For anyone who is reading 'The girl from the storm' (formally Bat-baby) this is why I've stopped for a short while! I don't own Batman. I might forget to disclaim so let's make it clear now.
Dick Grayson placed a hand to his head as he stirred. He felt a sickening sensation in his stomach and tried to remember how he had got wherever he was. He was in some sort of bed from the covers that rested above him and the soft mattress below him. Slowly, he sat up and looked round. He was in a small bedroom. The room was bare and wasn't his. There was old hand made wooden furniture and a dusty glass window. Dick sat up and looked around. He needed to work out where he was. He sat up and moved towards the wardrobe, at least he could work out what sort of room he was in. He then saw some closes that were brown and white. There were a few pairs of old but also well loved brown trousers. They had been repaired by patches of mismatching material. There were white shirts nearly folded but it was clear to Dick that they were covered in stains. There was also several brown waist coats, some with buttons, some without. They had been repaired several times as well. Then Dick realised that he was dressed in the same sort of clothes as were in the wardrobe. He eyed them suspiciously and reached into the pockets. There were several wood chips, suggesting he worked it wood and a few nails. He walked over on a wooden table and saw that the nail matched the one on the table.
So I'm some sort of carpenter or something and I'm clearly poor, Dick concluded.
Then he heard a familiar voice talking just outside the room. He pressed his ear against the wooden door so that he could listen in.
"I'm just going to check on Hansel, see if he's woken up."
He heard the sound of approaching footsteps and then the door was opened. A girl with red hair stood in the doorway. She smiled and moved closer to Dick. She was dressed in a brown dress with a white apron on the front. The dress had clearly been repaired several times but not as many as his. Dick recognised her.
"Barbara?" he managed. "Why are you dressed like that?"
"I see your brief time in dream land hasn't made you any less weird, Hansel." the girl said. "You know full well what my name is."
"It's Barbara." Dick said, making himself sound sure.
"No, it's Gretel, you know, I'm your sister." Gretel said. Dick looked at her. "Hansel, what's wrong? You've gone really pale." Dick collapsed back onto the bed. "Father! Father!" Gretel called. "Hansel's fainted again."
When Dick woke up, he saw Bruce's face smiling down at him. He smiled and pulled him into a hug.
"Am I glad to see you." Dick murmured into Bruce's neck.
The twelve year old fought back his tears. He had been scared and the other world confused him no end. He just wanted to have a nice glass of milk and a few of Alfred's famed cookies.
"Whoa, Hansel, you only fainted. You're acting like you have been away." Bruce said.
"I have been away. I went to..." Dick began. "Why did I faint? And why did you call me Hansel?" "That's your name." Bruce answered. "And I don't know why you fainted. You were fine at the wedding and then when you got home you just passed out."
"Who's wedding were we at?" Hansel said.
Gretel appeared by Bruce's side and looked at Hansel.
"You know! Father's!" Gretel chanted.
"What do you mean, father's?"
"It was my wedding, Hansel." Bruce said.
"To who?" Dick asked.
He wasn't sure what was happening, he just knew that something was wrong. A woman appeared in the doorway. She smiled at Bruce and then walked to his side. They kissed and smiled at each other.
"Me." the woman said. Dick recognised her but couldn't place who she was. "You remember me, Pamela Isley."
"Pamela Wayne now." Bruce said triumphantly. Dick realised who she was and gasped.
"Poison Ivy."
When Dick and Gretel – he wanted to call her Barbara but she clearly got annoyed when he called her that – had been sent to bed, Dick had crept into Gretel's room. She was dressed in a long white night shirt.
"What on Earth are you doing, Hansel?" she gasped.
Dick looked at her. He needed to get some things clear in his head. It was going to be fine. He guessed it was all a dream but time with Batman had made him curious about anything and he had never not liked understanding.
"So I'm Hansel, you're Gretel and Bruce is our father."
"And Pamela is our stepmother." Gretel added. "Why do you keep calling me Barbara?" "You just remind me of a girl called Barbara." Dick said, slowly. "What else do I need to know?"
"Well, it's the middle of a famine and we're really poor."
"Makes a difference from what I used to." Dick remarked.
"We can't even afford food. You've been helping father out as a lumberjack to give us enough money." Gretel explained slowly.
She seemed really upset. Dick looked at her with a frown. He was about to try to comfort her but he then heard voices in the corridor. He began to listen in to what was being said downstairs. Then he pushed the door open and crept out.
"Pamela, we can't do this!" Bruce roared.
"We are going to starve if we don't do this!" Pamela shouted back.
Bruce was pacing the room; Dick could hear his violent footfalls. Pamela and Bruce were both angry. Suddenly Pamela moved closer and pressed her lips against Bruce's. The reaction was magical. Bruce stopped and stood still. He looked straight at Pamela. Dick moved around on the staircase so he could look down properly. Dick watched the fight as it ended. Pamela had won.
"Here is what is going to happen." Pamela instructed. "You are going to take those two brats of your into the woods and leave them there. Then you will return and we will act as if none of it has happened."
Dick's keen eyes focused on Bruce's. They seemed far away as if he was focusing on something very far away. He realised that she had Bruce in her power. Bruce was going to take him and Gretel into the woods just like the story. He needed to do something.
Dick retreated to his room and looked around. He had to do something. There had to be something he could do. If this wasn't a dream and it was real life then he could die. Even if it was a dream he couldn't bear the idea of leaving Bruce alone with Pamela and make him feel guilty about abandoning Gretel and him. He opened the window in his room and slid out onto the window ledge, having made a decision. He scanned the area but it was dark. He knew he wouldn't be able to go far. He could make out a tree near his window. He grabbed on to the closest branch and pulled himself out into the night. He dropped out and began to work around the outskirts of the nearby wood.
