The Book of Lost Things [42]
When they awoke, they were no longer lying on the grass beneath the trees of the forest. Instead, they were inside the house, trapped in a cage that hung from the ceiling. A woman was fueling an oven with logs. She was old and foul-smelling. Piles of bones lay stacked on the floor by her feet, the remains of the other children who had fallen prey to her.
“Fresh meat!” she whispered to herself. “Fresh meat for old Gammer’s oven!”
The little boy began to cry, but his sister hushed him. The woman came to them and peered at them through the bars of the cage. Her face was covered with black warts, and her teeth were worn and crooked like old gravestones.
“Now which of you will be first?” she asked.
The boy tried to hide his face, as though by doing so he might avoid the attentions of the old woman. But his sister was braver.
“Take me,” she said. “I am plumper than my brother, and will make a better roast for you. While you eat me you can fatten him up, so that he will feed you for longer when you cook him.”
The old woman cackled with joy.
“Clever girl,” she cried. “Although not so clever as to avoid Gammer’s plate.”
She opened the cage and reached in, grabbing the girl by the scruff of the neck and dragging her out. Then she locked the cage once again and brought the girl to the oven. It was not yet hot enough, but it soon would be.
“I will never fit in there,” said the girl. “It’s too small.”
“Nonsense,” said the old woman. “I’ve put bigger than you in there, and they’ve cooked just fine.”
The girl looked doubtful. “But I have long limbs, and fat upon them. No, I will never manage to get into that oven. And if you do squeeze me in, you’ll never get me out again.”
The old woman took the girl by the shoulders and shook her. “I was wrong about you,” she said. “You’re an ignorant, foolish girl. Look, I’ll show you how big this oven is.”
She climbed up and stuck her head and shoulders into the mouth of the oven.
“See?” she said, and her voice echoed within. “There’s room to spare for me, let alone a girl like you.”
The little girl ran at her and with a great push she shoved her into the oven and slammed the door closed. The old woman tried to kick it open again, but the girl was too quick for her, slamming the bolt on it (for the old woman did not want a child to break free once the roasting had begun) and leaving her trapped inside. Then she fed more logs to the fire, and slowly the old woman began to cook, all the time screaming and wailing and threatening the girl with the most awful of tortures. So hot was the oven that the fats of her body began to melt, creating a stench so terrible that the little girl felt ill. Still the old woman fought, even as her skin parted from her flesh, and her flesh from her bones, until at last she died. Then the little girl drew wood from the fire and scattered burning logs around the cottage. She led her brother away by the hand as the house melted behind them, leaving only the chimney standing tall, and they never went back there again.
In the months that followed, the girl grew happier and happier in the forest. She built a shelter, and over time the shelter became a little house. She learned to fend for herself, and as the days went by she thought less and less of her old life. But her brother was never happy and yearned always to be back with his mother. After a year and a day, he left his sister and returned to his old home, but by then his mother and his stepfather were long gone, and no one could tell him where they were. He came back to the forest, but not to his sister, for he was jealous and resentful of her. Instead, he found a path in the woods that was well-tended and cleared of roots and briars, the bushes beside it thick with juicy berries. He followed it, eating some of the berries as he went, never noticing that the path behind him was disappearing with every step that he took.
And after a time he