Black Pearls (8 page)

Gretel nodded, but as the door opened and their father and stepmother tossed empty bags onto the floor, she knew there was no good news. And the feeling she'd had, the glimpse of a mother she had nearly forgotten, faded. Their stepmother, bigger, louder, ten times more real, sighed theatrically, then unwrapped the straps of wool from her ankles and put her shoes by the fire. Their father walked to the hearth, rubbing his hands, his face furrowed with disappointment. "Not even beans," he said. "Not even a stale loaf."

It was the third time this week the pair had taken Gretel's sewing to market, the third time they had been turned away by merchants unwilling to part with food in return for the girl's dainty-work. "We cannot go on like this, you know." The children's stepmother was named Prudence, but she was more stingy than wise. "I have said it over and over. Four are too many mouths to feed." She glared at the children, who stood still and light on their feet, like birds ready to fly. "Especially when these two do nothing to earn their keep."

"I could help Hansel with the chopping, mistress." Gretel looked at her brother, so exhausted he could barely stand, at her own mending and sewing, folded into a careful pile on the table. "We could sell extra wood that way. Or I might stitch hats in place of aprons?" Despite all their work, her stepmother was bleeding anger, and Gretel needed to stanch the flow. "We will do better tomorrow." It was what her mother had said, day after day, when she was sick.
I will be better tomorrow.

"Tomorrow," Prudence told her, closing her eyes against the heartbreak of their day, "we may all starve to death." She looked hard at her husband, harder still at Gretel. "And unless you plan on cooking them, girl, your hats will not fill our empty bellies."

The image of their stuffing coarse wool in their mouths hung over the table when they sat down to supper. The meal, which was nothing but water seasoned with the dried mushrooms Gretel had gathered in the fall and small pieces of the moldy bread they had been too proud to eat the night before, did not last long. It was eaten in silence and ended when their father stood suddenly, hurled his spoon into the fire, and did something neither of his children had ever heard him do before: he swore.

"Christ's blood!" His voice cracked, then trembled on the edge of tears. "A rat would not eat this slop!" Without meeting the eyes of anyone at the table, he picked up his jacket, sodden with snow, and walked out the cottage door.

As soon as he was gone, Hansel raced to the hearth. He grabbed the poker and nudged his father's spoon out of the flames. It was only a little twisted and would still serve. No one spoke until Prudence rose and began moving their chairs from the table.

"Best sweep and put the bed things out," she told Gretel. Her tone was almost gentle in its shock. "I will fetch your father before he freezes."

When the bowls and spoons were rubbed clean and the pallets placed on the floor, their parents came back inside, Father still avoiding their glance, Prudence set and stiff as beaten cream. Hansel stoked the fire, and they all four lay down in silence until Father's snoring started at last. Gretel lay awake, listening to the ragged rhythm it made, waiting for the call of the owl that ab ways set up its night vigil in the poplar outside their door.

The angel who visited her in dreams seemed more intense, more real than the visions she saw during the day. At night, she could feel its breath, like wind across a meadow; sometimes it would touch her, sending a shiver through her whole body, the shock of grace. It was the same way she'd felt when another hand, moist and burning with fever, had stroked her hair.
I have already seen heaven, Gret,
Mother had told her.
It looks just like you.

While the rest of the family stumbled from their pallets, grumbling, fighting their way into morning, Gretel always woke smiling. The dreams were like a small bird, a tiny heartbeat she kept warm against her chest.

So when her parents' voices woke her that night, she came unwillingly from the lip of a dream, a scene in which her angel threw sparkling stones along their path, leaving twisting trails of gems behind them. She sat in the dark, brushing hair from her eyes and listening to the angry talk.

"You must do it tomorrow," she heard her stepmother say. "Take them deep into the forest and leave them there."

And Father answered, weary, frightened. "I cannot, Pru. I will ne'er do such a thing. What would become of them?"

"What will become of
us,
man?" Prudence's voice forgot caution, spiraled toward hysteria. "Would you choose your children over your wife?" Then in the space left by her unanswered question, "Your wife, who can bear you other babes." Lower now, almost a purr, "
Our
own children, not hers."