In the night he could see little white stones dotted around. He picked up each of the stones and stuffed them into his pockets. He prayed that Bruce would somehow manage to fight off the
effects of Pamela enough to not take them too deep. He knew he would have to make a trail to lead them out of the woods. He turned and returned back to the house, just hoping he had enough.
In the morning, Dick was awoken by Bruce walking into his room. He smiled and looked at Bruce. There was still the glistening far away look in Bruce's eyes. Dick knew that something was wrong. He pulled on a waistcoat and began to load the pebbles from his other trousers. Bruce looked at him but Dick managed to hide it.
"Hansel, I just want you to know that I love you and Gretel, okay? You know that." Bruce began. "I want you to make sure your sister is okay. Protect her no matter what happens."
"Why are you telling me this?" Dick asked, wondering if he could get Bruce to tell him Pamela's plan.
He couldn't blame Bruce. Pamela seemed to have the same mind control powers as she did as Poison Ivy and had clearly used her powers on Bruce so that she could live. Dick could understand it. Even Bruce looked less powerful, more hungry and exhausted.
"I just don't want anything to happen to you, son." Bruce said and hugged Dick.
The boy smiled and handed Bruce one of the white round pebbles he had collected the night before. He made that the start of his trail. He made it a sign that he would come back as well.
The woods were deep and dark. There was nothing that Dick could see apart from darkness. He could tell that Bruce knew the way and Dick walked as if he did was well. Gretel was skipping along side him, singing peaceful songs. Dick wondered if Barbara always acted like that when she was in the country side and decided that he might end up making Barbara there. Pamela looked at them all. She was watching the children very suspiciously. Dick was carefully letting the pebbles drop out of his pocket. He wanted to make sure that Pamela didn't see the pebbles. If she caught him then she might put him under her spell. It wasn't like Bruce was going to do something about it. Gretel looked at him and then saw that he was dropping the pebbles. She walked close to his side and asked him what he was doing.
"They're going to
leave us in the woods. It'll lead us back to the house."
"Father would never do that. You must be joking." Gretel said, with a nervous laugh.
She looked at Dick and the boy managed to hold an emotion glaze, telling her that he wasn't joking. Dick wanted to call her Barbara and make her understand. He could see a flicker of her recognising the situation as serious and Batman related business but it soon faded.
"I'm not joking." Dick said. "If I was joking, I would be laughing."
Understanding, Gretel took a couple of the pebbles and began to help Dick drop them.
Bruce and Pamela said they were going to go and see if they could get some berries for them to eat. Dick looked at Gretel. She was sitting on the floor and her dress was dancing around her like a sea. She looked really pretty and Dick smiled. If she was not somehow his sister, he might have just kissed her then. Gretel smiled at him.
"They've left us, haven't they?" she asked.
She was strangely calm and Dick wondered if there was a bit of his Barbara seeping through.
"Probably." Dick said calmingly.
"How are you so calm?" Gretel asked.
"I've been in worse." Dick replied.
He offered Gretel a smooth smile and then began to toss one of the pebbles he had left in the air. Gretel watched him and then her eyes drifted to the world they could see through the trees.
"You know it is getting dark. Should we head back?"
"Yeah." Dick agreed, standing up. "Do you want me to tell you a story?" Gretel nodded so Dick proceeded to tell her stories from his time as Robin.
Dick smiled when they saw the house. He had left his pebbles along the path in case they were taken back out that way. It meant he wouldn't have to risk Pamela finding out and doing the same thing to him as she did to Bruce. He pushed the door open and let Gretel go in first. Suddenly strong hands grabbed the two of them and held them close. Dick was surprised but pleased to find it was Bruce who was holding him and Gretel.
"How are you?" Bruce asked. "I thought we'd lost you."
"Dick knew the way." Gretel said.
It was only half a lie. Dick had known the way back because he had felt markers. Bruce smiled and ruffled his son's hair. Dick smiled about the pride on Bruce's face. He knew that this Bruce was not the real one but he still enjoyed Bruce's appreciation of his skills. Pamela was not impressed but she managed to hide it. She rushed over and hugged the two children. Dick couldn't help but pull away. Gretel looked at him strangely but her new found respect for her 'brother' meant she didn't question him. Pamela saw a bulge in Dick's pocket and stopped him with a glare. Dick's heart skipped a beat. He must have left a pebble in his pocket.
"What's that?" Pamela asked with a dangerous edge.
She had noticed that Dick was panicking. He reached into his pocket and found that the bulge was nothing more than a large amount of sawdust. He picked out a pinch of it and offered it to Pamela. She smiled but still seemed suspicious. Dick smiled once again and rushed upstairs, happy to escape.
Dick was lying in his bed, when he heard voices downstairs. It was Pamela giving orders to Bruce once again. Dick pressed the door to his room open and crept downstairs. He looked around and his eyes settled on Bruce and Pamela.
They're going to take us into the wood again tomorrow. Dick thought.
He continued to listen in. Pamela was trying to work out how he and Gretel had got back. Dick smiled, guessing that she had not read the story of Hansel and Gretel. Bruce wasn't answering at first then he began to place with the pebble Dick had given it. Pamela caught sight of it and gasped.
"Where did you get that?" she snapped.
"Hansel gave it to me." Bruce replied.
