{"product_id":"gretel-and-the-dark-isbn-9781594633959","title":"Gretel and the Dark","description":"\u003cb\u003eA captivating and atmospheric historical novel about a young girl in Nazi Germany, a psychoanalyst in fin-de-siècle Vienna, and the powerful mystery that links them together.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eGretel and the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e explores good and evil, hope and despair, showing how the primal thrills and horrors of the stories we learn as children can illuminate the darkest moments in history, in two rich, intertwining narratives that come together to form one exhilarating, page-turning read. In 1899 Vienna, celebrated psychoanalyst Josef Breuer is about to encounter his strangest case yet: a mysterious, beautiful woman who claims to have no name, no feelings—to be, in fact, a machine. Intrigued, he tries to fathom the roots of her disturbance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYears later, in Nazi-controlled Germany, Krysta plays alone while her papa works in the menacingly strange infirmary next door. Young, innocent, and fiercely stubborn, she retreats into a world of fairy tales, unable to see the danger closing in around her. When everything changes and the real world becomes as frightening as any of her stories, Krysta finds that her imagination holds powers beyond what she could ever have guessed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRich, compelling, and propulsively building to a dizzying final twist, \u003ci\u003eGretel and the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e is a testament to the lifesaving power of the imagination and a mesmerizingly original story of redemption.\"As haunting, lyrical, and enchanting as the fairy tales Krysta is so taken with, Granville’s bittersweet first novel will keep readers hooked, guessing and wondering how Lilie and Krysta’s stories relate, right up to the end.\"—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal \u003c\/i\u003e(starred)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003eGretel and the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e, Eliza Granville masterfully entwines two richly layered and compelling stories of two seemingly different worlds. Filled with remarkable historical detail and stunning prose, both Krysta’s and Lilie’s stories captivated me, and Granville kept me quickly turning the pages to discover the connection between these two girls. By turns beautiful and frightening, magical and dark, this is a novel that will stay with me for a long time to come.”\u003cbr\u003e—Jillian Cantor, author of \u003ci\u003eMargot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dark and intriguing . . .  a highly clever, original book.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Daily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A powerful story, sensitively told…a terrifying tale about the stories we hear and the stories we tell ourselves to understand our experiences…it’s impossible not to find yourself racing through the pages, desperate to discover the connections…heartbreaking and heart-racing.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e (UK)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Atmospheric and beautifully written…a subtle and thoughtful novel. It seems soon to call it, but \u003ci\u003eGretel and the Dark \u003c\/i\u003ewill be one of the best books of 2014.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe List \u003c\/i\u003e(UK)\u003cb\u003eEliza Granville\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Worcestershire and currently lives in the Welsh Marches.\u003cb\u003ePrologue\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is many years before the Pied Piper comes back for the other children. Though his music has been silenced, still thousands are forced to follow him, young, old, large, small, everyone . . . even the ogres wearing ten-league boots and cracking whips, even their nine-headed dogs. We are the rats in exodus now and the Earth shrinks from the touch of our feet. Spring leaves a bitter taste. All day, rain and people fall; all night, nixies wail from the lakes. The blood-colored bear sniffs at our heels. I keep my eyes on the road, counting white pebbles, fearful of where this last gingerbread trail is leading us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHas the spell worked? I think so: coils of mist lap at our ankles, rising to mute all sounds, swallowing everyone around us whole. When the moment comes, we run blind, dragging the Shadow behind us, stopping only when my outstretched hand meets the rough bark of pine trunks. One step, two, and we’re inside the enchanted forest, the air threaded with icy witch breaths. The day collapses around us. Phantom sentries swoop from the trees, demanding names, but our teeth guard the answers so they turn away, flapping eastward in search of the cloud-shrouded moon. Roots coil, binding us to the forest floor. We crouch in a silence punctuated by the distant clatter of stags shedding their antlers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe wake, uneaten. Every trace of mist has been sucked away by the sun. The landscape seems empty. We haven’t come far: I can see where the road runs, but there’s no sign of anything moving along it. It’s quiet until a cuckoo calls from deep within the trees.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Listen.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kukulka,” he says, shielding his eyes as he searches the topmost branches.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Kuckuck,” I tell him. He still talks funny. “She’s saying ‘Kuckuck’!”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe gives his usual jerky shrug. “At least we’re free.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Only if we keep moving. Come on.