Gretel and the Dark (34 page)

‘I’d rather have ice cream.’ But I feel sad, remembering Mirela, Lena, Riika, Zsofika and all the others whispering recipes in the darkness for their pretend feasts. Erika called it cooking with the mouth. I suddenly want to put my thumb in.

‘We’ll try every sort of food there is,’ declares Daniel, and is about to say more when we hear the rumble of an approaching vehicle. I grab at his bad arm, making him yelp with pain. His face turns white, he’s shaking, and I think his legs collapse under him even before we throw ourselves into the ditch. Thick green water sloshes over us as we peer through the fringe of plants. A white bus – exactly like the ones lined up by the gate as we were marched out – lumbers slowly past, letting out explosive farts, filthy black smoke pouring from its exhaust pipe. We wait, hardly daring to breathe. Snails cling to the undersides of stems and a large frog clambers awkwardly over
Daniel’s ankle. Greet said French people only eat snails or frogs’ legs and that I should be grateful for proper food. But snails are made of snot and when I think about catching the frog it takes an enormous leap on to the bank.

We stay in the ditch for a long time, until the only sounds are faint church bells above the soughing of trees. When we finally climb out, the bleeding’s started again and I’ve lost a shoe, but there’s no time to fish in the thick mud, so my feet will have to take turns wearing the one that’s left. Daniel trudges on, bent double. He doesn’t even notice. Dripping green slime, we hop, stone to stone, across the river, and pass deep into the forest until the tree canopy becomes so dense it’s almost dark. Each trunk is the same as the one next to it, lined up in rows as straight and black as bars of a cage. The ground is springy, and covered with pine needles that absorb every sound.

‘Go on with your story,’ whispers Daniel, and I whisper too, almost sure that we’re being watched. When my eyes grow accustomed to the dim light I see someone has scattered white quartz pebbles between the trees. A few minutes later there’s a loud fluttering above our heads and we look up to see white birds fighting among the branches. I think they’re albino ravens, which are even more dangerous than black ones. When I tell Daniel this, it cheers him up.

‘They’re only doves,’ he scoffs. ‘Look how small they are. And their tails are like fans.’ He sniggers until I flick his hurt arm to shut him up.

Here I am trying to wriggle inside my own story in order to get rid of the monster and it looks as if I’m being pulled into a different one. A white dove sat on the roof of Gretel’s home. Hansel marked the way to the witch’s oven with white pebbles. Both were scared and hungry. Did the tale really end as well as
grown-ups told us? Greet changed her stories whenever she felt like it. I throw a handful of pebbles into the branches and the doves fly away. After this, I tell my story in a much louder voice.

The fir trees start to give way to birch and oak. The forest floor becomes mossy, studded with small flowers – violets, primroses and little pinky-white ones nodding their heads as we disturb the air in passing. It’s a good sign. My story has flowers. There’s no mention of any in ‘Hansel and Gretel’.

Then we come to a wall. It’s high, almost covered with ivy hanging like a thick curtain and full of squeaking and rustling that might be little birds but could just as easily be ferocious rats.
Big black rats, fat brown rats, greasy rats, lazy rats, dirty rats covered with fleas, rats with huge noses, rats with great hooked claws …

Daniel nudges me. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You looked a million miles away.’ He nods towards the wall, looks to each side and behind him. ‘Which way do we go now?’

‘We’d better walk round,’ I say, though really I’ve no idea of direction because we haven’t seen the sun for a while. ‘Quietly, until we know what’s on the other side.’ Still he hesitates, so I lead him clockwise, treading carefully. According to Greet, going widdershins invites disaster. We stop where half the wall has collapsed, leaving a wide gap which the ivy has been trying to darn. Daniel works a hole in its criss-crossed runners and peers through.

‘I think it’s a garden,’ he says, angling his neck for a better view. Above our heads, a flock of white doves skims the phantom wall, only to be absorbed by the bright light beyond. All my anxieties return. If it’s a garden there must be a house, perhaps even the witch’s cottage.