Dick realised that the man was under Pamela's power. He gulped and looked down.
"Hansel. Of course, that brat must have left a trail." Pamela concluded.
Upon hearing his new name, Dick leapt backwards and slammed against the wooden wall of the staircase. Pamela and Bruce both heard it.
"Grab the brat!" Pamela ordered.
Bruce looked at Dick for a few seconds and then raced up the stairs. Dick tried to run off but Bruce was faster. He grabbed Dick by the collar and pulled him down the stairs. Dick covered his mouth in case Pamela wanted to put him under her control. He wanted to call out for Gretel but he didn't want to put her in danger. He looked at Pamela. "Let me go!" Dick shouted. "Leave me alone."
"Lock him in his room, sweet heart. We can't have him sneaking out." Pamela said.
Gretel had come out into the hallway when she had heard Dick's shouting and was horrified to find that her father was manhandling her struggling brother into his room. Gretel watched with a worried look on her face.
"What are you doing?" she shouted.
"Gretel, just get in your room." Dick said.
Gretel refused. She looked at them and then ran forwards, trying to pull Dick free. Pamela looked at her.
"Get in your room!" Pamela screamed.
Bruce grabbed both of the children and threw Gretel into her room. Pamela closed and locked the window that was inside. Dick winced as he heard the sound of someone being slapped. Then she locked the door. Dick looked at Bruce and Pamela.
"Did you just hit her?" Dick roared.
He managed to clip Pamela when his feet went flying. Dick was highly tempted to break out some of his Robin moves to teach Pamela a lesson but Bruce was somehow just as strong as he was in normal life. He wrestled Dick into his room and pinned him against the wall. Pamela locked the window and then looked at Dick. He stared at her with defiance in his blue eyes. She smiled cruelly and had Bruce knock him out.
When Dick woke up he was lying on the sofa. Gretel was leaning over him. She had a black ring around one of her eyes and working it's way onto her cheek. Her face was full of concern and Dick briefly wondered how much bruising Bruce had left him with. A sharp pain was rippling down his neck when he sat up. It was just like any beating he had had at the hands of a criminal apart from they had no medical equipment to check on the damage and it had been done by Bruce. It felt hundreds of times worse. "Hansel, are you okay?" Gretel asked.
Dick nodded slowly and Gretel hugged him.
"I didn't get any stones." Dick managed.
Gretel told him it didn't matter but Dick said it did. If they were left in the wood again today like he knew Pamela was intending then they needed a way back. Gretel began to search the room for something they could use as Dick realised that he was lying on the sofa. It was nearly time for them to leave. He then noticed a bit of nearly mouldy bread on the side.
"What's that?" Dick asked.
"Your lunch." Gretel replied, showing Dick that she had a similar lunch.
Dick decided it would be safer to go without a meal then to eat something like that for the day. He then had a great idea. He decided he would drop bread crumbs in the place of pebbles.
As Dick walked along, he broke the bread in his pocket and dropped large enough crumbs to make a trail he could see. Bruce and Pamela walked ahead of the children, flirting and smiling. Gretel was walking by Dick's side, trying to hide how upset she was about the obvious limp he had. Dick thought about his life in Gotham and wondered whether he would ever get back to it. The real Bruce would be getting worried and so would the real Barbara.
Or maybe these are the real ones. Dick considered. Maybe I was the only one of us who managed to break free of this strange dream. It could be mind control or a trap constructed by Poison Ivy. It's not like I've seen anyone else in this strange world, maybe it is only us.
"Hansel, I'm not sure whether I want to go home after this." Gretel said, drawing Dick from his thoughts.
He looked at her and managed a weak and forced smile. He considered everything, how Bruce was clearly under Pamela's power, how they needed to free him from it and how he needed to get back to his home.
"I don't want to either but we need to free our father and I need to work out why I can't remember any of this."
"You still can't remember?" Gretel exclaimed.
"You remember those stories I told you yesterday? I can remember things like that and I'm sure that's my life but if it is then this world could be a dream or a trap or..."
"You've been my brother since you were born." Gretel said. "If this is not the real world then how can I remember growing up with you?"
"I don't know." Dick said slowly. "But my real name, the name I'm used to at least, is Dick Grayson. Your name was Barbara Gordon and I was adopted by a man called Bruce Wayne. He's going to be worried sick about me if I'm not in his world."
Dick looked down at the ground and Gretel could tell how sad he seemed. He seemed as if he was heart broken. Still he fought on.
"Would you like me to tell you another story?" Dick asked.
When they reached the new spot they would be abandoned from, there was no subtle excuses to allow Pamela and Bruce to leave. They told the children their intent. Dick already knew but he could see the horror in Gretel's eyes. Her eyes were fixed on her father. She clearly wanted to know about why he was doing what he was doing. She took a deep breath and rushed forwards. Bruce knocked her two the ground, where she slumped, unconscious. Dick focused on the man who resembled his father so much. He leapt forwards and let his Robin training take over. He had sparred with Bruce lots of time and had learnt a fighting style that had given him the best chance of winning. He would use his gymnastic abilities to quickly propel himself forwards and attack Bruce then flip, leap or cartwheel back to a defensive position the moment his father attempted to counter-attack. Dick leapt towards Bruce and kicked the man in the face. Bruce's head snapped back but, as if the man couldn't not feel pain, he recovered and grabbed Dick's ankle just as the boy's hands latched around a branch in the hope of throwing himself away from his father. Bruce pulled Dick down and Pamela smiled as the boy struggled in Bruce's grip.
