tripped back over the stepstool that had doomed Gretel the night before. In she went, backward, heels-over-head, and the force of her thud on the grille snapped the door closed fast.

Hansel and Gretel were dumbfounded.

"What have we done?" asked Gretel.

"This tragedy, we caused," confessed Hansel.

"We must run home and tell Papa and Lisha and Hansel and Gretel," Gretel said.

That's when they heard the door in the other room creak open. They looked at each other. They weighed the options for how they would explain this.

PART THE THIRD, OF TWO PARTS, PART TWO

"Twila!" someone called. Hansel and Gretel looked at each other saucer-eyed. Was Twila calling herself from her own oven? Impossible!

A woman came through the door. It was Twila! A chill ran down two young spines simultaneously.

"It's you!" Gretel cried. Hansel took her under his shoulder.

"Where is she!" the woman shouted.

"Wh- Wh- Who?" Hansel stuttered.

"Twila," the woman answered.

"But that's you," Gretel shrieked.

The woman cackled. "You think so, do you now? Twila, twice spun, that's me, if you insist, ha! Yes."

"A double," Gretel shrieked.

"A doppelgänger. An evil twin. Her ghost!" said Hansel.

"Her spirit here to vex us so," agreed Greta.

She realized that looking just like her identical twin had spooked the children fatally. The top oven door was still open, and she considered which one to push in first.

They really had nowhere to run, and this Twila strategized how to hold one while pushing the other one in. Or both in? Or one in each of the top and bottom ovens?

This was the moment when Janus burst through the door with his ax in full arc. Off went Twila's head into the top oven, which slammed shut. Before her torso could collapse lifelessly on the packed mud floor, Janus swooped it into the bottom oven.



"Papa, what have you done?" asked Hansel.

"Papa, what have you done?" asked Gretel, almost in a fugue of two-part harmony.

"Alas," cried Janus. "These witches eat children. Fatten 'em up with simple carbohydrates. Then cook them up in these very ovens."

Hansel gasped. Gretel cried.

"And Hansel?" asked Gretel.

"And Gretel?" asked Hansel.

"I'm sorry to tell you, they were last night's supper for the witch."

Hansel and Gretel fell into each other and wept.

"But all is not lost," Janus offered. The children picked up their heads, curious. "Tonight, we'll be eating like witches!" He jerked his head to the ovens. I think it's time; we're ready to set the table."

Hansel and Gretel were conflicted, but their hunger won out. It was a two-course meal of witchhead and witchbody. Hansel laid claim to the dark meat. Gretel made finger sandwitches.

After the last of Twila passed into the food chain, Janus smiled. "I have a surprise for you two," he said.

"Oh, tell us," cried Gretel.

"Yes, tell both of us," added Hansel.

"Well, we must mind our manners," Janus said. "One cannot merely show up to a dinner party without a little something for the table."

"You brought more, Papa?" asked Gretel.

Janus stepped out to retrieve a large parcel bag, dragging it in through the door.

"What is it?" asked Hansel excitedly.

"Dessert!" shouted Janus. He unwrapped the canvas and there was Lisha, already cooked, still warm, and replete with garnish.

"I have a new favorite!" shouted Gretel.

"Doubly so!" added Hansel.

The three dug in as if they hadn't eaten properly in weeks, which for them was more than the expression. At the small table were happy sounds and rude noises. When Gretel was on Lisha's fingers, Janus laughed.

"What, Papa?" Hansel and Gretel both asked.

"Fingers! Enough for everyone! Ha ha! You were right, Lisha!"

"Right--and left, too," laughed Gretel.

"Oh!" cried Hansel suddenly, suddenly disturbed.

"What is it, child?" Janus asked him.

"We forgot to say Grace," Hansel answered.

"It's OK," Janus reassured him, clicking his tongue a few times to savor the flavor. "We'll be going to the pastor for Confession in the morning. I've been told--by someone with good taste, mind you--that it's what all well-fed Lutherans do."

"If we want to live happily ever after," Gretel laughed.

"Amen to that," said Hansel.

"Amen," agreed Gretel.

THE END, PART ONE

THE END, PART TWO