A Grimm Warning (The Land of Stories, #3)(79)

The air inside was very smoky. All the cells on the top floor were wide open and empty. They looked down the center of the prison and saw that all twenty-nine floors below them were exactly the same.

“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Conner said. “It’s like they had a fire drill and never came back.”

The twins jumped when they suddenly heard a voice that wasn’t either of their own. Sitting in a cell on the top floor, by herself, was a woman.

“Pssst!” she said. “Over here!”

Alex and Conner approached the woman with caution. Whoever she was, she was still a prisoner and couldn’t be trusted. The woman was only a few years older than Red but wasn’t aging nearly as gracefully. Her hair was thin and messy and she had bags under her enormous eyes. She wore a plain black dress and no shoes.

“Down here!” the woman called up to them from where she was sitting on the floor. Her voice sounded alarmed but she seemed perfectly comfortable. “You’ve got to warn someone! An army raided the prison earlier today and took the prisoners with them! They’re trying to take over the world!”

Alex and Conner leaned down to speak with her. She stuck her head through the bars as far as it would go.

“We know about the army and are trying to stop them,” Alex said. “We’ve come here to find out more.”

“Were the prisoners taken captive or did they join them?” Conner asked.

“They joined them,” the woman said. “The soldiers opened every cell and gave each prisoner the option of staying or joining their army. And as you can see, it was an almost unanimous decision.”

“Why didn’t you leave with them?” Alex asked.

The woman looked at them like they were insane. “I’m not going out there,” she said and shook her head. “There’s nothing for me out there. I mean, perhaps at one point there was, but not anymore. I belong right here in my cell.”

“You’ve been in here for a long time, haven’t you?” Conner asked.

Alex thought there was something curious about her. She saw there was a plaque on the wall next to the woman’s cell and Alex stood to read it.


THE LADY GRETEL

SENTENCED TO LIFE IN

PINOCCHIO PRISON FOR THE

MURDER OF SIR HANSEL



Alex gestured for Conner to look at the plaque, too. “Conner, it’s Gretel from ‘Hansel and Gretel’!” she whispered to him. “She killed her brother!”

“What?” he whispered back.

“It’s all right, you don’t have to whisper,” Gretel said. “I know what that plaque says. I know who I am. I know what I did.”

Alex suddenly had so many questions. “Why did you kill your brother?”

Gretel dreamily stared off into the distance. “Because it was the only way I could be free.”

“Free from what?” Alex asked.

“From ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ ” Gretel said.

“The story?” Conner asked.

“No, the label,” Gretel said. Their inquiring looks begged her to explain more. “After my brother and I survived the gingerbread house, all I wanted was to have a normal life—but that’s not what Hansel wanted; he wanted us to be heroes. He told everyone we knew about what happened to us in the woods and then those people told everyone they knew and soon word spread and we became household names around the kingdoms. We were treated like royalty; parades were thrown for us, we were honored with medals everywhere we went, they even named a holiday after us.”

“That sounds pretty nice,” Conner said.

Gretel’s eyes shot up at him. “No, it was terrible,” she said. “Because no one cared about me, they just cared about ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ I just wanted to be Gretel, just Gretel, but no matter what I did no one would let me be just Gretel. It was like my brother had become an invisible ball and chain I was forced to carry around for the rest of my life.”

“But he was your brother,” Alex said. “Didn’t you love him?”

Gretel grunted and stuck out her tongue like she had tasted something foul. “No, I couldn’t stand him!” she said. “Hansel may have seemed like a nice young man but all he cared about was himself and the attention he got! He used to drag me around with him just so he could get more admiration! Hansel also took all the credit for what happened in the gingerbread house—even though I was the one who tricked the witch and pushed her into the fireplace! He wouldn’t even be alive without me! Had I known then what I know now, I would have let the witch eat him!”

“So you killed him instead?”

Gretel nodded. “It was an accident. One day we were walking through the trees and he started mentioning all the places he had planned for us to go, all the people we would meet, and all the awards we were going to receive in the upcoming days. Well, I got so mad I pushed him—but I didn’t see there was a cliff behind him!”

“Did you tell anyone that it was an accident?” Alex asked.

“I was planning to,” Gretel said. “But then I realized this cell allowed me to be something that the rest of the world didn’t—just Gretel. So I pleaded guilty and have been here ever since. And so, today when the soldiers asked me if I wanted to join their army or stay in this cell I didn’t have to think twice.”