ACT II: SCENE 8
They found Hansel, beaming, ankle-deep in smashed glass.
"Are you all right?" panted the Mayor.
"Never better," grinned Hansel, pushing glass apart with his boot and spying an intact glass jar. "Ah-ha. I think this is the last one."
He crunched it under his heel.
"Well," muttered the Boy to Nettlewart, "between us we've certainly managed to break a lot of your stuff this morning. Shall I smash up your armchair just to be on the safe side?"
But Nettlewart wasn't listening. She watched the thin plumes of light spiralling up from the smashed glass grow and grow and gather a million voices and then fly up into the ether.
Up into the ether. Leaving a shining trail of rhyme and reason. Where it finds...
Me.
Ah... there you are.
Nettlewart Snapdragon cleared her throat.
"Oh no I didn't!"
They looked at her.
"You didn't?" asked Gretel, "then how do you explain..."
"Because he isn't dead."
Everybody gasped.
"My mother kidnapped him," explained Nettlewart, "in order to bring down Pantoland. She wanted me to kill him, as some sort of initiation, but I couldn't. I begged her to take him back but she wouldn't. She said it would ruin everything."
"You said you had a part in what became of him..." Gretel trailed off. Reason kicked in. All of a sudden it all made perfect sense.
"I did." Nettlewart sighed. "If I couldn't kill him, I had to keep him. But I couldn't let him know what he was. I hid all of his things from him. His blanket, his naming bracelet, his little bear. And I raised him to be as degraded as possible, to believe himself to be a nobody, to be my slave. I refused to even give him a name."
"And then what became of him?" asked Hansel.
"Wait a minute," said the Boy, "who are we talking about now? I'm confused."
"The prince." Gretel rolled her eyes. She's let him clock it for himself, she decided. It was the least he deserved. Still... she wouldn't have guessed by looking at him.
"The prince had a teddy bear too?" The Boy frowned.
"Oh, yes," sighed the Mayor, misty-eyed, "loved that little bear he did. They named it after Raggles the jester who made it for the lad. Even made it a little patchwork coat and hat, just like Raggles' jester clothes."
"Raggles?" The Boy showed the bear to the Mayor.
"Aye," breathed Mayor Naize, "that's the one."
"But... but..." Gretel and Nettlewart nodded at him encouragingly. "but Raggles was my... and Nettlewart raised me... and I don't have a name and... oh."
He ripped off his trousers.
"Well that would explain these."
Gretel started back in shock. Everybody else gasped in awe. Underneath his trousers were a pair of very tight spangly hotpants, knee-high boots and fishnet tights covering the best pair of legs Gretel had ever seen.
"How long have you been wearing those?" Gasped Gretel.
"Hard to say," the Boy replied.
Gretel squinted at him. He was carrying himself differently. He seemed taller now, and his bald patches and bruises were hard to make out.
"So you're the Pantoland Prince!" Exclaimed Hansel.
"Actually," replied the Boy, "I think I'm..."
"Well, Gretel," interrupted Mrs Trellis, "you always said you wanted to be swept off your feet by a Handsome Prince. Maybe Pantomime was trying to tell you something."
"Except that I didn't save you," added the Boy, "you saved me. In every way. Gretel, I'm sorry."
"What?" asked Gretel, flatly.
The Boy took her hand. "I'm sorry that you'll never be a Princess."
Gretel's jaw dropped open.
"WHAT?!?" exclaimed her mother, "after everything she's done for you, you're just going to drop her like that? Just because she's a commoner?"
"I mean," added the Mayor, "everybody knows that the Prince always marries a peasant girl at the end. It's tradition."
"And it's also tradition for the peasant girl to have been saved first," interjected Gretel. She sighed. "I know I was never Princess material. I was never going to be the kind of girl who squeals helplessly when she's in trouble and waits for somebody to rescue her. I'm the kind of girl who comes up with plans and gets into fights to overcome adversity, who gets offered infinate evil magic powers because she's so clever, and then turns the offer down because accepting it would be stupid. Exciting, but stupid. Which is what a Princess needs to be. But I'm not. Besides, I don't suit pink. Or those silly pointy hats with doilies coming out of the top. Pantomime never intended for me to become a Princess. It only intended for me to fall in love with the Prince. Which is what I did." She dipped into a short curtsey in front of the Boy and avoided his gaze. "So thankyou, Your Highness."
