The nights were growing colder, and since they had some distance to wander, Gretta had layered on as many clothes as would fit, making her slightly resemble a rotund gnome. She could see her big toe through her boot, but Hans had promised that the first thing he would buy was new boots for her. She wiggled her toe and smiled, just imagining what it would be like to slip her sore feet into brand new boots made especially for her.

Father was going to bed. Gretta could hear him groan as he rose and lumbered into the bedroom where Stepmother already snored loudly enough to wake the dead. Listening more closely, she could hear some creature rummaging around on the far side of the house, and in the distance a hoot owl ready for its night hunt.

With a shiver, Gretta pulled her knees up to her chest, shifting her bag to the ground beside her. She had gone into the village earlier in the day, and there run into Claudia who had hugged her, almost as though she knew Gretta was leaving soon. She liked Claudia just fine, though they weren’t really friends, and so it was strange for her to suddenly hug her like that. She wondered if perhaps Hans had said something – but Hans continued to insist he found the miller’s daughter a perky nuisance, and he had also been the one to make such a fuss about secrecy. But then, Claudia had also complimented her on her betrothal, so perhaps that was the reason behind the hug. Regardless, Gretta really preferred not being touch. Really, the whole encounter had just made her extremely uncomfortable, and she was glad when they had parted ways. Claudia was just a bit too zealous for her taste.

Gretta stretched her legs out and kicked her feet impatiently. Any minute he should appear. She pulled up a clump of grass and commenced to ripping it to shreds in her lap. What if he never came? But no, he had promised. Hans had promised he would be there to get her just after dark, just after the time that Father went to bed every night, and Hans had never once in his entire life gone back on a promise. Then they would flee together into the woods, back to that old cottage, and live happily ever after, just the two of them. She was glad he hadn’t invited Claudia.

Again she crossed her legs, her feet itching to get moving. Her stomach grumbled beneath the layers of clothing. Having such a feast at the butcher’s two nighst before – it was here that he had asked her father for her hand, and so she presumed he had been putting on airs to impress them – had been wonderful at the time, but it meant that now her stomach was complaining about returning to her normal diet of a few stale pieces of bread and maybe a potato or apple if she could sneak it from the root cellar. But Hans had assured her soon they would have all the food they could wish for: rabbit and deer and boar, apples and pumpkins and carrots, pheasant and yams.

She inhaled deeply, as though expecting to suddenly find the table set with roast boar and trout stew and candied yams right before her. Instead she smelled the wild onions that ruled the yard, and the woodsmoke from the house, and the rain on the air.

Suddenly a twig snapped and Gretta was instantly to her feet. On the far side of the clearing, after the waist-high grass danced for a good ten meters, the black forest loomed up around their little cabin. Stepmother had always been afraid of the forest, and so Father and Hans had worked all summer long one year to make this clearing and widen the roads that led to their neighbors, because they simply couldn’t afford to move. Gretta too, if truth be told, had always been a little wary, probably from getting lost so many times as a child. But Hans had always felt right at home among the thick trunks and low-hanging branches; especially after their biggest adventure into the woods as children, he frequently wandered off into the thickest groves to explore and return hours later with some little treasure for Gretta, a fallen nest with broken blue eggs, or a spotted white feather, or an empty turtle shell.

Another twig snapped and in a second Hans’ arms around her waist, spinning her in a tight circle, before he held a finger to his lips to signal for silence. He hardly even glanced at the house, but Gretta cast one final, regretful look as he tugged her into the darkness – not for anything she was leaving behind, of course, but for the death of the dream that anything good would come of their family.

Once they had put some distance between themselves and the clearing, Hans thought it appropriate to light the lantern Gretta had carried. They continued to walk in silence for a few more minutes before Gretta posed,

“Did you find it?”

“The cottage? No, I didn’t wander that far. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it back in time, or I’d get lost.”

“Do you . . . do you think we’ll be able to find it again?” she asked. It had dawned on her that morning that, having not visited since they had quitted the cabin so many years before, they might not be able to find it again. After all, Father had tried again and again through the years to locate it without any luck.

Hans shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head, clearly not taking the suggestion seriously, “Of course we’ll find it. What did Father say when I left?”

