Eighty-Two

A wintry, speculative retelling of Hansel and Gretel.

Stephanie Holden (she/they) is a Halloween-loving queer living in New Orleans, Louisiana. She writes poems about love, trauma, gore, and the self. Her interests are fantasy books, body modification, and the South. She has two cats, a bearded dragon, and deep love for frogs. Find her writing at The Journal of the Wooden O, The Kennesaw Tower, Diet Water, The B’K (forthcoming), Hearth & Coffin (forthcoming), and Bullshit Lit (forthcoming), her art at BEST SERVED COLD (forthcoming), or her narcissistic tweets at @smhxlden.

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For most of my life, I have lived alone. I have not always been happy with this arrangement, but it is how I have lived since moving from Hexerei, the town where I was born. I am not lonely anymore, but I have known great sadness in my life. For years after the accident, my heart sank slowly through my body, exploring every burning organ and cavity, grasping desperately for something to keep it from exiting my body completely. It must have found its home somewhere; I do not feel lonely anymore.

I have followed the same routine every day since my heart began to beat correctly. I wake up when the sun filters into my bedroom through the surrounding trees, and I eat one soft-boiled egg and one bread roll with preserve, and then I scrub the counters and sweep and mop until my muscles are sore. I make the preserve myself out of blackberries and lingonberries that grow on the bushes near my small brick home, and I bake the breakfast rolls every Sunday evening. I collect the egg from my hen, Majka, who lives behind my little house in a coop I painted years ago and loves to make mischief for herself in the peaceful woods. 

After I eat breakfast, I clean Majka’s roost — she never has learned to clean up after herself — and light the oven to warm the house and boil water for my tea. Then I sit on my wooden porch and sip tea, and some days I read a book or work on a crossword. I do this until it is time to cook lunch, and then I prepare myself a small meal and sit at my table and eat. After my lunch, I tidy the house and set out seeds for the birds that live in the woods so that they will not eat the herbs and vegetables growing in my garden. Then, I tend to the plants until it is time to prepare my dinner. After I eat, I read more or take a walk through the woods to collect fruits, and I make sure Majka has returned to her coop. Then, the day is over. Most days, I am fulfilled in this.

On my eighty-second birthday, though, I am struck with the urge to exit my typical routine. It is a very special day, this birthday, because it is the first day of the carnival Fasching. Although I have not truly celebrated the holiday since I moved away from Hexerei, I have always loved the electricity it brings to the air. I decide to bake myself a small feast of pastries and candies — the ones my mother used to make for the festivities when I was a girl. I sift and knead and bake until the walls of my small house drip with the sweet aroma of my childhood and my floors are coated in flour. I make a note to sponge the tiles and douse the walls with steam and vinegar.

So overcome am I with the pleasantness of the treats I have made that I load a generous portion into my old wicker picnic basket and head into the woods. Food is simply not prepared this way anymore, I think. I have to share it with my young neighbors. 

I do not typically interact with the others who live in these woods, though we are all aware of each other’s presence. My closest neighbor is a young family headed by a burly woodcutter of about forty years with calloused hands and unkempt hair. He has two children, a girl and a boy, who must be about nine and eleven now. He also has a wife, who I have not seen much. She is not the mother of the children. To see her, in the past, made me sad, as I mourned for a great many years the children that I could not have, and never once did I imagine that I could have married a man who was already a father. But I do not make it a habit to resent someone for making choices that I did not, and so I decide to take them some baked goods for this first day of Fasching. 

I walk through the forest in the direction of their home, which, despite housing two growing children and two adults, stands smaller than my cottage. It reminds me of my own childhood home, and I shudder thinking of the dirt floors that used to ooze with mud when it rained. 

It is difficult to find anything in these woods, the sprawling mass of tangled growth that they are, and my neighbor’s house is tucked behind a number of the oldest pines in the Alps. Before I am able to find the house’s hiding place, I stumble upon my neighbor’s two small children. They are dressed lightly for the German winter, but they are still too young to really feel the cold. It is obvious that they have been crying, and only the young boy makes an attempt to hide his tears when he notices my presence.

“Children, are you alright?” I ask. “Where are your parents? Let me help you find them.”

The girl begins to bawl openly. Her brother nudges her, embarrassed. “They don’t want to see us, Miss,” he responds. His eyes fall to my basket and linger there. “Paps says there isn’t enough to go around anymore and we’re old enough to take care of ourselves now.”

