saw the bread-peel, like a flat-bladed shovel with an iron blade and a long wooden handle, leaning up against the brick wall that held the oven. She ran to it and snatched it up as Pieter marched toward the oven, holding the Blood Witch out at arm’s length. The closer he got to the oven, the more she screamed. Giselle ran to his left side, as Rosa snatched up an ash-rake and converged on his right.
The heat from the fire was so intense it felt as if her skin was burning. Pieter shoved the screaming witch in through the oven doors, and as he pulled away, shaking his hands, Giselle and Rosa put their implements into the Blood Witch’s chest and shoved her all the way inside. They jumped back, and Pieter slammed the iron doors closed again and dropped the latch in place.
“Pieter!” Rosa exclaimed, dropping the rake to grab at one of his hands. “Are you . . .”
But Pieter chuckled. “Pieter not hurt. Pieter tough.” And sure enough, when Giselle examined his other hand, although there were scorch marks on it, he didn’t seem to have taken any real damage. Better than me . . . the skin on her face and hands felt very tender. On the other hand, we could be dead, so I think we got off easy. She was very glad Cody hadn’t been along. He probably would have tried something recklessly brave and gotten himself killed or badly wounded. Probably killed. He would have gallantly thrown himself in front of Rosa to protect her and just as gallantly been hacked to bits.
“Let’s get those children free,” Rosa said, patting his hand.
“Won’t they be as terrified of Pieter as they were of the Blood Witch?” Giselle asked, anxiously. But then she turned around, and saw that all of the children were now pressed up against the bars of their cages—saying nothing, but reaching out with yearning hands. The one little girl that had been free was huddled against the bars of the middlemost cage, eyes as big and round as teacups.
Giselle ran to the first cage. “It’s locked!” she said, rattling the door angrily. “And I’ll bet that wretched Witch had all the keys on her!”
The little girl burst into tears, but Pieter just laughed. “Pieter strong,” he pointed out, and proved it by putting a hand on each of two of the iron bars and literally bending the bars apart until the boy inside could squeeze out. He did the same with all the other cages, and the boy in the middle one fell on the girl who had been free and the two of them hugged and cried with happiness. It was so moving that Giselle felt a lump in her own throat.
Meanwhile the other five children clustered around Pieter and Rosa and Giselle and clung to them, some laughing, some crying, some doing both at the same time. The poor things were so filthy, their clothing in rags, their hair in dirty mats, that it was impossible even to tell what sex they were.
“Where did they come from? How did they get here?” Giselle asked, trying to figure out how to comfort them.
“Mutti left me in the woods an’ never came back,” said one.
“Mama and Papa died,” another said sadly. “I tried to find someone to live with, but they all sent me away.”
And so went the tragic stories. Three, the boy and the girl who still clung together, and the first one that had spoken, had been taken into the woods by a parent and left there. Three had been orphaned and had been searching for someone to give them a place to stay. And the last had run away from a father who beat him until his bones broke. All of them had found the cottage, been drawn to it, and had been taken in by what they thought was a kindly old woman, who fed them, and put them to bed—
—whereupon they woke up to find themselves in cages. Or, in the little girl’s case, the Blood Witch’s slave.
“She cooked an’ ate us,” the little girl said, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. “Since Hans an’ I got here, she ate Fritz, an’ Dietrick, an’ Franz, an’ Josef.”
“She likely ate a lot more than four,” Rosa muttered to Giselle and Pieter, who nodded. “It has been a while since someone from the Bruderschaft who was also an Earth Magician has been through here.”