Gretel and the Dark (29 page)

At that moment a pair of birds falls flapping and squabbling from the tree outside the window. I know they’re only blackbirds, but I run upstairs and hide under my bed anyway. In the middle of the night when I tell Papa about my nightmare, he gets very cross.

‘That woman wants locking up.’

I don’t see Daniel again for two whole days. In the end, even though I want to stay out of sight, I have to go and find him. The skinny creature is still keeping close to him, saying nothing, but Daniel won’t look at me. Something’s wrong with his face. Every time I get in front of him, he turns away.

‘What’s the matter?’

He’s got his hand over his mouth so his voice is muffled. ‘I fell over. All right?’

‘Don’t be stupid. What really happened?’

‘Mind your own business.’

I pull at his hands.

‘Get off.’

His mouth is bloody and he’s lost a couple of teeth. I suddenly feel very sick. ‘It was Uncle Hraben, wasn’t it?’

‘You mean that
Arschloch
with yellow hair and the big black dog? The one who’s always smiling – even when he’s kicking you? He’s not your uncle, so why do you call him that?’

‘That’s
what Papa told me to call him.’ Somehow, putting ‘Uncle’ before someone’s name used to make me feel safe. ‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing.’ But he gives the game away. ‘You mustn’t go there. Please don’t go. Promise me you won’t.’

‘I won’t.’

Daniel grabs my arm. ‘No. I mean it, Krysta. Swear you won’t go back.’ He’s trying not to cry. His nose starts to run and he wipes it on his sleeve. ‘Swear!
Swear!
Everyone else has gone. Left me. If you should … go away …’

He’s staring at me now, and I hope he can’t see what I’m thinking, because I know I’ll have to go to Hraben’s tower for exactly the reason he’s asking me not to. Daniel’s my only friend. I think of the Prince of Darkness, his great teeth and wicked eyes. He does just what his master commands. I don’t think Uncle Hraben would tell the dog to bite me, but he wouldn’t think twice about letting it eat Daniel.

‘Don’t be stupid. I’ll never go away.’

‘Promise?’

In the house outside the zoo where Papa and I used to live, there was a shelf of cowboys and Indians books by a lady writer called May Karl. Some of them were about Old Shatterhand, who became the blood brother of Winnetou, an Apache Indian. They had many adventures together and bravely fought their enemies side by side. I pull up my sleeve. ‘We could be blood brothers.’

Daniel shakes his head. ‘That’s just for kids. Anyway, we haven’t got a knife.’ He turns up his nose when I find a sharp stone. ‘Just promise you won’t go back there.’

‘Promise,’ I agree, but don’t say to what.

‘Quiet!’ roars
Greet. ‘My poor head aches with your constant
why-
ing and
what-
ing? Some things just are and that’s the end of it. It’s as well you aren’t the maiden whose six brothers were turned into swans by an evil witch. The only way to break the spell was to remain silent about this terrible secret for seven years while she sewed magical shirts from flower petals. Never a word fell from her lips during that time. Not a word, nor a sigh, not even a squeak.’

My feet have become big, heavy rocks that I have to drag up the stairs to the tower. I walk right in without knocking and Uncle Hraben seems very pleased to see me. He gives me two Negerküsse on a little plate. I eat the first one whole and then carefully nibble the chocolate off the marshmallow of the second. Afterwards, we go to the cupboard. I take out one of my special frocks and hold it against me; Lottie reminds me that it’s the one I wore the day she came home with me. Anyone can see it’s far too small now.

Uncle Hraben sits at his desk and lights a cigarette. ‘I want you to do something very special for me today, pretty Krysta.’

I back away. ‘What?’

‘Can’t you guess?’

I shake my head. ‘No.’ But my voice is so small and faint I’m not sure he hears the first time. ‘No.’

‘I’m sure you can. Try.’ He leans back in his chair, smiling at me and puffing smoke rings. ‘I asked you to do it once before. Surely you haven’t forgotten?’

‘You want me to sit on your knee?’

‘All in good time, Krysta. Something else comes first.’ When I don’t answer, he says, very softly: ‘I asked you to call me something. Do you remember now? I asked you to call me Papa.’

‘Won’t.’

‘Ah,
but you must.’

‘Won’t,’ I repeat, taking another few steps backwards. There is a chair behind me and I can go no further.

