Kimberly - Our Little Chop
Sitting around the elves’ fire with a warm bowl of soup that evening, Virginia was amazed at the amount of information with which they were able to provide her. She now knew what witch she was dealing with, where she lived, and how long it would take to get there. From the little information that she knew about the relationship between the Peeps and the witch, the elves were immediately able to tell her these things. The father of one of the elves, Art, had in fact built the gingerbread home for the first witch, whose sister lived there still. Art had volunteered to accompany Virginia and Linn, the elf leader, to the house, as he had played there as a child when his father did occasional repairs, and knew the area well."Why did he build a house for a witch?" Virginia asked Art. "I get the impression none of you are very fond of witches."
"We’re not, of course, m’lady," Art replied. "But there’s not much an elf can do to defend himself against a powerful witch, and she knew that my dad was the best man for the job. She told him if he didn’t build her the house, she would curse me. He never told me what the curse was that she threatened to place on me, but I could tell it frightened him terribly. He spent months on that house for her, making it perfect. He crafted every detail by hand. Even after the house was built she would call on my dad to do all sorts of repair work. He was getting old and was sickly, and with each job he got weaker. When that whole incident happened with Hansel and Gretel, and the younger sister moved in, she was even more demanding. Those kids really had done a job on the exterior of the house, and she insisted that he return it all to its original state. My father knew the job was killing him, but he was determined to protect me, so one night he gathered my things into a bundle and sent me away while he finished the work to avoid the curse. I came here and another elf family was kind enough to take me in. I got word that my father died about a month later. I am as old now as he was then, but I’m a lot stronger than he was. It is a pleasure to help you defeat the witch who drove my father to the grave."
They turned in for the night and the next morning set out early. Traveling on foot, the elves had estimated that if they made good time they would arrive at the witch’s house by nightfall. What they didn’t realize was that good time for an elf is a snail's pace for an average-sized human girl. Art, being older, and not as much stronger than his father as he professed, was holding her back the most, so around noon, when they’d only traveled a few short miles, she picked him up and began carrying him on her back. They made better time after that, and were just over the hill from the witch’s house by late that afternoon. They were sitting down to rest for a moment and to plot a strategy when Virginia thought she heard a sound in the distance. The two elves looked at each other with bewildered expressions as she began to cry.
Early the next morning, Ian gave Tony some ragged clothing for he and Wolf to use as disguises. He explained that he used this sort of disguise himself any time he was forced to go into town to sell his gold. He had one contact in the nearest village who knew who he was and had been sworn to secrecy in exchange for being the sole vendor to receive the gold. Ian took much less than the gold was worth and the merchant had grown wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He would never break his confidence.
Dragging Wolf from bed minutes later, Tony had to help him into the old rags. Wolf was lethargic; barely a shell of his usual self. "Snap out of it, Wolf!" Tony said impatiently; "I told you last night, it’s not your fault. I ate the mutton too - you can’t beat yourself up over something like that. Besides, we’re going to get the curse broken. Don’t you doubt that for a minute - and then the point will be moot."
"But what if we don’t?" Wolf whimpered in despair. "This whole thing is my fault. Virginia and the baby would be fine if it weren’t for me. I’m the worst father in the whole world. Have you ever heard of any other expectant daddy having roast baby for dinner? Virginia will never forgive me."
"Of course she will, Wolf," Tony tried to encourage him. "Virginia loves you, and she knows you would never hurt your baby."
"But that’s just it, Tony! I have hurt my baby, or at least not a small number of babies like him. Do you have any idea how many sheep a wolf of my age has eaten in his lifetime? And even if I never hurt my very own baby, all of those sheep were somebody’s baby. So that’s it! I… I renounce meat. From this point on, I will never again eat meat!" Wolf said, his statement trailing off into a hollow wolf whine.
Hansel poked his head into the room. "Come down and have breakfast," he said and headed down. Wolf’s whimper turned into a low howl as he followed Tony down the stairs.
Tony, Hansel and Ian feasted on goose eggs, sausage, bacon and a rich sausage gravy while Wolf sat with sad eyes devouring his third loaf of bread. He was sure this was the most terrible thing that could ever happen until suddenly he realized it was about to get worse. Tomorrow night was to be a full moon. Resolving to think about that later, he reached for a fourth loaf of bread.
