Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [25]
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