“Why, that can’t be true. What are your names? Here, take a loaf, you look hungry.” I hand each of them some of the cinnamon bread from my basket. The girl gobbles her helping readily, but her brother eyes it warily before finally taking a bite. 

“My name is Hansel. We lived behind the big pine trees before Mama and Paps told us to leave. They said I am a man now, and I should take care of Gretel because that’s what a man does, is take care of a woman. Gretel is my little sister. She doesn’t usually cry this much, but it’s hard for her because she’s young. I thought maybe Paps could keep her at the house for a few years until she’s 11 like me, but he said they don’t have the money for that, especially if we’re going to keep asking for Fasching candy. Hey, thanks for the bread, Miss.”

I am taken aback by the candor in his voice, the nonchalance with which he tells his story. Gretel hasn’t said a word, but she has stopped crying. I hand them each another sweet and ask them if they want me to go speak with their parents.

Hansel shakes his head. Gretel gnaws on her piece of hard candy. The wood is filled with a pregnant silence — for a moment, even the birds cease to chirp. 

“Well, would you like to come with me?” I ask hesitantly. I have always wanted children, but I am old now, and I do not know Hansel and Gretel. I do not even know, truthfully, if the story of their abandonment is to be believed, and perhaps I am naïve to accept it so willingly. The boy’s dark eyes, though, are wide and honest, and he looks at me like he has never learned to lie. I realize that I am quick to trust this boy because he reminds me of the one who often visited me in dreams when I first moved out to these woods, in the years following the accident. The son I could not have. 

I open my basket to reveal a variety of baked goods. Gretel’s hazel eyes grow round. She grabs for another treat, but her brother bats her arm away. “We can stay for a few nights, if that’s okay with you,” the boy says. 

I lead the two children back to my small house and arrange for them a place to sleep in one of my empty rooms. They eat dinner with me and laugh when they watch Majka prance back into her coop after a long day of tomfoolery. I feel a fulfillment greater than I thought possible. This is what I longed for all those years ago; this is what I thought I could never have. The children gradually grow warmer and more comfortable in my home, and my schedule changes to admit them without issue. I had perhaps grown content in my solitude before I met the children, but now I am overwhelmed with happiness. 

Some days I think of my mother, the way she would hum while she pulled her pastries from the oven. The way that, even as a young girl, I dreamed of doing the same. The way we used to run to eat our treats before the roaches or the flies could. I feel a pang in the pit of my stomach and try not to think about it. 

Each night Gretel asks for a bedtime story, something silly about witches or fairies or the like. I tell her I don’t indulge in the fantasy of witchcraft, but I can talk extensively about the real magic in the world — the healing essence of herbs, the beauty of a forest’s language. Hansel says that the supernatural is not a fantasy but the reality of our quiet patch of woods. I know that this lore penetrates the region. Hexerei was said to have been inhabited by dark magic, all those years ago. But that was naught but fiction, and I banished such stories from my house. Still, she begs for a fairytale about a witch in the forest.

“Do not speak of magic anymore. There is no witch to speak of,” I tell her every night until she believes me. The closest thing to magic in my home is my book of recipes; Hansel once upset me by pretending it was a spell book, and I scolded him for it. Since then, the children have stopped mentioning magic.

What was meant to be a few nights turns into a few months, and I could not be more pleased. I try not to spoil the children — I give them work to do around the house and ask them to tend to Majka — but my love for them grows stronger with each day. I prepare rich, sprawling meals for them, and I spare no expense for their wardrobes. They are sweet children, and I worry about them. I ask them if they feel abandoned by their parents, and they fall silent. I ask if they miss their childhood home, and they trace the grains in the floorboard. I tell them that I love them, and the space between us seems to be infinite. We resume our regular schedules.

Hansel is reserved with his feelings but adamant about completing his chores. He cleans Majka’s coop even before the sun rises, and he spends much of the day ensuring that she stays out of trouble. Her eggs have become even more delicious with all the attention she has been receiving. I convince myself that he shows his attachment to me through these acts of service.

One afternoon, Hansel and Gretel run into the house while I am sweeping. “Majka spoke to us!” they yell in unison, both out of breath. 

I smile. “What did she say?” I ask, unbelieving.

The children resent the laughter in my voice and insist that she did speak to them. “She told us to run, run, run,” says Gretel, her round cheeks rosy from exertion. “She’s magical!”

