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

Consumed by Darkness

D ead? Was he dead? He couldn’t see a thing. He could feel only the frantic urge for air. Lungs on fire, his stomach screaming, he retched and gasped and his black and empty world seemed to spin. It was all horror, displacement, desperation.

Then a hand on his chest, a body laid out long next to him, and, “For god’s sake, Hansel, do try to be quiet.”

Gerhardt. Gerhardt stroking his cheek, his arm around him, and the molten breathsslowlycoming easier into his chest. The sound of his own wheezing raspswasallthenoise beyond his blood beating violently and Gerhardt’s soft, “Shhh. Please, Hansel.”

Hansel reached up andgrabbedGerhardt’shand, his panic melting into the firm squeeze that came back. Then, hack! A blinding light struck through the dark. Hack and hack , and a large triangleof white appeared before them.

Vines. It was a wall of vines that had enclosed them somehow, and his father’s axe hadsmashedthroughit.His hideous face came into view.“Let me in, boys. I’m hungry!”

Gerhardt scrambled back, pulling Hansel with him. But before their very eyes, the darkness came alive.

The split vines curled and snapped, looping and knitting together, thick and thin, to obliterate the view of their father, his axe, every sound and every gasp of light.

The vines must have parted for them when Gerhardt pushed him in, just in time to aid their escape, before locking their father out.

It was too strange to be true.

Hansel’s fingers squeezed into Gerhardt’s wrist. “What the fuck was that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gerhardt whispered. “We have to run.”

“Where are we?” Hansel flung his gaze around blindly, nothing visible in the impenetrable black to orient him. “Is this the Dark Forest?”

“We don’t have time for yourstupidsuperstitions. Get up!” Gerhardt’s fingernails scratcheddeep into Hansel’s skin as he tried to raise him to his feet.

“Don’t you understand what you’ve done?” Hansel blustered.

Crack! Dazzling sunlightsmashedthrough the vines, but faster this time, it closed into darkness.

“Would you rather be out there?” Gerhardt’s fingers linked so tight into Hansel’s they hurt. “Run or we’ll die.”

And so they did. And they fell, and they rammed into trees, and sharp sticks stuck their shins so theybled, but they ran.

Cut and scratched and bruised, they foughton for what felt like aeons.

There wasn’t the smallest gap in what must have been a forest canopy overhead.

There was no possible comprehension in the vastness of magical nature they’d found themselves lost in.

Their only drive was fear, and they ran on and on,untilfinally,some distant shimmering caught their eyes.

“There!” Gerhardt whisper-shouted, though he needn’t have. Hansel’s eyes were lockedon and he’dalready adjusted direction.

They sprinted for the light, tentative and strange, but inch by inch, more and more sparkling lights appeared before their eyes, an eerie glow beckoning to them.

Hansel slowed his pace, pulling Gerhardt back with him. “What is this place?”

The light did not appear from any cracks in the impenetrable covering above. It shone from the ground, the bark of the trees, the leaves themselves.

Trepidatiously now, the two edged closer, the forest coming to lifewith every step.

They’d never seen anything like it. The fireplace in the cottage, the one lamp they’dall sharedat night,were all the light in the dark Hansel had everknown.

Even the dimly lit town windows of Gerhardt’s childhood couldn’t compare.

Their viewbecame dazzling as even the fallen leaves they trod upon illuminated the forest floor.

Together, they surveyed their surroundings.

Hansel remained terrified, repeatedlysearching the pitch-black darkness behind them, expecting their father to come through at any moment, and wary of what these strange lightsmight mean.

But Gerhardt… His smile in the glow of the luminous woods was as magical as the scene itself.

He bent down to pick up a leaf, eyeswide,careful.

Fingers tentative on the stem, he broughtthelong and tawnytreasure close to his eyes.

Hansel crouchedbyhim, almost equally entranced.

Two small and fluffy spores of luminosity—flower-like—clung to the leaf.

Gerhardt twisted it around to examine underneath, a yellow glow lighting warm brown eyes that struck Hansel strangely just then.

He couldn’t recall ever having seen such curiosityandwonder in those eyes.

“Have you ever seen such a thing?”Gerhardtwhispered.

“No.” Hansel checked over his shoulder again. “I do not think we should be here. The Dark Forest is a place of magic. Dark magic—”

“They’re just plants.” It was bright enough for Hansel to see the eye roll Gerhardt added to the comment. “We’re better off in here than out there.”

“You don’t know what that is,” Hansel countered. “Or what it means.”

Gerhardt dropped the leaf asif Hansel hadn’t said a word. “Hansel! Look!”He verily tripped over a log in his rush, thenscrambled forward onhis kneestothe base of a tree, holding two hands out in the closest expression of holy reverence Hansel had ever seen.

It was a mushroom. Of sorts. It was enormous, bright red on top,emitting the samebrilliantglowofthe strange spores all around them, its long white stem and gillsshiningwith their sunnyluminosity.

Closer, closer,Gerhardt’sfingers edged towards his prize.

Only to be struck back by Hansel’s frantichand.

Gerhardt responded maturely, by slapping those fingers whichhadslapped his, which Hansel slapped even harder, and the quiet forest became alive with grunts, petty fighting, the crunching of leaves, until Gerhardt finally shoved Hansel onto his bottom andjumped to his feet. “It’s a mushroom, you idiot!”

Hansel was up, furious. “I can see that, you fool!”

“What? Did you want us to starve to death?”

Hansel slapped his own forehead in exasperation. “You don’t eat weird, poisonous mushrooms you just found, Gerhardt. Lord, you’ve been out in the wild for all of five minutes and you’re about to kill yourself.”

“How do you know it’s poisonous?” Gerhardt spat. “Have you ever seen its like?”

“Never once,” said Hansel, “which is reason enough to not eat it.”

