Page 2 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

An Axe to Grind

H ansel’s father had come back foul-tempered and drunk. It was a full day’s ride to the village, and Hansel hated to think what he must have spent on ale to be able to continue drinking all that way.

It was ever so.

Weeks of Hansel and Gerhardt chopping wood, then off he’d ride, for maybe a week, their small stock of food depleting daily, not sure when or if he was coming back.

Once, he’d left them a full fortnight. It was a wonder they’d survived at all.

Hansel remembered the hole scooped out of Gerhardt’s midline. The way his entire body shook. He remembered holding him back from the food when it finally came, so he wouldn’t eat too much at once and make himself even sicker.

The way Gerhardt had looked at him… As though Hansel was trying to take his fair share away.

Hansel had, numerous times, secretly given Gerhardt portions of his own food. Having seen him so close to death, the thought of losing him, of the madness that might take hold, alone and starving in that isolated cabin for weeks at a time…

He wished his sole companion in that brutal existence didn’t hate him so.

But how could he not? The red beard of Hansel’s father was a mirror to his own.

The eyes of that man were reddened and watery, but just as blue as his.

The bone structure, the very double of him, only that Hansel’s pale skin stretched tight over wiry muscles, grown large through the sheer effort of woodcutting, while his father’s sat invisible beneath flesh grown plump with food and drink.

Hansel wondered sometimes that Gerhardt could bear to look at him at all. And he didn’t just then, as they made their way back towards the cottage.

Perhaps Hansel had been too harsh with him, but he could feel his father’s mood a mile off, and today wasn’t the day to cause trouble.

The man was seething lava just beneath the surface.

Hansel knew not to test him. His cheek still stung from the backhander he’d received for taking too long to get to the cart.

And he hadn’t even told his father about the food yet.

Some instinct wanted to send Gerhardt away while he told him, for Gerhardt had awoken in a foul mood too. Though who could blame him? But he was even more combative than usual that day, and one slip of the tongue…

Yet Gerhardt stomped ahead of him and smashed the cottage door open before Hansel could bring himself to start that fight.

“Watch the door!” their father immediately snarled.

Hansel entered the dark shack behind Gerhardt.

His father sat by the fire, pipe in hand, smoking tobacco.

Hansel could see Gerhardt’s fingers twitching, clenching and unclenching like they did when he was furious.

Their father had clearly spent their money on drink and tobacco while the brothers starved.

“Where’s the food?” Gerhardt asked, voice pulled tight like a set mousetrap.

Amusement danced in the twinkle of evil eyes, glowing in the firelight. “How about you give me your share first?”

Hansel, though he thought he might throw up, stepped forward to reveal the truth, but Gerhardt had already spat out, “Our share was the work we did! The wood we cut so you’d get paid. Now where is it?”

“I put a roof over your head, don’t I?” His voice was calm. He was enjoying it, watching Gerhardt close to the brink of tears through sheer hunger and frustration, wondering how far he could push him. Toying with him. How powerful he must have felt. Like a king.

“Barely,” said Gerhardt, eyes tracing over the broken mess of stone walls, rotting floorboards, crumbling ceiling with vines edging their fingers in. “And it’s not worth the work we put in.”

Their father dropped both feet to the floor and sat forward. “You can spend the night in the stables if you’d prefer?”

A night in the stables, Hansel knew from experience, meant many nights. Many nights chained to the wall, in the cold and open air, without a thing to eat.

Gerhardt wouldn’t survive it this time. He could tell by one glance at him.

But his father was too drunk to be able to think so cautiously, had he any empathy to see it in the first place.

Hansel spoke over whatever Gerhardt was about to say. “We tried.” His heart hammered in his chest, throwing a tremor to his very fingertips. “We did. Look.” He held up his blistered and cut hands. “I-I- we dug the whole vegetable garden up. We searched the forest.”

The formerly humoured eyes grew black. “Where is it?”

