After a few minutes, the dragon seemed to notice the other cart. It approached it and tore at the canvas with its teeth, revealing the barrels. It picked up one of the barrels with its massive jaws. It crushed it. Wine poured out—some down its throat, most onto the ground. The dragon spit out the staves of the broken barrel, shook itself, and resettled its wings on its back. It stood a moment, considering the stack of barrels. Then it took another in its mouth and drank it down just as it had the first one—but this time catching more of the wine in its throat.
It seemed to like it.
It did it again. And again. And again.
Gretel could not believe what she was seeing.
After the dragon had drunk six barrels of wine, it tried to rise into the air. But now its flight was wobbly and uncertain. The dragon is drunk, Gretel said to herself. She almost laughed.
The dragon came back to the ground and drank down four more barrels of wine. Soon it was teetering back and forth, even when it walked. It came up to the cart with the golden apples, stuck its head underneath, and tried to lift it.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Gretel leaped from the thornbush and began to sprint toward the dragon. She could see its black leg, stuck out behind it, straining against the weight of the gold. She could see a thick pulsing vein running over the dragon’s backward-bending knee joint. Gretel stooped for the ax without breaking her stride.
She covered the distance between the ax and the dragon quickly. She lifted the weapon high and brought it down.
The dragon screamed. It was a scream like nothing Gretel had ever heard before. She thought a hundred woodland creatures must all be dying at once—that was the sound. It pierced Gretel’s head like a spear.
The dragon turned. It saw the little, golden-haired girl, holding an ax, frozen by the sound of its scream. It watched, shocked, drunken, disbelieving, as the little girl dropped the ax and sprinted off toward the woods. Behind her, on the ground, was an ax, covered in black dragon-blood. And two dragon toes.
The dragon shook itself, bellowed once, and followed, limping, after her.
Gretel heard the dragon coming. It sounded clumsy. Heavy. The wine, she thought. And the toes, of course. She cursed herself for missing the vein. She had never wielded an ax before.
Gretel wove through the trees, trying to keep ahead of it. Where was Hansel? What had happened to him? She could hear the dragon, wine-sodden and wounded as he was, catching up to her. Just get away from it, she thought. Get free of it. So I can find Hansel, and we can get out of here.
But how to get free of it? She thought of diving into a bush and letting the dragon run past. But it wouldn’t run past. It would see her, and kill her. She thought of finding a narrow cave and crawling into it. Good idea, but where would she find a cave? And then, up ahead, she saw a tree. It was an enormous pine, easily the tallest tree in this part of the forest. Without thinking, without any plan at all, she made for it.
The pine’s bristly branches started low to the ground and ran densely up the trunk. As soon as she arrived at its base, Gretel leaped onto the lowest ones and began to climb. She climbed around to the far side of the trunk, in the hope that the dragon might not see her.
When, a moment later, the dragon, drunk and limping, arrived at the tree’s base, it was indeed confused. It seemed to know she had gotten up in the tree. But she was forty feet up by the time it realized she was on the other side of the trunk.
It set off after her. It tried to use its wings, but they would catch on the branches of the surrounding trees. It tried to climb, but the branches were too thin, and they went cracking and tumbling to the ground when it put its weight on them. So the dragon ended up digging its rough talons into the soft wood and ascending the trunk in leaps, smashing branches as it went.
The pine needles brushed at Gretel’s face as she climbed, and the sticky sap of the tree stuck to her palms. Her heart was pounding from fatigue and fear. But there was no chance to rest. The dragon was gaining. Its leaps up the trunk gained it ten feet or more, while its occasional slides back down—stripping whatever branches it hadn’t smashed on the way up—gained her only a few seconds at most. Her hand reached for the next branch and she pulled herself up. Her feet gained a secure hold and pushed her up to the next one. Go, she told herself. Go. And then she thought, Where? She looked up, hoping that perhaps the top of the tree would be too thin for the dragon to follow her onto. Perhaps it was. But it was also far above the other trees around it. Up there, the dragon could use its wings. Just climb, she told herself. Just climb. She reached up and grabbed onto the next branch.
“Wha—well, excuse us!” a voice said.
Gretel lost her grip and nearly fell out of the tree.
“Well, I never!” said the voice. “Some people!”
Gretel looked up. There was a thick mess of twigs and needles on the branch above her head.
“Well,” said another voice, “see who it is!”
And then a black head, with black eyes and a black beak, peered over the branch above her.
“Well, I’ll be!” said the first raven. “If it isn’t Gretel!”
“No! Here?” said the second.
“Tell her to be more considerate of a raven’s nest!” said the third. “Has she no manners? Was she raised by apes?”
“I think she was raised by a king and queen,” said the second.
The ravens? In this very tree? Gretel could barely believe it. In fact, had it not been for all the strange, incredible things that had happened to her already, perhaps she wouldn’t have. But after eating a house, and talking to the stars, and all the rest of it—well, she believed it just fine.
“Please!” she said. “Help me!”
The sound of tearing wood came from below. She looked down. The dragon had just slid halfway down the trunk again. “Please! There’s a dragon after me!”
“Help you?” said the third raven. “After what you’ve done to our nest?”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said the second raven.
“You’re not the one who’s going to fix it, though, are you?” replied the third testily.
“I have my responsibilities, too. When food is scarce, and my job gets difficult, do I complain?” said the second raven.
“Yes,” the other two ravens answered at once.
Below, the dragon regained his footing and was climbing again.
“Please!” Gretel cried.
“We can’t help you,” said the first.
“Yes,” said the second. “It’s not what we do.”
Gretel looked down. The dragon was gaining quickly. She hadn’t time to plead. “Then move!” she shouted, and clambered up onto their branch, just barely avoiding crushing their nest with her foot.
“Careful there!” the third raven cawed.
Gretel pushed past their branch, straining to keep ahead of the dragon. The first raven beat his wings beside her. “I’m sorry for my companion’s rudeness,” he said. “We understand the gravity of your situation.” He looked down. “No pun intended, of course.”
Gretel didn’t know what he was talking about. “Are you going to help me or not?” she cried.
“I’m afraid we can’t,” the raven said. “You see, we can only tell the future. We can’t attempt to change it. It wouldn’t do any good, you see? It’s the future.”
There was an enormous crack from below, followed by terrible squawking. Gretel hurried her pace, but up ahead, the branches were thinning out to almost nothing. She was just about out of branches to climb to. And at any moment, the dragon would be able to fly. Just as Gretel realized there was nowhere else for her to go, around her head there was a frantic beating of wings and a very angry raven.