Gerhardt’s hands scraped at his empty stomach. “Do you imagine I care if I die? It would be worth it just to have something inside me.” He reached for the plant, but Hansel’s grip was fast and strong.

“Clearly you don’t know how painful death by mushroom poisoning is,” he said.

“Less painful than another five minutes with you!” Gerhardt threw at him. “You and your stupid, scared, pathetic, grovelling ways. I’ll eat, and maybe I’ll die, but I’ll eat.”

Gerhardt’s words cut Hansel to the quick. He was deranged with hungerand fear—that much was clear.But that was what he really thought of him.

His ever-present guilt for Gerhardt’s suffering at his own father’s hands coupled with anger at the affront, and all Hansel could manage was a small, “I saved your life today.”

The eyes of a creature of prey met his. Scared and untrusting. “And I saved yours, too. Even if you do blame me for bringing you here. You’d have had an axe in your skull if I hadn’t acted. What were you thinking, just jumping out in front of him like that?”

“I was thinking he was going to kill you. You or me, as sure as day, and I meant to buy you time to escape. And now look where it’s gotten us.” He cast fearful eyes about the silent trees, a look which Gerhardt followed, his chin raising with a touch of defiance.

“I’d say it’s already a great improvement on what we had.” And again, he reached for the cursed fungus.

And again, Hansel clamped strong hands down on his wrist.“Oh, no. You’ve got me lost in the forest—the Dark Forest , I’ll add—and you are not going todie and leave mehere to find my way out alone.”

“Oh, so I’ll starve just to keep you company, shall I?”

With sneering sarcasm, “That would be great actually, thank you.”

“Fuck you, Hansel.”

“Fuck you too, Gerhardt.”

But for all that, Gerhardt didn’t reach for the mushroom again. It might have taken some few moments to sink in, but the agonising, writhing, excoriating death of mushroom poisoning was something all forest dwellers knew of only too well.

Heeyed the mushroom, a touch of fear in hisgazenow. “Fine.I won’t eat it.But I’ll take it as a torch to light the way until we find something better.” Thrown by his words, Hansel tooktoo longto act, and in the blink of an eye,Gerhardthad snapped the stem.

The lights on the mushroom went out immediately, those all around began to pulsate, shifting to orange, then to a ghastly blood-red.

“Oi! What the fuck?” came a shout at their knees.

Both heads snapped downto find a small creature, humanish, pink-skinned, long-eared, and furious.

They stood stock still, having heard and understood its words in full, but unable to process the fact that a creature of the forest had just spoken to them.

But the creature was happy enough tocarry on, regardless. “You think you can just come in here andtrash my things?”

“N-no,” Gerhardt tried.

“Do you know how long that took me to build?”

“No, I don’t—”

“Of course you fucking don’t,” the creature snarled. “You’ve probably never once seen a mushroom lantern in your whole entire life, have you?”

“No, I—”

“I didn’t fucking think so. Fucking brats, acting like you own the fucking forest.”

Hansel pinched Gerhardt’s elbow, hissing, “Apologise.”

Gerhardt frowned hard at him. “I’m trying to apolo—”

“Meant for attracting deer, that was,” the creature went on. “Now what am I supposed to eat?”

“Deer?” Gerhardt dropped to his knees, levelling eyes with the being. “There are deer in these woods?” His stomach growled at the very thought.

The little red eyes lit, and the creature leaned its warty face close to Gerhardt’s, talking low. “No, there fucking aren’t. But the lantern did its job well enough today.” Its thin lips pulled into a sharp grin, and a long, purple tongue licked over a jumble of yellow-brown teeth—all fangs.

Gerhardt was caught staring into the horrifying mouth of his strange predator, but it was Hansel, who’d never lowered his guard enough to approach, who saw the glint of red light on metal.

Another second, and the barbed cuff would have closed around Gerhardt’s wrist, spiking him through with twelve irremovable hooks.

But Hansel hurled himself on Gerhardt first, tackling him to the ground and away from the being.

“Get back here, you fuck!” the thing screeched at them, clamping a hand around Gerhardt’s ankle.

Gerhardt kicked his other foot at it, shocked by the strength in its tiny limbs holding him tight. “Get off me!”

“You’re not getting away that easy.” He wrenched Gerhardt’s long socks down, exposing his shin. Sharp nails dug in, and Gerhardt recoiled from the drool that dripped onto his skin almost as violently as he did from the impending bite.

A great branch swung, and using all his woodcutter’s muscles, Hansel smashed the branch into the side of the creature’s head. It barely flinched, but, very deliberately, dropped Gerhardt’s leg.

Gerhardt reeled back against a tree, seemingly unnoticed by the thing now.

A quivering lip let out a guttural growl, and the being levelled eyes at Hansel. “You first, then.”

It lunged with cat-like agility, seventy-two razor-like teeth flying at Hansel with the full intent of ripping his face from his skull.

Gerhardt’s foot shot out, connecting hard with fifty-four of those teeth.

They sliced straight through the leather of his boot, and it was just lucky for Gerhardt that the shoes were hand-me-downs from Hansel, too large and bulked out with straw, otherwise his toes would have been gone.

The tip ripped clean off, exposing Gerhardt’s foot, and the creature dropped to the ground, mouth stuffed full of leather.

Hansel’s hand shot out at the same time as Gerhardt reached for him, and they bolted from the scene, neither half as scared of the black of the forest as they had been—not compared to the light, now they knew what dwelt there.

“Come back, you fucks!” The creature spat a clod of wet straw to the ground, glaring at their disappearing backs. “Assholes.”

He climbed to his feet and dusted himself off, then readied his chain and cuff for the next catch, muttering to himself. “Ah well, they’re for it now. Herr Candy never lets ‘em get away.”