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Shadow whimpers, but we force it upright and, supporting it between us, move slowly along the edge of the trees until we come to fields where ravens are busy gouging out the eyes of young wheat. Beyond, newly buried potatoes shiver beneath earth ridges. Cabbages swell like lines of green heads. When we kneel to gnaw at their skulls, the leaves stick in our throats.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe carry on walking, feet weighted by the sticky clay, until the Shadow crumples. I pull at its arm. “It’s not safe here. We must go farther. If they notice we’ve gone—” Keep going. We have to keep going. Surely sooner or later kindly dwarves or a softhearted giant’s wife must take pity on us. But fear has become too familiar a companion to act as a spur for long. Besides, we’re carrying the Shadow now. Its head lolls, the wide eyes are empty, and its feet trail behind, making two furrows in the soft mud. It could be the death of us.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“We should go on alone.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No,” he pants. “I promised not to leave—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I didn’t.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Then you go. Save yourself.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe knows I won’t go on without him. “No good standing here talking,” I snap, hooking my arm under the Shadow’s shoulder and wondering how something thin as a knife blade can be so heavy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnother rest, this time perched on the mossy elbow of an oak tree, attempting to chew a handful of last year’s acorns. Only the sprouted ones stay down. The Shadow lies where we dropped it, facing the sky, though I notice its eyes are completely white now. Without warning it gives a cry, the loudest noise it’s ever made, followed by a gasp and a long, juddering out-breath. I finish spitting out the last of the acorns. The Shadow isn’t doing its usual twitching and jumping; it doesn’t even move when I push my foot into its chest. After a moment I gather handfuls of oak leaves and cover its face.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe tries to stop me. “Why are you doing that?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s dead.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No!” But I can see the relief as he pulls himself onto his knees to check. “After enduring so much, still we die like dogs . . . pod plotem . . . next to a fence, under a hedge.” He closes the Shadow’s eyes. “Baruch dayan emet.” It must be a prayer: his lips go on moving but no sound emerges.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“But we’re not going to die.” I tug at his clothes. “Shadows never last long. You always knew it was hopeless. Now we can travel faster, just you and me.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe shakes me off. “The ground here is soft. Help me dig a grave.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Won’t. There’s no time. We have to keep going. It’s already past midday.” I watch him hesitate. “Nothing will eat a shadow. There’s no meat on it.” When he doesn’t move, I trudge away, forcing myself not to look back. Eventually he catches up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe path continues to weave between field and forest. Once, we catch sight of a village but decide it’s still too near the black magician’s stronghold to be safe. Finally, even the sun starts to abandon us, and our progress slows until I know we can drag ourselves no farther. By now the forest has thinned; before us stretches an enormous field with neat rows as far as the eye can see. We’ve pushed deep between the bushy plants before I realize it’s a field of beans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What does it matter?” he asks wearily.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Cecily said you go mad if you fall asleep under flowering beans.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No flowers,” he says curtly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe’s wrong, though. A few of the uppermost buds are already unfurling white petals, ghostly in the twilight, and in the morning it’s obvious we should have pressed on, for hundreds of flowers have opened overnight, dancing like butterflies on the breeze, spreading their perfume on the warming air.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Let me rest for a bit longer,” he whispers, cheek pressed against the mud, refusing to move, not even noticing a black beetle ponderously climbing over his hand. “No one will find us here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis bruises are changing color. Where they were purple-black, now they are tinged with green. When he asks for a story, I remember what Cecily told me about two children who came out of a magic wolf pit. They had green skin, too.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It was in England,” I tell him, “at harvesttime, a very long time ago. A boy and a girl appeared suddenly, as if by magic, on the edge of the cornfield. Their skin was bright green and they wore strange clothing.” I look down at myself and laugh. “When they spoke, nobody could understand their fairy language. The harvesters took them to the Lord’s house, where they were looked after, but they would eat nothing at all, not a thing, until one day they saw a servant carrying away a bundle of beanstalks. They ate those but never the actual beans.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Why didn’t they eat the beans like anyone else?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Cecily said the souls of the dead live in the beans. If you ate one you might be eating your mother or your father.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“That’s plain silly.