Hansel and I used to live with our father in the woods. Mama died of the typhus one winter when we were very young, but Papa was always very devoted to us. He only wanted us safe and happy.
We were playful children. Hansel, with his golden hair and bright blue eyes, looked like an angel. Everyone always said so. He was four years my elder. He was always so clever. He played such funny games with the animals who lived around our little cabin. We had a happy childhood until she came along.
Our stepmother, Griselda, was a mean, old woman—always watching us. Papa came back with her from town one day. I was still too young to remember when she came, but Hansel was smart, even as a young boy. He knew that she hated us as soon as she saw us. Especially me. She pretended to be caring; she would make us food and run with us in the garden. But Hansel told me how in the night she would tell Papa that I was an evil child, that I had the mark of the Dark One in me. I think she hated how we took Papa’s attention. Griselda wanted Papa all to herself.
She knew not to be angry with him. Papa was timid and did not like anger. Once, when Hansel got angry, He screamed at Papa, who had taken a squirrel from Hansel. Papa left for three days. Hansel told me that we were so hungry when Papa returned, we had started to eat our shoes.
But Griselda was smart and did not need to yell. Papa couldn’t resist Griselda’s crying. I was a quiet child, too timid to sneak out of bed; but Hansel is not only clever, but also brave. He would climb down from our loft to listen and came back to tell me that Griselda was scheming to get rid of us. He said that she lay awake with Papa and poured poison in his ear; that she told Papa with crocodile tears that we scared her; that she could not live in the house with us. She told him wild stories and grabbed her coal-black hair until it fell from her head.
Over time, her spell started working. Papa began to believe her. He also began to talk like we were wicked children and dangerous.
So, Papa agreed that he would leave us in the forest. But Hansel heard their sneaking whispers in the night. Before they awoke, clever Hansel went outside and filled his pockets with little stones. Papa took us into the forest the next day. As we walked through the dark forest, Hansel dropped his pebbles behind us to mark a path. When Papa fled and left us in the woods, we followed the trail back home.
Evil Griselda wept when she saw us come out of the nighttime mist. She went to Papa and said that he must return us to the forest. But that night, she barred the house door so Hansel could not collect pebbles. I was scared when Papa took us into the forest again, but clever Hansel comforted me. He had ripped his breakfast bread into small pieces and was dropping them in the forest, just as he had dropped the pebbles. He is so wise. But when Papa ran off and left us, we could not find Hansel’s breadcrumbs! They had all been eaten by the birds and other beasts of the forest.
We had never been so far into the forest before. I wanted to sit and cry, but Hansel would not let me.
“We must keep walking,” he said. “If you sit down, I will leave you and that will make me very sad. Walk with me, and we will find food.”
I followed Hansel. He always knows where to go. I always get lost, so it is good that I have him to follow. We walked and walked until our legs almost fell off. But then we found a clearing! It was a happy place. Birds sang in the trees. Rabbits and squirrels and voles and mice danced together in the bright green grass. They did not fear us. A fawn put its nose into my pocket, looking for food. I cried at first because it scared me, but then I laughed and gave him a crumb of my bread. Hansel looked around the clearing with his bright blue eyes. He looked so happy. I wanted to be happy too. We were not at home anymore, but maybe we could be happy here.
As we wandered, we came to a cottage at the other side of the clearing. It was the color of gingerbread, with bright paints on the windows and door. Vines with fruits were all over the walls of the cottage, and tasty smells came out its windows. I thought it was a happy house. All the colors made it look like it was smiling. We walked around it slowly, looking through the windows, but no one was inside.
“We must be quick,” said clever Hansel, and ran in the door. I followed him, but I stopped at the doorstep. There was a small stick with a strange marking on the door post. I wanted to look at it longer, but Hansel called to me to come in and help. I left the doorpost and the small, strange stick behind and walked inside.
There were pies and breads atop the large table in the center of the room. The smell of chicken came from the oven. Hansel quickly found a basket and we ran around, taking everything that we could find. We put it all into the basket. We pulled the chicken directly from the oven. It was hot, but our hunger was so great that we ate it like wolves. Our mouths burned and the juice dripped down our fronts. It was so good, I wanted to eat it forever.
“We should go,” said Hansel. “We must not stay here.” I looked up from my chicken at him. He was at the door, looking at the funny stick on the doorpost. His blue eyes looked scared and his face was pale white.
“Hansel,” I said, talking around the chicken still in my mouth, “maybe we can stay here. Maybe the person who lives here will let us stay and feed us.”
Hansel shook his head. “No person lives here, Gretel. This is the sign of a witch.”
I was confused. “Papa said witches aren’t real, Hansel.”
“Papa doesn’t know everything. Witches are real and we need to leave before she comes back. They eat children, everyone knows that.” Hansel’s shining gold hair was messy. He kept putting his hands in it.
I will follow Hansel anywhere. I started to walk towards the door, but as I did, a tiny, old lady leaning on a stick stepped through it and bumped right into Hansel’s back. She stumbled backwards, looking surprised, and almost fell. Her hair was grey, her body, stooped and bowed, but her eyes were dark and her nose, hooked.
