Page 7 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

Clearing

P anting, sweating, exhausted, Gerhardt burst through the treeline and collapsed at the edge of a shadowy stream that blocked his path.

They’d been running for hours, again, and he couldn’t take another step.

His was the sort of fatigue that felt as though nothing else in the world mattered anymore—as though the jaws of any hungry animal were but a stepping-stone to the whole-bodily craved peace of death.

Leaves crackled beneath Hansel’s boots as he ran up, two steps behind all the way, while Gerhardt had tried to run faster, to flee Hansel and the very words he then delivered breathlessly, doubled over and with hands on his thighs. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Shut up, Hansel!” Gerhardt pushed himself up, but made it all of three steps before his legs began to shake, and he was forced to stop and grip a branch for support. He felt Hansel close behind him, and said weakly, “I wish you’d just shut up for once.”

A hard silence fell between them until, softly, Hansel tried, “We need to keep on. That wolf’s out there—”

“Who cares?”Gerhardtflung at him. “What do you even fucking care?” He turned around, leaning hard against the tree, fingers digging into the rough barktoholdhimselfup.

“What are you fighting for? This is it, Hansel. It’s forest, and it’s forest, and it’s more fucking forest, as far as the eye can see.

Further than you could ever walk. And all of it empty, bereft of life, except for us and that wolf.

You’ll never make it out. You’ll die and your body will rot out here in the open with nothing to eat it, because there aren’t even any bugs left alive.

You’ll lie there and you’ll be dead, and we’ll both be better off for it. ”

Hansel let out a gasp of breath, just exactly as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He felt as though he had.

His eyes searched Gerhardt’s for as long as he could stand to look into them, and all he saw was defiance.

A defiance that lit every splinter of the browns and gold and auburn of his irises with glistening anger that sparked like all the heat and energy of the sun.

He was running on pure rage, pure hate. And all of it, Hansel felt, directed straight at him.

Hansel tried to speak, but it took a moment. No sound came from his dry throat until he wet his lips, swallowed, and tried a second time, surprising himself with the calm of his tone. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

He may have been terrified to be left alone in the forest, but he had his pride, and a near-fatal wound to lick.

He felt the tears about ready to burst out of him, and after a statement like Gerhardt had just made, it was the last thing he wanted him to see.

To remember him as nothing more than a blubbering mess.

Already worth so little, but to be hated even more… To be more pitiful.

Hansel dropped his head, gathering what was left of his dwindling energy. “I’m going this way. I wish you well, brother. Despite everything, I mean that. I hope you make it out, Gerhardt.”

Hansel trod forward blindly, and made it five full steps before he felt Gerhardt’s hand on his arm pulling him back. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

Hansel’s lips parted, but he neither spoke nor raised his eyes.

Gerhardt gave his arm a firm shake, which rattled his entire body. “You’re leaving me? Just like that?”

“Yes, I’m leaving you!” Hansel shouted back, all the anger and hurt breaking his voice. “You don’t want me here. You want me dead and gone.”

“That’s not true!”

“Yes, it’s true! You’ve always hated me, Gerhardt, from the very first day.

I know it, and I’m sorry it was me. I’m sorry I was the one you were thrown together with, in all the world.

I’m sorry for every winter you were stuck in that cabin with me, and I’m sorry even now, even as we’re about to die, that it’s me again.

Always me, right there in your way. And so I’ll go.

And you can die alone, as that’s so obviously preferable to you. ”

Again he pulled away, again he was caught, only twice as firmly now, and wrenched back so his face was a hair’s breadth from Gerhardt’s. “I’ve never hated you. I’ve never once, not for a minute, hated you, Hansel.”

“You want me dead,” Hansel seethed. “You just said!”

“Only so I don’t have to watch you die, you stupid boy!

” Gerhardt whirled away angrily, then flung two hands up into the air.

“Do you think that’s what I want? My only fr-uh-uh-person on earth, dead in front of me, and me left alone to wander this stupid forest?

I’d rather that great wolf tear us both to shreds here and now. ”

“Don’t call me stupid!” was all Hansel could think to throw back.

“Well, you are stupid, if that’s what you think!

” Gerhardt shouted. Hansel turned his head away, so Gerhardt, lowering his hands to his hips, said a little more softly, “I’m here, aren’t I?

I haven’t left you.” Then moving closer, almost as if he wanted to place a hand on Hansel’s arm, “I wouldn’t ever leave you.

Not unless you wanted me to. And even then— I don’t want you to go, Hansel, I don’t.

I want you to-to… Please. Please stay with me.

” Gerhardt’s own voice began to crack dangerously, so he turned back to his branch, hiding his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry I did that. Both things. I’m sorry I said that, and I’m sorry I killed that hare.

