Page 12 of The Pebbled Path

“If you will promise me the same.”

She took a fortifying breath. “I will ladle a bowl of soup and meet you in the room. We can search the book.”

The enchantress’s snores continued; she was no doubt confident in the spell she had cast over Hansel. That would grant them time to read through the book.

Gretel carefully carried the bowl into the room where Hansel was kept. She placed it on the very table where she had turned the pebbles into determents. Hansel sat on the cot, the spell book open on his lap. Gretel quietly closed the door.

“You should eat,” she said quietly. “The food the enchantress will give you is tainted somehow. It is part of what kills the men who come here.”

He watched her. “They are always men?”

She nodded. “I don’t know if they are because they have to be or because she simply prefers them to be.”

He gave that some thought. She sat beside him on the cot. “Allow me to read while you eat.”

He rose and crossed to the table where the bowl sat. “Are there any other patterns you’ve noticed?” he asked before sipping a large spoonful.

“She always insists they eat supper ‘for however long it takes.’ She often looks quite ill and exhausted before their arrival, but by the time they are . . . gone—dead, I assume—she looks healthy again, energetic, though never pleasant.”

He smiled a little. “Hers is a rather horrifying visage, isn’t it?”

“I suspect she is something otherworldly.”

He continued to eat as she read spell after spell.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that something in the food transfers the life from her prisoners to her. She gains their strength and vitality.”

That fit what Gretel had seen. But how did the enchantress manage it? And how did they stop her from doing it again?

Chapter Seven

The next morning, Hansel and Gretel continued in earnest their plan for finding the answers they needed. Hansel ate his breakfast—Gretel had already eaten hers—while they both studied the enchantress’s spell book.

Gretel could hardly imagine a larger book with more pages. Hansel had seen a bit more of the world, but even he had to admit that they had given themselves an intimidating mountain to climb. Could he feign illness long enough for them to find what they were searching for?

They had nearly used all the time they dared use for breakfast. Gretel flipped yet another page and read aloud the name of yet another spell. “New Life.” She continued on with the description. “‘The transference of vibrancy for the purpose of attaining immortality.’”

Wide-eyed and hopeful, she looked at Hansel. “Transferring vibrancy.”

“You’ve found it, Gretel.” He put his arm around her.

She set her head on his shoulder, continuing to read. The potion created by this spell was to be mixed into the food of the victim. How, precisely, that gave the enchantress these men’s lives, the spell did not make clear, only that the end result was what Gretel had feared: all of the life was drained from the spell’s victims.

“Merciful heavens,” Hansel whispered. “And this is the monster whose servitude you cannot escape.”

“But this is also the fate from which I saved my papa and from which we will save you.”

He kissed her temple, then her hairline, then her cheek. “We will find the answers we need, and we will find a means of deliverance for us both.”

***

Hansel did not have to expend much effort to appear less than well. He spent the next two nights awake, reading through the spell book. Gretel had almost no opportunity to do so herself. The enchantress worked her all day and banished her to the basement at night.

For a few brief moments each morning, Gretel slipped into his room. He quickly told her anything he’d discovered the night before, and they spoke of their plans for that day. She also fed him soup and bread a few times each day, though the afternoon and evening meals were not undertaken in any degree of privacy. The enchantress watched him be fed, checked on his health and progress. He was careful to appear as though he was, in fact, improving, though slowly enough that she would not yet deem him truly recovered and ready for stealing his life away.

The fourth morning of his pretended convalescence, Gretel came in with a bowl of gruel, the usual morning offering. He was, as always, eager for her company, her presence, and the way his heart both sped and calmed when she was nearby. But this morning, he also had a discovery to share with her.

“Good morning.” She set the bowl of gruel beside him, having closed the door already.