Twenty minutes later they were setting off again in search of the witch, this time in the back of an old farm wagon driven by Hansel himself. They had sent Wendell’s carriage and driver back to the palace. Bumping over the ruts in the path, Tony grudgingly tried to cheer his son-in-law. "You know, Wolf, when we get this all straightened out, we can go back to the palace and have a party. We can invite the whole land if we want - you could go out onto the balcony with Virginia - the crowd will go wild to see the both of you together."
Wolf smiled weakly at this. "I do want my sweet cherries jubilee to see them all - she should hear their praise. But I don’t want to go. They may think I’ve changed - that I’m a better Wolf - err, person, but I would feel like a hypocrite. I can’t even control my own cravings. I’m no hero. Nobody should be cheering for me."
"Come on, Wolf," Tony said as they passed through the village. "I just watched you sit through breakfast eating nothing but bread. Now you may be the only wolf I’ve ever known, but as far as I can tell, that showed a lot of self-control."
Wolf brightened some. "Do you really think so?" he asked. "I mean, I haven’t felt so rotten since prison, with nothing but baked beanstalk, and there was all that wonderful meat right there in front of me but I didn’t touch it. Even while you were shoveling down your second serving!"
"All right, that’s enough" Tony said. "Now can we concentrate on what we’re going to do? We need some sort of game plan."
The two of them consulted with Hansel in the front of the wagon. They discussed strategy during the rest of their journey and arrived that afternoon at the hilltop as Hansel had promised.
"Look down there in that clearing in the grove of trees in the valley," Hansel directed them. "See the smoke rising? If you look closely you’ll see there’s a little house down there. That’s it. That’s the witch’s gingerbread house."
Hansel was forced to pause in his instruction as Wolf’s stomach growled loud and long. Wolf growled back briefly and howled once from hunger, then apologized for the interruption and Hansel continued, "I’ll show you the best path into the valley, then you’re on your own."
"You’re not really going to leave us, are you?" Tony asked desperately. "I mean I don’t know the first thing about witches and curses, and Wolf here is just about useless now that he’s on this meat strike. How are we going to pull this off without you?"
"I’m sorry, friend," Hansel said with a sigh. "I’m old and I’m tired, and I’d like to see my sister once more before I die. I just can’t risk letting that witch know I’m still alive. You’ll be fine. Just don’t let her get you in that cellar."
"What is it, m’lady?" Art asked with concern as Virginia wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Why are you crying?"
"I’m sorry," Virginia said. "I could have sworn I heard Wolf’s voice in the distance. It sounded so close. He is looking for the witch too, and I’m so afraid that she’s caught him and is hurting him - I can’t stand it! We have to go down there, now!"
She scrambled over the crest of the hill and, followed by the two little elves, could have been seen clearly climbing down the other side had anyone been watching.
Climbing down the opposite hill, however, Wolf and Tony were too busy trying to keep their footing to look up and see her. The hill on their side was wooded and steep, and they had their hands full trying to keep from tripping over a root and tumbling into a tree trunk. They weren’t interested in peering through the trees at the ridge across the valley.
Deep in the valley, the sun was already behind the hills and darkness was gathering quickly. Were it not for the light coming from inside the house, they would have had trouble finding it at all. They followed that light, and Wolf’s hungry nose, to the little gingerbread cottage alone in the middle of the valley. Sniffing deeply, Wolf began reciting the ingredients of this unusual house.
"Gingerbread of course," he whispered. "But that’s not all. There are peppermint windowsills and chocolate roof shingles. The windows are of spun sugar and… Oh Tony I’m so hungry, why couldn’t we have stopped for lunch in the village?"
"Because," Tony hissed back, "I was afraid if we stopped you’d start moping again about your meat strike. I wanted to keep your mind off of it."
Wolf’s face fell at the mention of his new vegetarian status, but he brightened when Tony voiced concern for his state of mind. "Tony, you old softy. You do care about me! You’re the best father-in-law ever."
Tony squirmed as he tried to escape from Wolf’s embrace. "Okay, that’s enough," he said. "I just didn’t want to listen to you howl about it the whole way here!"
"Yeah," Wolf said with a knowing grin. "You say what you want; you were worried about my feelings. I love you Tony, you’re the best!" he said, hugging him all the tighter.