I know you’re angry with me… I didn’t know what else to do. ”

Hansel took him in, his fiery brother, small and exhausted, barely able to stand up, on the edge of tears. “Gerhardt, is that what you think?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Gerhardt shook his head, leaning on clasped fingers, staring at the ripple of light on the stream.

“I saw the way you looked at me. From the moment I picked it up. Do you think I want to be this person? Do you think I ever would have done something like that if I didn’t have to live like this? ”

Hansel came to the branch, leaning beside him, hands clasped in just the same way.

“I don’t want to be an animal,” Gerhardt said.

“I don’t want to be like this. I never did.

I had dreams once, you know? When I lived in the city.

When I knew there was a future and a way out.

” He lowered his gaze to look at the shards of bark his fingers had begun to splinter off the branch.

“And then all of it was gone. One day, one bad choice after another that other people made, and I was blown along with it. Two evil, intolerable fathers. Two ! What were the chances of that? Then two dead mothers, both of ours. And now it’s us and no way out.

And what did I do to deserve this? What did either of us ever do but just try to survive? ”

That touch. That touch that Gerhardt had felt earlier in the forest. That rare press of human solidity.

An arm against his at first, then a hand curling around his biceps, giving a squeeze.

He wanted to drop his head to Hansel’s great shoulder, close his eyes and nestle there.

But how strange that would have been, out here in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and Hansel alone with him and no one else.

He had to restrain himself, lest he make it awkward.

Hansel said, “I don’t blame you. I wanted to say to you, I couldn’t believe you did it. But only because I wouldn’t have been able to.”

Gerhardt let out a bitter breath of laughter and tried to pull away, but Hansel held him firm.

“Not because I think you did anything wrong. You did just exactly the right thing. And it was a hard choice, and it saved us both. And I have always admired that in you. You pushed it today. You made Father so angry that he almost killed us both. But if you hadn’t done that, where would we be now?”

Gerhardt took enough heart to meet his eyes, and there was a kindness in them, soft in the delicate moonlight, that entranced Gerhardt.

“We might have been inside. If he hadn’t killed us,” Hansel said.

“We might even have had a fire. But we’d be just as hungry.

And we’d be just as scared.” Hansel’s lips parted like he wanted to speak on, but wasn’t sure what to say.

It took him a moment, but finally, with the ghost of a smile, he said, “And I would never have discovered that you didn’t hate me. ”

Gerhardt turned his whole body towards him, clasping his forearm. “I have never hated you.” This he said twice as firmly as the last time, earnestly, his dark eyes searching Hansel’s for his understanding.

That slight smile deepened, became something solid, real.

“And now you know I have always admired you. Even if I was too scared to ever tell you. I didn’t want to encourage it because I thought it was dangerous.

But you have made me feel safe, even if you never knew it, just by being there.

I took heart in your bravery every day. And today it has saved my life.

And I hate to see you struggle this way.

And if I could carry you on my back and out of this place, I would.

Until my dying step, I would carry you…” He broke off and turned his face away as a tear sparkled down his cheek.

“Hansel…” Gerhardt whispered. It was an admission he’d never imagined he’d hear. That those feelings were hidden in Hansel’s heart all that time. That he never thought he could tell him. How different things might have been.

Hansel tried to laugh it off. “We are both tired. We’ve been through so much today. Maybe we do need to rest a while.”

Gerhardt’s hand tightened on the branch.

He felt as though he should tell Hansel all the same things—return his kind words with the secret sentiments he’d always kept scrunched in a ball in his chest. That Hansel’s quiet kindness was the only thing that kept him going most days.

That when he’d once sharpened a stick into a stake and thought of forcing it through his chest, the idea of leaving Hansel alone with their father was the only thing that had stopped him.

But he couldn’t tell him. He couldn’t, because very suddenly, Gerhardt became aware that what he wanted to say wasn’t the words of a brother.

It was something more, and something deeper, and something that went beyond anything Gerhardt had ever felt before.

Because hearing those words on Hansel’s lips had changed something inside him.

Yes, Hansel was his only person in the world. To lose him or to leave him—he would rather die than let it happen. But there was something now in the turn of his cheek, in his humility, in the way he moved his lips, and the long lashes that closed over those kind eyes.

He yearned to reach a hand out for that cheek, to comfort him, but also to feel the brush of his short beard on his skin. To feel it beneath his hand. And worse still… beneath his lips. To kiss his cheek. To kiss his lips.

Gerhardt’s chest swelled with desire for the first time in his life—a desire that raged against shame, that took his breath and silenced him. That made him turn his back on Hansel and walk a little distance towards the stream.

“I think you’re right,” he said, cupping a hand, dipping it into the ice-cold water, which he splashed on his face to quell the heat at his cheeks. “We have this to drink at least. No fire, no food, but it’s something. Perhaps in the morning…”

“Yes,” Hansel agreed, eyes fast on his back. “Perhaps in the morning…”