The Beasts that Lurk

Her husband had died of fever many winters ago, but the cottage he had built for her still stood in the little glade in the midst of the forest. It was old now; the thatched roof was beginning to sag, and moss was starting to creep up the stone walls. But she couldn’t tend to these sorts of things very well anymore, especially after her sight started to go. The trees she loved to walk under in the summer, the birds whose songs she knew so well, and the babbling brook from which she drew water were now all just dim shadows which grew darker every day.

She had an old goat that gave milk, and several hens that gave eggs. She knew enough of plants to identify which were good for foraging. On summer mornings she could be found wandering from copse to thicket, picking blackberries and mushrooms. The people from the village brought her food and supplies in the winter, perhaps out of pity. A bit of flour to bake a loaf of bread, or a case of salted meat. Once they even brought her a bear trap made by the blacksmith, “for one can never be too careful about the beasts that lurk in the wood.” But she was never one to favor trapping animals.

Children from the village would come to visit her, and she enjoyed listening their laughter as they scampered about the clearing. Then they would return to the cottage, where often would be a pastry waiting for them, just removed from the oven and bursting with freshly-picked berries.

But there were two children not like the rest, which she had grown to despise. They belonged to the butcher from the village. They were not more than fifteen and thirteen, with heads of beautiful golden hair, yet they were as cruel as the wolves whose howls sent chills down her bones, even as she huddled near the warmth of the oven in the dead of winter.

They would crash through the forest, so that she could hear them long before they arrived. The boy carried a sling to launch rocks at rabbits and squirrels. The projectiles would bounce off the trees with loud cracks. Sporadically he’d hit his mark, and often as not it would still be alive. On such occasions, it afforded the boy great pleasure to torment his injured prey, and the old woman would cover her ears as the agonized squeals resounded through the trees, sometimes for an hour or more.

When they finally arrived at the cottage, she would shut herself up inside. But the village was near half a day’s journey, and they would not be satisfied to have undergone such a trek without being rewarded with some sport. So they would wait, lunching on bread or other morsels, and yelling crude insults and curses to pass the time.

After awhile, they would grow quiet, and her, being a bit hard of hearing as well as sight, would open the door, hoping them gone. She would be met with stones from the sling, or sometimes they simply pushed her down and trampled over her frail body. They would stride into the cottage and steal what food they could carry, before disappearing into the twilit forest, leaving her with the taste of blood in her mouth and the sting of tears on her cheeks.

It happened two or three times a year. She did her best to bear it, hoping that they would eventually outgrow whatever had inspired such a penchant for cruelty.

Then, one day close to Yule, they came with knives. She had just finished baking some cakes with molasses and sugar the townswomen had brought the prior week, when she heard their footsteps crunching across the clearing. She watched from a crack in the wall as they stalked around the cottage. She heard frightened clucking, and then a horrid gurgling sound as hens’ blood sprayed on the snow. Then they approached the door, which had begun in recent months to rot, and began to kick at the wood. The door trembled, and she heard them cry out in sing-song tones.

“Oh Hansel, I’m so cold and hungry.”

“Don’t worry sister Gretel, I smell pastries inside this lovely palace we’ve found.”

Gretel squealed with delight, and Hansel said, “We just have to get rid of the vermin.”

“Oh no Hansel, what is it?!”

“A rat, sister Gretel, and a big one too. But we know what to do with rats, don’t we?”

By this time, the old woman had retreated from the door, which was splintering under the sustained force of the siblings’ kicks. Finally, it swung open, and Hansel sprang forward into the cottage with a vicious gleam in his eye. But just as quickly, the gleam disappeared, and was replaced by tears of agony. He looked down to find the iron jaws of the bear trap snapped closed around his leg.

“HANSEL!” Gretel shrieked, her cry of surprise mingling with his scream of pain. Her eyes flashed with rage at the old woman, who cowered by the oven in the corner. But as Gretel rushed forward, she found herself violently pushed, carried well past her aim, and launched headfirst into the flames of the oven. The woman looked up and saw the old goat standing where Gretel had been, bleating and bobbing its horned head up and down, as if satisfied.

Hansel, blood streaming down his leg, simply stared in a disbelieving trance as his screaming sister was devoured by the fire. He didn’t respond as the old woman got up and closed the door of the oven, muffling the cries, nor as she reached for the still-steaming cakes on the small wooden table. But he felt tears well up anew in his eyes when she approached, offering him one of the cakes, and said with an unhinged smile spreading across her face: “Not to worry, dear. The oven is big enough for two.”