The old witch’s eyes seemed to be very weak. She squinted around the room and was not able to see us well. I stepped behind Hansel for his protection when her dark, watering eyes found us. “Oh, hello, dears,” she said. Her voice was scratchy and high. “Where did you come from?”
Clever Hansel, he responded immediately, “Our parents have abandoned us in the forest” he said. “I’m very sorry. We’re lost and scared and hungry.”
“But you are much too young to be left alone in the forest,” said the witch. “Come here, young man. Take my hand.”
Hansel stepped forwards and instead of his hand, put out a half-eaten chicken bone. He is so smart. She would not eat us if she thought us thin and bony. Her wrinkled fingers shook as she felt the chicken bone.
“Mein Gott, you are skin and bone. Please, stay a while. We must fatten you up, yes? You surely need someone to care for you. You are both so young.” She turned her eyes to look sweetly at me. “Do you think you can both help me with housework? I am not so young as you are, and I would be thankful for the help. I promise, you shall eat well with me.”
I was sure Hansel would tell her that we had to go. I waited for him to say something smart. He would know how to escape. He always did.
“Thank you,” he said. “We will stay and help.”
I made a little cry in shock. Hansel looked at me quickly and made a move to make me stay silent. Why would he want to stay in a house with a witch who would want to fatten us up and eat us? I was so scared, I shook, but I did not talk more. Clever Hansel must have a plan.
Over the next days, Hansel made me understand. The witch would not eat us if she thought we were not juicy and plump, and her eyes were very bad. If we used chicken bones when she asked to feel our fingers, we could eat and grow strong.
The witch pretended to be a very nice, old lady. She liked us to call her ‘Mother Hilda,’ and gave us sweets every day. She made her dark eyes soft and made her voice gentle. Even her nose looked less wicked. I sometimes forgot that she was a witch. Hansel had to remind me that he saw her turn into a bat every night.
But maybe she was only a nighttime witch. During the day she always seemed so nice. I worked with her while Hansel went to the forest to search for food. He never found any, but Mother Hilda said there was always lots around her house.
It was true. Her power made animals come to her, and I never needed to look far to find a meal. The bees shared their honey with her, and deer would lead her into the forest to find mushrooms and berries. She also had a giant garden, where there were always vegetables, so it didn’t matter that Hansel couldn’t find food. She had enough that she could share it with the rabbits and squirrels, and we could still eat lots.
I was very happy to eat, but Hansel made me remember that she only wanted us fat for cooking, and I knew he was right. Mother Hilda was always nice to her chickens, and she still ate them. She even sang to them before slaughtering them for supper. “Killing must not be cruel,” she said.
She sang to us also before bed. Her cracking, old voice became smooth and calm when she sang. I always feared that she would kill us and eat us while we were asleep, but Hansel reminded me that she still thought we were “skin and bone,” and so would not want to eat us. We were very careful not to touch her, and only put out a chicken bone if she wanted to feel our hands.
We stayed with Mother Hilda for many weeks. We learned that she was cut off from the town at the edge of the forest. She said that her skills with animals had turned the townspeople against her. They called her a witch and made her go into the forest. Hansel looked at me very hard when she told us that. He knew that sometimes I did not think of her as a witch, but only as ‘Mother Hilda.’
One time, I even asked her about the small stick on her doorpost. She touched it every time she went through the door. I thought maybe it gave her power.
“That is a tiny box that holds prayers to protect this house and all of us,” she said. “It even protects you, my dear.”
Hansel was very angry when I told him this. “I told you it was a witch’s sign!” he hissed. “It won’t protect you, it will only protect her. I’m the one who protects you.”
I knew he was right. But I sometimes forgot it many days when Hansel was gone to the woods and I walked in the garden with Mother Hilda. Field mice would climb up and sit on her shoulder for crumbs. Some would even come to me so I could feed them on the ground. Then they would run away again. Mother Hilda smiled a lot in her garden, and in the sunlight, with her smile, her dark eyes and hooked nose did not look so ugly.
Over time, Hansel spent more and more of the day away from us. Many days, he would leave before sunrise and come back only when the sun was very low in the sky. If he was around the house during the day, he was often angry. He would stomp around and say mean things, so I was not sad when he went into the forest. At night he was more like himself. He would stroke my hair and tell me stories where he saved me from monsters.
But as the weather became colder, Mother Hilda became quieter, more scared. The forest animals did not visit her the way that they used to. I said that animals always go away when it’s cold, but she did not hear me. When we went to the garden, we sometimes found small skins wrapped around the tomatoes, or little bloody bodies, buried with the potatoes. She began to worry to me “I fear that there is a dark power growing in these woods, my dears,” she said, before being quiet and going to sleep.
When leaves started to fall off of the trees, Hansel said it was time for us to leave Mother Hilda. He told me that we had been here for too long and should go to town before winter. “you don’t want to freeze here,” he said.
I didn’t want to freeze. The woods around Mother Hilda’s cabin were also not so happy now. We never saw birds or deer or squirrels anymore. Mother Hilda did not often leave the house. I made our food while she sat and looked at the table, and Hansel went to the woods. I tried to talk to her sometimes, but she only had small things to say. I mostly talked to myself.