“You mean when you stomped off like a spoiled brat?” Gretta teased, poking him in the side. The lantern swung, the light dancing up and down the tree trunks as he poked her back, then offered to take her bag. She assured him she was fine.

“And I didn’t stomp off like a spoiled brat. He was the ridiculous one. I mean, honestly! He thinks he can just go off and—and decide for you who you’re going to marry?”

Now that the whole affair was behind them, Gretta could joke, “I know! I mean, where would Father get such an idea? All the other girls get to choose who they marry!” She was being sardonic; none of the other girls got to choose who they married. Maybe a couple lucky ones.

“Don’t get prissy on me. I only mean that you aren’t all the other girls. And I only mean, too, that maybe if the man wasn’t as ugly as the butcher, I would have sat on my hands and let Father do as he wanted with you—“

“That’s a lie,” Gretta laughed, throwing her head back to let her peals of light laughter be swallowed by the dark night. “You would still have fought with Father.”

A pause, and then Hans agreed, “You’re right. I would have. He has no right to marry off our Gretta without consulting me first.” The smile they shared was exactly the sort of thing Stepmother feared, and probably one of the things that made her hate them so. Truthfully, they never had given her much of a chance at being a good mother to them. She had made a few mistakes initially, but they could have forgiven and forgotten had they wanted to. But the memory of their dead mother were still too painful, and the realization that their happy life with just the two siblings and their father had ended made the new addition to the family hard to stomach.

Gretta stumbled on a branch she hadn’t seen in the dark, and Hans walked a bit slower to make sure she was in the light. The glow from the lantern didn’t travel far in the woods, though, and the longer they walked, the closer together the trees became.

“What do you think he’ll do when he finds I’ve gone, too?” Gretta asked after a long time of silently walking.

Hans shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t really care, either.”

“Hans! He’s still our father!”

“Yes, but she is not our mother, and he chose her over us,” Hans retorted bitterly. “I’d say that any father that chooses an ugly witch like that over his own children doesn’t deserve their concern.”

Gretta frowned and agreed, but insisted, “Still, I’m going to worry about him all the same. Do you think he’ll come looking for us?”

“I’m sure he’ll try, but he’ll never find us.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because we’ll be hidden in the cottage, and you know he never could find it. We’ll be too deep in the woods.”

“But what if he does? And what if he’s changed his mind about making me marry that butcher?”

Hans shrugged once again, “Well you’ll be so fat from all the wonderful food we’re going to have that Father won’t even recognize you.” Gretta laughed at the idea of being fat; it was impossible to imagine her scrawny frame with any sort of curves.

They continued to walk throughout the night and into the day until Gretta was certain she was going to drop from exhaustion. Seeing this, Hans suggested they stop for a rest. They were far from home now, and even if Father began searching immediately he would never find them. Gretta didn’t have much food to offer: just a few apples and rolls she had managed to filch before sneaking out. These they devoured, then stretched out as best they could in the tight space between the tree trunks to sleep.

Not surprisingly, Gretta woke before Hans. At home, she had to rise the earliest to light the fire and cook breakfast before Hans and Father woke to begin their days work, and Stepmother woke last because she was frequently under the weather.

The sun was sinking in the sky, though this was only discernable by the fading light that made its way through the thick tree tops. Gretta craned her neck to look around, but she felt claustrophobic, caged in a way that made her want to run until she could breathe again. She pushed the feeling aside, reminding herself that if nothing else, Hans would find the cottage.

Only once the sun set did Hans awake, as though timing his sleep to the exact opposite of typical.

“Well, we had best keep marching on,” he suggested, relighting the lantern and leading the way. They trekked only part of the night, though, then rested in order to fix their schedule and walk during the day. During that time, they finished off the remainder of the apples and bread. They stumbled upon a patch of wild sweet potatoes on the third day of walking, and feasted on these with a slightly renewed hope, for the long walk was wearying them both.

But then, on the fourth day, the trees began to space out a bit more, and a couple times they crossed what appeared to be cleared paths. They heard no one, though; only wild creatures of the forest that had no care for them. Deer would freeze and stare before darting off. Rabbits sat back on their haunches to twitch their noses curiously. Birds twittered and hopped from branch to branch and once they even stumbled upon a lizard sunning itself in a warm block of sunlight.