"Lord Jesus, help me," Father said. "Would you nail me to the cross of an old love? Hansel and the girl are mine, Pru. I will not leave them to starve."

"Then give them the rest of the bread. Give them whatever you will. Only take them deep enough they'll not find their way back."

"How will they fend?"

"Like any two hungry beasts, Husband. Better than four."

Torn from her dream, Gretel felt cold and wretched.
An old love,
her father said. Had he forgotten how he wept by their mother's bed? Had he no memory of the times before, the way he and Mama danced for them, how she whirled, pink-cheeked, then fell against him?
Enough! If you spin me more, you may shake my good sense out. The babes will have no ma, I shall run off with the gypsies and howl at the moon!
Their mother had always looked at Hansel and Gretel then, winking. And when Gretel obligingly gasped and ran to block the door, Mama would go to her and hold her tight.
Well, then,
she'd say each time,
I suppose the gypsies would not mind if you came along, too.

Now Gretel crawled across the shadows to Hansel's pallet. She shoved his shoulder and when he startled put her hand over his mouth to make him listen. They both heard it then. The plan to pretend a trip for better firewood, a trip that would end with the children abandoned miles from home, left to the mercy of God and wild wolves.

Neither slept, and sunrise found them pale and drawn. While Prudence hummed over a small knapsack and their father sharpened the axes, Hansel fumed. "How dare they?" he whispered to his sister. "Does all the wood I've chopped count for nothing?" His face was as flushed as if he had already been outside in the frosty morning. "Or the rabbits I caught last spring?"

"Do not fret, Brother," Gretel told him. "Our angel will save us." And before he could laugh, before he could daunt her with that scornful look of his, she told him about the dream. "Can you not see? If we drop stones as we go and wait until the moon comes up, our way home will be lit by heaven itself!"

He did not laugh. Instead, he lowered his chin nearly to his chest and squinted with the effort to imagine what she had described. When he raised his head to look at her, his eyes were narrow, calculating. "Mayhap," was all he said.

What neither of them had counted on, of course, was the storm their homecoming caused. That night, they waited until the moon was high enough to light the stones Gretel had sewn like seeds as their parents led them deeper and deeper into the forest. And when they arrived at the cottage well after dark, there was only one person glad to see them again. "Praise the Savior!" Their father hugged each of them in turn, grinning like a fool. "Look how Providence has seen fit to spare you!"

But Prudence saw less to celebrate. Much less. "What trick did you use?" She turned on Gretel and her brother as if walking home was devil's work, as if they had no right to share the roof under which they'd been born and raised. "Tomorrow we will go further. Tomorrow you will stay where you are put."

So there was no pretense now, no talk of gathering firewood, of the two adults leaving to gather it up while the children napped by the fire. Despite Father's pleas and the children's arguments, their stepmother was determined. "Whether you go or we," she said, "matters little. We will all be better off, with fewer hungry mouths to fill.

"But since your good father and I have kept you fed and dressed till now, it is only right that you be the ones to repay this debt by trying your fortunes in the world."

"Their
fortunes!
" Father sounded hoarse and sharp, a baited bear with no way out. "What fortunes can they find in a land wasted by drought and famine?"

"What if we won't go?" Hansel folded his arms and braced himself as he did when he chopped wood. "What if we refuse to be pushed into the cold?"

"Refuse all you wish," Prudence told him. "Stay here and watch your father starve." She rushed out of Father's grasp and turned on the boy. "You are certain to outlast him, you know. He is old and tired from working to keep you in firewood and soup." A flame fanned itself to life in her narrow eyes. "And mark me, when he weakens and dies, the two of you will earn a place in hell."

"Pru, you must not say such a thing," Father told her.

But Prudence ignored him and shifted her attention to Gretel. "Ay, you shall find yourselves near enough to the devil's throne to kiss his horny feet." Reluctantly, she unfolded the two bedrolls she had stashed by the hearth. As the girl bent to help her, she studied Gretel's small shoulders, down-turned head. "Make no mistake, ungrateful wretch. You will murder the good man as surely as if you took that ax"—she pointed to the long-handled ax in the hearth corner—"to his throat and did the job clean."