"Once again, the little wildcat has been restrained." Pamela said. "Do it."
Dick felt Bruce's hands close about his neck. The blow to Gretel had been quick, a simple blow to the back of the head. This was going to be drawn out, almost torture. Dick decided the Pamela really hated him. As the black claws of unconscious dug into Dick's mind, he noticed the first of the birds spying his trail.
"That's the fourth time you've been out in three days." Gretel pointed out the moment Dick sat up.
"Lets just get home." Dick said.
He was hungry and, despite getting knocked out so many times, actually quite tired. Dick stumbled to his feet and looked down the path they had come from. He continued to look down the path, searching for the bread crumbs. He just saw a line of birds that flew off when they caught sight of him. He looked back at Gretel and frowned.
"The trail has gone wrong." Dick said simply. "Birds ate all the bread crumbs. It's what Pamela wanted when she knocked us out."
Gretel looked at Dick with fear in her eyes. She was terrified.
"It's okay. We're going to be fine."
"No, we're not. No one is going to be looking for us."
"Then we go looking for someone."
"We could be wondering for hours." Gretel whimpered.
"Then we wonder."
Dick laughed with a smile. Then Gretel began to laugh. Dick walked over and patted her back.
"Let's see what we can find."
They walked for a long while. Gretel and Dick talked until their throats were sore. Gretel had offered Dick some of his bread when she had remembered that Dick had used his lunch to make a trail. The boy had denied the bread and asked Gretel what they should do. She decided that they should rest when it got dark so, when it became too dark to walk, they made a camp. Dick collected some wood and used survival skills to get the dry wood to light. He silently thanked Bruce for making sure that his training had been so thorough as the fire crackled away in front of them. They didn't look at each other for a long time as Gretel ate the bread. She felt guilty that Dick, her hero, wasn't eating. When she finished, she watched Dick working on the fire.
"I need a drink." Gretel said slowly.
"Where do you normally get water from?" Dick queried.
He, too, needed a drink.
"There's a well near the house but I only know the way from there." Gretel admitted.
Dick sighed.
"So what happened to your mother?" Dick asked, prodding the embers of the fire in the hope to keep it going.
Gretel looked down at the fire with a sad smile on her lips but told Dick the story anyway.
"My father and my mother met because my father went round chopping down trees in the part of the forest my mother collected berries in. She sung while she worked and our father joined in. They fell in love and when the time came they married. They had me very quickly and then mother got pregnant once again. During the pregnancy she became very sick and knew she wasn't going to live very long. She asked a fairy to make her have her child before she died so that the baby could live. The fairy saw how desperate they were and agreed. She made my mother have her child. The child was sickly and weak but father took care of it when mother died. He named the child Hansel."
"So that was, should have been, me." Dick confirmed.
The story had brought tears to Gretel's eyes and in the strange world he was in, Dick was inclined to believe that he, or Hansel, had been born using fairy magic.
"Before father met Pamela, he used to joke that the fairy had left a bit of her magic in you because you were small enough to be a fairy and yet you were very good at chopping down trees." the girl smiled. "So what happened to your mother?" Gretel asked.
"Um..." Dick began.
"Is this Bruce is your father in your 'world', who is your mother and what happened to her?" Gretel pressed on.
"Bruce isn't really my father... Well, he is but... My real mother and father and me worked in a circus. People hung ropes from the ceiling and we used to do tricks on them."
Dick had decided that saying he was a trapeze artist might not have gone down in the way he meant it to. Gretel thought for a second.
"So you were a tumbler of the air?"
"Something like that." Dick agreed with a smile at the almost magical term. "We could travel and perform until a criminal decided he didn't like us. He made the ropes snap and that made my parents fall. The fall killed them. Bruce was there and he saw how upset I was. He took me in and made me his squire."
Squire was a word Dick had heard at school and knew it would go down a bit better and need a little less explanation than the word 'sidekick'. He smiled at the thought of Bruce and continued to keep the fire alive.
"Do you think there are creatures in this wood?" Dick asked, knowing that if there were then someone would have to keep their eyes open.
Gretel shook her head and Dick smiled. He fell asleep before Gretel looked at him again.
When Dick woke up he heard bird song. He smiled. Nearly every morning he woke up in the manor there was a bird on his window, singing. It made him feel at home. He sat up, instinctively asking Alfred what the time was.
"Who's Alfred?" Gretel asked.
Then Dick remembered. He sighed and looked around.
"A friend of my dad." Dick sighed.
He didn't want to point out that he had a butler to the clearly poor Gretel. She smiled and looked up, pointing up into the tree.
"That robin has been here since you fell asleep." Gretel explained.
Dick sat up and saw a small robin hop down to his side. Dick brushed a bit of bread off Gretel's dress and fed it to the robin.
"The fire went out." Gretel also pointed out.
He was more focused on the robin than the fire. He scooped the robin up and felt it's cold feathers between his cupped hands. He began to breathe on it in the hope that it would warm up.
"What are you doing?" Gretel asked.
"I've always had a soft spot for robins." Dick said as he looked after the little bird.
Suddenly the bird flew out of his hands. Dick leapt to his feet and followed it with wide eyes. He could see the robin was hopping along the path. Gretel looked at him.
"Cover the fire." Dick said. "Kick mud on it so it doesn't start a forest fire."
He began to follow the robin.
"I think it's trying to take us somewhere." "Okay, Hansel. If I thought you had snapped when you couldn't remember who you were, I'm tending towards the insane now."
