Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [29]
But Gretel had not told him how the angel's finger still burned her chest. How she had actually checked under her shift to see if the skin was reddened there. It had not been, of course, and perhaps Hansel was right. Perhaps the angel had only meant that they should not take more than they needed, that they must repay the owner of the house for what they ate.
"We must knock," she told her brother. "We must offer to work for our food."
Hansel laughed again. "I have eaten the door knock, Gretel," he said, smiling like a naughty child, looking younger, lighter, and happier than she had ever seen him. "If we cannot knock, we shall sing for our supper, eh?" He came to her then and took her hand, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her into a clumsy dance. Round and round he whirled her, singing the old song their father used to sing, until at last, giddy with his attention, she joined in:
"Oranges and lemons," say the bells of St. Clements.
"You owe me five farthings," say the bells of St. Martin.
For an instant, as they spun past the front window, Gretel thought she spied a shadowy figure staring out at them. She clasped one hand to her mouth, but as Hansel twirled them nearer, she saw that the window's glass was made of boiled sugar, cloudy and mottled as still water in a pond. Over its surface, bobbing and weaving like falling leaves, were only their own silhouettes, their own dancing selves.
"When will you pay me?" say the bells of Old Bailey.
"When I grow rich," say the bells of Shoreditch.
"When will that be?" say the bells of Stepney.
"I do not know," says the great Bell of Bow.
But she could not mistake the voice that stopped their dance. That was real, as rasping and ugly as the swift's had been beautiful. "Nibble, nibble, little mouse." Hansel let go his sister's hand when he heard it. "Who is nibbling on my house?"
Too afraid to run, the children stood rooted to the spot. And again the crusty voice called to them from behind the very window where Gretel had dreamt shadows. "Perhaps 'tis the wind, heaven's child." The owner of the cottage laughed, but since the sound was closer to a growl, her paralyzed listeners were hardly reassured. "Only the wind, playful and mild."
When the door opened and a stooped crone with a halo of fine white hair appeared on the steps, Gretel and Hansel were both relieved. The old woman was a pathetic sight, after all, her thinning hair, her watery eyes, the stockings that fell in folds around her ankles. "Ay," she told them. "I was partly right, was I not? Two of heaven's children have found their way to my door."
"Good dame," Hansel began, using the same unctuous tone with which he addressed their stepmother when she was angry. "We only want..."
"I won't have it whispered about that I turned such innocents into the woods." She smiled at them, though her mouth moved too slowly, too largely, as if it was unaccustomed to such an expression. "Well, come, then," she urged them, opening her door wide. "Out of the cold now, and I shall try to make us a bit of supper."
Supper was a feast—pancakes cooked on top of a brick oven that gave off a pleasant heat even when the hearth fire had died. The old woman served them cakes with nuts and fruit, and sweet cream that tumbled like a bountiful river from her china pitcher. The children, not trusting this sudden plenty, spoke little and ate a great deal. Then, bloated and easily won over by the promise of breakfast next morning, they followed the woman to a small room, where two beds covered with fresh white linens glowed like twin stars. They sank into a dreamless sleep, and neither could remember ever waking so late as they did next day.
Regaining some courage, and with it her manners, Gretel begged for work that might repay their elderly hostess's kindness. She could not help but notice the layers of dust beneath the stick candy on the walls and under the rush rug on the floor. "I might tidy the place a bit," she told the old woman, timidly. "I am fair handy, as well, with needle and thread."