Page 54 of Hansel and Gerhardt
He tapped softly. “Gerhardt? Gerhardt, will you let me in?”
“Go away,” came the muffled reply. “I want nothing to do with you. Not ever again.”
Hansel refused to believe he meant it. Not after the way he’d grasped his hand earlier that night.
“Please.” Hansel’s hand ran down the flaking chocolate door, a shower of chocolate crumbs landing at his feet. “Please. I just want to talk to you.”
No sound came back. Nothing.
Could he break it down after all? What magic held it in place? He tried the handle again, believing it should easily rip free from such delicate chocolate. But it didn’t budge. And when he shoved the door, the enchanted chocolate held strong.
And so it remained for hours.
Hansel retreated to his room, but only to the doorway. There he sat, his head leaning against the doorframe, his eyes on Gerhardt’s door.
His empty stomach felt like a ball of razor blades, twisting in on itself. His hands shook uncontrollably. He felt like being sick, though there was nothing to throw up. And he was terrified.Terrified. But not for himself.
He knew something awful was coming for Gerhardt.Something. But what?
Icy cold air slipped over him as all the fires in the house went out one by one. Darkness and cold, and he began to rock, trying to stay warm, trying to stay awake.
‘When I look at you, he’s all I see.’
The cruelty of Gerhardt’s eyes, in such contrast to the warmth by the stream.
Gerhardt in the sunshine.
Gerhardt, who he was falling in love with.
It hurt to admit it. To know it. But those last few days threw their entire relationship into a new light. That the Gerhardt of the forest had been there all along. That the heart, so sweet and pure, was so close the whole time. All the beautiful things he’d said to him. And that precious heart, beating under someone’s thumb all his life.
‘I did what I had to do. Just as I’ve always done.’
“No.” The word, spoken out loud into the quiet of the house, shocked Hansel, and he wrapped his arms a little tighter around himself.
He knew what he’d seen. He knew that kiss. That last kiss in the forest, after the tree attacked them, after he’d saved him. He knew that embrace.
Perhaps it was because he’d so rarely experienced it, but he knew love when he felt it.
He was back on his feet, his legs weak and shaky after hours of sitting on the frigid floor. Back at Gerhardt’s door, a hand pressed against it. He whispered, “Are you awake too? Do you hear me, my love?”
More unendurable silence. He tried the handle again, clacking it this way and that pointlessly.
“Gerhardt? Please wake up. Please listen…” He dipped his forehead against the door, speaking low. “I’m sorry. I thought… in the forest… I thought we’d talked it through. But I know there’s too much. I know there’s more than we’ll ever be able totalk through. I know it will hang between us. Maybe forever. But when you said those things tonight…” He took a deep breath, his voice weakening. “Please tell me you didn’t mean them. Please tell me I never scared you. Gerhardt…” His fingers slid down the rough door, then scrunched into a tight fist. Exhaustion crumpled his shoulders, grief filled his eyes. “Please tell me you know I’m not like that. You’re everything to me. I would never do that. Please come out.”
Only the stark emptiness of the night was available to fill his ears with a silence so profound it hurt. His chest ached as if there were a hole right where his heart should have been. Yet it beat. It beat on, long and strong. His whole life had been loss and sadness, certainty that there was no end to it, could be no end to it. That pain was the essence of his existence. But now he’d escaped his father, only to replace all that fear, all that pain, with a new hurt.
But why did this one feel good? Why, behind all the anxiety and agony, did it feel like something good belied it? As though just on the other side of that door was the sun itself, shining bright, waiting to warm him through, like Gerhardt’s smile on the one sunny morning they’d shared. If only he could get to him.
He beat the open palm of his hand on Gerhardt’s door a little louder, desperate to wake him, but not Herr Candy. To escape with Gerhardt into the night, to be gone. To find that tower, and the river in the sun, and their salvation.
His head bowed low, and he began to gather strength, what little was left in him. He would ram that door. He’d get it open, grab Gerhardt, and run. If it were humanly possible to defeat the magic with brute force, he would do it.
But then a sound caught his attention. A sound off to his left, down the far end of the hall in the gloomy dark. A sliding sound, like someone shifting their hand along the wall, only wetter.
Heart thundering, Hansel turned to face it.
He must have woken Herr Candy. And what would he do now?
