Hungry Little Waifs

Welcome back, Weary Traveler. It's been too long since you last settled at my campfire. Have you returned to hear another tale of the twisted and the macabre? I hope so, because I am definitely in the mood to tell one. Settle in and get comfortable, won't you?

Many years ago, in the heart of the deepest, darkest forest, a woodcutter lived with his two dear little children. For years, he tried to find a mother for them, seeing as theirs had left this mortal realm on the night of their birth. There were many fine candidates to be sure, but as soon as they met his children they never stayed for long... for good reason.

What the woodcutter couldn't see - or perhaps refused to see - was that his dear little children were not as sweet and demure as they seemed. No one could be sure exactly what it was: a strange gleam, perhaps, in their eyes... a flicker of hunger that could never quite be satiated. No matter what it was, it left everyone who saw the children with an unshakable chill running up their spine.

Eventually, a woman entered the woodcutter's life that he was absolutely taken with. She was equally smitten with him, so much so that she agreed to be his wife and took his children under her wing. At first, she tried to ignore the unsettling feeling she got around her new son and daughter, doing her best to nuture and care for them and teach them right from wrong, as a mother should. Before long, however, the children began to resent her mothering. When left alone with their stepmother, they'd subject her to many cruel pranks: leaving dead mice in her shoes, dropping a bucket of old vegetable peels on her head, putting stinging nettles under her seat cushions, and far, far worse. Their favorite thing to do, she noticed, was to hide under the table when she sat down and bite her on the legs.

When she'd complain to her husband about the children's horrid behavior to her, however, the children would of course deny it. Around their father they were as innocent as angels, and even showed him welts and bruises on their arms or backs claiming she'd left them. To their stepmother's fury, the woodcutter would always side with his children no matter what. After almost a year of enduring this torment, their marriage was rapidly approaching its breaking point.

As winter fell upon the forest, a terrible blight came with it. All of the trees that were once good for cutting and selling became rotten from the inside out, as did most of the wild vegetables and mushrooms that the family often foraged for food. With no money to buy food from the local village and no foragables fit to eat, the woodcutter's family was swiftly pushed to the brink of starvation. The strange gleam in the children's eyes grew stronger with each passing day they endured without proper food. More than once their stepmother caught them staring at her, with rivers of saliva dripping from their lips.

When she could bear the sight of the children no longer, the woodcutter's wife took them with her into the forest. She told her husband that she was taking them to forage for mushrooms, and wrapped their last crust of bread in a kerchief to take along for their lunch. She led the children deep into the forest, where the pale winter sunlight could not penetrate the thick brambles, stopping by a riverbed where they often found the largest, juciest mushrooms. She gave them the bread with a smile, and instructed them to start looking for mushrooms right away, while she looked on the opposite bank. As soon as the children took their eyes off her, however, the desperate woman crept away back to her husband's cottage.

Hours passed before the brother and sister realized they were alone, but they didn't care that their stepmother was gone. Without her constant smothering and telling them what to do, they were content to play by the half-frozen river until night fell. The stale, molded bit of bread they'd been given was wholly unappetizing to them, so they used it instead as bait to catch a few skinny squirrels for their supper. That night, they slept in the hollow of an old tree with the sister's cloak for a blanket.

When morning came, their bellies were already grumbling again. There were no mushrooms to find, and they had no more bread to catch squirrels with, so they decided to keep walking, hoping to find their breakfast somewhere else. The brush was so dense that the two small children could barely push their way through it. By midday they were exhausted and hungry beyond words. They were on the brink of collapse, when the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked bread was carried on the wind toward them.

The brother and sister followed the scent to a clearing hidden far in the bowels of the forest. In the middle was a small, cozy-looking little cottage. It was the strangest sight the children had ever seen: curly white wooden trim, cherry red glossy shutters, and every color one could think of splashed in bright, bold patterns on every surface of the tiny building. The children, wild with hunger, thought that the house was made of sweets, and rushed forward to take a bite. They swiftly discovered, however, that the prettily painted wood and brick were totally inedible. While nursing their aching teeth and cut lips, the front door of the house swung open.

A kindly looking old woman stepped out on the porch, smiling at the two hungry waifs. "My stars," she said, feeling of the teeth marks left on her house. "You two must be starved to death. Please, come in, and I'll find you something much nicer to eat." Tempted by the promise of a hot meal, the children eagerly followed the plump older woman into the cottage.

For the next several weeks, the kindly old woman took care of the brother and sister as if they were her own. She cooked large, tasty meals for them three times a day, tucked them in at night, and sang lullabies until they fell asleep. She even showed the sister how to bake bread and pies, and was pleased at the girl's natural talent at it. No matter how she fed them, however, the brother and sister remained as thin as iron rails... and the hunger in their eyes never faded. Not that the old woman ever noticed, that is. You see, her eyesight was quite poor, making her unable to see the unsettling gleam glittering in their beady, wicked little eyes. At night, after the old woman thought they were asleep, they began whispering to each other, forming a heinous plot.

After living with the old woman for a month, the brother and sister put their plans into action. They got up early while the old woman was baking bread for the week, watching as quiet as doormice from the stairwell as she lit her large, brick oven. They waited and watched with bellies grumbling until she opened the ripping hot oven to slide her freshly formed loaves inside... and that's when they sprang.

The brother, being smaller and quicker, sank his teeth into her left calf. She screamed in pain and confusion, wobbling off balance and swinging her paddle blindly at whatever was gnawing on her leg. A moment later, the sister rushed up behind her and shoved the old woman as hard as she could. The old woman screamed again and toppled head first into the oven, after which the brother swiftly slammed the heavy cast iron door shut. Within a few minutes, the screaming stopped entirely, and within the hour the children's insatiable hunger was finally slaked.

From what I hear, the brother and sister took up residence in the cottage on their own after that, and are still there to this day. The boy became a woodcutter like his father, eventually clearing a narrow path to and from the cottage. The girl continued to hone her natural skills with creating delectable baked goods, always leaving the windows open so that the smell wafts deep into the forest. So, Dear Traveller, I leave you with this word of warning: if you happen to be lost in the woods, and the aroma of baked goods meets your nose, do not under any circumstances follow it. You just might find yourself the guest of honor at a dinner party that you will never leave.