Page 21 of Hansel and Gerhardt
“Um.” Hansel blushed. Actually blushed right there in the freezing coldwater. With Gerhardt. “It’s good to see you, too. Smiling. Happy. You look, um… good.”
Gerhardt’s eyes settled on the far bank of the river and narrowed, the shade of a frown falling across his features.
Ohfuck, Hansel thought to himself.Oh fuck. Not ‘good’. What was he saying, ‘good’?
“I don’t mean ‘good’,” Hansel blustered out.Why don’t you just lick him, you dumb fuck? “I meant… it’s good to see you… looking like…”
“Hansel,” Gerhardt said softly, leaning his beautiful head soclosethat his cheekalmost touched Hansel’s. It might havebeen delightful, but his frown was deeply carved now, histone ofvoiceworrying.
“I wasn’t saying that you lookgood,”Hansel attempted.“I mean, you do, but I wasn’t saying that, because what I was trying to say was—”
“Shh.” The sound came out sharp. Then, barely audibly, “Don’t say anymore.” Heslippedforward over the rocks, disappearing into the deep to leave Hansel alone, exposedandreeling.
What had he said? Whatexactlyhad he said?
He’d said he looked good.
Gerhardt knew.
He must have knownthatHansel was having dreadful, filthy, embarrassing, repulsive, awfully wrong thoughts about his own brother. That he wantedto…
Anxiety caught Hansel at the throat.
Would he really have done those things he’ddreamed about?
No.
Never!
Of course not.
Unless Gerhardt were to—
“Hansel!” The word washarshly whisperedfrom across the water, then Gerhardt splashed over to him. “There,” he said, raising his long arm to point to the other bank. “Do you see it?”
Hansel, made nervous by his sudden closeness, strained his eyes. “I see nothing. Just more trees…” Yet even as he said the words, his gaze lit upon a strange glistening—sunlight through the canopy hitting something moist… but not the water.
He leaned a little closer, only to feel Gerhardt’s wet and icy cheek brush against his when he whispered, “We’re saved.”
Gerhardtdivedinto the water, just as seamlessly as he had the first time. Hansel waded deeper, trying to get a look at that sparkling object. It was onlyat thetopofthedark moundthatit glistened. The restof the objectwas almost black and… undefined. Soft edges. It was… fur?
He stumbled into the deep, slipped, went under, but in the very moment, two strong arms were around him, the corded muscles of a woodcutter. Gerhardt’s inner thigh swept against his leg as he kicked off some rocks, and he swam them up to the other side, Hansel breathing the air deepwhenthey breached, but intimidated into silence by their find.
Their naked bodies flopped down on the mud, Gerhardt scuttling ahead with fingers grasping deep. “Do you see it there?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Is it…”
“It’s a carcass,” Gerhardt whispered. “And it looks almost complete. Look at all that meat.”
Hansel searched along the banks, alarm hammering down his veins. “What kind of animal is it? It’s enormous. What could have killed it?”
“Only one way to find out.” Gerhardt was up and climbing the bank, low and wary, but still far too cavalier for Hansel’s liking. He scrambled after him, and they two came upon the corpse of an enormous wild boar.
Its half-decapitated headhadlolled back on the undergrowth, a fat, pink tongue, limp between sharp teeth,slopping out onto the dirt. Four hooves stuck up in the air, rigid with rigor mortis.The animal was slit from gullet to groin,its entrails half pulled out, a lather of blood and guts oozing down the sides.
“What the fuck?” Hansel whispered.
But Gerhardt was on his knees, inspecting the rest of the animal. “It’s fresh.” He said it on a laugh. “It’s fresh! We’re really saved this time.”
