Gretel (31 page)

“So who else then,” Hansel asked before Odalinde could get to it.

“You’re not going to like my answer. Neither of you.”

Hansel’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped in a short gasp. “Father?” he said.

“No Hansel,” Gretel said, her voice deep and controlled, “she means Deda.”

Oliver Stenson’s red System cruiser turned sharply down the hidden path leading to the old woman’s cabin and then abruptly stopped, its tires skidding across the dirt driveway, leaving a haze of dust that hovered effervescently for a moment, and then deflated to the ground. It had been months since he’d come here, as a skeptical neophyte on the subjects of witchcraft and magic potions, terms for which he was always chided by Marcel for using. This wasn’t wizardry or spell-casting he was told, this elixir was natural, accessible to everyone.

In the beginning, of course, at the very center of his beliefs, he doubted nearly all of what he’d been told about the bizarre brew; and the fulfillment of the promises that were made to him for his part in the scheme he accepted with equal doubt. But if it
was
true, even in part, even if it was something akin to a vitamin that allowed him twenty years beyond his natural life—or fifteen—his investment in the plan seemed worth it, especially if those years proved strong and healthy. After all, his role would be minimal: to monitor the case of a missing Back Country woman who would vanish along the Interways one spring morning; and then to make sure any leads in the case were steered in a direction away from certain sections of the Interways and this cabin. It sounded simple. It was simple. With his System experience and knowledge of the area, his part required little more than rigging a few clues here and there, and maybe leaving off a few more off the reports. Simple.

And in fact, as it turned out, it had been rather simple. Stenson wasn’t even needed for the actual crime. Marcel had told him exactly how it all would happen: that Anika Morgan’s car would drift off the road, and she, in a foolish search for help, would stumble directly into the clutches of the old woman. And it had happened just that way!

The poor woman, Anika, had somehow—impossibly—disappeared from the Interways and ended up in this time-forgotten, wooden shack in the bleakest part of the Northlands. Untraced. Unwitnessed. And he, Stenson, hadn’t needed to do a thing! Even the car was virtually invisible, almost perfectly camouflaged at the bottom of that embankment. Only the most basic of additional cover had been necessary to keep it from being seen by anyone walking along at more than eight or ten feet away. And when the day came that it was finally discovered—if that day ever came—the obvious assumption would be that Anika Morgan had simply wandered into the woods after an accident looking for help and then died, her body overcome by the elements before being ravaged by some hungry animal (and in a way, Stenson thought, that is what happened), her clothes rotted and buried forever beneath countless layers of mud and leaf litter. Yes, finding that car now would do no good; it was far too late to find the connection between Anika Morgan and this cabin.

But there was a problem now: Anika Morgan was still alive. Recaptured, thank God, but still alive.

Marcel had known immediately that she’d escaped
—had felt it
—and within hours Stenson was rumbling his cruiser up to a defeated Anika Morgan lying prostrate in the middle of the road. It
was
magic. It was the only explanation. If anyone else had found her, the whole plan would have collapsed. She would have been taken to a hospital or barracks, or perhaps even home, and the whole story of her nightmare would have been unfurled. And by this time, instead of standing quietly outside the door of his cruiser, debating whether to walk to the front of the cabin door ahead of him and knock, or to investigate around back to keep the element of surprise intact, he and the rest of the Northlands unit would be ransacking the old shack for clues, of which there would be plenty. Perhaps even enough to connect him to the case.

But it hadn’t happened that way.
He
had found Anika Morgan, just one more of an increasing number of fortuitous events that fell in his favor, and another example of why Oliver Stenson had steadily grown to become a believer in the potion. Devout. He’d yet to see any actual proof of the elixir’s life-giving effects, but still, all of what Marcel had told him would happen had, from the accident, to the capture, to the hiring of the woman’s daughter at the orchard. He hadn’t predicted the escape, of course, but even magic contained some degree of variability, Stenson supposed. Yes, Stenson was a true believer now, and over the past few months he had become vigilant in his role of protecting the secret.