"Haven't you ever followed a bird home, Babs?" Dick asked.
He winced. It had just rolled of the tongue. Normally it was Barbara who playfully insulted him like that. Gretel looked at Dick and then smiled.
"You must really like that Babs girl, right?"
"Yeah, suppose so." Dick said, as he walked after the robin.
"Where do you think she is?"
"I hope she's at home with her father but I doubt that. I guess she's stuck in a world like this." Dick sighed and took Gretel's hand.
They continued to follow the robin through the wood.
A rumble rose from Dick's stomach and his throat felt as if he had swallowed sand paper. Gretel had taken off her apron and placed it over her brother's ebony hair when the sun was high in the sky. It was breaking through the leaves and was burning hot even in the shade.
"Is it a heat wave that is causing the famine?" Dick asked.
Gretel had offered him a silent nod. They hadn't talked much, focusing on only walking. It hurt to talk for the both of them.
"We need to find something to drink." Dick murmured as the robin hopped along in front of him.
"And to eat." Gretel replied.
"Thirst will kill us long before starvation."
Then they broke through a line of trees. Dick actually felt his ears twitch when they heard the sound of running water. They both rushed forwards and stopped. There, in the centre of a clearing, was a house made of sweets. In the centre of the green and well kept garden there was a fountain. Dick knew the story but he and Gretel were both desperate. He rushed forwards and began to drink from the fountain. While Gretel politely cupped her hands, caught water and drunk like that, Dick dipped his head into the water. His face was wet when he lifted it out but he wet down his black hair and urged Gretel to do the same. He had heard that evaporation was very cooling so covering themselves in water might be the best thing to calm themselves down. Slowly Dick walked towards the house. He pulled off a bit of the wall, a large section of gingerbread, and began to feast. He smiled as he leant against the wall. Gretel came to his side with an equally large section of gingerbread in her hands.
"What is this place?" she asked.
"I don't know." Dick said. "It's probably someone's house so we'd better leave soon."
He knew the story of Hansel and Gretel but the whole situation was making him forget that he did. His mother telling him the story again and again soon became lost to the joy of eating as Dick had avoided the small meals of bread he had been offered while with his new found 'family'.
"There's no reason to leave, young man." an old woman said, coming out of the front door.
She was dressed in a long black cloak and had silver hair. In one of her bony and shaking hands she had a cane that she tapped along the ground. She looked like she didn't need a cane and it took Dick a few seconds to realise that she was blind. He had been brought up well and was not about to run away when any one who was blind was talking to him, let alone a blind old lady.
"But we've been eating your house." Dick said slowly.
Gretel elbowed him but when Dick whispered that the woman was blind, she stopped and felt guilty about what she had done.
"Oh, there's no reason to be sorry about that." the woman said. "We've?" she paused. "So there is two of you?"
"Yes, my name is..." Dick paused, realising that Gretel was the only person he trusted with his real name. "My name is Hansel and my sister, Gretel, is here too."
"Our father and stepmother took us out into the woods so we could starve because we can't afford food." Gretel continued.
The woman's face showed her shook at this.
"So there is no one looking for you. How old are you both?" the woman asked.
"I'm thirteen, my brother is twelve."
"How young to be out in the woods by yourselves!" the woman exclaimed. "My name is Talia al Ghul. I live in my wonderful candy house."
"It is a wonderful house." Dick said sincerely.
"It is a wonderful house." Talia agreed "But I have no one to share it with. I have no children. How about you two stay for the night?"
Dick was a little wary. All of the people he had met had been like their normal life versions. He had met Talia before in real life and she had been a manipulative criminal. He also remembered something about a witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. He tried to remember more but he had no chance before...
"Of course we'll stay the night." Gretel said.
Dick tried to protest but he realised that his robin had lead them there and he had said it would be a good idea to follow the robin. He smiled as he saw the robin was sitting on the windowsill above them, looking perfectly at home.
Maybe everything will be alright. Dick thought.
As Dick bedded down for the night in a room where the air was sickly sweet, he was kept awake by a nagging sense that something was wrong. The windows in the room were made of something that looked like stained glass by on closer inspection had turned out to be boiled sweets. Dick would have been fine with this if he had not also realised that the windows didn't open and that the door to his room had a lock on it. He watched mournfully as his robin friend was trapped outside and darkness closed in. He began to think of the story, trying to work out what he was meant to do. It was the first time since he had come to the strange place where he had really had time to think about what was going on and how he was meant to escape. He guessed that if he completed the story then everything would be alright but he didn't want to risk it. Surely he could trick the story, possibly return to his 'father's' house before needing to be trapped by the witch. He crept into the hallway when he remembered an important fact.
Gretel felt light hands on her shoulders. She had fallen asleep in her bed after nibbling away at the walls for a while. She looked up and saw Dick.
"Dick, what's wrong?" she asked. "You called me Dick." Dick pointed out in amazement.
"Well, you've been right about everything so far so maybe you're right about your name too." "I'm right about something else as well." Dick began. "Talia's a witch!"
"What makes you think that?" Dick faltered. He only knew because he knew the story. He didn't want to tell Gretel that her whole life was a story and that it was the sort of story that only little kids were interested in. He didn't want to tell her that at all.
"I just feel it. Fairy magic or something." Dick said with a cheeky smile. "Lets make a deal. We can stay here until really early in the morning and then we creep out and steal some food from the outside. We'll have to find a way to carry water so..."
"Carry water for what?" Talia asked, appearing in the doorway. "Hansel, I thought you were asleep."
