Page 4 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

Glimmer

I t felt like aeons of stumbling through unbroken darkness before Hansel and Gerhardt ground to a halt out of sheer exhaustion.

“Do you think it’s nightfall yet?” asked Gerhardt, hands at his waist, catching his breath.

“Does it matter?” Hansel returned sharply. “Not a speck of light will find us in this damnable forest. We’re going to die. I told you we should never have come in here.”

“Oh, shut up, Hansel!” Gerhardt snapped.

“I haven’t spoken a word in hours!” Hansel protested.

“And it’s still too soon, you prat!” Gerhardt would have loved to storm off ahead, but he couldn’t see a thing. And the fact was, every time his arm brushed Hansel’s, every time he heard his brother’s breath, or a grunt of effort, a little spark of relief eased down his spine.

The place was terrifying, every bit as supernatural as Hansel had told him it would be in the many stories he’d frightened him with during their teenage years.

He wasn’t sure if he’d believed a word Hansel said about it back then, always having thought Hansel was a bit of a coward, and that he was probably embellishing for the sake of entertainment.

But both those beliefs had been turned on their heads that day.

The forest was just as evil and magical as Hansel had said it was. Worse, even.

And, without a shred of doubt, Hansel was no coward.

He had proved that, having saved Gerhardt’s life at least three times.

Something in Gerhardt wondered how many more times it had happened at home. It wasn’t as though he’d never seen Hansel put his neck on the block to save him a beating. But Gerhardt had so often put that down to Hansel’s desperation to keep the uneasy peace of that cursed shack.

But now he’d seen Hansel bold and brave, defending him at such great cost to himself.

So why was he so angry with him? Why now did he feel so strangely distant and… defensive?

It was as though he didn’t quite know Hansel, very suddenly, just today, and after all these winters. And he wasn’t sure whether that comforted or frightened him.

His weary limbs begged him to drop to the forest floor, to rest and take stock. He was reaching the point of tired that made that idea seem smart. The point where the warm embrace of sleep shielding him from his troubles for a few hours seemed preferable to anything else he could think up.

And if he was lucky, perhaps some evil of the woods would find him and prevent him waking ever again. A fast and painless death. That was what he wanted.

But the sound of Hansel shifting his stance at his side lit the spark of duty—of care. How cruel for Hansel to be left alone out there in the Dark Forest. Gerhardt would just have to not die, unpleasant as the thought was.

He touched a hand to some part of Hansel that he couldn’t see in the dark, and gentling his tone, said, “Let’s keep on. There must be an end to this forest.” Hansel said nothing, but walked on as bidden, so Gerhardt asked, “Were you ever told how big this place is?”

He heard the small sigh from Hansel’s lips.

It must have been an effort to speak to him after the way he’d just snapped like that.

But neither Hansel’s voice nor words betrayed any bitterness.

“I don’t know, by miles or days to ride.

I believe some have forged roads and paths through these trees, though clearly not in this part.

But the forest plays tricks, like that vine we saw heal itself.

We could be three feet from a road, and we would never know it. ”

Hansel stumbled, and Gerhardt brought both hands to his big shoulder to prevent him falling. Hansel’s fingers came up fast, squeezing Gerhardt’s. And there they remained as both men stilled again.

“Are you all right, Hansel?” Gerhardt whispered.

“No,” Hansel returned softly. “No, I’m not a bit all right.”

The two were not the sort of stepbrothers to hug and hold one another.

They’d been raised roughly, all physical affection dying with each of their mothers.

But Gerhardt remembered. He remembered how badly he had craved someone to put their arms around him when he was at his most frightened.

When he was abandoned, bereft, alone with that horrible father, terrified of the flame-haired boy who watched him from beneath the table.

The touch of Hansel’s fingers made him close his own into his shoulder, pull him around, and before he knew it, he’d buried his head against his neck.

Strong arms enclosed him, and he wrapped iron arms around Hansel.

It was the first embrace either had felt in over a decade.

He held back the sob, but the tears flowed fresh and scalding, and he felt Hansel’s drop onto his shoulder.

“Thank you.” The sound came barely audible from Gerhardt’s lips, but it made Hansel embrace him that much tighter. Gerhardt closed his eyes against the forest, safer than he’d felt in so long.

Until Hansel pulled away and trudged on.

The silence was different then. It became a silence that felt like it needed to be filled. A heavy silence that seemed to hold a secret from them both.

“Are you—” Gerhardt started.

“Do you think—” Hansel also started.

Boots crushing sticks, the scent of damp leaves and moss, and nothing else.

“I was going to—” Hansel began.

“What if we—” Gerhardt tried.

Then a laugh, gentle from Hansel. And rare. A very rare laugh. It was a warm sound. Alien in the cold forest. It was a nice sound.

“I think we’ll be okay,” Gerhardt said, his heart jarringly desperate for more of that sound. “There are cities, towns, villages. Places out there where other people are. We just have to keep on, and we’ll find them, eventually.”

“You tried to escape so many times,” Hansel returned. “And you never found one.”

“Not so many times,” Gerhardt said. “Only four.” And he’d been caught and returned at every attempt.

Three times, he was found by his stepfather, who’d whipped him, then chained him in the stables for days afterwards.

Only once was he found by a stranger. A man who’d taken an odious gleam into his eyes when Gerhardt described what he was escaping from.

Fifteen winters old, Gerhardt was bound hand and foot by a man he didn’t know, thrown on the back of a cart, and forced home.