But he was also ready for the payoff. He was ready for that feeling that had been described to him by Marcel as described to him by his wife. And he was ready to bring Petr home from that school and, more importantly, to get him out of that orchard for good. ‘We need to watch her,’ Marcel had told him, referring to his own granddaughter. ‘Gretel knows more than she knows.’ Stenson had no idea what Marcel was talking about at the time, and after his visit with the girl he understood even less. Gretel seemed like a typical teenage girl to him—mature certainly, but typical—naturally distrustful of authority, and devastated that her mother had gone missing. But ultimately Stenson had deferred and agreed to position Petr at the Klahr orchard to act as their unknowing spy.

But it was time for all of this to be over. It was time to become untangled from all of this villainy.

Stenson exited his cruiser and stood tall, surveying the surroundings, squinting for any sign of the old woman. “Hello,” he called out. He wanted to follow with the woman’s name but realized he didn’t know it. He wondered if even she knew it at this point. “Hello,” he called again and closed the cruiser door, deciding to take the direct route to the front of the cabin.

Stenson imagined a flurry of scenarios as he approached the front door—an exercise that, as a System officer, was automatic to him. He didn’t conjure any images that were particularly dangerous, especially since the escaped prisoner had already been caught, but the quietness made him wary. The most likely scene, he thought, was that the woman was dead, or else severely wounded. The prisoner had escaped after all, and Stenson could only believe that she’d done so using force. Perhaps the story was even known by now, revealed to Marcel by his daughter in some gleeful rage. He suddenly wished there was a way to contact the warehouse.

But what did it really matter? Stenson’s only real concern—besides keeping his own freedom—was the potion. The beautiful potion. He realized now that he was addicted to it without ever tasting a drop! Ha! That was madness, of course, but it was true. It was the first and last thing he thought about each day. Every day. He’d risked his career, farmed out his son, and been an accomplice to kidnapping, torture and attempted murder. What more evidence was needed to show he was a slave to it? And the more he thought of it, the worse the addiction grew.

And now, with months of images of the brew stirring slowly in the middle of his mind, he almost couldn’t stand it. His respect for Marcel on this matter was immense; how had he had resisted it all those years? But this respect was somewhat offset by Stenson’s hatred about the fact that the old man never learned the recipe himself, that he had never taken the path of his wife. Of course, Stenson never considered that if Marcel had known the recipe, Stenson’s role in the whole plan would have been unnecessary and he would have been left out. But that was addiction.

He forced his mind back to the top concern on the docket: The potion, and the fact that it wasn’t completed. The Source was still alive, which according to Marcel meant, at the very least, the final ingredients had not been included. Stenson was pretty sure he’d been told that piece involved the heart, but it could also have been the liver. Whichever. It was close to finished. Very close. It had to be!

He knuckled five aggressive wraps on the cabin door, the thick, solid design of the structure muffling the sound into something dull and impotent, like knocking on a tree trunk. He waited a moment and then walked a few steps to the porch-level window, bending over at the waist and cupping his hands around his eyes as he put his forehead to the glass to peer in. But he could see only vague outlines and darkness, the result of decades of built-up grime and dust.

The System officer walked back to the door and this time turned the knob slowly. It twisted easily, ironically almost, considering the daunting mass of the door itself. He pushed the door open about three feet and was immediately assaulted by the unmistakable stench of flesh. Old and rotten. Dead. He turned back to the air of the porch and breathed deeply, instinctively lifting his uniform shirt to cover his nose and mouth while blinking out the film of water that had formed protectively over his eyes.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.

His mind instinctively formed a few additional, more precarious, scenarios for what might be in the cabin, and after processing them almost simultaneously, the officer pushed the door firmly with both hands so that it opened as wide as possible, offering the awful odor an undisturbed route of escape. The width of the doorway allowed Stenson to see most of the inside of the cottage from the porch, the only exceptions being the two bedrooms off to the side. And with this expansive vantage point, his conditioned brain went through the progressions. A disturbance had occurred. Violent. In the kitchen area. The escape had been through the back door (it was open). And there was something else. Something much worse.

