‘We should get out now,’ Hex tells them, ‘while she’s asleep.’
‘Hex, no.’ Scarlett is as skittish as a puppy left tied outside a butcher’s shop. ‘What about me? What about when she wakes up? If you do this, I’ll… I’ll howl.’
‘Scarlett,’ says Gretel, ‘how is locking us up in here going to stop a fight between huntsmen and witches, or keep it from your doorstep? What if a gang of huntsmen are out in the mountains looking for us “troublemakers” right now, and they find us here, with a witch and two transmorphers?’
‘You think we hadn’t already thought of that?’ Scarlett asks.
‘Frankly,’ replies Gretel, ‘yes.’
Scarlett sniffles. ‘Well, you’re right, I hadn’t considered that at all; oh trousers, what if you’re right? My pack and three sleepy bears can’t fight off a whole army, we’re dead, what have you done?’
‘No no no,’ Hex frets quietly, ‘don’t cry, Scarlett. You’ll wake her up.’
‘What I mean,’ adds Gretel quickly, ‘is that, while it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is—’
‘Your fault.’
‘While that doesn’t matter, there’s nowhere in the Darkwood that can be said to be truly safe for magical beings. Not any more. Dividing us won’t help that, neither will locking us away where we can’t fight back. The one thing that will help is listening to those of us who’ve already faced the huntsmen, so we can end all of this together. As a team.’ Gretel pauses, and decides to rephrase. ‘As a pack.’
‘I’ve already got a pack. And I’ve already got a team.’ Scarlett gazes sadly at Hex. ‘Or, at least I thought I did.’
‘We’re not a team if we just do everything Gilde says,’ argues Hex in hushed tones. ‘We’re just… henchmen.’
Scarlett starts her high-pitched whining again. ‘Don’t say that. Not in front of the proper witches…’
Hex lays his wing on her shoulder, and Trevor clambers over to her.
‘Hey, now,’ soothes the spider. ‘We’re not perfect either. It’s us who came to you for help, remember? But we’d help you in return. You and your wolf pack, I know you’re worried about them. Plenty of good hunting to be had in the southern woods, right, Snow?’
‘Rabbits galore,’ confirms Snow.
‘But who’d look after her?’ Scarlett worries, nodding at Gilde’s sleeping form. ‘Yes, she can be grumpy, but she’s still a little old lady who’s been alone for too long, and took us in out of the kindness of her heart, and her powers are on the wane as winter draws in, and… and…’
‘She has her bears for company,’ Hex replies, ‘and she’ll probably be asleep most of the time we’re away anyway.’
‘Besides,’ adds Trevor, into her ear, ‘once we get out of here, we’ll be helping to keep trouble far away from the mountains. And Gretel’s making some self-defence inventions for her right now, aren’t you, Gretel?’
Gretel covers her latest invention with her hands defensively. This particular contraption isn’t intended to be for Gilde at all. She’s been quietly making an easily hidden device containing a multitude of secretive tools and blades for her own personal use come their escape. ‘Yes,’ Gretel lies.
The expression on Scarlett’s face changes subtly. It loses some of its anxiety, and takes on a hint of hopefulness. Gretel wonders if Trevor might be some sort of persuasive genius.
‘You’ll give my pack safe passage to your territory?’
Snow nods. ‘If you help us escape, then yes.’
Scarlett takes a deep breath, her eyes darting once more to the sleeping figure. ‘I’ll go out and give them the howl.’ She starts moving towards the door. ‘How quickly can you have them all freed?’ she asks Hex.
Hex pulls a pair of scissors from a drawer. ‘Jack should be able to undo the cage almost as soon as the nettle’s off. Couple of minutes?’
‘OK.’ She opens the door quietly. ‘I’ll meet you at the southwards path in… oh no.’
Directly beyond the cottage door that Scarlett has just opened is a wall. A wall not of wood or stone, but of heaving brown fur.
Yeah, thinks Gretel, seconded on the ‘oh no’.
The wall of fur moves heavily, until a huge, toothsome face looms into view beneath the head of the doorframe.
Baby.
Hex drops the scissors with a clatter. ‘We weren’t doing anything!’
‘Yeah,’ agrees Scarlett. ‘I was just… going for a wee.’ She brushes the incriminating spider off her shoulder quickly. Gretel doesn’t see where he lands.
Scarlett spins on her heel to face Gilde, who is now sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy toddler.
‘What is it, Baby?’ asks the Bear Witch.
‘I was just going for a wee, Gilde,’ repeats Scarlett, her voice loud with hysteria.
Gilde wafts her hands dismissively. ‘Permission granted. Go and do your business.’
Baby stands aside a little, so that Scarlett, mortified, can squeeze past.
‘Mamma will make sure you don’t get lost out there, little Wolfie,’ calls Gilde after her. ‘We all know tired lil doggies sometimes take wrong turns, out in the mountains.’
She stretches, and smiles at the rest of the cottage. ‘Hex, sweetie, looks like you dropped your scissors. Best to put those back away where you found ’em, nice and neat. We don’t want you hurting yourself again now, do we?’
Hex shakes his head, eyes down at the floor. He quickly picks the scissors up and puts them back in the drawer.
‘So swell to see you’re all finally behaving yourselves,’ she tells her captors. ‘Just one teeny thing. Girlie?’
Gretel meets her gaze.
‘Is that thing you’re making there my self-heating nightcap? Because it sure as chalk ain’t cheese doesn’t look like one.’
Gretel’s heart sinks. She pulls her hands away from her badly hidden ‘secret’ weapon.
‘Not quite,’ she admits. ‘It’s just a prototype defensive device for you.’
Gilde nods brightly. ‘Well, after that, I’d like you to get on with them other things you promised me, girlie, because I’m keeping you safe here for one thing only, and it’s not for you to dilly-dally. You don’t mind me saying, do you? You’d rather I’d be honest, I can tell.’ Gilde steps daintily out of bed and straightens out her silver hair. ‘Ooh, I feel refreshed.’
Gretel wonders how many times Gilde has flaunted her restedness to an exhausted Scarlett, or casually humiliated Hex. She tries to get on with her work. She tries to ignore the cage, and the thought of the banished Dwarves, and Patience despairing in the jar, and a bloodstained Jack watching Hex with an expression she’s never seen Jack wear ever before. She tries to ignore her nagging worry over the fact that she currently has no idea where Trevor is. Most of all, as she concentrates on her inventions, she tries to ignore the fact that she’s really, really starting to dislike that horrible old woman.