"I couldn't sleep."
"But you intend to leave?" Talia whimpered.
She looked sad but an instinct told Dick that it was just an act.
"If you are willing to allow me and my sister to, yes."
Dick forced himself to sound forceful. He crept forwards but a normally silent footstep was turned into a gunshot loud one when his foot pressed against a creaking floorboard. Dick sighed and looked at Talia.
"We're going to go." Dick said.
"No, you are not." Talia said.
She pointed at Dick and smiled. Dick tried to move but, as he looked down, he could see that it wasn't going to happen. He was suddenly dressed in his circus outfit, coated in his parents' blood. Trapeze wires encircled his hands and held them still even as Dick struggled.
"What have you done?" Gretel gasped.
Talia smiled. It was clear she was still blind, unable to pinpoint Gretel correctly over the sound of Dick's struggling, but she seemed to have lost some of her age.
"I've found the gallant hero's worse fear and are making him live it out in his mind. It's rather interesting. Did you know that sometimes just one word can break a person?" she told Gretel. "It's actually quite fun." Talia looked at Dick.
She stroked his pained face and then let her smile deepen.
"Brave little circus boy, tell me, is it so?
That your deepest fear is a man called Zucco?" Talia asked.
Dick stumbled and fell to the floor. Gretel looked down at him with worry in her eyes. A tear was running down Dick's cheek. His clothes had returned to normal and the wires that had been around his wrists were gone. They had left cuts but Dick ignored them.
"Follow me, girl, and bring your brother."
Dick was fighting back the black lines that were criss-crossing his vision when he heard the sound of a lock being clicked into position.
"Go and start your jobs." he heard Talia snap as he came round.
He remembered what had happened. The moment that Talia had said Zucco all the pain that that man had caused him had filled Dick. He had done his best to fight it but it had still driven him to almost unconsciousness and he was struggling to combat it's effects. He forced himself to focus on the situation at hand. Gretel had helped him down the stairs and placed him where he now lay but he knew nothing of her location from that point onwards. He had been aware of talking but it was a blur.
"You know it normally has more effect." Talia said. "You must be very stubborn even for a boy."
"Bruce taught me to combat people like you." Dick replied.
"But did he teach you to escape from a cage?" Talia asked.
Dick realised that the black criss-crosses were not blurs of his vision but the bars of a small cage. He could lie in the cage and stand in it but when he lied down even his small height covered the floor and his hair brushed the ceiling when he stood up.
"A bit." Dick said, stumbling to his feet and searching for a lock.
"A cage with no lock?" Talia said as if she sensed that he was searching for one.
Dick shook his head but knew Talia wouldn't have been able to see that. He spoke out his answer as well. Talia smiled and moved closer. She pressed a hand against the bars, not going to let her work out where about in the cage he was, Dick moved back.
"You were right. I am a witch. I lure children into my house with it's wonderful appearance and then eat them. I prefer boys. They are normally much more tastier."
"Then why haven't you eaten me yet?" Dick asked slowly. "Me or Gretel?"
"You're right, I haven't eaten your sister, or at least, I guess your adopted sister."
"Something like that." Dick muttered hostilely.
Talia must have accessed his mind to get out his worse nightmare and it had become apparent that she had worked out that he was orphaned. Dick didn't mind. She hadn't worked out that he was not from that 'world' (if he could call it that) and that was all that mattered.
"Well, I'm not going to eat you yet. I like to fatten up the children I eat before I do so and it is clear from the fact that you actually can stand up in the cage that you are short for your age. I will just have to make up for it in width."
"What will you do to Gretel?" Dick asked.
"A slave of course. It's hard to do jobs around the house when you're blind and I have you to eat."
Talia then walked away. Dick watched her go and frowned.
What am I meant to do now?
The story that Dick's mother had told him had never been specific on what the witch had fed Hansel. A young Dick Grayson had always assumed it would be pizza because he was often getting warnings from his parents that if he ate too much he would get fat. It soon became apparent that it would not be pizza Dick would be fed with. He had heard Talia order Gretel to feed him but he couldn't smell pizza in the air. Then he saw Gretel. Her hands were closed around a metal bowl that was brimming with sweets. Dick smiled as she put the bowl in front of him.
"You know, I always thought that prison food would be much worse than this." Dick said, slipping a lolly into his mouth.
He wasn't going to eat it all and get fat. If he did he knew that one of two things would happen; the witch would kill him and eat him or Bruce would kill him the moment he turned up unable to do the gymnastics he so much loved doing. Silently he offered Gretel some. She looked at him with wide eyes. Silently, Dick picked up a lolly and began to write in what remembered icing sugar that covered the floor. He guessed it was meant to be dust. When he was done, Gretel moved round so she could read the message:
If we do everything silently then she won't know.
After smoothing out the icing sugar so she could do the same, Gretel wrote something of her own:
What's she doing to do to you?
Dick thought about what he was going to answer and then told Gretel the truth. She gasped but Dick nodded to tell her that was what was really going to happen. He thought about how the Hansel of the story got out of it and smiled. It seemed like a pretty good plan. Dick began to scan the kitchen for some sort of idea of how he could do the same plan.
Unless... Dick wrote. I've got a plan. Pass me that chicken bone.
The next day, Talia, as Dick had expected from the book his mother had read him, came to see how fat he had become. Dick knew that a person didn't just go from his size to that of a large meal overnight but it seemed that Talia hadn't realised.
"Stick your finger through the bar, boy, so I can tell how fat you are."
