Twisted Tales

Settling In

One day turned into three; three turned into a week; and a week became two. The days were quiet and peaceful, and I didn't even mind waking up at the ass crack of dawn anymore, not when I knew that the most dangerous thing I'd be doing was collecting eggs from, admittedly ornery, chickens.

The food Mother Holle fed us was plain but filling; and we slept on piles of hay in the small barn that were itchy but warm and soft, since there wasn't room for all three of us in the tiny house. Erik had gone back with a little of our money from Charming to pay Hans to care for our horses until we came back, leaving him thoroughly surprised and rather unsettled to learn about the magical nature of his well.

Rather to my surprise, without the fate of princesses to worry over, there was hardly any arguing between the three of us. Erik and Jack had both grown up on farms and were very familiar with the chores that needed to be done, and once a daily routine for everyone was settled into, Mother Holle's tiny household ran like Swiss clockwork. Between the three of us, there wasn't even that much to do, and we were able to spend a good chunk of our time there staring at the map Charming had provided us with and making plans for how we would tackle the next stages of our journey; specifically how we were going to go about crossing the Dark Forest, a mountainous range separating the kingdoms of Lorcastle and Weissland to the west; and then the Enchanted Forest, which connected in the north to the Grimm Woods.

By the end of the second week, I sat down and counted out the days since I'd arrived in this fairy tale world; and found to my surprise that it had been just about a full month. It was almost mid-September now; and though the weather was still plenty warm and sunny during the day, it was beginning to get a bit nippy at night. I'd woken up more than once in the barn shivering, having to pile another armful of hay over me to keep warm.

While our time with Mother Holle was peaceful and pleasant, I was beginning to get anxious to be on our way. On one level, it was a relief to not be on the road, putting ourselves in danger for the sake of royal strangers. I wanted to soak up and enjoy every moment we had at Holle's pleasant little cottage. But the entire time we were there, the knowledge in the back of my mind that we were only putting off the inevitable, and that with every day we remained there the sorceress regained more and more of her old strength; loomed in the back of my mind like a monster, waiting to come out and give me panic attacks in the dark nights while I tried and failed to fall asleep next to the softly snoring boys.

I was thinking about this while making Mother Holle's bed at the end of the second week. She was very particular about the way her mattress was shaken out; it had to be done at the end of every day, and I had to shake it so vigorously that the feather stuffing came out and went flying everywhere, falling like flurry of snow in the air. I always ended up with down in my hair and mouth, and usually in my clothes too, which itched worse than the hay.

In the middle of this process, Holle came in to the cottage with a basket of red, shiny apples, and she carried them to the pitted and worn table.

"Are you finished with the mattress, my dear?" she asked me in her cracked old voice.

"Just about," I replied.
"When you are, come over here and help me with these apples. We're going to make a pie."

I'd been helping Holle with the cooking most nights, eager to learn how to make edible meals without all the fancy tools and ingredients I was accustomed to. I'd done my best to get Erik to learn too, but he still seemed rather bamboozled by the concepts of "spices" and "flavor". For him, eating was just something you did to keep from starving. It being an enjoyable experience was an interesting, but unnecessary, perk.

I finished with the mattress and replaced it on her little bed, and then joined her at the table. She handed me a paring knife and I set to work peeling, slicing, and coring the apples, which all went into a bowl.