His father had to pay for him. Gerhardt got two extra days in the stables for it.

“But that was the road to town,” Gerhardt argued, trying to throw off the horror of the memories. “I was stupid to try the same route over and again.”

“Not stupid,” said Hansel. “It was that or the Dark Forest. I believe you were wiser to go where there’s light.”

It didn’t seem wise in hindsight. But it also hadn’t felt like there was any other option.

Yes, Hansel’s tales had scared him. But not so much as the sparkling eyes he’d occasionally caught in the treeline, a row of claws poking out once or twice.

Odd screams, maybe human, maybe not. And if he’d been honest with himself, he would have admitted he was just as much of a coward as Hansel, where that forest was concerned.

Hansel cut into his thoughts before he could admit a thing. “I never told him, you know? I kept it a secret. I hoped you’d make it.”

Gerhardt, appalled at the admission, ground to a halt. “I never thought you told him. Not once.”

“You didn’t?” There was a tremor in Hansel’s voice that squeezed Gerhardt’s heart.

“No, of course not. For all our differences…” Perhaps that was better left without further discussion.

They’d never once been so close as this.

And it was, even here in the woods, so near to death, deeply comforting.

“I… I always knew, the little pieces of food I found when I was chained up… I knew they weren’t just spare scraps for the animals.

Or at least… I thought they weren’t.” He couldn’t see Hansel’s smile, but he felt it.

Emboldened, he added, “I would have done the same for you. Only you were never put in the stables.”

“I wouldn’t have been much use chained up next to you.”

True enough. Brutally true. A thought that hadn’t once occurred to him when Hansel disappeared during his punishments.

When Hansel shut his mouth, and Gerhardt wondered if he hated him.

He’d assumed he did. Because Gerhardt was never good at keeping his mouth shut.

But he’d never thought Hansel’s actions were solely for his sake.

The idea was overwhelming. That Hansel could push down the urge to act so he could help. Because Gerhardt knew, if not for those scraps of food Hansel had sacrificed for him, he probably wouldn’t be there.

Choked up, Gerhardt rasped, “Hansel—”

But, “Gerhardt,” Hansel said at the same time, voice crisp as a fallen leaf. “I can… I can see.”

“You can…” Gerhardt tried to focus. It was but the merest suggestion of shape, yet it was there. It was there, and there must have been a light source somewhere.

He broke from Hansel, surging forward, and sure enough, with every step, that dullness of shape formed itself into recognisable objects.

There were the trees, there were the broken branches lying in wait for their shins, there, even, the leaves.

And on they moved until a distant glow beckoned to them.

“There!” cried Gerhardt, breaking into a run. Hansel was close behind him as he called over his shoulder, “See that? What a stupid forest! I never thought for a second it had us beat.”

Naturally, Gerhardt immediately tripped and fell over a log.

“Stupid boy!” Hansel breathed, dropping to his knees to pick him up.

But he was greeted with a beautiful smile, such as he hadn’t seen for many winters. “I’m completely fine. And look. We made it.”

Hansel wrenched him to his feet, cautious even in the face of such overwhelming optimism. “Not yet, we didn’t. We can’t relax until we’ve found a town far away from home.”

“You worry too much, Hansel. Always have.” And Gerhardt was off running again, fast and straight into the light, where he skidded to a stop with a dramatic wobble that brought Hansel up close beside him.

“I almost fell straight in,” Gerhardt laughed, boots squelching in the mud of a wide stream. “But never fear. We’re saved!”

Hansel surveyed the deep and babbling stream. “I’m not sure we should—”

But Gerhardt had already dropped straight to his knees, and was drinking deep from the fresh and flowing water.

Tentatively, Hansel knelt down beside him. “How does it taste?”

“Like freedom, Hansel. Like we’re out and we never have to worry another day in our lives.”

“Like you can taste the poisonous waste of a tanning factory from upstream?” Hansel half joked.

With a coy smile, “Actually, no. So let’s head downstream, shall we? If there’s nothing to sense from upstream, downstream must be the way to civilisation.”

“Unless we’re just too far down for you to taste dead animals and dye,” Hansel countered. “Perhaps upstream leads to a mightier river, and we’d be better off following that?”

“Perhaps downstream leads to an ocean.”

Hansel squinted at him.

So Gerhardt explained, “I’ve heard of those.

They’re really a lot of water. Water as far as the eye can see, and it goes all the way around the Earth, connecting foreign lands.

” Hansel continued to squint, so Gerhardt reduced the grandeur of the idea.

“Or perhaps it leads to a peaceful lake with a village by it?”

“Or a swamp.”

“That’s true,” said Gerhardt. “And do you know who lives in swamps?”

“Ogres?” Hansel suggested, seriously and fearfully.

“Animals,” Gerhardt corrected. “Animals who have flesh and blood and organs that I can feast upon! But it hardly matters which way we go. Water always leads to towns, one way or another. It’s a fact I learned once.”

Dubiously, “Where did you learn that fact?”

“Who knows?” Gerhardt returned cheerily. “But the idea feels sound to me. Now, let’s go find something to eat.”

Gerhardt climbed to his feet and wandered on, for the first time ever, as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

Hansel dipped his hand into the water and took a small sip. Unlike Gerhardt, he was resolved to test a little first, to see that it was safe.

And it tasted every bit as wonderful as Gerhardt had described.

And, caution aside, Hansel had to admit, it was nice to see that unprecedented bounce in Gerhardt’s step.

Really, oddly, quite nice…