‘Let me see.’ I shove him aside and climb on to some tumbled stones.

Daniel’s right. I’m looking at a garden, though it’s wildly overgrown with battalions of docks and nettles advancing through tangled rose beds. The house it surrounds is huge and must once have been grand, almost a little
Schloss.
Now it’s a blackened ruin with broken chimneys standing against the sky like rotten teeth. The charred roof timbers resemble the gnawed ribcage of a wild beast brought back from Papa’s hunting trips. But there’s something else … something standing to one side of the ruin, half hidden by a tree … that makes me catch my breath, leap down from my perch and start fighting with the ivy.

‘Help me!’ I shout at Daniel. ‘Quick! Don’t just stand there staring. We need to get to the other side.’ He doesn’t move, so I snap off shoots and runners, pulling and tugging until I’ve made a space big enough to squeeze through. When the ivy grabs at my remaining shoe, I kick it off without a backward glance.

After the hushed forest, the garden is noisy. Crickets zither in tussocks of dry grass, jackdaws squabble over the chimney pots and the air throbs with the incessant cooing of countless doves. Above them rises the strident alarm of a blackbird as I run across the sunlit wilderness to where a long walkway leads to a pond in front of the house. It’s like those in parks – a wide stone rim for sitting on – with a marble fountain in the shape of a forlorn mermaid. Once, she poured water from a huge conch shell; now there’s nothing left for her to do but stare at dragonflies darting above water-lily buds sticking up through the green scum in the shape of clenched fists.

Still running, I veer left, pushing through a hedge almost as thick as the one in ‘Sleeping Beauty’. And stop. I have come to the tower.

It’s just as Hanna described: a perfectly round tower with row upon row of slit windows, and a spike on top that must be the
Blitzfänger
, the lightning rod naughty boys throw stones at. Hanna told me the building had been out of use for more than a century when she was a little girl; that must be why it’s covered with bird droppings and has saplings growing tight against the walls. Three steps lead up to a door made narrow to match the windows. There’s a key in the lock and I’m on the point of going inside to see the chains where they shackled lunatics when Daniel finally catches up with me.

‘What is it?’ He’s gasping and knuckling his side. ‘What did you see?’ He seems unimpressed when I point to the tower, and looks round, as though expecting something more. ‘Is this where we find people to help us?’

‘Don’t you understand?’ I gabble. ‘This is The
Narrenturm
… the Tower of Fools. We’re inside my story. This is where it all … It’s where you – I mean Benjamin – found me. We’ve walked all the way to Vienna.’

‘Don’t be stupid. That’s impossible.’

‘I’m not the one who’s stupid,’ I roar. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes? Isn’t that a tower?’

‘Yes – but Vienna must be a thousand miles away. And you’re the fool because that tower’s only a
goł
bnik
.’

‘A what?’

Daniel scratches his head, screws up his face, and finally comes up with the right word. ‘A
Taubenturm
.’ His tone is superior. ‘It’s just a very big dovecote.’

‘It’s the
Narrenturm
, you idiot!’ I’m so enraged I throw myself at him. Daniel screams and crumples, falls to his knees, clutching his shoulder and crying.

‘I hate you,’ he squeals.

‘Good. See if I care. I’m off.’

Behind the tower I slip through an arched opening to find a walled garden nearly as overgrown as the area in front of the house. A glasshouse choked with vines runs along one side. On the others, gnarled trees, tied against the warm bricks with stout wires, are covered with blossom and busy with insects. Beneath them straggle some of the herbs Greet liked to grow:
Fenchel
,
Thymian
,
Rosmarin
and
Salbei
. Beans have seeded themselves between the weeds and their black-and-white flowers are more fully open than those on plants out in the field. A long length of the garden has been completely taken over by the big shiny leaves of disgusting rhubarb plants. I sit on a stone, picking thorns from my feet and trying to remember Greet’s nasty puddings – which never got sweet enough, no matter how much sugar you added – to stop myself being ashamed of what I did to Daniel. Even though I don’t like him any more, he’s my only friend.