My voice gets stern and my stomach burns with anger. “You know how I feel about that kind of talk. She loves to squawk, that is all. She did not tell you to run.” I pause. The children look scared, so I soften my tone. “How would you like to pluck me some berries for tomorrow’s pie?” I walk across the room and hand them a bucket to fill. Hansel takes it, but he is quiet.

The days following Majka’s talking episode are awkward and tense. The conversation at mealtime turns only to the routine activities of the day. When Gretel begins to tell us about her dreams, Hansel hushes her and says that the potatoes taste nice, or that the wind is unusually strong. They spend less time in the house, and they grow further from me with each minute. I wonder if something has happened with their parents, but I am too afraid of ruining the relationship completely to ask. 

Sometimes, I hear the children speaking to each other in whispers when they should be asleep. They talk of magic, of witchcraft, of the monstrosities of the unnatural. Their voices contain a panic most children their age have never experienced. They are worried about a witch in our woods. They seem to believe that Majka was sending them a message. I think, this is exactly what I did not want to happen. I scrub the floors and scour the kitchen. 

As the days pass, the children become increasingly frightful. They eat less and less, until their ribs begin to protrude in jagged ridges from their thin flesh. They especially avoid the chicken. With each meal, I offer them the sweets they once devoured, but their frail bodies flinch when my hands brush them and their eyes dart constantly around the room. The trauma is eating them alive; their small mouths sit taut and expressionless when I ask about their father. They are suspicious of everything, but above all they are suspicious of me.

I can see from the bags under their eyes that they regret what trust they once placed in me. Hansel is so thin and so malnourished that, at the right angle, his head looks like only a skull. His skin has blanched from lack of sleep, and what is left of his blonde hair has become wispy and ashen from the stress – only his sunken eyes distinguish him from a dead boy. Gretel is not quite so bad; her dark hair still falls in ringlets around her face, hiding the hollowness of her cheeks, and her freckled skin is not so translucent as to reveal her veins. Her collarbones still protrude as though her chest is a drawer with handles, and she looks feeble even without looking broken. I worry that they will starve themselves here, or that they will run away and die alone in the woods, driven delirious by hunger and the loneliness of abandonment. 

The hushed conversations from the children's room become more frequent. I hear little of the content of these conversations, but I think they must have driven themselves crazy. Always, they speak of magic. Always, they speak of a witch in the woods and a talking hen.

One morning, as I prepare the soft-boiled eggs for a breakfast that the children surely will not eat, I ask them about their nighttime conversations.

"Have you been talking about witchcraft?"

Gretel's cheeks lose what color they had left.

"No," says Hansel shortly.

I eat my breakfast in silence. The children avoid my gaze.

When I finish cleaning up, I make my tea and go out to the porch. I feel myself unraveling the same way I did after the accident. The skin of my navel sears with grief. I so briefly was given the opportunity to have children, and I am losing it again.

When I go back into the house, I am surprised to find Hansel and Gretel still sitting at the kitchen table. Hansel does little but tend to Majka anymore — cooing and clucking and trying incessantly to get her to speak — and Gretel usually makes herself busy about the garden. The room is frigid. They are both shivering, their pallid skin made even more striking by the cold. 

“What’s wrong, children?” I ask.

“The light in the oven has gone out,” says Hansel. “We are too weak to move to light it.”

This is the most either of the children has said to me in weeks. I am overjoyed with the transaction, overjoyed that I am again able to do something to help them. I crawl into the oven to light it, and I hear the scrape of a chair against the wooden floor behind me. My small body is entirely inside the appliance when I hear Hansel’s solemn voice.

“We will not talk about magic anymore. There will be no witch to speak of.”

A familiar heat envelopes me. I think of the accident. My entrails crackle and bloat with pain. The heat seems to be coming from the inside out. I think of the ghost of the son I could not have, his body teaming with maggots. I think of my mother, holding us to the stove flame to burn the parasites, her fingernails carving crescent moons into my writhing arms. I hope at least that Hansel will continue to care for her, my dear Majka.

The last thing I see is the blackness of the oven door shutting, and Hansel’s cold eyes peering over his blue fingers into mine. I like to believe that Gretel tried to stop him — or to save me, to do something — but there is nothing that can be done to prevent a child who has been forsaken by the world from finding his revenge.

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