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stars exploded bright behind her closed eyes.



3
‘A Bride Ball . . .’
     
    ‘ T heir boy’s gone missing in the woods.’
    ‘The baker’s boy? Jack?’
    ‘They didn’t send him alone, did they?’
    ‘No, young Greta was with him. She came back. She must have had a fever though, because she was full of wild stories.’
    Cinderella was on the edge of the huddle outside the tiny store where a tired, red-eyed man had just sold her a small loaf. She’d wondered why he hadn’t given her a wink and a smile as normal, but she’d just put it down to the terrible cold that rushed in every time a new customer opened the door and the fact that she wasn’t in the best of moods herself and maybe that showed. But now she knew and the icy wind was nothing to the cold at the pit of her stomach. Jack was a good boy. He had his father’s cheerful disposition and worked hard. Nothing bad could have happened to Jack? Surely not.
    She listened to the low chattering voices around her.
    ‘What do you mean, “wild stories”?’
    ‘Well,’ the old woman leaned in closer and her friends did the same. Standing just behind them, Cinderella couldn’t help but feel that the subject of their conversation was obvious to the poor grief-stricken man on the other side of the window. But still she stepped a little closer too, in order to hear them.
    ‘It was preposterous. Obviously she just couldn’t cope with whatever had really happened, but she said that they’d stayed on the normal path, just like they’d been told to and just like they’d always done, but that the woods had moved somehow – the path had changed – and then before she knew it they were lost in the dense trees. They walked through the night—’
    ‘But that can’t be right!’ a thin woman with a crooked nose cut in. ‘She was back within a few hours, that’s what my Jeannie told me and she lives near Greta’s family.’
    ‘Like I said, she must’ve had a fever or something. But this is the story she told , and that’s the one you wanted to hear. Right?’
    ‘Well, yes . . .’
    ‘Then be quiet and listen.’ The speaker pulled her shawl tighter round her shoulders and sniffed before continuing. ‘So, they walked through the night and then they found this clearing. Right in the centre of it is a house. Made of cakes and candy according to Greta.’
    A few snorts of derision accompanied this but any thought of laughter died with the next words. ‘There was an old lady there. She invited them inside. Greta said no, but Jack went in. When he didn’t come out, Greta went round to the back of the house to see if there was a window with the curtains open that she could see through.’
    ‘What did she see?’ They might have laughed originally but, just like Cinderella, the old women were being drawn into the story.
    ‘Nothing. She saw what was piled up at the back of the house and she turned and ran back into the woods. She said she ran and ran until somehow she found her way back to the path.’
    ‘Don’t be a tease, Gertrude. It’s freezing out here. What did she see?’
    ‘Bones,’ the woman’s voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘Small bones. Children’s bones.’
    There was a long pause after that.
    ‘Pah,’ the thin woman said, eventually. ‘The boy got eaten by wolves and the girl got a fever. That’s what that will be.’
    ‘They need to do something about those woods.’ The words were out almost before Cinderella knew she was speaking. ‘They need more soldiers guarding them. We can’t have a whole generation of children growing up scared to go into the woods. We need the woods.’ She was repeating what Rose had said even though when her step-sister had spoken, Cinderella had been bored by it. But now she knew one of the children who’d vanished and that made everything different. Rose’s words, much as it irked her, made sense. The three women turned to stare at her.
    ‘It’s true,’ Cinderella stammered on. ‘Someone needs