The Gretel Series: Books 1-3 (Gretel Series Boxed set) Read online

  Anika’s mind leaped back to the current situation. She needed to get her bearings and plan out what to do next. Was it two days since her accident on the road? That seemed right, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. She’d taken a blow to her head—a considerable one—and it was possible she’d been unconscious for longer than a day. Either way, Anika figured the longer she stayed locked in the room, the more her chances of escape diminished. She had to figure something out soon.

  She suddenly realized her vision was improved and once again felt the area above her eye. She was astonished at how small it felt, shrunken and compressed and immediately reconsidered the length of time she had been out. She’d received her share of shiners after all—they were an accepted part of life on a farm, particularly as a child—but the injury she’d sustained in the forest was blunt trauma, a deliberate strike with a weapon. And this injury appeared to be healing in a fraction of the time of any normal black eye. She couldn’t see her eye, of course, so there was probably still some discoloration, and judging by her fingers, the white paste was apparently still being applied while she slept, but the swelling was virtually gone.

  There was no longer any question in Anika’s mind that she was being nursed back to health, so perhaps the woman’s intentions weren’t sinister, just incredibly cautious. Why else would she be healing her? Maybe she really was harmless. Mad and harmless.

  Either way, Anika thought, she was being held prisoner, and whether it was for the rest of her life or a few more hours, she had a right to know why. No more stalling or cryptic answers: the next time the woman came to her room, Anika was going to find out what was going on.

  A surge of replenishment suddenly filled Anika, and she felt the need to get on her feet. The chain on her ankle was too short for her to dismount and stand beside the open side of the bed, but she thought if she were able to push the bed away from the wall and create a small gap there, she might be able to stand on the inside.

  Anika could tell the bed was sturdy and well-made; there was very little wobble in it when she shifted, and it felt dense to the touch. But it also wasn’t very big, and she figured with some effort she could scoot the legs just enough.

  Anika wedged her right foot in between the wall and the frame of the bed, and with less force than she had expected, was able to leverage her body enough to pry the frame from the wood of the cabin wall, creating a small space between the wall and the thin mattress. She wiggled her foot down toward the floor, the metal clasp just clearing the gap, and moved her body upright.

  She was now standing on one foot.

  She nudged the bed further away with her right knee and dropped the other foot to the floor. She now stood erect against the wall, the chain snaking limply on the floor at her right foot.

  Anika felt the ecstasy in her legs, as well as the weakness and atrophy, and a sudden sense of claustrophobia nipped at her nerves, as though she would lack the strength to regain her position on the bed when the time came. With all the strength in her unbound leg, Anika drove the foot of the bed away from her, pushing out with her left foot and sending it toward the middle of the room. She let out a long steady breath of relief and gave an internal prayer of thanks.

  There was now enough space for her to squat and get some stretch in her muscles, so she did this several times, limbering her arms simultaneously with wide, rotating movements. The burn in her thighs and chest was both harsh and relieving, and Anna could sense the blood flowing throughout her body, giving her the alertness and energy she was chasing.

  She stooped down again, and this time grabbed the iron hitch that connected the chain to the floor, wriggling it to test its permanence. The fastening was as she suspected, heavy and tight, sturdy in its feel and look, and the eye bolt that connected to the chain was as thick as her finger. She studied the wooden floorboard to which the hitch was connected, judging whether or not—over time of course—she would be able to pry it up, and with it the iron attachment. Anika figured if she could secure any type of tool—a spoon perhaps that the woman didn’t notice missing from her empty meal tray—she could hopefully work up the plank. She would still have the problem of a chain around her ankle, but at least she would be mobile. She just needed to reach the road.

  But the floorboards seemed solid as well, and even if she were able to get hold of some kind of instrument, with her ankle bound, she wouldn’t have the range necessary to jimmy the boards at the proper angles. It was as if the contraption were built for just this purpose, she thought, and with that image Anika gripped the chain tightly with both hands, her knuckles bulging taut and white. In a controlled panic, she began to pull up on the chain, hoping to summon the extraordinary strength that she had always heard existed in everyone, but only erupted at just the right moment during times of crisis.

  Her biceps strained as she desperately tried to hold her hands stable around the metal links and lift the chain from its anchor. Or at least bow the floor board slightly, just to give her hope. Her effort, though, was feeble, as her palms, sweaty and slick from both exertion and fear, kept sliding up the metal cable. She needed leverage.

  Anika sat down on the floor and faced the wall, her back straight, straddling the square bracket. She wedged her ankles at the juncture where the floor and wall met, the soles of her feet flat against the wall and her toes pointing to the ceiling. She wrapped the chain once around her right wrist and grabbed it with both hands near the anchor. It was a bit awkward with her ankle bound, but she now had the strength of her thighs. Anika pushed her body out with the last of the stamina that remained in her for now.

  Nothing. She felt not the slightest movement from the anchor or wood boards.

  Defeated, she leaned her head back gently to the bed which was now behind her and closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. The woman would be in soon, would see the bed in the center of the room and the exposed eye bolt, and she would know Anika was trying to escape. Perhaps she already assumed that, but this would be the proof. Maybe the woman would kill Anika right there on the floor, or maybe she would explain everything first, and then kill her. Or let her leave. Either way Anika would know her fate soon.

