Page 10 of The Pebbled Path

With one final, fleeting smile, she slipped into the forest. He waited but a moment before following her. She was quick and more familiar with the twists and turns and branching paths. Farther and farther into the forest they went, he attempting to keep pace with her.

He managed it until, quite suddenly, he stopped. He couldn’t help himself. His feet carried him back in the direction he’d come. He turned around with great effort, only to be repelled once more. This happened any number of times. It was almost as if he was being pushed away by . . . magic.

Magic. The enchantress, no doubt.

Hansel, however, was not one to be so easily defeated. Following the path his feet forced him down, he vowed to find a means of reaching the home where Gretel was kept prisoner. Somehow, he would manage it, and together they would find a way to free her.

Chapter Six

Hansel did not ask again if he might follow her to the enchantress’s house. Their time together began with his inquiries into her well-being and happiness and ended with his pleas that she be careful. The precious minutes in between were spent in pleasant conversation, warm embraces, and periods of comfortable silence. How she missed him on the long, lonely days they were not together.

If not for the spell binding Gretel to the enchantress’s home, they might have courted like an ordinary couple, meeting at her home, Papa offering his blessing.

She paused in her weeding of the garden. No matter how hard she tried, she could not form a clear image of her home or her papa. She had not been gone so long that she ought to have so fully forgotten the faces and places she had known all her life. This, no doubt, was the enchantress’s doing. Would she eventually forget Papa entirely? Would she forget Hansel as well?

“Your vow requires you to work.” The enchantress’s hissing voice echoed off the tall stone wall. “Daydreaming does not count.”

The enchantress seldom ventured from the house, which had always offered Gretel some comfort. What had brought her to the garden?

Gretel did not dare ask. The few times she’d inquired of her mistress over some matter or another, she’d been severely scolded and subjected to long days locked in the basement. She had learned to keep her questions to herself, to put her head down and do her work.

She watched her mistress out of the corner of her eye. The enchantress walked beside the wall, an unnervingly satisfied smile on her hideous face. Something about the stones pleased her. A shiver slid down Gretel’s spine. Nothing that delighted the enchantress could possibly be anything but contemptible.

The garden, and the wall in particular, had unnerved Gretel from the very start. This moment confirmed that impression.

The breeze picked up, gusting cold. The ever-present flow of water splattered in the wind. The enchantress jumped back. Odd. Never, in the months Gretel had been in the enchantress’s cottage, had anything frightened her mistress. Indeed, nothing had even seemed to concern her. But the water had. Gretel knew deep in her bones that the water was, in some way, of crucial importance.

The enchantress’s head snapped upward. Her eyes pulled wide, searching the area nearby. Her slit-shaped nostrils flared wide. Gretel looked about as well, unsure what had captured her mistress’s attention. She saw nothing. She heard nothing.

The enchantress’s thin lips spread in an eager smile. “We have a visitor.”

Gretel’s heart sank. Someone had been entrapped. She suspected others had been, though she’d been banished to the basement and didn’t know for certain. There could be no uncertainty now. Neither could she harbor any doubts as to the fate of those the enchantress lured to this cottage. She hadn’t the first idea how to save whoever had stumbled into this trap.

“To the basement,” the enchantress snapped.

Gretel’s mind spun as she walked back to the cottage. What could she do? How could she help? She could not simply descend into the basement and leave the poor soul to his fate. But what power did she have?

She stepped inside the cottage and froze.

Hansel.

How had he come here? She’d laid the determents. They ought to have kept him far away.

The enchantress had not yet arrived.

“You must leave,” Gretel said, the words rushing from her lips. “Please. Go now. She will kill you. She has done so before.”

She glanced over her shoulder. The enchantress was coming near enough to overhear. There was no time for escape.

“Good evening,” the enchantress said as she glided into the cottage. “How wonderful of you to join us.”

Hansel watched the haggard witch with utter adoration. Gretel vaguely remembered Papa doing the same. Another enchantment, no doubt. Her actual hideousness was somehow not seen by the men she lured to their doom.

“Gretel,” the enchantress hissed. “Why are you still here? I told you to go below.”

“I only just stepped inside,” she said. “I wasn’t certain if you wished me to do something to make your guest comfortable. Perhaps some food or something to drink.”

“I will provide his food,” the enchantress said. “He will join me for supper, for however long it takes.”