Uncle Hraben laughs and throws me a Pfennig Riesen
.
‘Sit there, Krysta, and think about it while I finish this little lot,’ he says, pointing at a pile of paperwork. ‘Soon it’ll be time to take
der Fürst der Finsternis
for his afternoon walk. I’m sure you’ll come to your senses before that.’

There’s a small table to one side of my chair with writing materials in a half-open drawer. After I’ve crammed the toffee in my mouth, I quietly take out a pen, together with a tiny bottle of permanent blue, and write the same numbers that Daniel has on his arm all down mine. If we can’t be blood brothers, then we’ll be ink ones. My numbers aren’t as neat as his: the nib’s crossed and the ink runs a bit. Some of them are blurred –

‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ shouts Uncle Hraben, seizing my wrist. ‘What’s this?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer, but rubs my arm so hard with his handkerchief that the skin turns red. Even so, the numbers don’t come off. Catching me smiling, he snatches Lottie from my lap and throws her out of the window, before slamming it shut. ‘It’s about time you grew up, Krysta. I’ve examined the records and found you are quite a bit older than you appear to be. Big girls should be thinking about something more interesting than filthy old
Spielzeuge
.’

I bite back the rage and tears. ‘Things like Pythagoras?’

Uncle Hraben gives me a strange look. ‘It’s easy enough to remember the things young ladies should be concerned with – certain pleasures, then
Kleider
, of course, and after that,
Kinder, Küche und Kirche
. Sometimes the old ways are best.’ He takes his dog leash from the wall. ‘Is that understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes,
Papa
.’ He smiles at me, coiling the leash around his hand.

‘Yes, Papa.’ I squeeze the words out through my clenched teeth. Uncle Hraben lets out a long sigh.

‘That’s better.’ He pats my bottom. ‘Off you go, Krysta. Come back tomorrow. I won’t feed Prince, just in case you forget. He’s a fierce dog now, a little dangerous. He has to be, to keep everyone safe.’

Daniel is waiting at the bottom of the steps. There’s no sign of the creature. ‘You promised not to go there,’ he says reproachfully.

‘No, I didn’t. Why are you following me?’

‘I always do. Promise you won’t go back.’

‘All right.’ I begin searching the ground underneath the window.

‘If you’re looking for your doll, then I’ve got her here.’ Daniel opens his hands. All that’s left is a jumble of greyish-pink pieces. One hand. One foot. No face. Even her eyes have gone. I swallow hard.

‘Lottie kept all my stories safe for me until I could write them down. Now they’re lost.’

‘You can make up new ones.’

‘No. I’ll never do another story again. Not ever.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Daniel looks horrified. ‘How else can we get our revenge?’

I shrug. ‘Why bother? It isn’t real.’

‘It might be if we want it badly enough.’

‘We’d need magic for that.’ I decide to bury Lottie in the aviary, where I planted the beans. ‘And magic isn’t real either.’

I’d already asked Cecily about that. ‘Magic is all in the imagination, my dear,’ she’d said, as if that was an end to it.

‘You
mean, if I imagine hard enough, it might happen?’

Cecily laughed. ‘Perhaps,’ she’d said, but I could tell she meant no.

Daniel is looking around nervously. ‘We shouldn’t hang around here.’

‘Come on.’ I trudge towards the aviary, where we put all the bits of Lottie into the cold, hard earth. ‘Dust to dust,’ I say. It’s all I can remember. They’ve all gone: Mama, Papa, Greet, and now even Lottie.

‘At least we’ve still got each other.’ Daniel squeezes my hand. I hadn’t noticed he was holding it. ‘We’ll never be parted.’

‘If you won’t ever forsake me,’ I say, comforted a little by realizing I can still remember Greet’s stories, ‘I won’t forsake you.’

‘Believe you me, there were plenty of other children abandoned in the wild dark forest,’ says Greet. ‘And like a certain person not six paces away, some of them were very bad indeed, never doing as they were told, getting their clothes dirty, answering back. No good always blaming the parents. Take the story of Fundevogel –’

‘Stupid name.’ I wipe my sticky hands down my front to see what Greet will do, but she’s busy slicing onions and her eyes are running too much to notice.

She sniffs. ‘He was called that because his long-suffering mother let a hawk carry him off. Anyway, a forester found the boy and carried him home as a companion for his daughter, Lina. As these two children grew up, they became inseparable. It so happened that their household had a very ill-tempered cook – some people don’t know how lucky they are – who was also a witch. She decided to roast and eat Fundevogel, but Lina found
out. The pair ran away together. Of course the cook came after them. When Lina saw her coming, she turned to the foundling boy and said: “If you won’t forsake me, I won’t forsake you.”

