Welcome, Reader, the the 2018 Advent Calendar, aka the
Great Giftmas Calendar! In case you missed yesterday's story,
go here. Before We get to the story, remember that this is to raise money for the Edmonton Food Bank, and every
donation is appreciated. This year, we want to raise $750 which translates to 2,250 meals, so believe me when I say even a dollar helps. You can also
win things! So really, just make a small donation, I'll wait.
Done? Okay, good, then let's get started with the story. I hope you like black humor. :}
~~~
Hans & Gretel
By Alexandra Seidel
The kitchen knives had gotten dull
since the midsummer feast, and Hans ran their edges over the
whetstone with diligent precision. Outside, it was snowing again.
Hans, eyes fixed on his work, had the
distinct feeling that this Christmas would be special. It might have
been a wish more than a feeling, but no matter; the gingerbread house
tasted especially good this year, and that always meant something
special was about to come along.
He looked over to his sister Gretel,
who was just heating up the oven.
“You have your daydreaming face on
again, haven't you?" she asked without turning to look at him.
Her golden hair caught the twinkle of the fire and for a moment it
shone almost red.
“So what if I do?" Hans said.
“Come now, Hänsel; I don't need you
around spinning daydreams while handling the kitchen knives. Why
don't you walk it off? The woods are big, and chances are that you
will find us something delectable to eat. I mean, It's Christmas
tomorrow and apart from the gingerbread and those skinny rabbits I
snared… well, I just think it would be nice to have a decent meal
for Christmas Day, don't you?"
Hänsel. Nobody ever called him that
these days except his sister.
Gretel turned her head to him and fixed
him with a bottle green stare. Hans sighed. She was certainly right.
It had been so many years since old grandmother Hexe went into the
oven. It had been Christmas then too, and a previously unparalleled
feast, if a little tough. Yes, whenever Hans thought of grandmother
Hexe, he would remember how tough she was to deal with the two of
them on her own. It hadn't really been a surprise that her time in
the oven hadn't changed that.
“I think you're right," Hans
said, staring back at his sister with eyes just as green as hers.
She tilted her head and smirked. “You
want me to get the bread crumbs for you, brother?"
This made both of them laugh, loud and
clear, like cawing ravens over a fresh corpse.
“No, I know my way," Hans said
finally.
He left Gretel to deal with the oven
and the knives and set off for a walk in the woods. The snowfall this
year had been heavy and soon his legs vanished into chilly white
waves up to his knees.
Hans walked around aimlessly for a
while and let his thoughts drift. His breath misted in front of his
eyes and the cold bit his face and stung his eyes. After a good hour
of walking he saw something red brushing the corner of his vision. He
turned his head and there it was again, a flash of red bobbing up and
down through the snow dunes close to the common path, the path the
more cautious folk used when venturing into the woods.
Hans, always a curious one, moved to
check it out. As he stepped onto the snow-laden path, he recognized
Little Red Riding Hood who had virtually no chance to move through
the knee high snow other than hopping like an over excited red bunny.
She was carrying her wicker basket with strong wine and fresh cake in
it, and the bottle made a clinking sound almost as pleasant as a
tumbling ornament with her every jump.
“Hello, child," Hans greeted the
girl, raising one gloved hand as he did so. “Out to visit your
granny?"
“Yes, sir," replied the little
girl in red. The snow was covering her to the waist. Two big blue
eyes looked at him intently. “Are you by any chance the wolf?"
“No, child. Why are you asking?"
“Oh, well, we were just playing
dress-up, you see, and I'm afraid the wolf took one of my glass
slippers… but no matter. If you aren't the wolf, I'll just head
straight to granny's place. She always wants her wine, you know. And
maybe I'll meet the wolf on the way. He promised to show me
something."
"Show you something? Something
what?"
"Just something. He wasn't very
precise, I think the glass slippers were hurting his toes, but he
also seemed to like them."
Hans wiped some snow off his jacket,
shrugged. "You know, if you want my advice, you shouldn't play
dress-up with wolves. And don't let them make you any uncertain
promises either. Just get the old woman her wine."
"Oh... What's so wrong about
playing dress-up with wolves, sir?"
Hans sighed. “It's the hair. You'll
never get it out of your clothes again, let alone the smell."
Riding Hood nodded and was off bobbing
her way to her grandmother's house. Hans shook his head. Young
people! Had he ever been like this?
Hans soon left the common path as he
had no reason to be cautious.
So close to Christmas, a horde of weird
folk was around. There was this one person, a dwarf actually, who
danced around a fire stark naked, singing: ‘Wie gut, dass niemand
weiss, dass ich Rumpelstilzchen heiss!' It was not the
nakedness or the very off-key voice that made Hans cringe, but the
thought of how freezing cold this would make any sane person. The
dwarf didn't seem to mind.
Around the next oak Hans saw a girl in
her nightgown, calling at the stars to fall down on her as golden
coins (it did seem a useful ability, but in Hans's mind, hypothermia
was a clear drawback).
There were more dwarves, seven
actually, carrying a glass coffin with a dead person in it. Hans
contemplated asking them if they would sell him the body but thought
better of it. There was no way of knowing how long she had been dead
and such things could easily cause diarrhea.
In a snow-dressed clearing, Hans saw a
couple of hobbits quarreling over a golden ring, but they seemed to
be entirely in the wrong place. He ran into at least two witches, and
both tried to sell him poisoned fruit, which he politely declined.
Being raised by a witch in a gingerbread house himself, he knew how
to spot the bad apples.
The strangest encounter of the day was
perhaps the frog whom he almost stepped on in the high snow. He heard
the croaking as his foot was about to squash the green amphibian, and
Hans managed to change the direction of his step only by almost
falling over. The frog looked rather like a toad, also very much like
he was freezing to death.
