ACT 1: SCENE 8
The cottage was much darker once you got inside, thought Gretel. Bizzarely, while it was multicoloured cakes and candies on the outside, the very same walls were dark grey stone in the interior. The candles that had danced delightfully in the windows now half lit a grim and meagre kitchen. She looked about her. Row after row of dusty shelves lined the kitchen upon which jars and bottles of various sizes were arranged in no seeming order. Many had peeling, age-yellowed labels on them, more were marked simply with symbols of animals, or skull and crossbones. Hanging from the ceiling were several copper pots and wooden cooking utensils. There were larger, cast iron pots in one corner of the kitchen, next to a rather worrying, yet gleaming, chicken cage. The windows seemed smaller here, and the locked door larger and more imposing. She attempted to squint briefly out of a window, but all she could see in the absolute dark was her own reflection, flickering erratically in the candlelight. She looked skinnier than normal, she felt. Her eyes were dark and swollen from crying earlier and the damp from the day's rain had soaked her hair and dress. Her face was covered in half melted chocolate and forest slime. She noticed that she had a twig caught up in her hair. A whistle sounded shrilly. Gretel started.
"Whoops!" trilled the witch, "that's the kettle."
"Oh." Gretel gazed at the large stove where a ludicrously immense kettle was sputtering with boiling water.
"Didn't frighten you, did it?"
"No," replied Gretel meekly, "I mean yes, I mean... I've had a bit of a rough night."
The witch smiled her chocolatey sweet smile again. "I understand. Boy?"
Gretel blinked at the witch's sudden change of tone and for the first time noticed a thin, crooked figure hunching in a dark corner of the kitchen.
"Yes?" came a young man's voice from the shadows.
"Kettle" hissed the witch before turning to smile at Hansel, and then hissed again, as an afterthought "and bring the measuring tape."
Gretel stood and watched the wretched beast grope against the wall and take a tape measure down from a nearby shelf before limping into the light of the roaring stove. It was a boy, around her age, but seriously stunted. He couldn't have been any more than a couple of inches taller than her and she'd seen more meat on, well, on herself. Refusing to meet her gaze, he shuffled past her brother and was momentarily lost in his giant shadow. The boy reached both bony, knarled hands from out of his torn, oversized tunic and lifted the boiling kettle onto a large wooden table with surprising ease, considering the thing must have weighed nearly the same as him. She studied his face as he fumbled with the tape measure. He still had not lifted his eyes but already she could see the pain in him, in his twisting mouth, his worried eyebrows, the bruises on his cheekbones, jaw and forehead ranging from week old grey to hour fresh purple.
The boy coughed before pulling the tape measure wide across Hansel's chest. Hansel shot his sister a concerned glance. The boy muttered a few numbers to himself and measured Hansel's left arm.
"Who are you?" Gretel asked the boy.
The boy looked down and carried on with his measurements and mutterings.
"Who?" asked the witch, "that boy? He's nobody important. Just an idiot I rescued from the woods when he was a baby. He does little chores for me in return for his keep."
Gretel frowned at the bruising on the boy's thin arms. Small tufts of his hair were missing. "So you do have company."
The witch snorted. "Call him company? The boy's completely useless. Clumsy too. Always falling down things. And into things."
Gretel watched with morbid curiosity as the boy, having finished with Hansel, shuffled over and started measuring her, eyes forever down, staring at the tape measure. She looked at the hand holding the tape end to her left shoulder and saw the raw, wrinkled burn marks.
"Hurts himself on the stove, does he?"
"All the time. He's worse than a child."
The boy moved on to her arms. His burnt, knarled fingers moved quickly and lightly over her cold, damp skin. It tickled. He put a tape end against the palm of her hand and his thumb brushed against the blue veins on the inside of her wrist. Her spine twitched involuntarily and she felt tiny hairs raise on the back of her neck. She shivered a little.
"What's he doing?" asked Hansel.
"Measuring you" replied the witch, settling down in a rocking chair, watching the three of them.
"What for?" asked Gretel.
The boy slipped the tape around her waist, glanced at the measurement, then speedily whipped it back. He cleared his throat.
"Um. Clothes. New clothes." He tugged gently at a ripped strand of her skirt. It unravelled a little as he did so. "Your dress is torn, see, and your hair..." He finally looked up at Gretel's face. Their eyes met.
There should have been music. By all rights there really should have been soft violin music playing somewhere far away and unheard. The lights should have brightened, the focus should have softened, little cartoon birds should have picked them up and whisked them away onto a fluffy white cloud. There was so much melancholy beauty in his eyes, so much pain, so much soul. And something else. Something other worldly and ancient. These were not the eyes of a clumsy idiot, or a witch's skivvy. Not the eyes of a ragged and abused foundling. She had seen those eyes before. But where?