Stenson’s breathing became rapid and his throat tightened at the sight. Something had been shattered, something ceramic—a bowl or plate—and the dark mixture that it had contained was now splattered grotesquely across the floor.

“Oh God, no!” The words came out in something resembling a whine, and Stenson raced into the cabin, now completely unaware of the foulness in the air. He reached the scene on the floor and knew instantly—not with magic or witchcraft (screw you, Marcel!), but with the knowing instincts of a seasoned detective—that his chance at immortality was finished.

Oliver Stenson stood with his legs slightly apart and his head hung, his eyes closed as if saying a prayer in front of a gravesite. He opened his eyes and stared absently at the dried black puddle, making sure to keep his boots clear, just in case…just in case it was still…viable.

With his index finger extended, he began to kneel toward the floor. He needed to touch the black sludge, to feel for himself whether there was truly power there. The tip of his finger was only inches away when a sound from the back of the cabin broke the stillness. It was rustling and quick, and Stenson’s hand instinctively repositioned itself away from the puddle to his sidearm. He knew it was unlikely to be anything too concerning, probably just an animal, lured by the sickening promise of decaying flesh. But he was cautious anyway, as he’d been trained to be in even the most seemingly benign situations, and he unholstered his weapon as he walked toward the open kitchen door.

More noises came from the back, this time heavier and more methodical, though still quick. Stenson reconsidered his original assessment and now thought the sounds were footsteps. Human footsteps. He stood in the doorway and faced the outside, his toes just across the threshold. He gripped the gun tightly and laid it close to his chest.

“Who’s there?” Stenson called, deepening his voice an octave. He waited a few beats for an answer, sensing attentive ears just outside the door. “My name is Officer Oliver Stenson. I’m a System officer. If there is anyone there show yourself or respond to me now.”

“What can I do for you, Officer?”

The words imploded the silence almost before Stenson had finished barking his commands. The voice was clear and robust, young and feminine, and for a moment Stenson felt like a child, seven or eight maybe, whose mother has just caught him sneaking sweets before dinner. It was almost comforting. But not quite. There was something else in the voice, in the tenor perhaps, something vibratory in the pitch that was ancient and unfriendly. And the words had come not from the backyard but from inside the cabin, near the front door in fact, on the opposite side of the house from where he’d heard the footsteps.

Stenson spun toward the voice and raised his weapon. His eyes were wide and locked, not with fear exactly, but something close to it, uneasiness perhaps. Enhanced uneasiness.

“And what is your answer to my question, officer.” The words were slightly playful and challenging. “Again, in case you weren’t ready for it the first time, the question was ‘What can I do for you?’”

Officer Stenson lowered his sidearm and stared at the figure which stood rigid and motionless; the dusky gray robe it wore gave it the appearance of a shadow, faded and strayed from its source. The eyes and cheekbones were blanketed by a large hood which draped forward several inches past the figure’s face; the only features Stenson could see with any clarity were the nose and lips. It was the old woman, he was sure of that, the general outline matched, and she had worn the same robe on the other occasion they had met. And besides, who else would it be?

But she was different now, transformed in some way. And it wasn’t just her voice, which had lost all trace of the off-key, aged hoarseness he remembered from the few words she’d spoken that day. She was…taller, sturdier. Imposing even. Or maybe it was just that her posture was better—perfect in fact—that she appeared taller. And from what he could see of her face she was younger, judging by the smoothness of the skin on her nose and color of her lips, by at least a decade. Maybe more.

“Were you outside?” he stammered finally. “Did you hear me call you? How did you get in here so fast?”

“I
was
outside and I
did
hear you call,” the woman challenged in a tone conveying the question ‘and what are you going to do about it?’

The woman stood waiting for a reply to her implied question, but Stenson stayed silent.