Page 18 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)
The Dark, Dark Forest
H ansel couldn’t possibly catch him, and Gerhardt knew it. He had to carry the boar, and Gerhardt hoped he’d remember to bring some fire. He should have done it himself, but he needed to get away.
His heart fluttered, and he felt lighter than he had in all his life. The feeling of Hansel’s hand in his, that little breath he took in when Gerhardt kissed his cheek moments earlier…
Gerhardt had been so close to wrapping a hand around his waist, pulling him in and telling him he had it all wrong. That he adored him, wanted him from that day forward.
But that guilt.
And the strangeness of it all.
Men did fall in love with each other. He knew that from the men who worked in the brothel with his mother.
But men did not fall in love with their stepbrothers. He may have been little more experienced in the ways of the world than Hansel, but of that, he was sure.
Their new life, should they start out like that, would be one of dishonesty.
They could never disclose their true relationship to anyone.
Could never slide into the fabric of society that Gerhardt had been ripped out of ten winters earlier.
Could never access all the safety and wealth that came with a quiet, middle-class life.
It wasn’t that he yearned to return to that world; he had a very low opinion of people in general. But they were options Hansel should have access to.
On the other hand, if Hansel had all those good things first, then decided he still wanted Gerhardt…
Gerhardt could see their apartment already. Small but tidy, a tall ceiling, lit bright with a thousand candles in a shimmering chandelier, like those he’d seen by peeking through windows in his youth.
Those homes had always looked safe and warm.
He’d wondered what the people inside ate, where they slept, if they were kind to one another.
He’d pictured rugs, and lounges, and gigantic tables laden with food.
He’d seen men at those doors who looked nothing like his father.
They were clean all over, short nails, nice hair.
And he could imagine Hansel there, well dressed, well fed, smiling, coming to greet him in the morning. Or coming home after a day at work.
They were stupid and enormous dreams that sat on Gerhardt’s chest. Too big, too outlandish. Set to fail.
Why drag Hansel down with him?
But Hansel appeared just then, treading steadily over the branches and the rocks and the dirt, his large feet stable on the earth.
He’d slung the animal over his shoulder, what was left of it now they’d hacked well into it and made at least two meals out of it.
One big hand held it steady, and the other held their fire.
A bundle of sticks wrapped together with bark hastily twisted around it, just like the mess in Gerhardt’s hand, only tidier somehow.
It would probably burn longer, given the care Hansel had taken with it.
Gerhardt took the small torch from him. Hansel gave it with a smile that twisted Gerhardt’s tongue and insides up in a knot.
It was the same look he’d had the night before when he was talking about his luscious thighs.
That same surety that undid Gerhardt. As though Hansel could see right into the centre of his heart and find his own reflection there.
“This way,” Gerhardt said, as though he needed to. Hansel knew well the danger they were walking into, and whatever happened from there, it would be mostly Gerhardt’s fault.
He was certain that a house with a working and regularly used chimney must indicate that it was possible to live in the Dark Forest. And after all, it was a different part of the forest. Maybe over here, there were no angry gnome-creatures.
Maybe there was food aplenty, perhaps even a forest clearing with sunshine and ground fertile enough to grow vegetables in, to raise animals.
But even as he tried to conjure up such images of bucolic comfort, the darkening woods fought his hopeful notion.
Their path between the trees thinned and grew roots—huge roots that curled and gaped and hid cavities below and behind.
They stumbled up and over moss-laden growths, some bulging taller than Gerhardt, though never quite as tall as Hansel.
The trees themselves, long and straight pines before, now tipped at strange angles, the shafts of their trunks shining in the middling sun like a thousand daggers stabbed into the forest floor.
There came noises—not birdsong, not the scrabbling of squirrels or foxes—creaking, not of wood, but as though made in the throat of some foul monster lying in wait.
And darker it became. Darker and darker again as they trudged on, their little torch becoming all the light in the world, until they lost all sense of time, all sense of direction, until the finding of the house began to feel as outlandish an idea as flying there on a cloud.
Hansel never said a word about it, and for that, Gerhardt was thankful. He was scared and no doubt, but the responsibility of dragging Hansel down with him weighed as heavily as his reflections on how grisly his death might be.
