Each day, as the sky turned from pale blue to rich purple to black, Gretel would watch the handsome young man say his farewells, slip out the tavern door, and disappear into the darkness. Out of the village. All alone. She wondered where he went.
Well, one warm afternoon, when the last of the barley had been brought in from the fields, Gretel sat by the door of the tavern and watched the men play their favorite game. They played like this: One man balanced a mug on his chin, and everyone else tried to throw coins into it. If the mug didn’t fall, the man got to keep all the coins. If it did, he had to buy everyone a drink.
It was the young man’s turn to have the mug on his chin, and Gretel watched as he weaved about like a snake being charmed, trying to prevent the mug from falling. Just then, one of the young man’s friends appeared at Gretel’s shoulder.
“Give him a shout,” the friend whispered. “See if he can hold it then.”
Gretel thought this was a funny idea. So she called the young man’s name loudly.
He was startled, for never before had Gretel spoken to him. He turned to her, and as he did, the mug went crashing to the ground. The men cheered, and the man who had put her up to it threw his head back and laughed till he was red from his collar to the top of his bald pate.
But the young man’s golden green eyes were wide, and suddenly he rushed at Gretel. His hands were stretched out before him like claws. Gretel screamed as he caught her hard around the waist.
And then, in a moment, she was swooping through the air, her long blond hair streaming out behind her, and his strong arms holding tightly onto her hips. And he was laughing—a beautiful, joyous laugh, his head thrown back and his eyes shining.
He placed her on the ground again and smiled at her, and Gretel was breathless. He rubbed her head as if she were a puppy, and then he turned to lead the other men into the tavern.
Gretel had been fascinated by the young man before. But in that moment, when he held her high in the air and his golden green eyes were sparkling and his red lips were curving and he was laughing—laughing with her, and her alone—well, at that moment, Gretel had passed beyond fascination. In that moment, Gretel had fallen in love.
It wasn’t real love, you might say. Just a child’s infatuation.
You might say that. But if you did, it would prove that you are already old, and that you don’t remember what it is like to be a child at all.
Every day after that, Gretel made sure to be near the handsome young man with the green eyes and black hair and red lips. He would talk to her and make her laugh and steal apples from the harvest barrels for her. And she wondered why she should be so lucky as to get all of this attention from him.
One day, soon before the great Harvest Feast, as the day’s work in the orchards was coming to a close and all the ladders were being folded up and taken in, Gretel noticed a large, beautiful apple still hanging from the bough of a tree up above her head. She tried to jump for it, to grab it and put it in the barrels before a bird saw it and pecked holes in it. But it was too high for her to reach. So she called to the handsome young man, asking him to come over and pluck it. He came and smiled at her, but it was too high for him, too. So he took her by the hips and lifted her into the air, and she gasped—as she always gasped when he touched her—and then she was high enough in the air to reach the apple. And she picked it.
And then, instead of putting her down, he threw her into the air. Gretel screamed—but not in fear. And he caught her and threw her up again, and she was laughing. And he threw her up a third time, but this time he threw her too near an overhanging branch, and she reached up to protect her head, but too late, and she cried out in pain. When he lowered her to the ground, red blood was running in a narrow rivulet down her face. Her forehead had struck the branch and left a deep cut just above her eyebrow. She was having trouble seeing out of her left eye through the steady stream of blood. The young man knelt before her. He gazed at the cut. Very gently, very slowly, he applied his lips to it, and he sucked the blood away. Gretel did not know what to think of that. Then he took from his pocket the piece of tattered twine that he used to fix the children’s toys, and he wrapped it around her head, so that it ran crosswise over the cut. He smiled at Gretel. And when he took the twine away and wiped the blood from Gretel’s face, she saw that the bleeding had stopped and that her head no longer hurt at all.
Now, dear reader, I seem to detect in you a growing unease about this handsome young man. I must say, I think that is very unfair of you.
Do you suspect a flower, just because it is beautiful?
Or a doctor, for his mysterious healing power?
Or the postrnan, because you don’t know where he sleeps at night?
Very unfair indeed.
Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, you should go ahead and rehire that babysitter that came by for the previous story. Make her take the little ones out to a movie this time. A G-rated movie. Or an R-rated movie, for that matter. Whatever it is, it probably won’t be as bad as what you’re about to read.
I know, you don’t believe me. “How much worse could things get?” you ask.
Believe me. Much worse.
As Gretel and the handsome young man walked in from the orchard that night, they talked about this and that—the weather, the apple crop, the upcoming Harvest Feast—until suddenly he turned to her and asked her if she didn’t wonder where he lived. Gretel, shyly, replied that she did wonder sometimes. He asked if maybe she would like to see his house. Her heart fluttered, and she told him she would like to very much, and she thanked him for the kind invitation. And then she asked the handsome young man where his house was.
“A little ways into the forest,” he said.
“In the forest?”
He laughed. “You’re not afraid of that silly old forest, are you?”
“No,” she lied.
“I’ll leave a path of ashes for you to follow. How’s that?”
Gretel’s heart floated up near her mouth. “That’s good,” she said.
But that night, when she returned home and told the widow that she was going into the Schwarzwald to visit the handsome young man, a great fight began. The widow forbade her from going. It was not right for a child to visit a man’s house in the first place, she said. And the fact that it was in the Schwarzwald? Did Gretel know nothing of that place? Was she a fool?
Gretel was furious. She raged and cried all that night. The next day, her face red and puffy, she told the handsome young man that she could not come, that the widow would not allow it. He smiled and told her not to worry, that they were still friends. But he talked to her less that day. She watched him from afar. Rarely did his gaze turn to meet hers.
He’s forgetting me, she thought.
At the end of the day, the handsome young man turned toward the tavern without even glancing at Gretel—as if she no longer even existed.
Just before he disappeared inside the tavern door, Gretel ran and caught him by the arm. “I’ll come,” she whispered fiercely, urgently. “I’ll come tomorrow.”
The young man hesitated, and then smiled and went into the tavern.