Hansel and Girdle

My brother was being a rather large pain in the tuchus again.

I don’t mind him using me as his dressmaker’s model, really. He makes some really awesome stuff, and I get to look good. He’s got a bunch of like-minded friends, and they do my hair and makeup too. And then they mutter about “vision” and “aesthetic” and drag me places for photo shoots.

Do our parents mind all the fuss? Yeah, funny you would mention that...

I can count. So can my brother. We’re not sure if Dad and step-monster offed our mom for the insurance money. Let’s just say There Are Questions, and the toxicology report hasn’t come back yet. The modeling pays for our lawyer, and all our important stuff lives in some boxes in the back of his office. The court ordered us to live with oh-so loving Daddy, but we like the woods better. Less toxic atmosphere, and that’s saying a lot.

Dad’s been trying to get our trust funds, but the lawyer stepped in. Unless we die, he can’t touch the funds.

So my brother sleeps over at his best friend’s house, and of course I tag along. Who wants to give those monsters a chance to wipe us out, too?

Our lawyer installed a tracker on our phones when Mom filed for divorce, after she caught them in bed together. The cottage belongs to me and my brother. It was Mom’s before marriage, and couldn’t be claimed by Dad because previous assets. He was rather pissed when this all came out, and demanded to live there with step-monster to “properly” take care of us.

He tried to keep us from seeing Granny, but that didn’t fly either. She lives in the woods out back; it’s all part of Mom’s family’s land from way back. So we go to visit, show her the outfits, she shakes her head over all the “frippery” as she still calls it, but can’t deny the cash in our bank accounts. Which Darling Daddy and step-monster can’t touch. Because they don’t know about it.

If they did, I wouldn’t give a ship’s peanut for our chances. Especially since she spawned a kid now.

Granny may not understand us, but she still likes to spoil us. She makes this amazing gingerbread recipe from the Old Country. Springerle cookies, she’s got these butter-mold-looking press things, and they are the lightest, tastiest things you just can’t imagine. She seems to have this endless jar of them on the table, and we scarf them by the handfuls. Granny just smiles and urges us to take more. And we don’t seem to gain any pounds for the gobs of the stuff we eat, which is weird, but Granny loves to feed us. Sure, we get lovely sandwiches and fresh mint tea out of her garden, but it’s the cookies that make it so special.

She makes jokes about being the witch in the woods from the fairy tale because of her house. It does look like it’s made from gingerbread! She took a trip to Cape May, New Jersey, as a little girl, and saw their gingerbread houses. Painted Ladies, they call them. And Grandpa was indulgent when building the house, and combined the real painted and carved look with the fantasy look from the fairy tale. Did I mention Grandpa was very into Christmas? Kinda looked a bit like Santa too, it was a bit disconcerting. Went all out for the holiday, decorating and presents galore. We loved coming here, spending the holiday with our loving family.

And the cookies. Except Dad. He’d never eat them. And Granny never offered, either. We’d shrug – more for the rest of us!

Mom, I think, was a little too love-struck with the fairy tale, so of course she named us after the kids. She didn’t think it through, of course, the implications of the surrounding story. Luckily Granny isn’t cannibalistic, unless you count the strange lifelike shapes of the springerle cookies.

Granny would sit in her sturdy rocker in the corner of the kitchen, knitting, smiling, content, while we plotted our takeover of the fashion industry. She loved having her family and chosen specials gathered around that table.

This time, though, she frowned a little when they were trying to fit their latest creation to my waist, and it wasn’t setting right.

She set her knitting neatly to the side. “Boys, would it help if Margrette were wearing a girdle? That would help with smoothing the fabric over the waistline, and get rid of that bunching that’s messing up your drape.”

We all stopped, blinked. Stared at her. She smiled. “I was young, once. Eons ago. I remember high fashion, even wore some, once, to a Royal ball. I had the most lovely slippers… Anyway, girdle. More basic than a corset, better than spandex for shaping. Here, come with me, let’s let the boys take a cookie break while you and I do some foundational work.” And off she hopped to her bedroom, crooking her hand to have me follow along.