"There has been a famine where me and my sister are from." Dick warned her. "It might take a long while for me to become fat."
"Just do as I say." Talia ordered.
Dick sighed and produced the chicken bone that he had kept in his pocket. He had managed to scrap it against the bars in the night so it was reasonably finger shaped. He pushed the chicken bone through the bars and let Talia touch it. She screamed in frustration.
"It will take forever to get you fat enough to eat!" she cried.
"Be patient." Dick smirked. "You never know, maybe I will put on weight rather suddenly."
Everyday the routine was repeated. Dick would be fed sweets but he wouldn't eat all of them, letting Gretel eat some or saving them up so when he did escape, him and Gretel had at least something to eat when they made their way to somewhere safe. Whenever Gretel had some spare time she would some to Dick's side and they would have a conversation together in writing. Everyday Talia would check to see how big Dick had become and he would only offer her a chicken bone. Dick was aware he was putting on weight because he lacked a balanced diet but he was also aware that Gretel was losing it. He offered her some of the sweets she always gave him but she constantly denied them. Dick decided he had to make sure that, if Talia did realise he was deceiving her with the chicken bone, he was not big enough to eat. He knew he also had to survive whatever trickery had sent him to the strange land he was in. He decided he should continue his training. If this was real world time then he knew he should spend days without doing some form of training. Dick began to do push ups while Talia and Gretel were not in the room.
One particularly hot day during his imprisonment, Dick had become lost in his work out. Gretel had been out working in the garden and Talia had been making sure that Gretel didn't run off. Dick had become so lost in practising a martial arts stance that he had forgotten to keep an eye out Talia and Gretel.
"What on earth are you doing?" a voice asked.
Feeling suddenly guilty, Dick looked around to see Gretel. He gasped and wiped beads of sweat off his brow.
"It's something a person learns when they are going to fight another person." Dick explained.
"Are you going to fight Talia?" Gretel hissed with excitement.
Dick smiled, recognising the same excitement at danger he saw, and loved, in Barbara Gordon.
"Not from in here." he sighed. "There's got to be some way I can get out."
"Didn't you know what there are only four ways to undo a witch's magic? She's using magic to keep you locked in there."
"What are these four ways?" Dick questioned.
"You either have to convince her to release you, find the clause that breaks her magic, find someone willing to free you who is just as powerful as her to free you or kill her."
"And that clause is normally true love's first kiss." Dick said.
"Yeah, it's a pity that this Barbara of yours isn't here." Gretel joked.
Dick smiled and looked at the girl that looked exactly like Barbara. Gretel then looked around and excused herself. Dick watched her go and a tear rolled down his cheek.
Dick's time in the cage came to nearly two weeks. His clothes became rags and he became frustrated with his time in the cage. Talia, he noted, seemed even more frustrated. It seemed to her that Dick was not getting any fatter. He wasn't but he was as famine ravaged as she believed him to be. Dick knew what happened next. She would decide to cook him, no matter how fat she believed him to be and would eat Gretel as well. He felt a slight sense of guilt that him putting it off for so long would end with his friend being in danger but he soon had an idea. One day when Gretel had come to give him his food, Dick had already written a message on the floor:
Copy me, the message said.
Dick was standing up and Gretel stared at him. Slowly and silently he walked her through a judo move. When Gretel asked him why in writing, Dick replied:
She's going to attack us soon. You need to defend yourself.
The boy was not wrong. The very next day, after feeling the chicken bone, and believing Dick to still be a scrawny little boy, Talia cried out in anger.
"That is it! It's been too long already. Gretel, heat up the oven! I'll eat your brother no matter his size."
Gretel, who had been sitting near the cage at the time, glanced at Dick and then walked over to the oven. The witch smiled and drew closer to Dick.
"And since you're so small, I'll have to eat your sister as well." Talia taunted.
Dick was tempted to let Talia feel his real finger and therefore get Gretel out of trouble but then the witch would know he had deceived her and might kill Gretel anyway.
"Can I have some last words with my sister?" Dick asked as Gretel has finished getting the fire in the oven going.
Talia nodded and let Gretel walk over to the cage.
"Remember what I taught you?" Dick asked, careful to not be too specific.
Gretel nodded.
"It might come in handy soon." Dick whispered.
Again, Gretel nodded. Suddenly the witch called her over.
"Gretel, can you check the oven is hot enough?" Talia asked.
The oven was big and it had a massive lock on it. It was big enough for both Dick and Gretel to be in at the same time with room to spare. Dick realised that Talia was going to push Gretel in when she checked. Gretel checked the oven and the witch moved to push the girl in.
"Gretel!" Dick shouted as a warning.
Gretel reacted like whiplash. She caught the witch's hand and flipped the old woman over her shoulder, completing the judo move that Dick had taught her. The witch flew into the oven and Gretel slammed the door, locking it.
"Good work!" Dick congratulated her.
Slowly his cage began to disappear around him. He looked at Gretel and realised what was happening.
"She's dying." Dick murmured.
"It was the only way to free you." Gretel whimpered back.
Dick nodded and told Gretel they should just get back. They both moved towards the door because they didn't want to smell the burning flesh smell that was beginning to come from the oven. In her haste, Gretel knocked over one of the witch's vases. Dick turned when he heard the smashing sound and saw that Gretel was holding a handful of jewels. Dick recognised the jewels as the Wayne diamonds and realised that they had come from the vase.
"What should I do with these?" Gretel asked.
"Wrap them up in your apron and lets go. It'll give you and your dad enough money to survive the famine." Dick said, desperate to leave.