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’m only telling you what she said. It’s a true story, but if you don’t want me to—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No, go on,” he says, and I notice in spite of his superior tone he’s looking uneasily at the bean flowers. “What happened to the green children?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“After they ate the beanstalks, they grew stronger and learned to speak English. They told the Lord about their beautiful homeland where poverty was unknown and everyone lived forever. The girl said that while playing one day they’d heard the sound of sweet music and followed it across pastureland and into a dark cave—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Like your story of the Pied Piper?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes.” I hesitate, remembering that in Cecily’s story the boy died and the little girl grew up to be an ordinary wife. “I don’t remember the rest.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe’s silent for a moment, then looks at me. “What are we going to do? Where can we go? Who can we turn to? Nobody has ever helped us before.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“They said help was coming. They said it was on its way.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Do you believe it?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes. That’s why we must keep walking towards them.” Beneath the bruises, his face is chalk-white. His arm doesn’t look right and he winces whenever he tries to move it. There’s fresh blood at the corners of his mouth. And suddenly I’m so angry I might explode. “I wish I could kill him.” My fists clench so hard my nails dig in. I want to scream and spit and kick things. He continues to look questioningly at me. “I mean the man who started it all. If it hadn’t been for him—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Didn’t you hear what everyone was whispering? He’s already dead.” Again, the small shrug. “Anyway, my father said if it hadn’t been him there’d have been someone else just like him.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“And maybe then it would have been someone else here, not us.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe smiles and squeezes my hand. “And we would never have met.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes, we would,” I say fiercely. “Somehow, somewhere—like in the old stories. Still I wish it could have been me that killed him.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Too big,” he says weakly. “And too powerful.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI knuckle my eyes. “Then I wish I’d been even bigger. I would have stepped on him or squashed him like a fly. Or I wish he’d been even smaller. Then I could have knocked him over and cut off his head or stabbed him in the heart.” We sit in silence for a while. I think about all the ways you could kill someone shrunk to Tom Thumb size. “We ought to go now.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Let me sleep.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Walk now. Sleep later.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“All right. But first tell me a story—one of your really long ones—about a boy and a girl who kill an ogre.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI think for a moment. None of my old stories seem bad enough until I realize there are other circumstances in which an ogre really could be killed. Thanks to Hanna, I know where. And I even know when. All of a sudden, I’m excited. “Once upon a time,” I begin, but see immediately I can’t start that way. It isn’t that sort of tale. He’s still holding my hand. I give it a sharp pull. “Get up. From now on I shall only tell you my story while we’re walking. The moment you stop, I shan’t say another word.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003ehe town of Gmunden, with its placid lake surrounded by high mountains, was a peaceful summer retreat until the morning Mathilde observed that a certain General Pappenheim had brutally suppressed a peasant rebellion there in 1626. The name stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentments. Pappenheim was also the family name of that Bertha creature—the young patient Josef had been so preoccupied with. The one he had never stopped talking about, worrying over, at mealtimes, bedtimes, morning, noon, and night, even when his own wife was so heavily pregnant. Why was that? Actually, she had a very good idea why, thank you very much, Doktor Josef Breuer. And she wasn’t the only one who thought along those lines. Ask Sigmund. He’d verify it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMathilde simply could not let the subject rest. The fact that almost two decades had passed made not a scrap of difference. Neither did Josef’s protestations. On and on the argument went, growing more accusatory, weighted with increasing bitterness, until he could stand it no longer and returned to Vienna alone. With the exception of the children’s old nurse, and the boy, of course, the house was empty.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt least it was quiet here. Or rather, after so many years, Josef was used to the muted noises from beyond the window. His mind no longer registered the distant rumble of trams or the grind and rattle of horse-drawn vehicles, the street cries, the high-pitched chatter of passing maidservants. Even late-night revelers and their cacophonic renditions of melodies by the recently deceased Strauss were barely noticed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithin his consulting room, only the somnolent pulse of the ancient clock usually broke the silence that filled the spaces between patients—and none of those would beat a path to his door until the rest of the family returned, marking the official end of his vacation. This morning, hunched over his desk, Josef became aware of another sound, a tremulous beat, a whisper-soft allegrissimo countermelody to the groan of the clock. It seemed so much a part of him that he clutched at his chest, suddenly alarmed. However, it was not, after all, the arrhythmic fluttering of his heart but merely the frantic escape bid of a rag-winged butterfly confused by the glass. That this realization took so long was a measure of how disturbing he’d found the earlier incident.