Gretel Müller's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Gretel Müller left her brother drunk at a countryside tavern and walked into the dark forest alone. For years she had hunted witches for coin. For years she had hunted one witch in particular, the one who built the candy house and nearly baked her alive as a child. She killed that witch herself, shoved her into her own oven. But the witch had masters. A coven trained her. Tonight Gretel meant to find proof of who they were. She knew the risk of going without Hansel. He laughed at danger. He drank through every lead. But he would have stopped her from entering the forest at night, and she was done waiting. The trees stood black against a blacker sky. Something moved between them. A wolf stepped onto the path, taller than any wolf should be, its eyes burning red. It rose on two legs like a man. "Little hunter," it said. Its voice scraped like a blade on stone. "Lost, far from your pack." Gretel did not run. Running fed beasts like this. She kept her hands still near her knives and studied its shoulders, its hunger. "You smell my fear," she said. "But you smell my brother more. He follows close behind, and he carries fire." The wolf's ears twitched. It sniffed the air behind her. Gretel had rubbed pitch and ash on her cloak before she left. The scent read like smoke, like a torch coming. "He is not here," the wolf growled, but doubt cracked its voice. "Then wait and learn," Gretel said. She stepped sideways, slow, toward the dark trees. "Or let the small meal pass and keep both your eyes." The wolf hesitated. That was all she needed. She slipped behind a thick spruce and ran. The beast howled, but it stayed to guard the path it thought her brother would take. By the time it understood the trick, she was gone. She found the candy house at the bottom of a hollow. Years of abandonment had ruined it. The sweet walls had rotted black. Moss choked the candy. Vines pulled the frame crooked. Scavengers had stripped it bare long ago. Gretel went inside anyway. She remembered the hearth. She knelt and pried at the stones with her knife. The old mortar crumbled. One stone lifted free. Beneath it lay a square of charred cloth. She unfolded it by moonlight. Burned into the fabric was a mark: three thorns crossed inside a ring. Her hands shook. Not from fear. From several years of silence finally breaking. The coven had a sign now. A sign she could track, name, and hunt. She tucked the cloth into her belt. Hansel had to see this. But telling him meant admitting she had gone alone, past the wolf, into the ruin he feared. The proof was found. The hard part was carrying it home.