The garment she pulled out of one of the old-style chests in her bedroom looked like it had been made yesterday. “This might get a little personal, child-mine, but slip this on over your intimates. You are of a size that I used to be, this should work a treat.”

It was so smooth! It was so supportive! It slid into place like magic, and emphasized all the bits the boys wanted to be emphasized. We came out with me wearing it, and it covered all the naughty bits, so I didn’t feel shy in front of all the guys. Besides, they’re all gay, and look at me like some sort of doll they play dress-up with. Not like they look at each other, and sometimes sneak off into the woods in pairs during a photo shoot…

They were ecstatic, and wrapped the dress around me, and suddenly the alterations worked immediately. I looked amazing! I looked smashing! There’s a rock in a clearing not far from the back door, and off we went, me holding these impossible high heels that I couldn’t walk in for a second if I put them on. But sitting on the rock, posing? Perfect!

We took some of the best shots we have ever taken. Our agent-type friend was already uploading unedited shots, and the likes were coming in. Within the hour, we had orders. And an actual offer from an actual modeling agency, from a recruiter I’d been trying to attract.

We were stunned. “Is this girdle magic?” I whispered to Granny.

She cackled in an unlady-like manner. “Oh, child! What a thing to say!” And we reluctantly headed for our respective homes – after she fed us another hearty meal.

She didn’t take the girdle back. I was still wearing it.

Of course getting back was easy, but the meal that was already on the table from step-monster looked nasty-oily by comparison to the stew and homemade bread we’d just eaten. No amount of arguing that we’d eaten at Granny’s made a whit of difference; we must sit and try to choke down a tasteless meal made by a poisonous witch. We didn’t eat it, though she screamed in our faces to do it. I tried a spoonful to placate her, but the girdle pinched me every time the spoon got near my mouth, so I just gave up.

Hank didn’t even try. He just sat there, rolling his eyes, silently daring her or our father to go over the line. I saw his cell phone on under the table, so he was recording. It would be sent directly to our lawyer, in case they were dumb enough to discover his action and break his phone, which had to be on him at all times, judge’s orders.

I had just about had it. I was sick of the screaming, the fights, the judge’s demands that we stay because “he’s your faaather, he has a right so see his kids!” And I have a right to a life that’s free of this toxic bullshit, but because I’m under age, I’m not allowed to have an opinion?

I stood up. “That’s it, I’m going back to Grandma’s.”

And the bitch slapped me. Hard.

Hank stood up, snarling, but I held out a hand. “No, she’d just throw us in prison and claim we’re abusing her, when it’s the other way around. When we get to safety, you can take pics of the bruise I already feel forming. Let’s go.” And we stomped into our rooms to pack.

And the bitch locked us in.

Really? Are we naughty children?

Hank was outside my window pretty quickly, since he could throw everything he cared about into a pillowcase and slide out his window in about a minute. It took me a few more minutes to get my laptop properly wrapped.

We slipped into the forest.

We knew the path by heart in the light, but moonlight? Hank chuckled, and pointed out that he’d put quartz rocks into the sides of the path months ago. Under a full moon, they gleamed like glow-in-the-dark pebbles. He said it was a Roman thing, to put them between cobbles. He knew all kinds of weird facts like that.

We heard ugly noises behind us, so we hurried. I wasn’t sure what was chasing us, but I knew it meant us harm.

Granny was waiting. “Hurry in, kids, I’ll deal with her.” What? I opened my mouth to ask, but Hank grabbed my arm and sprinted. “You were right, Granny, she’s trying to kill us both!”

What conversation did I miss?

Granny was dressed all in red, with this odd cape thing hiding her shape. But the scope-sighted rifle she pulled out was unmistakable, and she grinned. “Lead bullets. And a few silver ones, too. When stories converge, it gets a bit messy.”

