Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [27]
"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