Page 54 of Down from the Tower

“Who's there,” she says, her voice nothing but a whisper. “Have you come back again?”

I'm not sure what she means, so I settle for stopping a few paces away. If she's missing parts of her soul, her spirit will be vengeful. “My name is Zarev. We haven't met before. Are you waiting for someone?”

The girl snarls, revealing jagged and broken teeth. “You cannot come here, Reaper! You cannot interfere with Madame’s work!”

I cock my head. “How do you know I’m a Reaper?”

She bares her teeth, before bashing a hand into her head. “Four Reapers! Four to set us free, yet we see not one of yee. Ban, Lucius, Raymundo and Zarev, four tortured souls to save the dead.”

I resist the urge to shudder. This spirit has listened to rumors and lies, the ones that get passed down by the paranoid. Too bad she knows names. Clearing my throat, I decide to try and steer this conversation the other way. “Who is Madame?”

She steps back, shaking her head repeatedly as she speaks. “Madame hasn't had a tasty girl in a long time. Only rabbits and deer and fish. Nothing pretty and broken. You can't get in her way! When she has a new toy to play with, I can go free. Begone from here. Reaper, Reaper, Reaper!”

This poor girl lost her mind, and even Death isn’t helping her see clarity. If she isn't talking about Rapunzel I'd be surprised. Looking around, I don't see anything to indicate a place she might be talking about. “Do you have a name, spirit?”

“Gretel. Gretel, Gretel, Gretel!”

She slaps her hands into the open air before lunging forward, ghostly hands turning abnormally long as she reaches for me. I jump back, reaching for the smaller blade hidden in my cloak, and swipe at her.

Gretel screams, rearing back from me. She moves to cover her arms, but the blade can do no lasting damage to her like this. Like my scythe, it’s designed to handle spirits and shadows, not harm. “Reaper! Where were you? No one saved us!”

I lick my lips, deciding to try again. Gretel has gone insane in her death, but I need answers to fix her imprisonment here in the land of the living. “Who is Madame?”

Her head twitches, the empty sockets staring right at me. “She's Madame. The witch, the cook, the ogre, the gran!”

Now she's lost me. There's much in Sherwood that flies under the radar, mainly because there are not enough people and not enough Reapers to look into every tragedy that goes on. And what's happened to this girl is tragic. “Does she wear a disguise?”

“Yes! Bakes us up nice and good, to keep all our sweetness in her house so warm.”

Spinning, I peer around. There's no house immediately visible. It's probably shrouded by more magic.

“You can't save the girl,” Gretel hisses, and I turn back once more. “Madame needs all her pretty pieces! Then she'll let me be free.”

I frown. She's tortured and her soul is going mad being trapped in a place of torment. She was young, with a dress that tells me wherever she used to live, she didn't have much money for extras and now she’s missing her eyes. Her limbs are long and awkward, so she was most likely a very young child when the Madame stole her eyes.

I'd help this girl far before I'd trouble myself with Modred.

“Can you lead me to Madame?”

“No!” She leans forward, dropping her voice to that scratchy whisper again. “No, she's working.”

“If you help me, I'll help you,” I tell her, and the girl's eyeless face tilts upward like she’s trying to look at me. “Madame doesn't want you talking to a Reaper because a Reaper would help you pass on, and then there's no power she can hold over you.”

The spirit's lips tremble, And she points to her face. “I have no eyes. What did she do with my eyes? Can I pass on with no eyes?”

Technically she can, but it works better when the soul passes on as a whole. “I can look around for your eyes if you help me find my friend. Madame doesn't need to have power over you anymore.”

Gretel hesitates, and I know she's debating it. “Would you… grab Hansel?”

“Hansel?”

She nods. “My brother. I think they still like to pick at the skin left on his bones.”

My jaw clenches. People who torture children are my favorites to reap. The process can be so much more painful if I want it to be. “Why don't you guide me to where your brother is? I'll see if I can't help out my friend and Hansel, okay?”

Gretel hesitates, and her small body starts to back away. If she runs she could take me in the wrong direction, and something might really happen to the princess by the time I find out wherever she is.

This would be a great time for Golden Girl to melt someone's face off again.

---