“Well, Gret, is it just me,” Hans grinned, turning slightly and pointed to a tree just ahead, “Or does that trunk—“

“HG!” Gretta yelped, leaping forward to run her fingers over the letters carved into the rough bark many years before by her brother’s pocketknife. This of course meant that—

“Well, it’s a bit smaller than I remember,” Hans announced, having already walked around the tree and down the short stone path to the cottage nestled in among the trees.

Gretta gasped and felt the tears spring to her eyes. There it was, as perfect and beautiful as she remembered. Yes, smaller, but then they had both grown.

Gretta wrapped her arms around her brother’s torso and for a long moment they simply stood there gaping at their new life. But then both were laughing and scrambling down the path and perusing the perimeter of the cottage, inspecting every small detail. It could use a bit of tidying up, a few repairs here and there, but otherwise it stood in wonderful condition for having been abandoned for so many years.

“Do you think anyone else has been here?” Gretta wondered.

Hans pointed to ashes in a fire pit to the right of the cabin. There was no telling how long ago it had been, and Gretta worried her lip over the possibility of visitors, but Hans shrugged it off as he did most of her worries.

“Perhaps we can set up some sort of trade,” he mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “It would be nice to have someone to go to the village for us. It would have to be someone we trust, though.”

Gretta had already left him, though, and was slowly pushing the door open. It creaked on its wooden hinges. Inside dust danced across the ribbons of sunlight streaming through the windows. The kitchen had been rearranged a bit since they had left, Gretta thought, which was really a relief. The table and chairs had been pushed beneath a window, and a vase with several dead flowers stood in the middle. She avoided the oven entirely. The door to the root cellar was inside the kitchen instead of outside like at home, but Gretta was a bit scared to go down there on her own. When Hans inspected it several minutes later, he happily reported it was well stocked with all manner of dried fruits and vegetables, and soon he would go hunting and begin adding meats.

“But who do you think stocked it?” Gretta asked, her fears of others once again rising up.

“Well Gretta, I don’t know that anyone had to stock it,” he pointed out, smiling at his own vagueness.

The kitchen and living area were directly connected, wooden furniture with straw cushions surrounding a stone hearth. Above both rooms were lofts such as the one Hans slept in at home. But then, this was their home now; the thought made both of them giddy.

While Gretta carefully folded a dark blue blanket that had been left on the floor, Hans wandered to inspect the two closed doors that they had never explored as children. With an excited grin, he called her over. Each door had closed off a small bedroom, and between them was an even smaller room with a large tub.

“It’s porcelain!” Hans declared, tapping the white rim with his nails. Neither children had ever dreamed of even seeing a porcelain tub in person, much less owning one. A door led from this bathroom out to the back of the cottage where a bucket rested patiently on the edge of the well.

“Oh . . . oh!” was all Gretta could manage to stammer out as she selected the bedroom on the left as hers and threw herself on the bed. It was by no means luxurious; just a simple wooden frame with a straw mattress, sheets, and a bright red quilt, but Gretta had never had her own bed before. At home, she had slept on a pile of straw near the oven. The only other thing in the room was a wooden wardrobe to match. As simple as these things were, though, they were luxurious to a daughter of poverty. She only just had time to roll over before Hans fell down beside her.

“Well?” he asked, grinning.

She giggled and buried her face in the pillow – a pillow! Stuffed with some sort of bird feathers, it seemed– and sighed, “Oh, Hans, we will be so happy here.”

“Indeed. Just think, we have nothing to do now but make ourselves happy. We’ll get this cottage set up exactly as we want it. You can sew and cook; I can hunt and do the handiwork. We’ll garden. Perhaps we can find someone to go into the village for us, or else we’ll make a trip in disguise a couple times a year for fabric and clothes . . . you could have curtains in here.”

“Oh, stop, Hans, it’s too wonderful! I just want to go sleep in that tub. Is it really porcelain?”

He laughed, then suggested, “You can rest a bit and I’ll go see if I can’t catch a rabbit or squirrel for us for dinner, and if you’ll cook it then tonight I’ll help you warm some water and you can take a bath in that tub.”

The two siblings fell silent, staring at the ceiling as the sun spilled in through the window onto their weary bodies. This was all simply too wonderful to compreh