Gretel's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Gretel walked back to Meadowbrook with six names and no order. Any one of them could be the witch. The wrong first move would send the coven deep into the woods, and a fourth child would go. She needed a way to sort them fast, without knocking on doors. She stopped at the well in the square and watched. The baker's wife came out to sweep. Her hair was pinned tight. The schoolteacher passed with a scarf knotted under her chin. The apple seller braided her hair fresh each morning at her stall. Three of the six, all with their left ears hidden. Gretel could not lift the hair of a grown woman in daylight without starting a riot. She needed help. She hated that too. Hansel was chopping kindling behind their aunt's house when she found him. He set the axe down when he saw her face. He did not ask where she had been. He never did anymore. "I need eyes," she said. "Six women. I need to know which ones hide the skin behind their left ear." "Why." "A mark. Small. Like a bird's foot." He looked at her for a long time. "You said you were done." "I lied." He picked the axe back up. She thought he would walk inside. Instead he split the log clean and said, "The baker's wife. Sunday service. She takes her hat off in the pew. I sit behind her." Gretel's breath caught. "You've been watching." "I watch everyone now." He set another log. "Her neck is clean. No mark." One name gone. Five left. She wanted to hug him. She did not. "The schoolteacher pulls her scarf off to eat," he said. "I've seen her at the tavern. Nothing behind her ear either." Four left. Gretel sat down on the chopping block. "Why are you helping." "So you come home faster." He did not look up. "The apple seller I can't say. She doesn't uncover." Gretel thought of the apple stall. The woman kept her braid tight even in the heat. She kept a bowl of yellow apples on the counter, polished till they shone. Children stopped there on the way home from school. Two of the missing three had passed that stall the day they vanished. "Her," Gretel said. "I start with her." She went at dusk, when the stall was closing. She bought an apple. She dropped a coin behind the counter on purpose. The apple seller bent to pick it up. Her braid swung forward. Gretel saw the skin behind her left ear. Three thin lines. Black. Sharp as ink. Gretel kept her face still. She thanked the woman. She walked away with the apple in her hand and her pulse in her teeth. One witch found. Now she needed the council's stamp before the woman felt her looking.