ACT 1: SCENE 7
Gretel felt that she cried forever as her brother carried her effortlessly through the forest, although it couldn't have been more than ten minutes or so, since that was usually how long a random act of brotherly love or kindness from Hansel would last before he got bored and started to complain. Still in that time she managed to cry about the stupid Mermaid Tree, about being lost, about being scared, about feeling guilty and stupid over the cake incident, about how her mum would react, about how Hansel carrying her was about as Swept Off Her Feet By A Gallant Young Man as she was going to get and just the general wretchedness of it all before she started running out of steam. She sat still for a while before prizing open her heavy, puffy eyes to look over her brother's shoulder. They seemed to have come to a sort of clearing. The trees behind them danced in the reflection of many orange lights. She groaned inwardly. The cottage.
"Where have you taken us, Hansel?"
"It'll be all right, Gretel." He swung his sister to her feet so that she could see in front of her. "Look!"
Gretel looked.
There were candles in the windows all right, about a hundred, lighting up the place like a giant birthday cake. But that wasn't what hit her. What hit her right between the eyes and rang in her brain was that it was a giant birthday cake. The whole house, the whole of this insane, lonely little cottage in the middle of the haunted woods was a giant sweets trolley. Most of it, the brickwork, seemed to be gingerbread, with chocolate wood, biscuit roof tiles and a well pecked sponge chimney. It all seemed to make some kind of crazy logic. And to cap it off, growing next to a Eccles cake well, was a small cluster of red and white spotted mushrooms. Gretel bit her lower lip against her top teeth, forming an "F", and silently said something very unladylike indeed.
"See?" crowed Hansel, bounding up to the house, "We're saved!" He broke a biscuit tile off the roof and ate it happily.
Gretel rushed over to him and knocked the tile out of his hand. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Well now we won't starve" retorted her brother, picking another tile.
Gretel snatched it back. "We are not starving! We had tea before we left."
"But that was ages ago. What's your problem?"
"My problem, Hansel, is that you have taken us to some bizarre patisserie cottage in the middle of the haunted woods and there's obviously somebody in because all the candles are freshly lit and yet you insist on eating, without her permission, mark you, bits of a Wicked Witch's house!"
"How do you know that the person who lives here is a Witch?"
Gretel flung her arms wide at the cottage. "Does this look like the house of an accountant? Or a hairdresser? A market researcher, perhaps?"
"Could be a baker's house," replied Hansel, feeling clever.
"Don't be ridiculous, Hansel, a baker would sell this stuff, not make his house from it."
"I never said it was a sane baker, Gretel."
Gretel paused, squeezed the bridge of her nose and sighed a long suffering sigh. She definitely didn't like it here, despite the warm, welcoming glow of the candles inside and the thick, fudgey smell of the house. There was something... fuzzy about it. Like the midwinter cider festival in town, it swam and span a little. The colours and sounds felt too bright, as though she were remembering an exceptionally vivid dream. She could feel a headache coming.
"OK, Hansel," she said eventually, "this may well be the house of the infamous Witch of the Western Woods. There is also the possibility that this is the lovingly crafted home of some insane, hermit baker. Either way, I don't think that our chances with either tonight are particularly good, especially if you keep eating their roof. What do you think?"
Hansel gulped at his mouthful and stared at his sister.
She stared back, an eyebrow raised.
He wiped biscuit crumbs from his beard and looked sheepishly at his shoes.
She lowered the offending eyebrow and turned to go.
He looked back up at her and said, very calmly "It'll be all right."
"What?" She turned back to fix on his suddenly serene gaze. Orange lights flickered in her eyes and danced in her head. Her headache was starting to assert itself.
"You're paranoid," he said, "it'll be all right. This is a gift. We should eat. They won't be angry with us. It'll be all right."
"We should..." Gretel pressed her hand against her forehead. Why was it hot? It was a wet forest in the middle of the night. It should be freezing. "We should at least see if anybody's in."
Dizzily, she groped for the doorknocker and knocked erratically. Nobody came, but then since both the knocker and the door were made of chocolate, it couldn't have been very loud. She knocked again and the knocker came off softly in her hand. She sighed and she gazed forlornly at the mangled chocolate in her grasp. There were cake crumbs stuck between her fingers, dry blood and slime on her knuckles and now half melted chocolate plastered to her palm. Her hands had never been so dirty. And the house and forest beyond it were definitely starting to spin, although she wasn't sure in which direction. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her cleaner hand. Her eyes stung and her temples throbbed and she was aware of a growing empty ache in her belly.
"We ate before we left," she muttered to herself.
Yes, but what had that been? Cabbage soup and a couple of pieces of stale bread, over six hours ago. And the day before that she'd had half a bowl of yesterday's fish head stew and the day before that she'd had half a bowl of fresh fish head stew and the few days before that things had been tight, so besides the odd slice of bread her mother had spared from Mayor Naize's dinners, she had lived off the orphanage grade gruel they kept in sacks in the shed, that was supposed to be for emergencies only but seemed to be becoming the norm. When was the last time she'd tasted chocolate? When was the last time she'd felt full? She couldn't remember. She was vaguely aware that Hansel had given up on breaking bits of roof off with his hands and was launching an all out attack on the eaves. She kept on staring at the chocolate doorknocker in her hand.
Eat me! It said. Eat me!
The little orange lights flickered in her burning eyes.
She lifted her palm up to her face and deeply inhaled the rich, brown, sugary smell. Her lungs swelled with pleasure, saliva exploded in her mouth and the hole in her stomach screamed to her. She pushed her chocolatey hand further up to her face, so that her parted lips rested on the warm, sweet goo. She felt the tip of her tongue force its way between her teeth and slowly lick a line of melted chocolate from her palm. It curled around the chocolate, to protect it from being scraped off by the teeth on its way back in, and then flattened out inside her closed mouth. The sweet stickiness stuck to the roof of her mouth, and ran down her throat.