  As if her thoughts had been screamed aloud, Anika heard the chopping sounds outside her window suddenly stop. She waited in fear, breathless, hoping for the sickening thump of metal on wood to resume, having not calculated exactly what the next step in her plan would be.

  Other than to survive.

  She wasn’t ready to die. She thought of her children again, this time less abstractly, conjuring their faces in her mind. Hansel was only a baby, he wouldn’t understand. And Gretel. All of the obligations that were Anika’s, formed by decisions that she had made willingly since she had left home at seventeen, and that had ultimately shaped her life to this point, would fall to Gretel. It wouldn’t just be unfair, it would be an atrocity. Her daughter’s future promised value, significance; it wasn’t to serve her elderly grandfather in the Back Country, or to spend the remainder of her youth as a surrogate mother to her brother and servant to her father.

  This old woman seemed reasonable and lucid, Anika thought, though she was obviously a little askew. If she could maybe evoke some more information from her, possibly find some common ground with the woman to build on, she could buy a little time and figure an escape. Maybe convince the woman to let her go. Anika again thought of the accent. There was something familiar in it, the way the woman cut off the ‘Rs’, rolling them slightly. It wasn’t a sound heard often in this country, but Anika was sure she recognized it, from her childhood perhaps. The memory, however, was faint and seemed to dissolve before she could approach it.

  The cabin door thundered closed and the sound rang through Anika’s room like a gunshot. She needed to arrange the room back to normal. She wasn’t ready to die. Not yet. If she hurried she could pull the bed back to the wall and the woman would never know she was up, scheming.

  The usual sounds of clanging pots and plates that seemed never to
stop for long rattled outside Anika’s door. The woman was cooking again, probably Anika’s breakfast. There was still time. From her knees, Anika stretched her left arm toward the right rear post of the bed, and was able to grab it, wrapping her fingers around the adorning iron bulb. The chain on her ankle limited her reach, but Anika was able to use it for leverage to pull the bed back in. The bed was heavy on its return, but she was able to slide it slowly on the wooden floor, being careful not to make too much noise.

  The sounds in the kitchen stopped, and the ensuing silence unnerved Anika, as if someone was waiting, listening. She had five or so more planks to navigate before the bed would be back to its original place, though even if she had all day she wouldn’t have the leverage to get it flush against the wall again. She would have to leave a gap to get out and back on the mattress, and she certainly couldn’t push the bed while on top of it. That was fine, it would be close enough.

  The lull from the kitchen suddenly erupted into one last Clang!, as if a dozen dishes were dumped in a heap into a basin, and then the now familiar footsteps began to click quickly down the hall. Anika didn’t have the bed repositioned yet, it was still slightly diagonal, and there were more planks to go; if the woman walked in now, the crookedness would be obvious to her.

  Ignoring the noise it would make, and with her full effort, Anika yanked the top of the post, pulling the bed toward her like a rower on a Viking ship. It slid with less resistance than Anika had anticipated, leaving her off balance, and making it impossible for her to offset the effect of the clawed foot at the bottom of the right post catching on a slightly raised floor plank.

  The bed almost turned entirely over on top of Anika, but instead rocked back to its side, forming a trench-like barrier in front of her, as if she had taken cover in preparation for a bomb blast.

  Anika felt a fearful laughter well up inside of her, but resisted it, pushing the bed back on all fours, and missing by only inches the woman who now stood in front of her.

  Anika screamed and recoiled, her back slamming forcefully against the solid wall.

  The woman stood staring at Anika for a moment, expressionless, as if watching fish in an aquarium. There was no detectable sense of anger in her face, and Anika stared back at her, keeping eye contact and trying to gauge her next move.

  The woman smiled slightly at Anika, and then made a peek over the bed, making sure Anika was still bound and hadn’t somehow escaped the shackles. The look was warm and playful, and Anika felt a compulsion to smile back, but resisted. Instead she said, “I have to go. My children are—”

  “What are their ages?” she interrupted. “Your children, what are their ages?”

  Anika paused, weighing the consequences of revealing this seemingly benign fact. “Fourteen and eight,” she replied. “My daughter is fourteen and my son is eight.”

  “Only two?” The woman looked away as if annoyed at this answer, and then rhetorically asked, “When did women stop having children?”

  Anika was well past feeling insulted, and instead experienced a twinge of encouragement from the common ground they seemed to have found. “How many do you have?” she asked.

  The woman’s eyes seemed to flicker at the question, and Anika noticed the slightest downturn at the edges of her mouth.

  “Certainly you have children?” Anika was almost challenging in her tone and knew it was a gamble; but the woman showed interest in her children, and whatever wound Anika may have opened on the matter she figured she could sew up on the back end. She wanted to keep the woman talking.

  “I don’t,” the woman responded, clearly not interested in telling her own story.

  “Really? When did women stop having children?” Anika forced a laugh, hoping to convey a sense of camaraderie and not insolence.

