Gretel by Christopher Coleman Read Free Book Online

that had dried crumpled and deformed inside, probably sometime in the last decade.
    Gretel then placed the flashlight on the workbench, beacon down, reducing her visibility to a small halo of light on the table surface, and blindly flipped the bucket on its rim.
    “Hey, what are you doing?” Hansel cried, his voice dripping with suspicion.
    “Hansel, don’t come over here, you’ll trip on something,” Gretel replied, trying to sound casual.
    The sudden darkness had alerted her brother and Gretel silently cursed herself. She could hear him making tentative steps toward the bookshelf and Gretel quickly stepped up on the bucket, nearly missing the bottom brim and toppling to the floor. She began feeling for the black leather. She couldn’t even make out the shadowy forms of the books without the flashlight, let alone any of the writing, but there was no doubt she would know her book by touch.
    “Gretel?” Hansel again, edging closer.
    “Han, I’m very serious, there are a million things that you could fall on and hurt yourself.”
    “I’ll hold the light for you so you can see.”
    “I don’t need the light, I’ve got it.”
    Gretel continued to feel for the book knowing she must be close. If it were in its proper spot she would have gotten it already and been done with it, now all this commotion would force her to make up some story about it. It didn’t matter, he couldn’t read the book anyway. She couldn’t even read it. In fact, she couldn’t even read the letters.
    Gretel moved her hand over from a thin laminated book, and as instantly as the forefinger of her left hand brushed the cold, dead leather, she knew she had found it. By now Hansel had reached the shelf and was looking up at Gretel on the bucket.
    “Han, shine the light up here,” she barked in a loud whisper. “I don’t want to knock anything off.”
    Hansel placed his hand on the flashlight, but before he could lift it to aid in his sister’s search, a large beam of light shone in from the stairs, illuminating her face and the goal of her quest.
    “Ah yes,” her grandfather said, pointing the hanging bulb toward Gretel, “that book. It fascinates me, too.”

CHAPTER THREE
    The first bite of chill came down just before the top of the red sun slipped behind the tallest cedars. Darkness was less than an hour away, and the waking moon was already visible, waiting to take its post in the night sky.
    Anika Morgan hunkered in a small, weathered-out cavity that had formed in a hill bank and covered her face with her hands. She was lost and had not the faintest concept of where the treeline might be. The hope that had carried her through clearings and creeks, over countless bluffs and damp wastelands, was gone.
    At least for today.
    Her will had shut down and the prospect of death was now lodged tightly in her brain. What had she done? To her children? Her husband? Her life? In her unruliest imagination she wouldn’t have seen herself like this! Dying in the woods of the Northlands. She lamented once again her decision to plunge unprepared into these strange woods, knowing full well that map reading and orienteering were a glaring weakness in her skill set.
    But her instincts to survive—if not to navigate—seemed to be properly aligned. She knew she hadn’t the skills to trap or make fire, but early on Anika recognized the unlikelihood of escaping the forest in the daylight, and had wasted no time seeking shelter. Hunger had come calling hours ago, and she had kept an eye out for anything that could pass for food. But the elements, she knew, were her biggest threat, even in the midst of a mild spring day.
    And she had been fortunate to find the ‘cave,’ which was how she thought of it, though it was really nothing more than a deep indentation in the side of a hill she’d been following for the last several hours. It was barely deep enough to sit in, let alone lie down, but it was shelter, and it would protect her from the cold night