“Did you want to play it just to kiss me?” I ask her.
She hesitates but then answers, “Not at first. I just wanted to talk.”
I nod, believing her and then let my breath turn to fog in front of my face.
"You look the same," I can’t help saying. It’s the first thing I thought of when she came back to town, and it’s the first thing I thought of when I opened the door for her last night.,
“What?”
"You look the same.” I nudge her elbow with mine. "But older."
Gretel huffs a laugh. "Well, that's good, I suppose. How much older?"
I laugh, then. It’s the first real laugh I think I’ve laughed in months. Maybe even years. It reminds me of what we used to be. “You look good, Gretel. You taste good too.”
She turns her face away, probably to hide that she’s blushing. There’s so much more I want to say, but none of it makes any sense. It’s all nonsense about how I felt about her. How I missed her. How I don’t understand how she could leave me when I needed her so. How I want to know.
I can’t make myself say any of it.
After a minute, I exhale and focus back on the road.
Gretel
It feels like we've been traveling a long time when the fog starts to fade into sky.
I try to remember how long it took before, but I quickly put an end to the memories. I don’t necessarily trust my memories of that time and even the good parts have soured over time.
The fog doesn’t completely disappear, but it settles into more of a fine mist than the thick, choking fog surrounding the village and everywhere around it. Above us, the sky is a wintery grey. It’s not exactly sun bursting through the clouds, but even that grey is a welcome sight after so much time hidden in the fog.
It doesn’t take long though for the open fields to be lost to a forest of black, leafless trees. The branches block out a lot of the light. And so we move through the forest in the evening shadows.
This time, I don’t try to be casual about getting closer to Hansel.
He wanted to kiss me after all and his warmth is a welcome distraction. His lips on mine are more than I dreamed. And I have dreamed of him so many nights. I needed to just to fall asleep and keep the demons of the past away. I can still feel the warmth of his touch even as we’re surrounded by the coldest winter.
The shadows on either side of the path are unnerving and seem to move in ways they shouldn’t. This part of the forest does not look friendly, and I can’t imagine how we ignored it when we were younger.
The answer is that we didn’t. We saw them, and we were scared, and we kept going, because?—
I shiver and pull my cloak tighter around me. My left side pressed against Hansel as I huddle under the cloak. Everything is warm enough but the tip of my nose and my toes. But the bits of me that press against Hansel feel safest of all.
The path leads us deeper and deeper into the forest.
Hansel urges his horse down a branching path, and then another. It's a good thing he's here. I don't remember taking these paths before. They all look the same to me.
But then Hansel calls the horse to a halt.
The horse stops beside a gap in the trees.
Hansel hops down, but I stay frozen on the bench seat until he comes around and offers me his hand.
"It's fine, Gretel," he says, but the look in his eyes says it’s not.
"Promise?” I whisper and he nods, “I promise.”
I'm the one who asked him to come here. So I take his hand and hop down.
My shoe sends a small pebble flying off the path. There's not much snow beneath the branches, but the pebble disappears into it.