"You're all mad," exclaimed Nettlewart, "of course she won't be a Princess."
"Stay out of this, Witch!" snapped Mrs Trellis.
"She's right," replied the Boy, "Gretel can't be Princess, because I'm not the Prince."
"You're not?" chorused everybody but the witch.
"If you're not a Prince then what's with the tights?" asked Hansel.
"Will you all please let me finish?" yelled the Boy. He cleared his throat in the resulting uncomfortable silence. "No I'm not the Prince. And that's because there is no Prince."
Mrs Trellis openned her mouth to say something. The Boy raised a finger towards her.
"And that," he continued, "is because you can't have a Prince if there isn't a King."
There was a pause.
"Of course," Gretel breathed, "the old King and Queen are dead. And you're their only heir."
"So he's..." muttered Mrs Trellis.
"Now where was I?" asked the Boy, taking Gretel's hands. "Gretel, I'm sorry you won't get to be a Princess, but you would have been really bad at it. Luckily for me, I don't need a Princess. I need a Queen. And you will be the most magnificent Queen I can imagine."
"You're the King."
"Yes, Gretel, I'm the King."
"You're the King." Gretel felt the others sink to their knees behind her. She joined them.
"Gretel..." The Boy knelt down with her. He winced. "Ooh, that's uncomfortable."
"Bruise?" asked Gretel.
"Terrible wedgie," he replied, adjusting himself, "bloody hotpants."
Gretel smiled.
"Gretel, please marry me. Pantoland deserves a Queen like you. Besides, I love you. I always have."
Gretel said nothing, but took his head in both hands and kissed him.
Mayor Naize nudged Mr Trellis. "Do you hear that?" he asked.
"That romantic music?"
"Yes." The Mayor frowned. "I'm not sure whether I can hear it or not. What do you think it means?"
"I think," replied Mrs Trellis, "it means she will."
The King and his fiancee got to their feet. The Mayor and the Trellises followed them. Nettlewart stayed on the floor, her eyes downcast.
"Your Majesty."
"Miss Snapdragon."
"Can you forgive me?"
The King sighed. "After a lifetime of misery? After trying to kill me? I don't know."
Hansel grabbed his arm. "You have to forgive her! It's... it's how it's done. I released Pantomime so you'd forgive her."
"You saw what she did to him," said Gretel, "what she did to me. She was going to eat you."
"And I can still forgive her," said Hansel, desperatly, "so why can't you?"
"I don't understand this, Hansel," replied the Mayor, "you've done nothing but worry about that witch since we got here, even though she could have killed us all. Why do you do it, lad?"
"How can you say you don't understand?" exclaimed Hansel, "How can you not comprehend how I feel when you're all in love yourselves?"
Mrs Trellis blinked.
"Mayor Naize isn't in love with anybody."
"Oh if only you knew, Mrs T," sighed the Mayor. "My story is a tragic one. I am in love with the most marvellous woman in the world, who can never love me back."
"Oh, wake up and smell the hormones!" yelled Hansel, "you're in love with one another and everybody knows it but you. Deal with it."
Mrs Trellis and the Mayor looked at each other, agog.
"Mister Mayor... is it true?"
"It is, Mrs Trellis. I love you with all my heart. I have done for years."
"Why... why didn't you say?"
"Why didn't you say?"
"Oh..." Mrs Trellis wiped a tear from her eye. "Come here, you."
The Mayor fell gratefully into Mrs Trellis' hairy embrace.
"Well," smiled the King, "it looks as though we're going to have a double wedding on our hands."
"Oh, say that it's so, Mrs T," said the Mayor.
"That's Mrs Naize from now on," replied Mrs Trellis.
"Gladys..." breathed Percy, and kissed her.
