Page 12 of Hansel and Gerhardt
“I won’t help you,” Hansel declared, moving away from them both. “I don’t think you should do this.”
Gerhardt thought to break the neck of the hare right then and there. His stomach screamed for it, aching like he’d swallowed broken glass. He pulled his fingers against the throat, he tightened them, and that soft fur, the warm pulse beneath his fingers…
The act sickened him, even in his urgency.
He scanned the area for a rock. A big one. Something that would make it fast, even if it would still be a horror. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t eaten meat, nor as though he hadn’t killed chickens, winters ago, before the Great Famine took hold in his part of the world, before all the animals disappeared and the crops died. But this felt wrong. Not only the voice in the animal’s throat, but the scrabbling desperation of the act. Him, on the ground, lost in the forest, about to destroy an intelligent animal with his bare hands. No better than a wolf.
Yet he didn’t let go. He couldn’t. It was this or death, and not just for him, for Hansel, too. He needed to do it. He needed to be strong for Hansel, because Hansel wasn’t strong like that.
He clambered to his feet, taking the hare up with him. “I’m going to kill it. Iamgoing to kill it, and I’d appreciate if you didn’t make me feel bad for doing it.”
“What did I ever do to you?” the hare sobbed.
Hansel swivelled around, placing two hands on Gerhardt’s arms. “Not this one. We’ll find something. This one is clearly magical—”
“You don’t know that,” Gerhardt returned, ridiculously.
Placing a hand on the hare’s twitching ears, Hansel asked it, “Are you magical?”
The pink nose popped up over Gerhardt’s forearm. “Yes! Yes, I’m very magical. And if you don’t put me down right now, you’ll regret it. I shall rain wrath down upon you, such as you’ve never—”
Gerhardt’s hand smothered the furry face. “You would say that.” His eyes snapped up to Hansel. “It would say that! It doesn’t want to die, any more than I want to kill it.” He reeled away, making for the water’s edge, intent on drowning the animal, speaking to it over the muffled squeaks and pleas. “Don’t take it personally. It’s a matter of survival. It’s me or you, and it’s Hansel too. So that makes two lives in exchange for one, and that’s a fair deal.”
Hansel bolted after him. “I think this is a very bad idea. I think if you do this, we’re both going to regret it.”
“You and your ridiculous superstitions, Hansel!”
“You’re the one who believes in oceans!”
“Oceans are real!”
“I’m just saying.” He pulled Gerhardt to a stop. “There are magical lights in that forest. There are magical vines, and magical gnomes, and thisisa magical hare. And-and-and…” He threw his hands up. “How are you going to cook it?”
Gerhardt stilled, deep down grasping at this late stay of execution. “What?”
The whiskers flickered over his hand. “That’s right. You’ll need to cook me. I’m absolutely riddled with fleas and lice and ticks.”
“I’ll skin you well enough,” Gerhardt replied.
He took another step towards the water, but the hare screeched. “I’m sick! My joints ache all over. I threw up three times yesterday. Oh, but if you kill me now, you’ll be doing me a mercy to make it fast. But not drowning. What a horrible way to go. Have mercy!”
“The hare’s right,” said Hansel, ignoring the comments about the horror of drowning, focusing on the hare’s claim it was sick. “I once heard about a man who ate raw hare. He had a fever for a week. Almost died. Couldn’t leave his bed for months.”
“And did father tell you this tale while you were preparing his hare for dinner?” Gerhardt asked.
“No,” Hansel lied. “No, I believe I’ve heard it from several sources.”
There were no ‘several sources’ in his poor brother’s life, but Gerhardt let this go, both out of sympathy for his lonely condition, and mostly because he genuinely did not want to drown the hare in the river, then tear into its raw flesh with his bare teeth. Hungry as he was. “Fine. Fine. I’ll let it live. But just until we find a way to cook it.”
Gerhardt hated the relieved smile that lit Hansel’s face so immediately. He hated to see the hope there.
“I’m sure there will be another hare,” Hansel tried. “A less talkative one. We could just leave this one here—”
“Oh, really?” Gerhardt’s head dropped to the side. “And when was the last time you saw a hare?”
“When was the last time you saw a killer gnome?” Hansel countered. “The Dark Forest is different from our part of the woods. Perhaps it’s full of life.”
On a scoff, Gerhardt muttered, “Then why was that gnome so desperate to eat us?”
