Page 27 of Hansel and Gerhardt
Even more quietly, “Beds, Hansel. Just beds.”
“Beds?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Gerhardt gave a hard sigh, then turned to Hansel, his face earnest. “Listen, what I’m trying to say is, just stick with me. Stick with me, and I’ll keep you safe from all those things. No one’s ever going to take advantage of us again. Not while we have each other.”
How Hansel’s face lit. “Do you mean it?”
Sweet, innocent man.
“I do,” said Gerhardt, unable to repress a small smile at Hansel’s trust in him. “We’ll get all set up in a nice apartment. Maybe over in Hallin. They have enormous buildings there, some of them are so pretty. I’ve never been inside, but they look beautiful. I always used to dream I’d live in one like that, some day. Where we’ll have all we can eat, every day. Huge mounds of food.” He looked away again, taking up his stick to flick more meat from the fire. “And then one day, you’ll catch the eye of some beautiful girl. Then I suppose you’ll kick me out.”
Gerhardt laughed lightly, but Hansel never did. “I would never do that.”
“You might feel differently when it happens.”
“It won’t.”
The sincerity in Hansel’s eyes caught Gerhardt. The depth of meaning in them.
Yes. He thought he meant it.
But why wouldn’t he? He had no notion of romance or of love. Of the fiery passion that Gerhardt had just discovered first hand. A passion that raged in a lonely forest on the edge of death, that felt like it might consume him when he stared into those eyes, and when, for the flicker of a second, he believed Hansel. The way his heart beat out the words…
What if?
What if?
What if?
He snapped to, plucking the now-burning fillet of boar out of the fire. “We have a few days’ worth of food. Well, before it spoils. So eat more now.”
Dutifully shovelling food in, Hansel reflected, “If only we could smoke it.”
“Or salt it.”
“Did you see any sign of a town when you were up in the tree?”
“Not a thing. But this forest has to end. Somewhere. If we just keep going in the same direction, we can make it through. And we’ve been much safer by the river. No more magical vines. No gnomes. And I’m yet to see one of these traps.”
“The wolf dwelt by the river,” Hansel suggested.
“But also the hare. And if I see another, I shan’t give it the chance to speak before I kill it.”
Hansel gave a small chuckle, considering how differently things might have turned out had they not had the hare to distract that wolf. That strange, enormous, talking predator. Tentatively, “That wolf… It was kind of…”
“It was terrifying.”
“It was.” Blushing, “But it was also slightly… kind of…”
Gerhardt looked at him so long and hard he retreated into silence, but then Gerhardt vomited out, “It was a handsome wolf.”
“Yes!” Hansel gasped out. “Yes, ‘handsome’ is the word I was looking for. Scary, very scary.”
“Terribly big teeth.”
“Yes. Rugged too. But oddly charismatic.”
“I thought the same thing,” Gerhardt said with a half-shy, half-knowing grin.