  The woman turned back toward Anika, her eyes wide and focused, a slight smile forming at the edges of her mouth as if amused at Anika’s boldness. “At one time I had six,” she said. “They’ve all been dead many years.”

  Anika felt the blood rush to her face, a reaction indicative of both fear and embarrassment. Her stomach convulsed and she felt like vomiting.”I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean...” Wide-eyed, Anika watched the woman’s face, hoping she would say something—anything—to fill the empty space where Anika’s words should have been, thereby letting her off the mat.

  But there was only silence, and the woman continued her cold stare, forcing Anika to drop her gaze to the floor.

  Finally Anika looked up and said, “Are you going to kill me?”

  The woman considered the question for a moment, seeming to give it sincere thought, and then said, “Why are you here?”

  Somewhat relieved, Anika digested the question, took a deep breath, and replied, “I was attacked...you attacked me and...”

  “No!” the woman yelled.

  The word was shrill and reflexive, causing Anika to flinch, and for the first time since she had been here, Anika saw in the woman the first real evidence of derangement. She’d assumed from the beginning it was there, of course, waiting restlessly underneath all the properness and hospitality, waiting for any imbalance to release it. And now here it was surfacing, from little more than a wrong answer.

  “Why am I here?” Anika asked.

  “No! No! I asked you, ‘Why are you here?’ Answer the question!” The woman was screaming now, enraged, her lips curling back from her teeth with every word, revealing the huge, dirty gray and brown triangles that clustered in her gums.

  Anika coughed nervously and began to cry softly. She could feel the nausea again rising in her throat. What were those teeth? she thought. Oh my God, they were inhuman!

  She felt hysteria coming on and realized she had to get control. Panic would just feed into the woman’s outrage and that might just wrap things up for good. Anika thought again of her children. What answer was the woman looking for?

  Anika took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them and said, “I was in a car accident.”

  She said the words stoically, looking directly into the woman’s eyes, as if she had known all along this was the answer the woman wanted. She felt empowered on some level, though she couldn’t have said why.

  “My car went off the road,” she continued, “and I went for help. I got lost in the forest.”

  Anika measured each word, each syllable, as if writing a sonnet, careful not to get the meter wrong. It was working. The woman was riveted, as if she were a child listening to a knight’s tale. But there wasn’t much more to tell without getting into the details, and somehow Anika didn’t think the woman was interested in her muddy shoes.

  What else? Just give the facts, she thought, and then said, “So I screamed for help.”

  The woman’s eyebrows perked up at this last bit of the story, and a broad smile curved up her cheeks. Anika again shuddered and stopped talking. She felt lucky to have said this much without upsetting her captor. She didn’t want to push it.

  The woman’s eyes softened on Anika, and she tilted her chin down slightly, cocking her head to the side, as if sympathizing with a petulant child who needed only to sleep to be right again. “You need more rest...” she began and then paused, “Angela?”

  “Anika. How...how did you know my name?”

  “Evidently I didn’t.”

  “Yes, but...you were very close. How did you know?”

  “I’ll be in shortly with your breakfast. If you displace your furniture again, I will cut off your hands.”

  Anika felt a chill from the threat, but realized she had little to lose now. “You never answered my question. Are you going to kill me?”

  “The proper word is ‘Slaughter,’ Anika,” the woman replied. “One does not ‘kill’ an animal, one slaughters it.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gretel finally exhaled, and then began to hyperventilate. She knew instinctively the car was not headed toward any fire this time: that car was headed for her.
r />   “Oh my God,” Gretel managed to whisper, and her eyes shifted desperately from the approaching red machine to her brother. “Oh my God! Hansel!” she screamed, “Hansel come in now!”

  Hansel jerked up quickly, and Gretel could tell by his posture that he recognized immediately the panic in her voice. She regretted frightening him, but if she had been casual in her summons, she would have surely wasted time arguing with her brother about staying out for just a few more minutes.

  Gretel wasn’t quite sure why she was so afraid for her brother—after all, it was the police that were heading toward them, not a herd of buffalo—or why she wanted him to come home to begin with; if the approaching System officer was a real threat, Hansel would have been safer staying in the fields. But Gretel wanted her brother with her, instinctively, as a mother would her child.

  Hansel watched in awe as the speeding blaze of metal passed him, barely slowing as it turned toward the house. He heard his sister’s voice again and the spell was broken; he was now running with frenzy toward Gretel, leaving the homemade toys behind him in the field.

  Gretel watched as the car pulled to a stop about twenty yards from the front of the house where it sat idling for several minutes. She realized she had never seen a System car from the front before, or from such a close distance, and she was mesmerized by it. It seemed massive to her. Not in its length or height, necessarily, but in its bulk, the way a cow doesn’t look very large from the road—it’s only when one stands next to it that its size is appreciated. And the headlights were like nothing she had ever seen, they were huge and elliptical, with the organic quality of staring eyes that Gretel guessed must have been the intention of the engineer. The grill was cased in solid black with silver plates running vertically along the front where, again, the resemblance to teeth on a living face was undeniable. The car reminded Gretel of a squinting dragon.