‘ “Never ever,” replied Fundevogel.’

‘Never ever,’ says Daniel. ‘I’ll always stay with you.’

I can’t tell him it’s just me standing between him and the Prince of Darkness.

‘This is quite normal,’ says Hraben, when I can’t stop crying. ‘Next time will be better. Come back tomorrow.’ He looks at my face. ‘You must come back. If not, your young friend … already he’s not welcome here. I allow him to live … for now. That’s my gift to you. And this.’ He puts cake on the table, but I don’t want it. My mouth is swollen and sore. The tears sting my cheeks. Everything hurts.

Every afternoon now I must visit Hraben in his tower. Today he has a group of friends with him. They’re in the middle of a noisy game of Skat so he tells me to sit in the corner and wait. Another pack of cards lies scattered on the floor. After a bit, I pick them all up and look at the photographs on the backs. They’re all of places in Germany: Berlin, Munich, Innsbruck, Krakow, Vienna … The Skat game is very noisy:
geben – hören – sagen – weitersagen
; Papa once tried teaching me the rules but I liked Quartett with Greet better. One of the men wants to play Doppelkopf instead, but the others won’t agree. They’re playing for money, I think, and passing round bottles of the stuff Papa used to keep locked in a cupboard. They are talking about something called the Hellfire Club. It was started in London many years ago, but Cecily has never mentioned it.

‘Do
what thou wilt,’ mutters one of the men, and looks at me. ‘No friars, but at least we have a little nun.’ They all laugh.

‘Find your own,’ says Hraben. ‘Think how long I’ve had to wait.’

‘More fool you.’

‘Has the deed been done? Then what does it matter?’

‘We’ll see how the game goes,’ said the first man, smoothing his chin and staring at me.

After a while, Hraben leaves.

Greet wipes the sweat from her forehead with a red-stained corner of apron. She sniffs mightily. ‘This silly girl, like so many others, took no notice at all until it was too late, for the wicked bridegroom and his friends were at the door. Just in time, the old woman hid her behind a barrel. In come the evil men,
betrunken wie Herren
, dragging after them a young girl. First they forced her to drink wine with them: a glass of red, a glass of white and a glass of black. After that they pulled off her pretty clothes and put them in a pile ready to sell in the market. And then they –’ Greet stops abruptly. She clears her throat and glances towards the door.

‘What?’ My voice has shrunk to a croak. I’ve heard enough but still I have to know what happened next.

‘And then they … uh … after they’d finished doing evil things –’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Things so bad I can’t tell you. All I’ll say is that it went on for a long time and she screamed and cried and called on God and all his angels to help her. And when they’d all finished what they were doing over and over again she was dead –’

The
tower door is unlocked and I creep inside, groping my way along the furniture until I stand in front of Hraben’s desk. Taking out his scissors, I cut my hair as short as possible, hoping being bald will make me ugly as sin. When I can’t feel any more long bits, I search for his broken silver cigarette lighter, the one embossed with an eagle’s head rising from a bunch of flowers and ferns. It takes twenty tries before I get a little spark from it. First I set fire to Hraben’s papers, then the playing cards, and after that all my frocks and pretty things so they can’t be taken to the sorting hut to be sold with the rest of the clothes. Getting the furniture to burn takes longer.

I’m unlucky: Johanna spots the flames before any real damage is done. She hauls me out by my neck, shoves a knife to my throat and spits on me. I don’t care what happens. I’m already dead. My arms and legs move mechanically. But since Hraben hasn’t finished with me my only punishment is to be confined in the Bunker until I come to my senses.

‘
Miststück!
’ Johanna throws me inside so hard I hit the far wall. I lie in the darkness, all the breath knocked out of me, surrounded by echoes of the slamming door and grating key. As those sounds die away I realize I’m not quite alone. It’s pitch black and the air’s stale, but I can hear something moving.

‘What did the Emperor do?’ I ask, when Greet finally stops muttering.

‘He ordered his guards to lock the little liar in a cellar with a cartload of straw and her spinning wheel. And there she had to stay in the dark. Alone. Not even a dry crust to chew, never mind stolen cherry cake. Spinning for her life, until the day wishes could come true and all his treasuries were overflowing with gold.’