“That’s just it.” Hansel’s mind went into overdrive, trying to figure a way out, but there was none. “We haven’t—”

“Any idiot can see there’s no food left out there,” Gerhardt cut in coldly.

Their father was on his feet, hand tightening on his axe. “What did you call me?”

“He didn’t!” Hansel cried, dashing forward.

He neither registered the way he stepped in front of Gerhardt, nor the surprised look Gerhardt gave him.

But Gerhardt, even after ten long winters in that cottage, didn’t understand his father’s moods on the subconscious level Hansel did.

Since he was an infant, he’d had to watch and plan carefully.

He’d seen his mother beaten to death by the very hands that gripped that axe.

He threw out desperately, “What little we have, Gerhardt found it.”

Gerhardt was smaller, more expendable than Hansel. Even if their father had no humanity, surely he could understand simple terms of labour. Hansel chopped more wood, and if he could save Gerhardt by compromising himself, maybe he could save them both.

But Gerhardt shouted, “That’s not true, Hansel! You scrimped and searched all day until your fingers bled. There is nothing there! We shall all die out here unless he either grants us our freedom or gives us our fair share.”

“I’ll give you your fair share, you little shit!” The huge mass of man bore down on the pair.

“Father, no!” Hansel yelled, but the axe swung at Gerhardt’s head with all the force of a madman’s fury.

Gerhardt froze.

Perhaps he didn’t think he’d actually do it. Or perhaps he was just too starved and sickly to think straight.

He froze, his back to the one wooden pillar supporting the roof, and his head would have been split cleanly in two had Hansel’s arm not shot out, his large hand bruising instantly with the effort to stop the blow.

Their father’s eyes flared in disbelief, then narrowed in blind rage. “You want some?” He flipped the axe and rammed the handle into Hansel’s stomach. Hansel doubled over with a gasp of agony, falling to his knees.

Their father raised the weapon, gripping it near the head, intent on smashing Hansel’s skull in with the thick handle.

With Hansel on the floor, gasping for air, one second from death, Gerhardt’s fight response kicked in, and he flung himself at his father’s waist with all the strength left in him.

The man stumbled, tipped, fell onto his side, but he never dropped the axe. Even drunk, his heft and anger countered Gerhardt’s desperation. He rolled onto his back, swung the butt of the axe up, and connected it with Gerhardt’s cheek.

Gerhardt fell to the floor, dazed by the blow, and Hansel lunged for the axe, trying to wrestle it from his father.

The man had no regard for his son or himself.

He flung his head forward and smashed his skull into Hansel’s.

Hansel crumpled into a heap next to Gerhardt, their father already clambering back up.

Gerhardt reached out an arm and grabbed their father’s leg to fell him.

Their father kicked out a boot and smashed it into his jaw.

Slamming onto his back, Gerhardt let out a long and body-racking cry. It was the sound of defeat. It was the sound of the last ounce of fight going out of a man who had been chipped away at by life from the moment he was born. It was a sound that went straight to Hansel’s heart.

Gerhardt was the only good thing in his existence, and the thought of seeing him ripped from that small life hit Hansel on a primal level.

In a world so bereft of love, of companionship, the simple humanity his loss would have taken from his heart seemed an affront to God, or whatever unfeeling fate had brought them all to that isolated house in the woods.

Hansel leapt up, and as his father stretched the axe high, he grasped a chair and smashed it into his father’s gut.

He didn’t see the axe drop and wedge in the floor, didn’t see his father trying desperately to suck air into his winded lungs.

He saw only Gerhardt. He reached for his hand and yanked him to his feet, dragging him out the door and towards the forest.

Maybe he should have run for the road. It was the only known way to possible help, even if it was a two-day walk to the nearest habitation. But their father would find them on the road. Their only chance of survival was the cover of trees.

Gerhardt stumbled after him, so easily led if he could just find his footing. Their breath came painful in their chests, pulses screaming in their ears, and Hansel didn’t know how they could possibly keep silent enough to hide from him out there.

