Black Pearls by Louise Hawes Page A

tasted, an unknown pleasure that drew her on like the ants she'd seen break ranks and swarm, madly, passionately, across a drop of honey.
    Hansel must have been filled with the same images, the same scent. For together, without speaking, brother and sister rose and left the hollow of the tree. Side by side, they followed the bird's song to a nearby alder. The moment they reached the tree, though, the bird flew off and called to them from deeper in the forest. All morning they followed it, and as they walked, Gretel told her dream. With each detail she recalled, Hansel nodded, grinned. "Yes!" he said when she described the soft pink roof and the meringue that dripped from the eaves. "Exactly!" He even clapped his hands and slapped his knees when she told how the almond paste was carved into a door knocker and window boxes. "That's just how it is!" he told her.
    When at last they came to a clearing and saw the house, Gretel stood frozen, remembering the way the angel had blocked her way. But Hansel raced for the dream. "Come on, girl!" he called, without looking back. "We are saved!"
    The small swift—they could see it clearly now that it was out of the trees—that had led them here settled on the roof of the littie cottage. It preened its feathers and was suddenly silent, as if to announce that its job was done, that there was no longer need for singing.
    Hansel had already removed the marzipan door knocker and stuffed it into his mouth. Ravenous, he finished that and two sugarplums before he turned and scolded his sister. "Foolish thing!" he said. "Why do you stand there? Your angel sent you a dream of this good fortune." He laughed with unaccustomed abandon, and pointed to the bird on the roof. "And her heavenly messenger has led us here."
    But Gretel had not told him how the angel's finger still burned her chest. How she had actually checked under her shift to see if the skin was reddened there. It had not been, of course, and perhaps Hansel was right. Perhaps the angel had only meant that they should not take more than they needed, that they must repay the owner of the house for what they ate.
    "We must knock," she told her brother. "We must offer to work for our food."
    Hansel laughed again. "I have eaten the door knock, Gretel," he said, smiling like a naughty child, looking younger, lighter, and happier than she had ever seen him. "If we cannot knock, we shall sing for our supper, eh?" He came to her then and took her hand, wrapped his arm around her waist, and pulled her into a clumsy dance. Round and round he whirled her, singing the old song their father used to sing, until at last, giddy with his attention, she joined in:
"
Oranges and lemons,
" say the bells of St. Clements.
"
You owe me five farthings,
" say the bells of St. Martin.
    For an instant, as they spun past the front window, Gretel thought she spied a shadowy figure staring out at them. She clasped one hand to her mouth, but as Hansel twirled them nearer, she saw that the window's glass was made of boiled sugar, cloudy and mottled as still water in a pond. Over its surface, bobbing and weaving like falling leaves, were only their own silhouettes, their own dancing selves.
"
When will you pay me?" say
the bells of Old Bailey.
"
When I grow rich,
" say the bells of Shoreditch.
"
When will that be?
" say the bells of Stepney.
"
I do not know,
" says the great Bell of Bow.
    But she could not mistake the voice that stopped their dance. That was real, as rasping and ugly as the swift's had been beautiful. "Nibble, nibble, little mouse." Hansel let go his sister's hand when he heard it. "Who is nibbling on my house?"
    Too afraid to run, the children stood rooted to the spot. And again the crusty voice called to them from behind the very window where Gretel had dreamt shadows. "Perhaps 'tis the wind, heaven's child." The owner of the cottage laughed, but since the sound was closer to a growl, her paralyzed listeners were hardly reassured. "Only the wind,