Gretel was cold and damp. She also couldn't get a fire started. Normally, fired were easy. Pile some dry twigs over a little tinder, strike the flint with her belt knife, and get warm and cozy. Also, cook a meal and have enough light to see what you were eating.

Normally. Normally, Gretel had a pile of dry tinder and dry wood. Gretel's father was a woodcutter. Normally, even if food was short, there was plenty of firewood at their cottage, just waiting to be put on the hearth. Normally, even if there wasn't, Gretel knew some tricks that get damp wood burning. Normally, Gretel wasn't trapped outside where it had been raining for three days.

Gretel and her brother Hansel had made a small lean-to out of fallen branches and leaves (Gretel was a bit worried about the lean-to. She didn't know whose lands these were, but some lords could get difficult about what people did on their lands. She hadn't used anything besides fallen branches and a few ferns, which should be allowed. But, looking for their missing father should be allowed, too, and look how the Queen had reacted to that). She'd tried to get some wood to dry out in there, but all it did was get moldy. Two of the pine branches had even put out buds.

Water seeped through the lean-to's cover and dripped onto her head. It wasn't fair.

But, they needed a fire. It was cold and miserable, and the only food they'd found were roots so tough and bitter her teeth ached from trying to eat them. Hansel made snares (another thing that could get them hung if these weren't wild lands. The list kept getting longer and longer), but hadn't caught anything in them.

If they were hung, Gretel wondered if they'd be given a meal first. It almost seemed worth it.

She was still striking sparks from her flint when Hansel came back. He'd gone to check his snares again. If he'd caught something, Gretel decided she could eat it cold and raw if she had to. To her surprise, he was carrying three fish—great, big, fat ones.

"How did you get those?" she asked. They didn't have any hooks or tackle; and Hansel's attempts to catch them by hand, the way their father did, usually had him falling into the water. Gretel had seen one of the fish, a salmon, pop its head out of the water and do something that looked suspiciously as if it were laughing at him.

On the other hand, she really didn't care how he got it. They were fish. They were food.

"I had help." Hansel nodded towards a small figure walking along beside him.

Gretel hadn't noticed it before. It was only eight or so inches tall and looked like it might have been carved from old wood. She thought it might be some kind of forest sprite. The sprite was carrying a small bundle of very small slivers of wood. It looked up at her with large, dark eyes set in a face as innocent and round as a baby's.

"I am Groot," the sprite said.

X

The little sprite put down its wood by Gretel's failed attempt to make a fire and examined her tinder. It looked at it in digust before tossing the damp mess aside. "I am Groot," it said confidently as it made a smaller pyramid within Gretel's larger one with his twigs. Then, it took the sticks from the larger pyramid and began moving them around.

"I am Groot," it told Gretel, pointing at the smaller pile. Gretel just stared at it.

The sprite puffed its cheeks and glared at her. "I am Groot!" it said, jabbing its finger at the pile.

"I think he wants you to try lighting them," Hansel said.

He? The walking stick was a he? Well, the sprite didn't argue with Hansel, so it probably was. If sticks cared about being called he or she.

Whatever it was, it was magical and, since the last two magical people Gretel had met had tried to eat her and transported her to a half-drowned forest, Gretel decided not to make it—or him—angry. She hastily struck her flint again. Instead of going out (which was what she expected, magic twig or not), a couple sparks fell on the smaller pyramid of twigs, and they instantly blazed up, lighting all the wood. The new fire burned merrily, with none of the smoke or reluctant smoldering damp wood usually had.

"How. . . ?"

"I am Groot," the sprite said with a smug smile.

Gretel turned to her brother. "How'd you find him?"

"I saw some footprints and followed them," Hansel said. He sat down beside her under the lean-to and got out his knife, picking up a stick to whittle into something they could cook a fish on.

Gretel picked up another stick and began doing the same. "They must have been tiny," she said. "How'd you see them?"

"What? Oh, no, these were human footprints."

"Human? There's someone out there?" Could it be their father? Only, she wasn't sure their father was in this forest. The compass hadn't led them to him so far. But, it was a person, someone who could help them.

Or maybe not. The queen was human. The witch who'd tried to eat them had been human, too (probably). Besides (she looked guiltily at the lean-to that might or might not get them hung), people wouldn't have to be witches to get them in trouble.

"It's not Father," Hansel said. "The feet were too small. And barefoot."

Barefoot in this rain? That wasn't good. Maybe someone else the queen had been mad at? "We should find them. The footprints had to be fresh if the rain hasn't washed them away."

"I tried. The only one I found was Groot."

Gretel looked at Groot. "Do you know where they are?"

Groot gave her a severe look. "I am Groot," he said firmly. It sounded like a warning.

"But, they'll be cold. They don't even have shoes!"

Groot rolled his eyes. "I am Groot." Clearly, shoes didn't matter to him.

"You may not need shoes, but people do."

Groot nodded solemnly. "I am Groot."

His tone sounded like he was saying, Yes, exactly. Gretel tried to figure it out while the sprite pulled three roasting stakes out from under a bush and began fixing the fish onto them.

Yes, exactly.

"You're saying whoever made the footprints isn't . . . human?"

"I am Groot," the sprite said cheerfully, handing her a fish to hold over the fire, glad that she'd finally got it. He handed Hansel another one.

"Is it something . . . dangerous?"

The sprite hesitated. "I am . . . Groot?"

Did that mean Maybe?

The sprite saw her fear and laughed. "I am Groot!" he said.

Gretel supposed that meant Don't worry, nothing's going to happen, from the way the sprite turned his attention to trying to heft his fish-on-a-stick over the fire. It looked awkward, and Gretel was half-afraid he might fall in.

"And I," a cold, accusing voice spoke up from behind them, "Am the demon Curupira. What are you doing in my forest?"

The sprite shrieked in terror, not even saying anything about being Groot. The fish fell into the fire. Gretel and Hansel peered out of the lean-to as the creature walked around it to confront them.