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt had required enormous effort to unlock the girl’s fingers. He’d never before encountered such prehensile determination. The cat was still hiding beneath the bureau. Perhaps it was dead, for during the struggle, Gudrun, shrieking with fury, had seized its head, forcibly yanking it free of the girl’s hands. Clawing empty air as it fell, the animal added its own banshee howl to the din. Benjamin, lurking beyond the door, had immediately bounded into the room. Pandemonium. And yet the girl continued to stare straight ahead, wordless, blank.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat had the animal done to warrant her assault? Plenty of people disliked cats, and some were reputed to have found them terrifying—Napoleon, Meyerbeer, the dissolute Henry III of England—but there were few who, expressionless and without even glancing down, would seize one by the neck and proceed to crush its windpipe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef rose from his desk with a sigh, keeping well back in the shadow of the curtain as he opened the window. After a moment’s hesitation, the butterfly—a Großer Kohlweißling, summer ravager of cabbage patches, against whose progeny Benjamin waged constant war—exited to certain death. He watched it flutter upwards, keeping close to the building as it battled against the breeze. Not, after all, a Cabbage White: the sooty black spots on the forewings were too large, unusually pronounced, even for a female. It was a rare subspecies, perhaps, though it hardly mattered. The dying year had a voracious appetite for such delicate creatures. Today Josef could smell autumn on the air, a mixture of wood smoke and fungus, death and decay. He sensed worms wreaking their transformation in the dark loam beneath the leaf mold. The trees were changing color. A few leaves had fallen. Faced with the prospect of a bleak winter, his mood always veered towards the melancholic, never more so than this year, which marked not only the end of the present century but also the end of love. Mathilde had turned from him. Her moods, this difficult passage marking an end to her fertility, would pass; life would settle down again. But the harsh words, those vile accusations. He tugged angrily at his beard. Things could never be the same between them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat remained? How could his declining years be faced, emotionally lacking, with affection rationed, touch denied? At least there was the steady acquisition of knowledge to sustain him—suum esse conservare. Thank God for work. And, as if to underline it, this intriguing case had simply fallen into his lap.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef returned to his chair and stared at the virgin page, as yet unsullied by whatever agonizing secrets were waiting to be unlocked. The facts would have to be recorded. He wrote a single word, Fräulein, and stopped. He scratched his head and looked about him at the familiar faces of his daily companions—the ancient clock, increasingly dragging its feet over the passing of time; the carved-wood deer’s head mounted with hugely branching six-point antlers, its gaze fixed on each patient, its ears pricked as if eternally eavesdropping; the portrait of his father, Leopold, watching, waiting. For over thirty years Josef had sat at this desk, never once lost for words. He should simply choose a name, any name, and alter it as soon as the girl’s identity was established. But still he hesitated. It was not an easy thing, for to name something established dominion over it. As with an infant, it shaped and molded the namer’s expectations of that which was named. It set apart. It emphasized human aloneness. A pseudonym was different, a mere cloak.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef thought back to his first glimpse of the girl in Benjamin’s arms, swaddled in a horse blanket, its coarse folds framing her pale and bloodied face, the gash on her throat a gaping second mouth, the shock of the naked skull, her eyes open but unseeing, as though fixed on a grim hereafter. In that moment, she had put him in mind of a broken flower. A flower name, then, for such was almost an endearment. Since she was so pale, so slender, and because it was his favorite flower, they would henceforth refer to her as Lilie.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDie Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne,\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDie liebt’ ich einst alle in Liebeswonne.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe decision galvanized Josef into action. Squaring up his notebook, he began to write.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFräulein Lilie X\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFräulein Lilie X appears to be in her early twenties and in good physical health. Nothing is known about her past life. Her well-kept hands and fine features suggest that she comes from the upper stratum of society. She was discovered unclothed on rough ground near the Narrenturm (27 August 1899). It is difficult to ascertain how long she lay there, but probably no more than twenty-four hours, as what has become known as the Tower of Fools is a favorite meeting place for schoolboys who congregate to throw stones at the lightning rod. Lilie’s condition was such that the boys who stumbled across her thought she was dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy primary examination revealed an exceptionally slow heartbeat and hardly discernible breathing. She appeared to have no awareness of