She swallowed.
She exhaled.
The pain stopped. The dizziness, the throbbing in her head, the dry stinging of her eyes, everything. There was nothing but pleasure in her, exploding endorphins into her quickly pulsing blood. The world wasn't even spinning any more, because there was no world. In a matter of seconds she had licked her palm clean and had ripped a large section off the bottom of the cottage door.
And she only knew that because when the remains of the door burst open to reveal a woman in a long black dress and pointed hat, she became suddenly aware that she was on her knees before the woman, with rather a lot of chocolate around her mouth.
Reality hit Gretel like a bucket of freezing water. She gazed up at the woman in silent terror. She wasn't exactly what Gretel had expected the Wicked Witch to look like. She was middle aged, plump and pretty. Well managed, ebony hair hung from her hat with a single silver streak running from her left temple. She wore the sort of expertly applied makeup she had seen in pictures of old queens - a pale complexion, subtly shadowed green eyes and an immaculate crimson pout, nothing like her mother's garish smears. Gretel tried to remove some of the chocolate from around her mouth. The witch observed her momentarily, framed magnificently in the doorway by the candlelight and smoke behind her. Gretel was sure that somewhere, somehow, children should be booing. The witch put her hands on her hips.
"What's this, eh?" The Witch's voice was demanding and dangerously calm "Eating my house, eh?"
She looked from Gretel to Hansel, who was pressed against the wall, spitting crumbs. He choked a couple of times before smiling a panicked smile and looking back at Gretel for help. There was another moment's silence while Gretel picked herself up off the ground, wandering what on earth she was going to say or do, before both twins exploded as one into a cacophony of noisy apology.
"I'm sorry," they said in unison.
"Really sorry" added Hansel.
"We both are," interjected Gretel, "only we got lost... we got lost"
"In the woods," continued her brother, "because our mum's in love with the mayor and she sent us out here..."
"...and I thought we could find our way back by dropping these shiny pebbles..."
"...only they got turned into cake by magic or something..."
"...not that we're accusing anybody," added Gretel carefully.
"but the birds ate the cake and then we kept going round in circles. There was this tree, you see..."
"Mermaid tree" growled Gretel quietly
"...and we found this place and we were both starving you see, and we thought..."
"...we thought there was nobody in. I knocked!"
"...we thought... we thought you wouldn't mind."
Hansel finally trailed off as he caught the witch's eye. He looked down. The witch marched toward him and grabbed his collar, bringing his face down to meet hers. He whimpered a little.
"WOULDN'T MIND?"
"Hey..." quivered Gretel, trying to make a step towards her trapped brother.
"Wouldn't mind a couple of tearaway teenagers coming into my woods, trampling my flowers and eating my home?"
There was a very long pause before the witch relaxed her grip on Hansel and beamed at him.
"Well, of course I wouldn't mind."
"What?" asked the twins.
The Witch smiled sweetly and tidied Hansel' crumpled collar.
"What do you think I am, completely evil? These are hellish woods, kids, I should know. Something bad lurks around here. Very bad."
"And it's not you?" piped Hansel, unwisely.
"Hansel!" hissed his sister, but the witch just kept smiling at them both. It was eerie.
"Me? No, dears," she sighed, "I'm just... misunderstood. Misunderstood and very lonely. You don't know what it's like, having to live in the haunted woods because everyone's so afraid of you. Just because you're different. I miss people so much. That's why I built this house. So that if anybody ever got lost in this evil forest they'd be able to rest awhile and eat and maybe..." she gazed down sadly and twirled her silver streak of hair around a finger "...maybe even come inside and bring the poor condemned soul who provided them with such succour a little company."
Gretel blinked in astonishment as the witch gave her a quick glance, her eyes straining against the dimness.
"Poor waifs, she continued after a moment, "you look half starved. Do come inside where it's nice and warm." The witch signalled with a large staff into the firelight within. "I've got the kettle on."
Ah, thought Gretel, it's not smoke, it's steam.But why would she put the kettle on before she stopped them eating? Why was she doing any of this? But then it was very bright and cozy in there. The steam floated past her, reminding her of cups of tea and hot baths. Hansel clapped his hands together and rubbed them.
"Fantastic!" he grinned. "Come on, Gretel. I told you it would be all right." He tugged at her sleeve and started towards the kitchen.
Gretel faltered a little and put her hands back up to her head. The headache and dizziness had gone but everything still felt sort of muddy. As though she were watching everything from far away, within her mind. It was wrong, everything in these damn forest was wrong and weird, but here it was just unreal. The colours were too bright, the smell too sweet and the woman's voice too... too chocolatey. Too smooth and rich and desirable. Her dazed eyes settled on those of the witch. They were cool green and shone with calm capability. Everything about them seemed to say "it'll be all right".
"Your brother's right, Gretel," said the witch, "I'm completely harmless, I assure you. Now come inside." She took Gretel's free arm. "Where it's safe."
There was a sudden cry of wolves. Hundreds of wolves. They seemed to be all around. Gretel started and looked about herself wildly, and didn't notice the crackle of electricity shoot down the witch's staff at all. Gretel's lip trembled. What were those stories about the Witch of the Western Woods again? They had to have some basis, didn't they? But the house looked so inviting and the woods were so dark and frightening and then there was the Mermaid Tree and her little friends the wolves... Her heart raced and her mind swam and somewhere from deep inside her came a little voice.
"All right" she said, and allowed Hansel and the witch to guide her inside.
The wolves stopped howling the moment the door was bolted behind her.