Unhappily Ever After: A Collection of Feary Tales

After the Gingerbread House

HALLOWEEN BONUS STORY: I know I said I was just going to release one story every Saturday until the end of October. But it didn't feel right not releasing a tale on one of my favorite holidays. So, here's a little Halloween bonus. I figured that since I started with a story about a prequel to Hansel and Gretel that I would end on the same note.

After the Gingerbread House...

Hansel watched nervously between the planks as the witch approached him. As demanded, he held out a bone instead of his finger and deceived the old near blind woman into believing that he was not becoming any fatter to eat. Impatient, she decided to cook him anyways.

Gretel felt a horrified lump in her throat when she was commanded to start a fire in the large brick oven.

"Come here little girl." The old woman said. "Crawl in and see if the oven is hot enough."

Approaching the oven, Gretel grunted and heaved acting as though she was trying to climb in.

"I can't fit in!" she cried.

"Oh, you silly girl!" the woman said. "It's easy. Watch!"

The old witch put half her body into the hot oven. Gretel shoved with all of her might and push the woman in before slamming the heavy opening shut. Animalistic shrieks and howls filled the air. Gretel stood there feeling horrified and relieved. 

The old witch was dead and she opened the door once again. The scent of burnt hair, singed clothes and charred meat poured out choking her with disgust. Using a long stick, Gretel prodded the blackened corpse until she found what she was looking for, the key to release her brother.

"Quick! We must be away from here." Gretel said.

"We won't get any where without a map to guide use." Hansel said. "Let's search the house."

The two children walked into the house, nervously trembling. The front room where they had been invited in was clean and clear. The rest of the house however was brimming with all sorts of items. Swords, jewels, money, clothes and other random things.

"What is all this stuff?" Gretel wondered.

"It might be the belongings to her previous victims." Hansel surmised.

There was a large bedroom in the back of the house. A skeleton, richly dressed, lay on one side of the bed. The two siblings looked at each other.

"Her husband, maybe?" Gretel asked no longer surprised by anything.

"Maybe. What's that?" he asked pointing at the walls.

The very top of one corner was the name: Tom the Peddler. Following the long list of names, they found their own at the bottom.

"This must be a list of all her victims." Hansel said.

Gretel walked over to a desk that sat in the corner.

"Here's a map!" she said happily.

"Grab it and let's go."

The children gather as much wealth as they could carry.

"It'll take us about a day to walk home. It's already evening. We can either stay here or make camp in the woods." Hansel said reluctantly.

"There's no way we're staying here."

"I agreed."

The pair took off into the woods.

"Hansel?"

"Yes, Gretel?"

"If we go back, then our stepmother will simply convince father to send us off into the woods."

"We're bringing back money so we'll have plenty to buy food."

Gretel was silent for a moment. "She has always been very cruel and she's turned father against us. What if she decides that she doesn't want to spend any money us?"

Thinking about what his sister said, Hansel asked, "What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should hide the money. Father loves us but he won't protect us. We'll bring a little bit of money and see if it changes anything with our stepmother or if she still wants to get rid of us."

Hansel agreed and the children buried everything they had carried but a small purse full of gold coins.

Arriving back at their small hut, the place looked neglected because they had not been around to do the chores and their stepmother never did anything. They found her laying on the couch eating up a secret stash of sweets that she had spent money on instead of buying flour.

"Oh, you little brats! How dare you come back here?!" She shrieked.

"This is our home." Hansel stated pulling out the purse. "We found this in the woods. Now we'll be able to buy food for everyone."

Greed lit the woman's face as she snatched the coins into her hand. She stuffed the pouch into her bodice.

"Oh no. It's my home now and you two are trespassing." She said before stomping into the kitchen. The stepmother came back with a long sharp knife. "Now I'll do what I should have done and take care you the way trespassers are taken care of."

She charged towards Hansel but Gretel quickly kicked a footstool in front of her. The woman tripped and the knife was impaled deep in her chest. She began to cough up blood.

"Help me."

Hansel stared wide eyed while Gretel merely regarded their stepmother coldly.

"Goodbye, Trespasser." Gretel said before pulling her brother from the house.

"What do we do?" Hansel's voice was filled with panic.

"Nothing." Gretel replied as she began to walk off into the woods.

"We have to do something!"

"We..." Gretel started. "Are going to go back to the old witch's house and get the rest of the treasures. Then we're going to hide them away. We are never going to be vulnerable again and money is the way to be secure. We'll come back to see father in a few days and pretend that we found our way home."

The children came back a few days later and their father welcomed them with open arms. He begged for their forgiveness and told them that their stepmother had died in an accident. She had money on her when she died and now, they had enough to live on for the rest of their lives.

Many years later, Hansel died in a war and Gretel was heartbroken. She had begged her father to pay the commissioner a fee not to have her brother drafted but he had refused. Now Hansel was dead. Gretel found out that their father hadn't wanted to pay because he had used up all the money that Hansel and Gretel had brought home by gambling. Even the extra that Gretel had given him was used up.

Enraged but silent, Gretel waited and lived in poverty next to her father for almost two years. The man fell ill and debt collectors threatened to throw him into prison. Gretel put her father on their old nag and set off into the woods. She dragged him into the old witch's house and laid him on the bed next to the finely dressed skeleton without bothering to cover him.

His eyes were glazed with fever and his chest rattle with pneumonia. "W-where are we?" he asked weakly.

"We are in the place you sent us to die." Gretel said blankly as she stared out the broken window at the snow covered shed that Hansel had been held captive in. "Instead, it is you that will meet your end here. Abandoned as you had abandoned us."

"I am your father."

"And we were your children."

Gretel walked out of the house and took the saddle off the old nag. The young woman hitched her to a rickety wagon that had been kept in the barn. Leading the horse to a small cave where she and her brother had hidden their treasure, she took it all and walked away.

THE END

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Happy Halloween!!! If anyone is trick-or-treating then please be careful.

I am curious what was your favorite story in this collection?