Doves land on the top of the walls, preening their feathers, showing off their tails, all flying off at once, even when my stones are miles away from them. I glance at the tower. Now I’ve stopped being cross it’s easy to see that I might be wrong, because there are doves at nearly every window opening and more on the roof. From this angle I can see that the spike on top is only a weathervane; as I watch, the weathercock gently swings towards the west.

I’m also starting to worry that Erika was wrong, too, when she promised my imagination could take me anywhere and any-when. But if that isn’t true …

No. I won’t even think about it.

Instead I make for a small building tucked into the corner end of the glasshouse, a shed holding gardening tools, clay
pots and sieves with different sizes of mesh. An old straw bee skep hangs from the ceiling, along with strings of withered onions that crumble at the slightest touch, and there’s a pile of dry sacks beneath the workbench. I pull them out to make a bed. We can’t go any further today, and this seems a better place to sleep than in the open air.

Daniel’s still in front of the tower, though he’s toppled on to his side, his bad arm sticking up at such a peculiar angle I feel sick looking at it. His face has paled even further so that now it’s a horrible greyish-white and covered with a film of sweat. His breathing’s fast and shallow; it’s as if he’s silently panting. I push at his leg with my bare toes but he keeps his eyes closed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble. It’s the first time in my life I’ve apologized and really meant it. Not that it makes any difference to him.

‘Go away.’

‘Get up, Daniel. Come with me. I’ve found somewhere to shelter. A gardener’s shed. It’s a bit like Benjamin’s room over the stable.’

He manages a very small smile. ‘Oh, yes, in Vienna.’

‘Ha-ha.’

After a bit more pushing, Daniel rolls on to his knees. I help him up, letting him lean on me as we limp towards the shed. It’s difficult to walk like this and avoid sharp stones cutting into my bare soles. My shoulders ache. I want it over with. At the entrance to the garden he stops altogether.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he begs.

‘I’ve already told you I won’t.’

The only answer’s a faint grunt. He’s scaring me now. His eyes have rolled up into his head, just as the Shadow’s did before …

‘Daniel! Wake up!’ He starts and looks around him, as if surprised
to find himself here. ‘Stay awake, Daniel. I don’t want to be left here all alone.’

‘You won’t be alone, Krysta.’ Even as he speaks, he’s slowly collapsing, dragging me down with him, his knees buckling, head drooping, as if drawn towards the earth. I’m fighting so hard to keep him upright I almost miss his whispered: ‘If you’ll only allow me, I’ll stay with you for ever.’

‘Get up, then!’ I shout, knowing that if he lies down here I’ll probably never get him moving again. ‘On your feet! Walk! Now!’

‘What?’ Daniel rallies again, straightening his back and shuffling forward. ‘Don’t worry. At least we’re free. Everything will be fine.’

‘Only if you can keep moving,’ I retort, suddenly unutterably weary. ‘We’re getting nowhere and I no longer have the strength to support you.’

I think it’s the next day when the
Hexe
returns home to find us. We seem to have slept for a long time. Daniel wakes and moans as she throws open the door. I’m already up on my feet and reaching for the long-handled hoe. Silhouetted against the bright sunlight, the witch looks twice as wide as she’s tall, but when she steps forward I see that she’s wearing a nurse’s uniform with a bulky greatcoat like Uncle … like Hraben’s … thrown over her shoulders. Even so, she’s still fat, with a face like a lump of dough into which the baker’s pushed two currants for eyes; he’s tweaked her out a long, sharp nose and slashed a wide line for her mouth but forgotten to add any lips. Her hair is long and bright yellow, except next to her head, where it’s almost black. I’m trying to work out where I’ve seen her before as she looks from me to Daniel and back again.

‘I thought I heard something. Decided it must be mice, but no. How did you two escape?’ When I don’t answer she comes closer and stares very hard at Daniel. ‘By God, you need fattening up.’

‘You’re not eating me,’ he snarls.

‘That’s one sort of meat I never tried.’ The witch laughs. It’s not a nice sound. ‘I believe some did.’