self or others, neither reacting to the external world nor to the passage of time. Her eyes remained open but were similarly unresponsive to stimuli. Skin and mucous membranes appeared normal. The teeth are all present and sound. The patient’s head had been crudely shorn. There was severe bruising behind the ears and around the left eye. Two shallow incisions had been made in the throat, close together, probably with a small pocketknife. There was further bruising on the lower arms and wrists, partially obscuring a line of inked characters on the left, which appear to be permanent. I also found bruising on the inner thighs and buttocks but no indication of very recent sexual assault. There were abrasions on both left and right scapulae consistent with the patient having been dragged along the ground by the feet. The patient has remained comatose for three days, during which time she has not eaten or taken liquid apart from a few drops of water spooned between her lips.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef put down his pen, reluctant to revisit the moment of change. Instead he made his way to the kitchen, drawn by his nose to the prospect of freshly made Shlishkes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe relaxed, almost schlampig way in which the house was run in Mathilde’s absence was a holiday in itself. To perch on a stool amid the scrubbing and chopping, the beating and mixing, the basting and tasting, transported him back to childhood, when his grandmother had taken charge of his father’s house, especially as Gudrun was familiar with so many old Hungarian recipes. He took advantage of Gudrun’s turned back to palm surreptitiously one of the warm dumplings with its coating of sugar and caramelized bread crumbs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Leave them alone,” said Gudrun, without turning, and in the fearsome voice formerly reserved for the nursery. “They’re counted.” Josef said nothing. The old nurse had strict rules about speaking with one’s mouth full. She brought him coffee without being asked. “I’ve made some soup for the patient.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I doubt she’ll eat it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“She will, if I feed her.” Gudrun stood before him, arms akimbo, glaring.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s no good forcing food into her mouth if she can’t swallow—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGudrun snorted. “Can’t? Won’t. I’m surprised you’re still taken in after this morning’s little episode. Vicious, that was. The girl deserves a good hiding. She needs locking up.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef ignored the venom. “She’ll stay in her room for another few days. I’ve come to the conclusion that we brought her downstairs too soon.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“And I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s playacting, pretending to be dead to the world. You mark my words: there’s more to this than meets the eye. She’ll probably wait until we’re off guard and then let in her accomplices to ransack the silver and murder us all in our beds. Vienna’s not what it was, with all these strangers pouring into the city. I told you, plain as plain, you were bringing trouble into the house. Would you listen? No. Am I right? I am. And what’s the mistress going to say, tell me that? Frau Doktor Breuer won’t want her nicely brought-up daughters associating with a wench who’s probably no better than she should be—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“The girl was brutally attacked,” said Josef, in an attempt to stem the flow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGudrun moved the plate of Shlishkes out of reach. “There’s no need to raise your voice.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef was on the verge of forbidding force-feeding and then beating a hasty retreat when Benjamin clumped in carrying a frail piled high with vegetables, distracting Gudrun, who turned her bad temper on his muddy boots. The young man grinned, ignoring the ensuing threats.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How is she now, Herr Doktor?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“And you’ll scrub the floor until it’s clean enough to eat off,” Gudrun finished, adding: “Never mind her. It’s the cat’s health you should be asking after. If the poor creature’s still alive.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer eyes gleamed. Josef recalled that she’d never liked the animal. He set down his empty cup, nodding as Gudrun hovered with the coffeepot. “Thank you.” It was not his practice to discuss patients, but Benjamin’s quick action in bringing the girl . . . in bringing Lilie . . . here earned him the right to inquire. “Physically she’s much improved. The bruising—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I told him already, the bruises are fading,” Gudrun put in. “Almost gone, thanks to me. And those nasty cuts on her neck have more or less healed.” She sniffed. “I can’t shift those ink marks on her arm, though, no matter how hard I scrub.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“They’re tattoos,” Benjamin muttered, rolling his eyes. “Tell her, Herr Doktor. She takes no notice of me.” He glanced defiantly at Gudrun. “They’re tattoos. They won’t come off.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sailors have tattoos,” Gudrun said scornfully. “There’s a reason for that, which I won’t go into. No reason for one to be on a young woman’s arm.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Perhaps it’s decorative,” hazarded Josef. “People have decorated their bodies with tattoos since the beginning of time. They used to pierce the skin with thin sticks and sharpened bones. A painful process, I should imagine, but I understand a New York man’s invented a tattooing machine.