Hansel: Storm

Hansel’s axe slammed down, cracking the firewood in two -- and burying itself more than halfway into the chopping block, making firewood of it, as well.

“Goddammit, Hansel,” his stepfather grumbled.

“Sorry.”

He stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out where he was going to find another log that’d make for a good chopping block. ‘Til he destroyed that one, too.

“Well, get back to work,” Elijah snapped.

“Sorry.”

Hansel planted his boot on the block and twisted the axe, snapping the log the rest of the way apart. This happened every time he chopped wood, now. He wanted to say it wasn’t his fault -- he wanted to complain about how soft the wood was, how sharp the axe was, *something* -- but he knew it was just him. It was his fault. He had to get better at minding his own strength, or he’d hurt someone, and then people would do more than stare at him -- they’d throw rocks at his face instead of just in the vague direction of his back.

He knew they were doing it, even when they missed. It wasn’t like he could fight back or yell at them. His mom said that would be proving their point, and she told him he wasn’t a monster, but she always sounded tired when she said it and when he wondered if she actually believed it, he came out and chopped wood behind the barn. Or he chopped down a tree.

He’d chopped down a lot of trees lately.

There was this windfall out in the forest past the wheat field that he’d spotted last time he’d taken Leigh out to pick wild blackberries. It was still sturdy and healthy -- he thought maybe it had just fallen because it was too close to other, bigger trees, and its roots had gotten choked out. That would probably work. He propped the axe up on his shoulder.

“I’m gonna go get a new block.”

Elijah waved him off without looking up from his workbench, where he was replacing the shovel handle that Hansel had snapped a couple days before. It’d been an accident. He’d been mad, but he hadn’t been trying to break anything. No one really seemed to believe him when he said that, so he’d trailed off on saying it and just started apologizing instead.

After he’d already turned to start off, his stepfather absently called, “Take your brother with you. He needs the exercise.”

“Yessir.”

Hansel redirected to head up to the house. His mom was in the front yard, hanging laundry up on the line, and he expected Leigh to be with her -- maybe drafted into helping, but probably just sitting nearby reading a book or playing with something. When Hansel didn’t see him, he ducked into the farmhouse, but couldn’t find him there either. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

“Hey, Mom?” He banged back out the front door, glancing around again in case he’d just missed his brother somehow.

She made a *mm* sound without looking away from her task.

“Where’s Leigh? Dad wanted me to take him out for a walk.”

She froze, then turned to look at him. “I thought he was with you already.”

“No, I was choppin’ wood,” he said, as if that was connected to what she’d just said.

“Well, where --.” She seemed to realize that that was exactly what he’d just asked her, and stopped herself. He could see her running through the possible places Leigh could be in her head. “Okay. Run and tell your father to check the barn and the pasture, then go out and look along the deer trail. I’ll run over to the neighbors’.”

He obeyed like a snap, bolting back to the barn. He relayed her orders to Elijah and barely paused to make sure he’d understood them before running on, out past the wheat field, out towards the forest. Just running felt good. He didn’t slow down when he hit the tree line, didn’t stop ‘til he reached the windfall. Then it all caught up to him and he doubled over, wheezing for breath, dropping the axe by his feet. Hadn’t even thought about the fact that it was still in his hand. He probably shouldn’t be running around holding sharp tools.

Once he’d caught his breath, he took a deep one and bellowed out Leigh’s name, listening carefully to the echoes through the trees. No response. He could get pretty loud, too. He hopped up onto the windfall to get a better view and looked around for the flash of Leigh’s pale hair -- the kid had no camouflage out here, he shouldn’t be hard to spot. He yelled for him again.

The guilt was starting to set in. He should’ve been watching him. The guilt, and the panic. If he lost his little brother they’d do worse than throw rocks at him, too. They’d say he’d killed him. They’d snarl orc at him and they’d drag their kids away from him when he wasn’t even anywhere nearby. And Elijah had told him about how a couple towns over this half-orc traveler had gotten killed for stumbling out of a tavern without paying his bill.

*So be on your best behavior,* Elijah had said.

*I am*, Hansel insisted.

Elijah’d scoffed but he hadn’t told Hansel what he could be doing better or different.

“Leigh!” he called out a third time. “This ain’t fuckin’ funny!” He winced, hoping they couldn’t hear him up at the farmhouse. Maybe it’d lure Leigh out just to snitch on him. “Come on!”

He dropped down from the windfall and picked his axe back up, holding it close to the head and running again -- past the blackberry bushes and to the hill, his feet almost sliding out from under him on the incline down to the crick. He’d brought Leigh down here once to look for shiny rocks carried downstream from the mountains, but their mom had yelled at him for letting Leigh get wet. Catch his death of cold, she’d said. Hansel hadn’t thought it was cold that day.

“Leigh!”

He stepped into the ankle-deep water and looked up and down the path it cut through the trees. He was well off the deer trail now, but he knew if Leigh had decided to go play in the woods without permission, he wouldn’t just stay on the trail. He’d go someone he *really* wasn’t supposed to go. But he wasn’t supposed to go *anywhere*. That was the reason he had to sneak off in the first place.

