Free story - The Gingerbread House, Part 10

Did Andrew and Tristan manage to trap Hansel and Gretel in the cage, or are they exposed and helpless? Find out in the next instalment of The Gingerbread House.

Tristan watched in horror as the Hansel and Gretel flung out their spells toward him and Andrew. He’d hoped they wouldn’t notice Andrew at all and be captured in the cage as it fell, but nothing went the way they planned.

Andrew lay motionless on the floor, perhaps alive, perhaps dead, Tristan couldn’t tell from where he stood. His feet were stuck to the floor and every muscle in his body frozen solid. He could breathe, but shallowly, as if there was a vice squeezing his chest. He could blink, but not swallow. A dribbled of saliva trickled and cooled on its way down his chin.

In front of him, securely in the cage, paced Hansel. Gretel, after her one disastrous attempt at freeing her brother, was at the table, stuffing her face with gingerbread. She tore each piece roughly off the slab, dipped it in the icing glaze, then stuffed it into her mouth with the rest of the half-masticated sweet.

“Gretel! Get over here and let me out,” yelled Hansel.

Gretel shook her head. “Can’t.”

“He has no power over us. Of course you can.”

“He’s not doing anything to us,” Gretel said through a mouthful of food. “He’s controlling the cage. Inside this house. His domain, his power.”

Stinging tingles attacked Tristan’s fingertips. About bloody time. The urge to move rippled through him but he contained it. He wanted to be fully in charge of his faculties before he let Gretel see the spell was wearing off. He flicked a look at Andrew, still in his back, his arms raised, hands cupped as thought the rope had just then been let go. As he watched one of Andrew’s fingers twitched. Tristan wanted to yell at him, tell him to stay still, but he still couldn’t even swallow. The movement stopped and Tristan breathed a long, soft sigh of relief.

“You have to do something,” said Hansel, his high voice taking on a whinging quality Tristan only heard in the best houses.

Gretel glanced at Tristan as she shoved more gingerbread into her mouth, then began to fill her pockets. When she could fit no more into the folds of her skirts, she lifted a large slab of gingerbread from the table and took it over to Hansel in the cage. As she slipped the gingerbread between the bars, she said, “I’ll go back and get the mistress. She’ll be able to release you.”

“You’re leaving? What about these two? What about ME?”

“You said yourself they have no power over us.” She gestured at the gingerbread Hansel was already eating. “That’ll keep you from getting hungry before we get back.” Gretel rummaged in her bundled skirt and popped another piece of gingerbread in her mouth, then she waved and sauntered out the door.
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Tristan noted that she went around the cage on the opposite side to where Andrew was laying, his arms now by his sides.