Gretel and the King watched them, smiling, and then kissed again.
"Cut it out!" screamed Hansel.
The others stopped kissing and stared at him.
"Just because you're not in love," sulked Gretel.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you," replied Hansel, "I am in love, but none of you can understand it. But just because she hasn't discovered that I'm actually the King of Pantoland, or followed me on a doomed mission into the haunted woods, it doesn't mean that I love her any less, or that my feelings should go ignored."
"Wait a minute," said Gretel, "are you talking about... about her?" She pointed to the still kneeling Nettlwart.
"Yes. I love her."
Nettlewart looked up, stunned. "Me? But I tried to kill you!"
Hansel shrugged. "Yeah, I'm no goody two shoes either. But I'm a decent person, underneath. And I could see that in you as well. All the time." He turned to the King. "That's why I want you to pardon her. She was under a spell. We all were. She can be good. I know it."
The King stared at his former mistress, prostrate and bewildered on the glass-strewn floor. He had never been called on to feel pity for her before. But now it was asked of him he found it came all too quickly. Damn his Kingly compassion.
"I'll pardon her..." he said.
Hansel and Nettlewart sighed in relief.
"...but you understand, Hansel, that she can never love you back." The King frowned at the old, painful memories. "I've known her for longer than anybody so I know that she was ruined a long, long time ago. She's incapable of love, in any form."
"I know," replied Hansel, moving over to the kneeling Nettlewart, "and I'd expect you to understand, Your Majesty. You know that true love can't be killed by loneliness or misery."
The King felt Gretel's hand tighten in his.
"True," said the King, "but this is Nettlewart we're talking about. If you devote yourself to her you'll only end up the way I used to be. Don't expect a triple wedding just because there are three boys and three girls, Hansel."
Hansel smiled at him. "But this is Pantomime." He held his hand out to Nettlewart.
She ignored it and rose independantly, shakingly, to her feet.
"He says he loves me," she said. She spoke not to Hansel, nor anybody else in the room. She didn't even address the now cold and empty hearth. She looked out into nothing.
She is talking to me.
"He says he loves me. But how can that be? Nobody loves Nettlewart Snapdragon. The other witches pity her. Her mother despairs of her incompetance. Her servant despises her wickedness. The girl, her prodigy, the one person she sees a connection with, wants to destroy her - the witch as well as the woman. Good people hate her on sight. Children tell scary stories about her and dare each other to sing her name. Pantomime hates her and fights her from a glass jar in her study. Even magic hates her and gives itself to others. But this boy that she's caged and tormented says that he loves her."
She glanced around at the two new couples.
"Look at them," she continued, "so happy in their love. Look at my Boy. See how he stands. That girl made him a man, and the man became a King. There was salvation for him in the arms of that girl. Perhaps there would be salvation for me in the arms of her twin. Perhaps. In another, better world."
"Nettlewart," said Hansel, "This is the better world. This is the world where you can make a new start, and the past won't come back to haunt you. This is the world where three boys and three girls make a triple wedding, no matter how implausable it all is. This isn't real life. This is Pantomime. I brought it back for you."
"You saved my life," murmured Nettlewart. "The brother of the Queen. Which makes you a prince..."
"Actually, I think he'd be made a Duke, tops," interjected the Mayor, "although I'm not sure. It's been a while. We may have to look it up."
"Leave her be," hissed Hansel, "I think she's onto something."
"...and if," continued Nettlewart, "a strapping young prince saves a lady's life, she should at least consider his proposal of marriage."
She looked at Hansel properly since he had been freed. She had forgotten how tall he was. Standing before her now, he seemed so fresh, so free, so open. So full of youth and life and light. His blue eyes shone kindly from an overfed face and there were... muscles there in his arms, under the layer of lard she'd stuffed into him. She wanted to taste him, but in a way utterly different to that which was taught to her by her mother.
"Do you love me?" he asked.
"I don't know," replied Nettlewart. "I don't understand what it means."
"Could you try?"
Nettlewart walked to him and took him by the hand.
"I will."