And so the four of them set out for the woods again next morning, the children lagging spiritlessly behind their parents. Neither of them scattered stones, for they both felt the stinging truth of their stepmother's words. If the family stayed together, they were all likely to perish. But if Hansel and Gretel took their chances in the wide world, their youth and daring might somehow earn their keep.

"If he finds a bone," Hansel told his sister as they trudged through the thickening forest, "she will suck it dry, then give him the leavings." He nodded toward Prudence, and Gretel wondered if he remembered the last day, the day Mama called the two of them to her.
Take care of your da,
she had said, kissing them both.
Love him as I have loved you.
She'd curled on her side then, as if she were taking a nap. Gretel could still see the sharp curve of her back, the way her poor bones showed through her shift.

So at first when Prudence came into their lives, cleaning and scrubbing and scolding only a little, it seemed as though Mama might have sent her. Father's spirits lifted, and he even began to sing again. Sometimes Prudence laughed and joined in, though she never danced with Da the way their mother had.

"It may not be long before she turns him out as well." Hansel threw a stick he had picked up into a small stream. It landed with a dull thud against the ice. "We will have company on our death march, eh?"

Apparently, though, their father had other plans. When they had traveled deeper into the forest than any of them had ever been and the children lay beside a meager fire, he gathered up his axes and the knapsack he shared with Prudence. But before he left, he leaned to whisper in Gretel's ear. "You shall find your way home again tonight," he told her, pretending only to kiss her farewell. Then, bending to the boy's ear, too, he added quickly, "The bread crumbs, lad. Follow the crumbs as you did the stones."

When the older pair had finally disappeared into the woods, the younger sat up and told each other what they'd heard. Gretel jumped to her feet, raced to the edge of the pale light cast by the fire, and then shouted to her brother. "Father spoke true, Hansel," she cried. "Come look at what he has left for us."

She would tell it years from now, over and over. How the trail of crumbs Father had dropped from his loaf led away from the fire. Led the two children, laughing and hopeful once more, back along a winding trail between the oaks and linden, the alder and the elms. Led them for a joyous, buoyant hour, before it dwindled and then disappeared, before the children realized that birds and squirrels had found the bread sooner than they. She hadn't wanted to discourage Hansel, but the spot where the crumbs stopped was such a dark and desolate one, and she had been so looking forward to the warmth of their hearth, that Gretel sat upon the damp ground and cried.

For once her brother did not mock her but sat down beside her, silent, tearless. It seemed less out of tenderness than fatigue and a certain weary patience with her moods. But when she had cried out all her hurt and disappointment, he stood and held out his hand. "Come on, then," he told her. "We are no worse off than we expected to be when we set out this morning."

It was true enough. And as they walked slowly, taking their cues from the angle at which the setting sun poked through the thicket of branches overhead, or the path of a rivulet that funneled through the moss, Gretel began to feel better. Not less hungry or cold, but surer, more certain that they would survive. Which may be why it was she, and not Hansel, who finally called a halt to their wandering. "It is too dark to see," she told her brother. "Let us find a cave or a hollow to keep out the wind. We can set out again at first light."

Hansel offered little argument and less help. After a few minutes, with no break in the dense trees, Gretel pointed to a great oak that lay across their path. "There be our cave," she said, walking around the fallen giant, noting with satisfaction the way the empty trunk opened into a small but dry chamber. While she gathered kindling for a fire and pine needles for their beds, her brother, as disconsolate as she had been earlier, blew on his fingertips and complained. "We will freeze before we starve. How thoughtful Stepmother was, to spare us a slow death for a quick one."

"There is no end of fuel for our fire," Gretel reassured him. Though she thought sadly of the tinderbox they kept by the hearth at home. "I will find some flint, and soon we shall have a blaze started."

Curled in the hollow of the tree beside her brother, Gretel fell quickly into an exhausted sleep. At first there was no angel in her dream, only a small house that lit up the woods around it. Surprised and delighted, she ran toward its shining windows and the curl of smoke like a friendly hand, beckoning. As she got closer, she was astonished to find that the cottage had been built with huge slabs of buttered gingerbread and dollops of meringue. There were two bushes by the door, one filled with lemon drops, the other with sugarplums. She thought she saw a figure in one of the windows, though it could have been her own reflection, running eagerly toward the house.