Hansel splashed upstream a ways, keeping an eye out but not expecting to see him here, trying to figure out where he would go. Leigh wasn’t very good at climbing trees, but he looked up into the red-orange leaves anyway. There were storm clouds beyond them, gathering gray above him -- he hadn’t noticed them before. Must’ve come on quick. For some reason he’d never liked storms, but he liked this one even less. Leigh would definitely catch his death out here if it started pouring.

Never should’ve brought him out here and shown him the crick. Mom hadn’t wanted Leigh out this far into the woods and all Hansel had done was make him curious. He’d wanted to go further, so Hansel had shown him the pond, too.

He sloshed out of the water and started up the hill on the other side, slower this time because he was thinking. He’d been out past the pond, but Leigh hadn’t. But he had told him about the brambles east of it and the little cave past them. Would Leigh know which way east was? He hadn’t been left to roam the countryside the way Hansel had, figuring out for himself how to get back home at the end of the day. If he went west instead … Had Hansel told him left or right from the dock, or had he just said east?

“Fuck,” he muttered, because his mom wasn’t around.

He picked up speed, following the notched trees to the pond. Leigh knew about those, too, because he’d talked about them. He had to stop … saying things. If he hadn’t told Leigh how to get out here he would have just stayed home where it was safe. This was all his fault. He should’ve listened to Elijah and just done his work and left his brother alone unless they told him to do something --

Mist was rising from the pond by the time he reached it, as the cold rain hit the sun-warmed water. He ran out onto the dock, boots thumping against the wood and echoing across the glassy surface, skidded to a halt at the end and bellowed his brother’s name again. It carried further this time. Maybe Leigh would hear him even if he was far away. But what if he did, and he came back to the pond, and Hansel had already left by then? What if they missed each other and by the time Hansel made it back to the pond, he was somewhere else, and they kept missing each other forever until eventually Hansel found his body?

But he couldn’t just wait here. There was an itchy-jittery feeling in his chest; he had to do something. East. If Leigh had listened to anything he'd said, hopefully it had been cardinal directions.

Past the brambles. He chopped through them, eyeing them for shreds of Leigh's clothes, found nothing.

The rain was getting heavier.

Downhill, sliding on fallen leaves, looking for any sign someone else has been here recently. Nothing.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

Then the bare stone of the little cave welcomed him. He'd been about Leigh's size when he'd found it -- now he squatted down to peer into the darkness.

“Leigh?” he called softly, one final echo back into the blackness. No response. He’d already known there wouldn’t be.

Hansel wedged himself into the cave, his hair stuck to his face, and wrapped his arms around himself. It was over. Leigh was gone. He would be blamed, and they'd stone him, and Elijah would shake his head and tell him he should have done better and his mother wouldn't look at him at all.

He flinched as thunder cracked through the sky, then tilted his head -- had he heard a voice? God, were they coming for him already? It had sounded like his name, but it hadn't been Leigh. He shivered. It’d been much too deep to be Leigh. Or Elijah. Or any of the humans in town.

It had sounded like the storm was calling him.

Hansel pulled further in on himself, shaking, as the sky opened up and rain flooded into the cave, soaking his boots, his pants, all of him. It was a frigid fucking rain and he closed his eyes to it, accepting that this was probably easier and better anyway -- this way no one would have to *deal* with him the way Elijah kept threatening they would, no one would have to take the time. He would just be gone. He would just be missing. They would all be better off and none of the tools would be broken anymore and his mother could stop giving him that concerned look when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.

He was cold and the sky was screaming his name.

###

Hansel woke up stiff and damp, still squeezed into the tiny cave. It was daylight -- morning. He couldn’t remember what he was doing here, for a moment, and when he did it all came back as a crushing weight on his chest. Then, resolve. He had to face this. The storm was over, and Leigh was gone, and it was only right that he bear whatever his parents decided he deserved for it. He pulled himself out of the cave, still holding his axe, and took his first few stumbling steps back towards the farm.

When he got home, Leigh was playing behind the barn, his father back at his workbench as if he’d never left it.

Elijah grunted. “Finally decided to come back, did you? Great damn help you were yesterday.”

Hansel could only stare at them both in stupid silence. Leigh was fine. He’d never been out in the woods. He had always been fine. It had all been … nothing.

No one had come looking for him. He supposed he wasn’t worth it.

Leigh noticed him and bounded over to grab his arm. “Han, can you take me out to the pond today? Dad said --.”

“I said no,” Elijah cut him off.

“Crik’s flooded,” Hansel said, his voice sounding hollow and flat even to himself. “Can’t get across anyway.”

He tugged his arm away from his brother. Everything felt distant. Everything felt like it was behind a thick storm cloud, on the other side of a flood, far from reach. None of it mattered. He dropped the axe and turned to leave.

“Hansel,” his stepfather snapped. “How many times do I have to tell you to put the damn tools away?”

Not anymore, he thought. Not anymore.