Hansel & Gretel [NaNoWriMo 2016]

CHAPTER FIVE: Gretel

The nagging feeling of meeting one's doom gnawed on her nerves, sending signals of flares that screamed at her.

Run, run, run!

This feeling made her feel as if she was nearing a ledge draped with fog, blocking her vision so that she would go over the edge. This feeling was something akin to having walked in a graveyard and accidentally stepping on a person's grave. Death seemed so close, hovering not over your shoulder, but touching your shadow so you know his presence.

Gretel couldn't shake this feeling that tingled as it slowly traveled up her spine and settled in the back of her head. Wasn't it impossible to escape your instincts?

She mentally scoffed. Apparently, Hansel could, but she didn't understand it. How could he not sense that something was amiss? Surely she was not the only one that felt the weight fall onto her shoulders as they walked into the pub.

But she was.

Clearly, Hansel felt nothing, but the naïve hope that sometimes made him sickeningly positive. She wondered often how he could handle such positivity. Didn't he ever tire of it? Of the constant smiles and pleasant demeanor for people that they would most likely never see again? Sure, she was warm in her brother's presence, but to waste such energy on strangers was useless in her eyes. People tended to pity her for her injured leg anyway so there was no point in attempting to get on their good sides. She was already there for simply being basically crippled. Not that getting on their good sides was something that she wanted. People were too irritating for her to care for such trivial things like that. Especially since they never stayed long in one place.

"Excuse me," Hansel said with a flash of a polite, charming smile to the bartender who couldn't have been older than thirty. "Does Pela still work here?"

The light brown haired man nodded once. "Who's asking?"

Gretel saw her opening and took it before her twin starting stumbling verbally. 

"I am Fayne and this is my twin brother Duran," she offered with a kind smile. "We were hoping to meet Pela today if it's not too much trouble."

The bartender sniffed and narrowed his sky blue eyes at them. "Why? You better not be trying to stir up trouble here. I'll have you tossed before you could say excuse me."

Gretel gasped her head, shaking her head frantically with false surprise. "We would never! We just want to sit down and talk with her. She knew our mother when Duran and I were mere babes and we wanted to pass on the news of her passing to Pela." Then she made sure to bow her head a bit. "We've been doing that a lot lately. Our mother was a friendly person and met so many people . . . had so many friends. It's just been hard to tell everyone that she's . . ." Gretel paused, breathing as though she truly needed to calm herself. "Dead. So we're a little anxious to find her and finally be able to head back home."

Gretel didn't need to look up to know that the bartender had taken to her words like a bear took to honey. People were so easy to bend and twist around your fingers if you knew the right buttons to push and how to weaken their resolve. All it took was something for them to soften towards and swell with pity. At least, that's how it worked for Gretel. She wasn't sure if that tactic would work for Hansel should he ever learn to lie with a convincing air.

"Pela's in the back. I'll get her for you."

Gretel nodded as she wiped a nonexistent tear away from her eye and turned to Hansel. "And that's how that's done."

"You scare me sometimes," he admitted as she straightened herself out like she had actually been emotional. "You lie too well."

Gretel shrugged as she drummed her left fingers on the countertop. "It's not that much of a lie. Frida is dead and she was a mother to us. She's just not our biological mother. She was also friends with Pela before she left with us to live in Arne."