He ran as deep into the forest as he dared, flung Gerhardt to the left to be hidden by a tree, and stepped behind another.

The cabin door banged open, and his whole body shot rigid. Gerhardt’s breath came out shaky, tears streaming down his face, but Hansel was too much in shock to cry. He couldn’t believe he’d done it—that he’d attacked his father like that.

But it had been Gerhardt or him.

And now they were both to die.

Behind them was thick silence as their father took the lay of the land. Searching for any sign of them, listening for any sound.

Hansel prayed he’d turn back, just go inside to his drink and his fire.

Perhaps he already had?

As the seconds ticked by, he became desperate to look, desperate to take one quick peek over his shoulder.

His head turned slow, he edged towards the curve of the tree, and a small whimper came from Gerhardt’s throat. Hansel locked eyes with him, and Gerhardt gave a terrified shake of his head. Then he tilted it the other way, and Hansel followed his line of sight.

He looked straight into the midnight black of the Dark Forest.

The impenetrable shadow between the trees, only metres away, formed an evil and visceral delineation between the world of humans, and whatever horrors waited on the other side of that grim threshold.

Panicked eyes flung back at his stepbrother. Had he gone completely mad? No wonder if he had. But the Dark Forest was no means of survival. That way was certain death, only long and agonising, death by supernatural hands with no care for the suffering of mere humans.

He heard their father’s tread on the grass, approaching, sticks cracking beneath his boots. Gerhardt gestured frantically towards the dark, and Hansel shook his head back at him.

Death this way, death that way, but behind them, the death was sure and fast. Not picked apart by wolves, not morphed into some ungodly disgrace by evil fairies, damned to walk the earth for eternity, just as hungry and scared as he was now.

No. Since birth it had been drilled into him that the forest was a place of dark magic, a place children were lured with the promise of food, then gobbled up by hungry witches.

His mother’s voice, an almost forgotten ghost, rose to the front of his mind. Never, never—no matter what happens—never set one foot in the Dark Forest.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” their father sang into the wilderness. He’d recovered from his indignity, as drunks so quickly do. Now all that remained was cruelty, and a thirst for revenge.

Gerhardt’s head fell back against the tree, his eyes squeezed tight, tears forcing their way through.

A stupidly heroic urge took Hansel. If he gave himself up, would that give Gerhardt a fighting chance at escape? He should never have been there. It wasn’t his birth father doing these things. It was Hansel’s. And Hansel should be the one to face him.

“Ungrateful little shits!” their father shouted. The sound was punctuated by the thwack of an axe into a tree just metres behind. Then came the scrunch and chip of the blade, wrenched back and forth until it slipped from the gaping wound in the trunk.

Hansel, pulse racing so hard he felt dizzy, looked to Gerhardt, but his eyes were set on the forbidden void of the woods.

Thwack! The axe hit another tree, and the brothers jumped. He was close now, wielding it blindly, smashing around corners with no thought of anything but their deaths. He would get one or the other soon enough unless they did something.

“I’m going to skin you boys alive,” he called. “You’ll make a fine coat for winter.”

Thwack! Closer again, and Gerhardt threw across a panicked look. And that was it. Something in his eyes—the surety of his death—snapped Hansel’s heart like a twig. Hansel refused to see another day of his suffering.

He gave Gerhardt one last, slow nod, trying to communicate that he should run. This was his only chance.

Gerhardt’s head shook in response, but Hansel never saw it.

“Father, stop.” He stepped from his hiding place, and in the very moment, he knew it had been a mistake.

The man’s scarlet face scrunched into the essence of hatred—red, twisted, black eyes so malevolent that even after all those winters, it felt like a spike in Hansel’s heart. Why couldn’t this man have loved him? Why, ofall men on earth, didHanselhave to be bornofthis man’s flesh and blood?

The axe came for him, fast and blind and brutal. But not as fast as Gerhardt.

The hard arm under his ribs smashed the air from Hansel’s lungs, and he was falling, falling. Then everything was pitch black.