There should have been music. The girl's face should have glowed, her teeth should have sparkled with a "ting". The moment seemed to go on forever and for no time at all to the boy. He felt as though the girl's face was being scorched into his brain because when he blinked he could still see her through his eyelids. He knew there and then that it would be something he would remember for ever. Perhaps, he reasoned to himself, he remembered it so well that he remembered her before they had even met. Because it was Her. The girl in his every sleeping and waking dream. His spiritual saviour, his angel. His ghost. She looked like a ghost now, frightened, confused, pale and skinny. Covered in blood and mud and old rain. There was a twig caught up in her short, brown hair. He reached up and removed it.
"...your hair's all wet."
His hand lingered over her soft, dark, dripping hair. It was her! He could touch her! He wanted to run his fingers down her face and round the back of her neck and push her towards him and kiss her and kiss her and maybe never stop kissing her.
Nettlewart coughed. It was as though the non existent music that there should have been but wasn't had stopped abruptly, possibly accompanied by the sound of the needle of a record player being scratched across vinyl. The Boy and Gretel blinked as reality once again asserted its grim self around them. Nettie took the Boy's shoulder and guided him to a particularly shady corner as Gretel sidled towards her brother.
"So?" asked Nettlewart, "what do you think?"
What did he think? He thought he was in love. And that witch was going to kill his angel. Unless he could think of something very clever, very fast...
"They're both far too skinny," he said after a short pause, "they'll never cook."
"Nonsense!" scoffed the witch, "that Hansel boy is built like a brick outhouse."
"It's all sinew" the Boy replied, "not an ounce of fat on him."
"So we fatten him up" hissed Nettlewart. "I was prepared that what with Pantoland going through some dark times it would throw up some pretty lean children. That's what the cage was for."
The Boy snuck a look at the vile steel chicken cage. Although now clean, it still seemed like a fairly horrible prison. It was only three feet high and not much longer or wider. There was only enough room for a man like Hansel to sit cross legged or lie down curled up in a ball. However, he noted, there was certainly not enough room for two. He had to find a way of saving that girl. He could think of escape plans for Hansel later.
"She's useless," he replied, "she'll never be edible. She's been doing manual work all her life, she's too wiry."
The witch's eyes narrowed.
"So you might as well let her go..." the Boy's voice trailed off.
Nettlewart grabbed the Boy's shirt collar and pulled his face close up to hers. He heard the staff crackle from the far end of the kitchen and saw a darkness begin to pool in her deep green eyes.
"Let her go?" she spat," So that she can run off home and tell Mummy what we've done with her brother? Do you want that, Boy? Do you want an angry mob at our door? All fire and pitchforks? Do you know what they do with witches, Boy? Do you know what they'd do with you? We're talking burning alive here. We're talking being pulled apart by a dozen burly men in flowery frocks. No. I can't let her go. I'll probably have to just kill her."
The Boy struggled in the witch's grasp. He shot a desperate glance at Hansel and Gretel. They hadn't appeared to have noticed what was going on and were having their own private argument.
"Wait a minute..." Nettlewart was searching his eyes, "You said she's used to hard work, and you're always complaining that I give you too many chores to do..."
"no..." the Boy gazed pleadingly at Nettlewart.
"How would you like a little helper, Boy?"
"not her..."
"Why not her? She seems nice enough, a little strong willed perhaps, but after a while she'll be just like you. Especially after we finally kill her brother. You'll get on like a house on fire. And I... I can have Minions." Nettie smiled. The darkness blinked momentarily away from her eyes. "'Begone, my Minions'.... 'Minions, bring the child to me'.... 'we were attacked by some of the witch's Minions'. Yes. I like the sound of that." She turned back to the Boy and the darkness returned. "See to the cage."
Beaming, she flung her arms wide towards Hansel and Gretel, and the boy disappeared in the shadow of her long sleeves.
"Well now my dears" she trilled.
Hansel and Gretel looked up at her, midway through their bickering. Nettlewart put a soft, plump hand on each twin's shoulder and pouted slightly at Hansel.
"I'm afraid there's been a change of plan."
"You mean we can't stay?" whined Hansel.
Nettlewart curled a finger through the thick blond hair at the nape of his neck.
"Oh you can stay, my dear," she told him fudgily, "but only for a couple of days."
"Why's that?" asked Gretel in a flat tone.
"Because," the witch told them both calmly, "after that you'll be dead."
