Read Online Winterwood by JG Faherty - Free Book Online Page B

wird die Hexe erhalten Sie.”
    Anders stumbled and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. With a start, he realized he’d been lulled into a half slumber, a walking dream, by his exhaustion.
    You were right, Oma. We went into the woods, and the witch did get us. Now we have to find a way out.
    Cursing himself for letting his guard down, he checked in both directions before motioning for Anna and Paul to join him.
    â€œWhere’s Ulaf?” Paul asked.
    Anders bit his lip, loath to admit he’d been wrong about the damned elf again, that they’d been abandoned, when a nearby door opened and Ulaf peeked out.
    â€œThis way. Make haste.”
    With relief lending new strength to his legs, Anders hurried across the hall and into a dark space filled with shadowy objects. He stepped to one side so Anna and Paul could enter, and then froze when Ulaf shut the door, cutting off the light from the hall.
    â€œHere we’ll be out of harm’s way while we wait,” Ulaf whispered. Anders heard him moving around and wondered how the elf could see in the complete blackness.
    â€œWhere is here?” Anna asked. “And why are we waiting? We should be looking for my boys.”
    â€œâ€™Tis one of the witch’s pantries,” Ulaf said. “One level up from the Great Hall. And wait we must, for the King will return shortly from the Hunt. And if we were to be caught in the halls by him or his men, it would be straight into the ovens for us.”
    More rustling sounds reached Anders, and then a spark of light appeared. Ulaf held up a glass jar filled with some of the phosphorescent slime from the burrows they’d traveled through.
    â€œâ€™Tis too dangerous to risk a torch, but this will stave off the dark just a bit.”
    â€œHow long?” Anders asked, sitting down next to the elf. Anna and Paul did the same, the four of them forming a circle around the tiny glow. With the door blocking the warm air from the hallway, the temperature in the room dropped quickly and Anders pulled his coat tighter around his neck.
    â€œToo long to stay on our feet, too short to nap,” the elf said. “We can converse, but softly. This room is not used much during the Yule, but better safe than sorry.”
    â€œWhere is the witch?”
    In response to Anders’s question, Ulaf pointed up. “Two sets of stairs to the kitchen.”
    After that, no one spoke for a few minutes; then Paul cleared his throat.
    â€œThat story always terrified me as a kid.”
    Anders frowned. “What story?”
    â€œHansel and Gretel. You said before it was based on that old bitch, Gryla or whatever. As a boy, it gave me nightmares. All those Grimm fairy tales did. Cannibal witches, giants, fathers selling their daughters to the devil. They were all bad, but Hansel and Gretel kept me up for weeks after I read it. I don’t know how other kids enjoyed those stories.”
    â€œThe Grimm’s fables were never meant to entertain,” Anders said. “Long before they wrote them down, people throughout the North knew them as cautionary tales, warnings to keep children safe. But over the centuries they became part of folklore. No one believed them anymore, and what once served an important purpose soon became nothing more than bedtime stories.”
    â€œLike Santa.” Anna’s voice held a note of regret.
    â€œYes. The Catholic Church would not permit tales that didn’t promote Christianity in some way. So they changed our fables. Turned demons into jolly elves and Old Man Winter into nothing more than a silly face blowing wind on holiday cards. Easter, Christmas, Halloween—everything has a darker truth if you look deep enough.”
    â€œHow do you know all this?”
    Anna rolled her eyes at her husband’s question, and Anders felt a pang of sadness at her reaction. He imagined her thoughts— oh boy, here goes the old man with another story