Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville Page B

make a loop, so –’ She suddenly taps my hand with her little claw. ‘Are you too stupid to master this, Krysta? Is it true that there’s something wrong with your mind?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then watch and learn.’
    I struggle with the bone needles and the ugly, storm-coloured wool, dropping stitches, pulling so tight that the yarn breaks, or not enough, so that the knitting looks like a broken spider’s web. Three times I throw it on the floor and three times the witch makes me pick the tangle up and carry on. Finally, she lets me put it away.
    ‘We’ll do some more tomorrow.’
    ‘Won’t.’
    ‘And why not, pray?’
    ‘I don’t want to. It’s nasty. I don’t want to knit or sew. Only poor people make things. Papa will take me to a shop where I can buy Lottie a prettily coloured scarf.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    ‘Yes.’ I watch the witch carefully, for her hand is resting on that stick. ‘Papa told me I don’t have to do what you say either. You’re only supposed to make sure I don’t come to any harm.’
    The witch cackles. She brings up the wand and taps me on the shoulder, making me jump. ‘Nevertheless, Krysta, all young girls must learn to be industrious. Tomorrow you will go on with what you’ve started.’
    ‘Won’t.’ I rub my shoulder, pinching the skin hard to make sure there’s a mark. ‘I’ll tell Papa how hard you hit me and then he’ll send you away like Elke.’
    ‘
Lügen haben kurze Beine
, my child.’ She laughs some more. ‘Yes, as the old saying goes, lies have short legs and usually come back to haunt you. Now read your book quietly. I need to rest my eyes for five minutes.’
    Lottie and I sit in the corner and listen to the old witch resting her eyes:
schnarch
,
schnarch …
She snores until Ursel brings milk and cake at eleven o’clock. By then I’m not hungry because we’ve been exploring and bad Charlotte stole some chocolate from a bedroom. After eating it very slowly we do the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ story again. This time the mother can’t make the children go into the forest so she runs away herself.
    When the witch wakes she makes me practise my writing while she talks to her friends. I don’t mind. When I grow up I shall be a famous author like Carol Lewis or Elle Franken Baum, but the girls in my books will be explorers, they’ll fly planes and fight battles, not play down holes with white rabbits or dance along brick roads with a silly scarecrow and a man made out of metal. In the afternoon, the witch gives me a little square of printed linen and some brightly coloured silks.
    ‘Come along, Krysta.’ She threads a needle and shows me how to fill in the petals with neat little stitches. ‘Embroidering pretty things is a good way for young ladies to pass the time.’
    ‘Don’t want to.’ I clench my fists.
    ‘You must.’
    ‘I won’t.’ Already her hand’s tightening on the stick, but this time I’m ready. I shuffle backwards to the other side of the room. ‘You can’t make me.’
    Ursel, come to collect the plates, clicks her tongue. ‘Now you understand what Elke had to put up with. It’s more than naughtiness. No respect. Never been socialized. Can’t imaginewhat that father of hers thinks he’s about.’ She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Unless there’s a change of attitude I wouldn’t be surprised if the creature ended up wearing a black
Winkel
.’ They both look at me.
    ‘Not with her father being who he is,’ mutters Frau Schwitter.
    ‘Indeed,’ agrees Ursel, scraping up my squashed cake, ‘but he won’t be around for ever. She’ll have to grow up sometime. And if she doesn’t –’
    ‘The money he’s paying me,’ whispers the old witch, with a sidelong glance, as if to reassure herself I’m not listening, ‘she can play up as much as she likes. The worse she behaves the more I can ask for, so, as far as I’m concerned, for the next few weeks she can dance with the Devil himself if she’s a mind.’ She shrugs.