I was very confused, but she shoved us inside, behind her, and swept the rifle up to a perfect position on her shoulder. Even with the firelight, and there was a lot of it, behind her, she sighted perfectly like backlit people shouldn’t be able to. And BAM BAM BAM, and a heavy THUD at the edge of the half circle of light on the lawn, and a hairy wolflike monster fell dead.

It had our stepmother’s face.

My brain froze. Hank help me stay upright. “I thought you knew the fairy tales, sis. But I thought Granny was Cinderella, not Red Riding Hood.”

“I was, until we somehow crossed with Hansel and Gretel. I wasn’t thrilled about the paradigm shift, but now? Well, I’ve been prepping for that harpy for a while. You threw me with the fashion, like you were trying to get back to the original story line.”

“I’m gay, Granny. I have to make my own fairy tales, use real fairy. If I could save my sister from the bad parts of a story, then I could go find my handsome prince.”

“Or let him find you, kiddo. Now, where’s your asshole father?”

The woods were silent.

Until, in the distance, I could hear some heavy breathing, and scraping.

Granny snorted. “Here we go again. Story shift. Margrette, dear, be a love and stuff your face with those garlic springerle cookies on the baking rack? You too, Hank. I’ve had quite a few myself. And had me that case on the table? Time for the wooden bullets, I think.”

My brain tried to catch up. “Dad’s a… vampire?”

“He wasn’t, once. He was the handsome prince, come to sweep my daughter off her feet. But Happily Ever After is such a slippery concept, and one person’s happy is another person’s trap. He wasn’t happy unless he was cutting other people down, and finally my daughter had had enough. He went from emotional vampire to actual vampire, and drained her of everything. Had been fornicating with that werewolf trollop for a while, thought he could take my grandkids from me! Well, I’m not the villain in any of these stories, no matter how hard he tried to twist it that way. Now, let’s see what I can do…”

And again, in a quick series of shots into the air, tracking something expertly, BAM BAM BAM, another THUD landed beside the first monster. This one was a giant man-bat, monstrous, hairless, and had Dad’s face.

His eyes were focused on Granny, and they glared with pure hatred, till they dulled. And the un-life went out.

Granny sighed. “This will be quite a cleaning to do by dawn. And no, you two can’t help. You shouldn’t have seen half of what happened. But I will end the cycle. I’ll have to keep this outside. Hank, would you be a dear, get the old outdoor kitchen oven going? I know Grandpa showed you how to do it. I need to get rid of all this quickly, before the lawyer and the police arrive.”

The next few weeks were a long blur. The hand print was horribly infected, and Granny had a devil of a time keeping it salved to prevent its spread. Police, missing parents, the audio from the fight, assumed flight to avoid persecution. Once the house was cleared, Granny burned everything that my Dad and step-monster had owned, and cleaned and sanitized the house from top to bottom. Only when she had a few of her friends go over it minutely did she let us back into what should have been ours by right from the beginning.

Brother’s career was ensured. He’d graduate in the spring, sure, but from there, he and his friends were getting their own fashion house. I was jealous.

Me, sure, I’ll do the modeling thing, I don’t mind it for now. But Granny’s past intrigues me, and though she’s hesitant to talk, we’ve been chatting about her herb garden. And her extensive recipe collection.

The springerle cookies she fed us seemed to taste so much better than before. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I enjoyed biting the heads off that fresh batch. I could see the eyes widen, the fear on the cookie faces, before I chomped down.

It was a month or two before I even thought of the brat that was left behind that night. What happened to him? Granny would smile, and whisper, “I’ll tell you later. When you’re older.”

I didn’t see any new set of springerle cookies, so I guess that’s a small comfort?

[Meanwhile, a few years later, in a town far away:]

I know I was adopted, but I’ve been luckier than most in that regard. My parents treat me well, and their blood kids treat me like kin, so that’s good I guess? But it’s really weird that the cat’s been talking to me, asking me to make him these boots...