Following a Trail of Breadcrumbs...

As promised, here's the first page of a retold story. Working on a few new ones for next week. Enjoy!

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My beard may be gray now, and my bones sore, but the smell of pfeffernusse still makes me wretch inside. I watch my grandchildren make their gingerbread houses-- as my children did, and Greta and I when we were babes-- and try to resist the urge to fling them into the fiery hearth. These old bones are too tired to do such a thing, even if it wouldn’t frighten my family. My sister and I never told a soul what happened to us so many years ago, when we were lost in the woods. My grandchildren revel in the smell of Christmas and St. Nikolas that only reminds me of pain and helplessness.

“Hans, come tell the children a story before bed.”

Silent as a spirit, Greta appears at my side. She is as gray as I am, but her bones are not so sore. Her clear blue eyes crinkle with concern. “You’re thinking of the woods again, aren’t you?”

“Can you look upon one of those houses without thinking the same thing?”

But it is as if I don’t even see these little houses or the children playing.

In my mind I see a house in the woods, sun dappling through the trees off of gingerbread shingles and candy window-panes. I can almost taste it. I haven’t eaten sweets in forty-five years. Not since Greta and I finally found our way home.

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Enter The Great The Hollow Giveaway HERE until October 16th.