They’d burned through several torches, and Gerhardt was busy transferring their flame to a new one when Hansel said, “I don’t like the look of that tree.”
A ridiculous statement in just about any other forest, but there in the Dark Forest, the words sent a fast chill down Gerhardt’s spine and brought his gaze across. He stumbled forward a few feet to where Hansel was, then lifted the torch to behold the horror.
It was no species of greenery that either had ever seen before.
Wide, round, the ancient-looking organism enveloped the canopy with stretching, searching, black finger-like branches, shrouded in glistening gold-green leaves.
The path beneath and all around the tree was clear of both shrubbery and debris, as though the other plants shrank from it.
Yet it was littered with puddles of inky darkness, dappled all about, pooling here and pooling there.
Disconcerting as all this was, the worst was in the centre, ripped across the middle of the wide trunk.
Shards of bark jutting from root to tip, silvery brown and jagged, corrupt rivulets coated the wood like misshapen scales, all the way to a gaping hollow that loomed black and evil.
The edges of the hole were spiked sharp with broken wood that appeared as two rows of enormous teeth grinning back at them.
“I also don’t like that tree,” Gerhardt whispered.
“I suggest we stay the fuck away from that tree,” Hansel offered.
“Agreed,” said Gerhardt. “Let’s go another way.”
But even as the words left his lips, there was a groaning and a creaking in the dark around, a glistening and a refraction as Gerhardt’s meagre light found movement.
Great vines, small vines, thick and thin, twisted in every direction.
The snap of twigs and branches crackled in their ears, and the two turned back to back to prepare for whatever was coming.
The path they’d traversed was blocked as a twang of vines pulled tight, and the space between every other tree was soon obliterated in the same manner. The only way out of the small clearing was past that ghoulish plant.
“Is it…” Gerhardt turned a small circle, taking in the threat. “Is it all the same plant?”
As if in answer, a foul belch rumbled from the gaping maw. A branch gave a shudder, and a shower of drops fell to the dirt. Gerhardt lifted his torch, edging a little closer, fearful curiosity sparked by the spatter.
Hansel’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Don’t.”
But Gerhardt slid free. “I have the worst feeling about this.”
He moved a little nearer, then a little nearer again, eyes darting from forest floor to tree mouth. He leant down to grasp a long stick, bolstered by Hansel’s strong presence a step behind. Crouching, he stretched the stick out long, stabbing at a fresh puddle.
His shaking hand reeled the prize in, and he lifted the tip to the light, where it glistened red and moist. Touching an index finger to the substance, he felt the texture with his thumb, thinning a gut-curdling line of scarlet. “It’s blood.”
“Get back.” Hansel had already wrenched him to his feet, slowing his stumble with a hand around his biceps.
Gerhardt threw the stick down and assessed their predicament anew. “Think we can climb over those vines?”
“We’ll have to.” With that, Hansel moved back the way they’d come. He closed a hand around a vine, then cried out in pain, reeling back.
Gerhardt ran to him, one hand around his waist as Hansel pulled his palm up to the light. A line of red droplets ran across his skin, ten piercings from long and sharp thorns, hitherto unseen, that shone briefly in the light before retracting back into the plant.
Gerhardt took up another stick, brought it down hard on the vine, and found it stabbed through so violently that it cracked in two. He retreated to the centre of the clearing, pulling Hansel with him. “This is not it. This is not where we part. Hansel, there has to be a way.”
But Hansel’s wide shoulders squared with the tree, eyes on the darkness beyond. “That’s the only free path.”
Gerhardt moved against him, shoulder to biceps. “I’m quite sure it wants to eat us.”
“And water its roots with our blood? I can see that.” A shiver took Gerhardt at the statement of the obvious. It didn’t help to hear it out loud. But Hansel then reflected, “I wish we still had that hare.”
“Yes. We could chuck him in and see what happens.”
Hansel’s eyes snapped across. “I meant we could ask him about it.”
“Oh, yes!” Gerhardt blushed. “Yes, that too.” Hansel’s brow ruffled a little deeper, so Gerhardt cleared his throat then called to the tree, “Hello there, old tree.” An eyebrow lowered severely, and he hissed across at Hansel, “Everything else in this forest speaks. Why not this tree?”
Hansel gave a silent shrug, then shifted his stance, the meat over his shoulder weighing heavier by the minute.