"My well froze over!" The
frog announced. "Will you kiss me?"
"Why would I kiss you?"
"Because my well froze over, and I
cannot jump back in and have my peace and quiet down there!"
"That's no reason for kissing."
"Like you know!"
Hans grabbed the frog, then looked
around to make sure there was no one there to see. "See how you
like this instead of a kiss," Hans said, and flung the frog at
the nearest tree. The thud was rather satisfying.
The frog stuck to the trunk for a
moment, green on brown mottled with white, then fell down into the
snow with another thud, one that was a bit too loud for someone the
size of a frog.
"I am... myself again!" a
noise came from the dune of snow the frog had vanished in, but Hans
decided it was best to ignore this overly chatty well-dwelling
creature and moved on.
It was almost dusk when Hans spotted
them in a clearing. He knew instantly that Gretel would like them. He
was sure that he did. One was a fawn and the other a rabbit. The
rabbit did seem pretty much as skinny as the ones Gretel had snared,
but the fawn looked fat enough to make up for that.
Hans stepped into the clearing and
raised one hand in greeting. “Excuse me?"
The fawn turned towards him. “Yes?"
it said with huge eyes. “How can we help you?" and after a
moment, “You are not a hunter, are you? Because if you are, we
won't help you at all."
Hans smiled. This was almost too easy.
At least grandmother Hexe had put up a fight.
“No, I'm not a hunter. My name is
Hans. Who are you two?"
The fawn bowed slightly and the
rabbit's ears dropped a fraction. “I'm Bambi and this is Thumper."
“Well, nice to meet you, Bambi and
Thumper. And I really am in need of your help."
“Oh, what is it?" the rabbit
asked excitedly.
“Well, my poor sister is not well.
She is so very feverish, and I fear this might be her last Christmas.
Now, a few years ago, our parents died in an, ah, unfortunate
accident. Please, will you two not pretend to be them? My dear sister
is too far gone already, she will just be happy to be with our
parents again and she won't notice the difference, I'm sure."
After a pause he shifted his face into a wide-eyes, honest, and
pain-blushed display of desperate appeal and added, “please."
Bambi had tears in his eyes already,
and the rabbit seemed sympathetic enough too. “We'll help you, of
course we'll help you," said Bambi.
“Yeah, right! Show us the way, Hans,
and quick!" added the rabbit, one foot excitedly pounding the
snow.
And that was what Hans did. When things
needed doing he had never been one much for dallying. Back at the
gingerbread house, Gretel would be waiting with a cozy, hot, but as
of yet empty oven and a bunch of freshly sharpened knives. Gretel
didn't like being kept waiting.
They reached the gingerbread house in
good time. Gretel had lit only few lights, likely as not expecting
him to use some ruse or other and preparing for the most common one.
She was a fabulous actress when it came down to it, she was, his
sister.
“We're here," said Hans.
“Oh, what a nice house," Bambi
said to Thumper as Hans led them inside. "It has a pleasant
smell."
As expected, Gretel was lying under a
thick blanket, close to the oven. This is going to be child's play,
Hans thought.
And it was. Bambi and Thumper moved to
stand beside where Gretel had lain down on the couch. Hans took care
that the oven was to their backs.
"Mother, Father, is it you...?"
Gretel said with a faint little voice and her green eyes flickering
like a dying flame.
"We are here," the fawn said.
"Yes, we are here, everything's
fine," the rabbit added.
Meanwhile, Hans opened the oven. When
he winked at his sister, she jumped up from beneath her covers, lithe
as a panther in a moonless night, and shoved both the rabbit and the
fawn over to the oven. She was so fast that there was just a small
yelp from the fawn and a tiny squeak from the rabbit, but nothing
more.
Hans didn't look it, but all the
gingerbread had made him quite strong and he had no trouble gripping
the fawn by the neck and the rabbit by the ears and tossing them into
the oven one after the other. Gretel stood there for a moment,
smiling. The hot, hot fire washed over her hair and for a moment it
looked red, just like her eyes which twinkled with the fire's glow.
Hans thought that he probably looked much the same. It was Gretel who
slammed the oven shut.
“Well, Hänsel," she said in a
husky voice, “haven't you found us just the feast! This will be a
Christmas to remember."
Before he could answer, somebody
knocked on the door.
Gretel looked annoyed. “Who is it?"
she shouted.
“It is me, grandmamma," came a
badly disguised voice from the outside, “your dear Little Red
Riding Hood. I come to bring you…" but Gretel was already at
the door, golden hair flying around her head like a shroud.
“Look, you punk! Wrong house! This is
the gingerbread house. Gingerbread! It smells like
gingerbread, it looks like gingerbread, and the almonds on the roof
should be a dead giveaway. Riding Hood's granny lives that way,"
she pointed over to the hunter's abode, “not here. Now get lost and
stop bothering us! It's Christmas after all, the most beautiful time
of the year, and nobody here wants to be bothered with the likes of
you, going from door to door looking for food. And don't leave that
silly glass slipper on our doorstep either!"
“But it's cold and…" the wolf
said in the tiniest voice with his tail between his legs.
“Grow some fur!" and Gretel
slammed the door in his snout.
From the window, Hans saw the wolf
slouching off toward the hunter's home. It made him smile. Gretel
adjusted the coals beneath the oven to make sure the tender meat
wouldn't get burned. Indeed, Hans thought, to himself, what a special
Christmas this would be with such a welcome change to their… ah…
gingerbread diet.
"Merry Christmas," he said to
his sister, and began setting plates on the table.
"Merry Christmas," said
Gretel.
From the oven, there came only soft and
sizzly cooking noises and the smell of proper Christmas spirit.
~
(This story first appeared in Danse Macabre)