Gretel tensed as she felt the hand grip her hair tightly. "Hansel," she cried, "get out! It's a trap!" She wriggled and wrenched her head away, feeling a small clump of hair come away in the witch's hand. She grabbed her brother's arm and tried to run, but found herself rooted to the spot. It was as though she was in a dream, the kind of nightmare where she was running through treacle, only this time the treacle had set into hard toffee around her feet. She glanced sideways at the witch. All of a sudden the large staff that had been in the corner of the kitchen was now in the witch's hands. It sparked and crackled and lit up the muddy mouse brown hairs still tangled up in Nettlewart's fingers.
"And where do you think you're going my girl?" The witch smiled a moist scarlet smile. "You see, while I'll be eating your brother, after he's been fattened up a little that is, you'll be staying here with me. Making yourself useful."
Gretel was aware of the sound of metal on metal, and of old springs popping to life. She snatched a look at the corner of the room where the Boy had unlocked the door to the little chicken cage.
"no..." moaned her brother quietly, eyeballing the tiny cage.
"The Boy will show you the ropes, I'm sure" continued the witch.
Gretel's eyes narrowed on the Boy, who was concentrating hard on the floor in front of him.
"How could you?" she hissed.
"Sorry," mumbled the Boy, still staring hard at the dusty floor. He pulled at the door of the cage, which opened with the squeak of an aristocratic vampire's castle gates.
"...what are you going to do with me?" enquired a tiny voice that Gretel barely recognised. She looked down her arm and noticed that she was still holding her brother's hand. Slowly, dreamily, she gazed up the other, muscular hairy arm to see the owner of the little voice. Her giant, carefree twin was white with fear. His lips shook dryly beneath his ginger beard and his big blue eyes were bright with terrified tears. She squeezed the hand tighter and he squeezed back, his knuckles turning as bloodless as his face.
"We have to lock you up, my dear" replied Nettlewart, "there's no escape from this house as I'm sure your sister will find out the hard way. But we can't have you wasting any valuable calories, you see."
Gretel was suddenly aware of a fire in her hand. It sparked with a heavy electricity and jolted her out of her brother's grip. And she wasn't sure whether it was Hansel moving towards the cage or vice versa but before she knew it there he was, kneeling and cramped behind the thick iron bars, voiceless now with terror.
"No!" The scream, like her desperate rush towards the rapidly closing cage doors, seemed to come directly from her guts, bypassing her brain. The witch locked the cage door and Gretel was stopped in her tracks again, this time by two skinny arms closing around her neck. Her legs tried to carry on going forwards, but the top half of her body seemed to have other ideas. She lost her balance, her knees buckled and she slid clumsily down the wiry body behind her, her hands flailing wildly against the thin shirt pressed against her back. She choked a little as the arms brought her back to her troubled feet.
"Don't," muttered the voice behind her, "it'll be better if you just..."
Gretel struggled to turn herself around in the Boy's clasped arms.
She turned around in his clasped arms. Suddenly she was facing him. Their noses touched. Her deep brown eyes shone with anger and youth and vitality. He relaxed one hand at the nape of her neck, and pushed his fingers up through her short, soft hair. His lips, centimetres from hers, shivered a little as he whispered.
"It'll be better if we just..."
Her fist flew up from nowhere and made contact with his left cheekbone very, very hard. It wasn't so much that he saw stars, more that he smelled the pain, which was never a good sign. It smelled of blood and hangover.
"Mwwweeeerrrggghh!"
Was all he was able to say as he released his grip suddenly and tumbled to his knees.
"You'd better just leave me alone" spat the girl with all of her contempt, shaking the life back into her hand.
"Gaaaagggghhh" said the Boy, nursing the worryingly squishy patch beneath his eye.
Gretel ignored him and ran over to the cage. She kneeled and gave the door a couple of shakes. The Witch, behind her, gave a short laugh. It wasn't a particularly evil laugh, Gretel thought later. There had been no joy or humour in it, no real malice either. The Witch had just laughed because it was necessary. There even seemed to be a tiny hint of pity in it. She jingled the keys in front of Gretel and put them into one of her many pockets.
"it's no good..." murmured Hansel.
"He'll be dead within the week," added Nettlewart.
Gretel pushed her slim wrist through a gap between the bars and held her brother's hand again.
"I'll get you out," she promised him.
"You don't understand," replied her brother, "this is The Witch of the Western Woods. This is what killed all those people. All those people! They even say it was her who killed the Royal Family. How are we supposed to fight that? It's over."
"No."
"All we can do is hope that Mum didn't really care about us and so won't send a search party."
"No. I'll think of something, Hansel."
"I'd start thinking fast if I were you then" said the Witch as she wandered out of the kitchen with her staff. She turned briefly to the Boy, who was still crumpled in a corner, holding his face. "Buck up Boy." She ruffled his hair and made out a faint sob from beneath the hands.
"...Oh God," he breathed, "what have I done?"
"You've done well," whispered Nettlewart as she left the room.