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Must still hurt.” Benjamin winced as he unlaced the offending boots.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Leviticus 19, verse 28,” declared Gudrun. “‘You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe two men glanced at each other but said nothing. Josef had taken the presence of those marks to confirm Benjamin’s suspicions that Lilie could not possibly be a Jew. It mattered now that Vienna had lapsed into one of its periodic bouts of anti-Semitism: taunts and slogans, occasional skirmishes—nothing new. This time he suspected it was being fueled by Mayor Lueger for his own political ends, and exacerbated, as always, by ill-educated Roman Catholic priests exercising their fervid imaginations to embellish age-old myths of ritual murder, including the sacrifice of Christian babies. The blood libel trial of Hilsner in Bohemia hadn’t helped. The similarities between the discovery of Anežka Hruzová’s body—throat slashed, clothes half torn off—and that of Lilie had prompted the boy to act quickly for fear of reprisals against the Jewish community. Lucky for them it was Benjamin’s younger brother and his friend who’d found her: within an hour the girl was safely concealed within the respectable Breuer house. Benjamin was to be commended for taking their late-night conversations so seriously.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Anyway,” Gudrun continued, plunging her knife into the heart of a cabbage, “what self-respecting woman wants a string of lines and numbers decorating her wrist when she could have a nice bracelet? Whatever she is, the girl doesn’t look like a savage.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lilie,” said Josef. “I’ve decided we should call her Lilie.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Lilie,” echoed Benjamin, savoring the word. “Lilie. And has Lilie recovered since this morning? How is her mental state?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Never mind that,” said Gudrun. “What about this soup?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef stood. “I’ll take it up now.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Let me go. I’ll get her eating, see if I don’t,” Gudrun promised.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No,” insisted Josef. “Since she took water only from me, I should feed her.” He was immediately oppressed by a sense of déjà vu, and a tiny frisson of something akin to fear ran the length of his spine. This was history repeating itself. He remembered long passages when Bertha had accepted food only when he extended the spoon. Perhaps it might be better . . . Then he remembered Mathilde’s offensive accusations and turned his back on good sense. “I will feed her,” he said, more firmly this time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Then I shall carry the tray,” Gudrun said, just as firmly, fixing him with her eye. “You shouldn’t go alone.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJosef’s mouth tightened. For a moment the voices of his wife and Gudrun seemed to fuse into one. “The young woman needs no protection from me.” He avoided looking at Benjamin.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s your reputation I’m thinking of, Herr Doktor. What with the mistress away.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey trudged upstairs, both breathing heavily, both oppressed by their age. On reaching the guest-room door, Josef knocked out of courtesy, but Gudrun shoved past him, balancing the tray on one generously padded hip. Lilie was exactly as they’d left her, sitting bolt upright in the chair and staring straight ahead. Her eyes were wide open. Dull. Blank. The only difference Josef could find was that her left hand lay loosely cupped in her lap.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Some water first.” He held the glass to Lilie’s mouth. Meeting no response, he pushed a small spoonful of water between her lips. It spilled from the corners of her mouth, trickled down the sides of her neck, fingered under the plum-colored fabric, and continued stealthily downwards. Josef looked away. Gudrun had dressed the girl in outgrown family garments. Dark shades didn’t suit the girl’s pale complexion; some other arrangements would have to be made. After a moment he refilled the spoon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This time drink it,” commanded Gudrun. “Hurry up, the soup’s getting cold.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Shouting won’t achieve anything.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How’s it going to look if she starves to death, Herr Doktor? What then?” Gudrun leaned closer. “No good sitting there, mooning over whatever happened, my girl. Chances are you brought it on yourself anyway. What’s done is done. Get up and get on with life, that’s what I say.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Enough,” said Josef. “From now on, please remain silent at all times in Lilie’s presence.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Very well.” The direct order didn’t stop Gudrun from tapping Lilie sharply on the back of the neck as she passed. It couldn’t have hurt, but Lilie responded immediately with an audible intake of breath, jerking her head vigorously to one side and wriggling her shoulders. A soft pink, the color of wild-rose petals, crept up her cheeks. Her eyes brightened. She blinked and focused, not on Josef, who sat opposite her, but on an area somewhere above his left shoulder.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Vous\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Riverhead Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301685350629,"sku":"NP9781594633959","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781594633959.jpg?v=1767728503","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/gretel-and-the-dark-isbn-9781594633959","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}