‘It’s just a few baskets and an old cart, Hansel.’
‘No. I’m sorry about… all this time, I never told you about what I am. I wasn’t doing it because I didn’t trust you, I wanted to tell you, but…’
‘But you weren’t ready yet.’ Daisy gives him a small smile. ‘It’s OK. It’s a big thing, especially with all our huntsman troubles. I knew you’d tell me when you were ready.’
She turns to go again, but Hansel takes another step forward and stops her. His gallant gesture is marred slightly by him putting his foot in something warm, wet and acrid in the dark. He winces a little, but carries on.
‘You knew?’
Daisy nods. ‘I worked it out.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Not that long. Had my suspicions for a while, but I properly put it all together on Liberation Day. I could certainly tell you were struggling with it here.’ She taps the side of her head. ‘Not just a very pretty face.’
‘But you never said anything.’
She shrugs. ‘As I say, it wasn’t my place; it was yours. I think a few people in Nearby might have an inkling, you know. It really doesn’t change anything. You’re still our farm boy who brings us milk and grains, and talks to animals, and feels everything so keenly, and knows how to work all of his sister’s inventions, and rallies us together in the many, many times we’re under attack. You’re still our Hansel. Still my Hansel.’
‘Oh.’ Hansel feels quite overcome.
‘You are aware,’ adds Daisy solemnly, ‘that you’re standing in an open sewer right now?’
‘Yes, I wondered what that was,’ Hansel admits. He shakes his foot out of it. ‘It’s really filthy down this end of the Citadel, isn’t it?’
‘It’s one of the reasons why they often don’t have a guard on duty at the gate,’ Daisy tells him. She pulls at his hand again. ‘Come on. The imminent head huntsman knows exactly what you are, and exactly what she wants to do to you. That means we have to get out of here. Now.’
20
Bear with Us
In Gilde’s cottage, a frustrating, uncomfortable day passes by with all the speed of marmalade sliding down a very slight incline. Gretel is at least able to keep busy by carrying on with her semi-secret weapon while Gilde’s not looking, and by making home improvements when Gilde is looking, in an attempt to win over their captor’s favour. The former turns out to be a much easier task than the latter. Gretel has met drystone walls easier to impress than Gilde.
‘And what’s this doohickey, girlie?’ Gilde asks at one point, holding up a half-built dynamo.
‘That’s for generating electrical charge,’ Gretel explains.
‘Lemon trickle what now?’
‘It’s a sort of energy; you get it in lightning bolts and static and some magic.’
‘You want me to keep lightning in this thing?’
‘No.’ Gretel sighs, taking the unfinished gadget from her to fit on a new part. ‘It creates its own charge when you wind it.’ She demonstrates. The incomplete machine sparks as she briefly cranks the handle.
Gilde steps back, regarding it with distrust. ‘Goodness to Betsy! Seems to me like you’re looking to kill me more than help me, girlie.’
‘It really is no different to harnessing fire for everyday uses, you know,’ Gretel tells her in soothing tones. She gives a pointed look to the massive oven she’s still tied to.
‘But I know what fire is for,’ argues Gilde.
‘Electricity can be used for lighting, or as a weapon,’ Gretel attempts.
‘So can fire!’
‘OK, but this particular generator is going to be used to run an electrical charge through a perimeter fence,’ Gretel tells her. ‘You can switch it off easily to let your bears come and go, and the rest of the time it’ll provide a non-lethal deterrent for any trouble trying to make its way to your home. All you’ll have to do is wind the crank up three times a day.’
‘Jumpin’ Jiminies, so now you not only want me to keep lightning in my home, but I’ve got to mill it myself from the sweat of my little old brow? Three times a day?’ She turns, with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Some help you’re turning out to be.’
Gretel glares at the back of the old woman’s head. ‘If you don’t like my inventions, you could always let us go.’
‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
Yes and no, admits Gretel silently to herself. As uncomfortable as she is at the oven, and as much time as they’re currently wasting, there’s no point in them being freed yet if they can’t also take Hex and Scarlett with them. Besides which, she still hasn’t seen any sign of Trevor yet.
The day turns, painfully slowly, into night. After sharing an unpleasant meal of lukewarm porridge with her henchmen and captors, Gilde returns to bed for another early night, leaving Scarlett, by now tearful with exhaustion, as well as a particularly browbeaten Hex to guard the prisoners. The sensation of desperately needing to sleep swells unpleasantly in Gretel, scratching at her eyes and scrambling her brain. She feels as if she could sleep all winter. She can tell from the expressions of the others that they’re faring no better.
‘Does anybody else,’ says Buttercup after a while, ‘really need to use the privy?’
‘Yes,’ admit Gretel and Jack in chorus.
In her jar, Patience shakes her head and performs a mime, vaguely indicating that the dead have no toilet needs.
‘I’ve just been using a corner of this cage,’ Snow tells everyone.
‘Yes,’ says Buttercup, ‘we know.’
‘Sorry again about splashing you.’
‘I’d escort you down there one by one,’ frets Scarlett, ‘but, you know.’ She opens the cottage door by way of demonstration. A few feet outside the door, Baby looks up at them sharply, just as he has done every time anybody has opened the cottage door since the morning. The one guard that Gilde definitely knows she can rely on, and the hardest to circumvent. The possibility of Scarlett using her pack to fend him off has already been quietly raised and quickly dismissed, due to the likelihood of wolves being killed in the resulting battle, and the inevitable ire of Gilde if she found out for certain that Scarlett and Hex were no longer on her side.
‘Would the bears seriously not even let us be taken to the privy?’ Jack groans.
Hex shakes his head. ‘I don’t think Gilde trusts any of us enough for that right now.’
‘Well,’ adds Scarlett, ‘that at least is justifiable right now.’
‘She’s just punishing us all, isn’t she,’ says Gretel glumly. ‘That’s what all of this is really about.’ She’s hot, and tired, and dispirited. She’s never met a genuinely nasty witch before, and she is not enjoying the new perspective on what it can be like when one uses their magic for no reason other than spite. An unpleasant little voice in the back of her head tells her that, well, the human hatred of witches has to have come from somewhere, so maybe…
She banishes the thought before it has a chance to finish. Gilde was out on her own in the wilderness for who knows how long; it’s bound to turn anyone all insular and mean. And it’s still no excuse for the way witches are treated. It’s certainly no excuse for casually contemplating how easy it might be to shove Gilde into that big oven.