Before we went, Hansel told me that we needed to break her power. I did not want to. I cried a long time about it, quietly in bed. But Hansel said, “we can’t let her eat the next child that comes to her house. They will not be as clever as we are. We must protect them.”
He was right. If another child came to her, perhaps they would already be plump, and would not be clever or quick like Hansel. She would eat them right away.
Hansel told me what I had to do, and I was so scared. He said he would do the hard part. But my job was so important, he said. So, he called her into our corner of the cottage. She stood up from the table and went to him so slowly. I ran to the door and pulled and pulled until the witch’s mark came off in my hand. I walked to the fireplace and threw it in. The mark caught fire. It burned fast and disappeared.
Nothing happened. No cry from Mother Hilda. She did not burn up too. Maybe Hansel was wrong? But Mother Hilda was returning from the corner with Hansel. He was looking at me and smiled with his blue eyes behind her back.
Mother Hilda walked to the door. I think she wanted to see the sun go down. But as she stepped out, she tried to touch her mark and found it gone. Then something did happen. She fell on the floor and began to cry. I did not know that an old person could cry so loud. She cried and cried and shook. She kicked and rolled and yelled and then lay on the floor as her power left her.
Hansel saw too that her power had gone. He walked over to her and pulled her up to her feet. He led her to the table and said that we would help her feel better. If she baked us a cake, we would sing her a song. Hansel had told me the song was very important if we wanted her power to go away for good, so I hoped she would say ‘yes.’ Then we could go and all the children in the forest would be safe.
“A cake, dear?” she said. She looked scared and small. Her dark eyes were red, and her curved nose was wet. Mother Hilda was always stooped and stout, but now she looked thin, like a young tree or a very small stick. “Oh, ok, I suppose.”
She lit the logs in the oven, and she made the cake as we walked around her, singing.
She cried again as we sang. I think, in her heart, she knew that we were leaving.
Backe, backe Kuchen,
der Bäcker
hat gerufen.
Wer will feinen Kuchen backen,
der muss
haben 7 Sachen:
Zucker und Salz,
Butter und
Schmalz,
Eier und
Mehl,
Safran macht
den Kuchen gelb.
Schieb in den
Ofen rein.
Our song ended. Everything was still. Mother Hilda bent over to open up the oven. When she did, Hansel, with his wide blue eyes and his untidy golden hair gave her bum a kick, and into the oven she went.
I did not move. It was so fast. She called out one time, and then stopped moving. She became part of the fire quickly. I hoped I had seen something wrong. I am often silly and see things that are not true, or don’t see things that are. But I looked around the cottage and there was only Hansel. “But her power was broken,” I said to Hansel. Now I cried also. “Her power was gone, and she could just live here with her animals. You didn’t have to burn her.”
“A witch can always get her power back,” Hansel said. His blue eyes were wide, but they did not look scared. His eyes made me feel frightened. “We had to burn her before she got her power back and ate us. It was the only way.”
“No,” I said. “No, no, no, no, no.” I was the one on the floor this time. I was the one who cried and kicked and rolled around, saying “you killed Mother Hilda,” over and over.
I stopped when Hansel grabbed me and shook me. But I still made small, sad noises. “Be Quiet,” he said. I became still. “Gretel, remember how you broke her power?” I nodded slowly. “Remember how you sang the song that made her ready for the fire?”
“But I didn’t kn—”
“Remember?” his voice was very quiet now, very angry. I nodded again. “We killed the witch to save our lives. We saved the lives of all the children in this forest who might have been eaten up. We saved them, Gretel.” His voice was soft now and he stroked my hair. “So, what happened?”
“We killed Mother Hild—”
“We killed the witch.” his eyes went angry again.
“We…. we…. killed the witch to save ourselves and the other children from being eaten.”
“Good.” Now his voice was nice once more, and he put his arm around my shoulders. He felt so strong. “Now, wash your face and hands. They’re dirty.”
Hansel set the beautiful, colorful cottage on fire before we left. He said that it needed to burn down to make sure her power was gone forever. I couldn’t look at it while it burned. Even though it was a witch’s house, it made me cry.
We walked through the forest for so long. I don’t remember our walk very much. I just followed Hansel. I looked at my feet and I walked, and sometimes I cried. One time, I thought I remembered a place where Hansel and I used to play. “Hansel, are we close to home?” I said.
“No Gretel,” he said. “There is nothing near here.”
Hansel was right; I saw that was true. There was a spot that used to be a house, but that house was burned away too. Even the ground and the trees around it were all burned up. I still thought maybe I could remember it, but Hansel said to come.
“If we are still in the forest when it gets dark, I will have to go find town by myself,” he said. “You can stay here if you want, though.”
I did not want to. The whole space felt wrong. I left my thoughts with the ashes.
When we reached town, everyone was confused. They wanted to know where we had come from. Hansel looked at me with his blue eyes, and I knew I should stay quiet. I just looked shook my head and pointed to Hansel. Clever Hansel knew just what to say. “We were lost in the forest when we found a witch, who lived in a house of gingerbread.”