"Why are we rushing?" Gretel asked.
Dick was chasing after the robin. He hoped it would lead them home.
"We need to get home really quickly." Dick called back.
Gretel, dressed in the rags of her dress, was finding it hard to get through the woods. Dick was dancing through the undergrowth with ease.
"Why? Father and that witch of our stepmother abandoned us."
"You're right." "What?" Gretel questioned. "If I'm right then why are we going back?"
"You said you trusted me and that I'd got everything right. Well I think that I'm not meant to be here. I need to get back to our house and we'll find Pamela is dead. We give your dad the jewels and then you get your happily ever after and I go home."
"Pamela will be dead?" Gretel gasped.
She walked over and kissed Dick's cheek.
"If you are my brother then thank you. If you are not then..."
She kissed Dick on the lips. Then she moved off.
"Come on! We have to get home!" Gretel cheered.
Bruce had been cutting down a tree near the small house when he heard the sound of his children coming. He dropped his axe and ran to them, hugging them. He took in the rags they were wearing but was too happy to let how dirty they both were put him off hugging them.
"I have wonderful news!" Bruce said, cradling Gretel.
"We know! Pamela is dead!" Gretel cheered.
Bruce faltered but tried not to be offended. He wasn't going to let one of his children being rude ruin their joyous reunion.
"You're going to have a new brother!" Bruce said.
"What? With who?" Dick asked.
This wasn't in the story. The stepmother had died before the children got back but their father was too busy mourning his children to care. There were no more children. Something definitely had to be wrong.
"With me." Dick heard Pamela say.
He turned and stared. It wasn't right. The stepmother should be dead.
"You should be dead." Dick murmured.
Bruce caught it that time but it was Pamela who took offence.
"Of course your two brats would do that, honey, trying to ruin our baby by making me ill from stress. The little monsters. How should we punish them?"
"What?" Gretel called, glaring at Dick.
This isn't part of the story. Dick feared. Then again, Gretel learning judo wasn't either, or following a robin or Hansel being from the circus... I shouldn't be here, neither should Pamela or... I was right this is a trap.
"Lock them both in the wood store until we can think of a punishment." Pamela ordered.
"That stuck up cow." Gretel muttered under her breath. "Everything was fine until she showed up. Now you've gone mad and think you're some circus boy, father has fallen in love with her and now they're going to have a baby that will mean they'll abandon us again."
"You know full well I was from the circus. You were there when Talia changed by clothes and tortured me." Dick said.
That sounded far more reasonable in my head. He smiled.
While Gretel sat on a pile of logs, mopping about what had happened, Dick was trying to get the locked door open. He needed to get out and work out why the story wasn't following the plot and also why he hadn't yet been returned home.
It's some sort of trap. His Bat-paranoia was telling him.
No, it's not it's probably just a dream. The more reasonable side of Dick's consciousness mused.
If you die in a dream you die in real life. The paranoid side of him countered.
Dick gasped as he realised that it was a trap. If he died in his fairytale world then he would probably die in his real life. It wouldn't be the first time that a villain had used dreams or fantasies to attack heroes. He looked at Gretel and sighed. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that she wasn't real. They needed to escape so Dick could work out how to get out of the fantasy. With this in mind, he worked on the lock with renewed vigour.
"That old witch." Gretel said continuing with her insults. "That slivering serpent."
"What was what?" Dick asked, leaving the lock for a few seconds.
"Slivering serpent?" Gretel suggested.
"One before that." Dick requested.
"Old witch." Gretel repeated.
She spun the word round in her mouth.
"Do you think Pamela is a witch?"
"Yes." Dick agreed. "She's got Bruce under her control."
"Then she could do that thing that Talia did to you again!" Gretel yelped.
"It doesn't matter. We need to stop her." Dick said. "If we don't then I can't return home and your life in is danger. We need to get out of here fast."
"Maybe this will help." Gretel said.
"Unless it is some sort of door destruction device then it won't." Dick said, turning.
He smiled as Gretel handed him the axe. Dick began to bring the axe down on the wooden door. He felt it buckle under the blade and splinters began to fly against him. He ignored them.
"Gretel, stand back. We can't tell what she's got guarding us." Dick said.
"How will you be safe?"
"You know that move I taught you so you could combat Talia?" Dick asked as he brought the axe crashing down once again.
"Yes." Gretel said.
"I know lots more." Dick said as the door finally fell away.
Bruce smiled at Pamela. He was overjoyed at the news of a son. He had no idea how Pamela knew it was a son but he didn't care. He wanted another son like Hansel. Suddenly he heard a noise from outside. There was a crashing noise and he turned. He attempted to look out of the window but Pamela latched her hands around Bruce's chin and angled his face back to her. She gazed into his blue eyes and smiled. Then a scream echoed around.
"What was that?" Bruce asked.
"Nothing." Pamela answered.
Bruce took the answer well and agreed with his wife. Then they kissed.
Gretel had screamed. She had screamed when she had seen green plant people attacking them. Dick had kept calm. He had dealt with enough of them during his time as Robin. He knew they weren't people; they were plants. They didn't feel pain if you hurt them and killing them was like pulling out a weed. Dick swung the axe. He had been trained with different types of weapons but the axe was not one he was used to. Still, he knew that if you swung anything hard enough it could become an effective weapon. That was the law he applied when he saw one of the four plant people moving closer. He swung the axe with so much force that he took a large chunk out of the closest plant person.
"What are those things?" Gretel asked.
"Poison Ivy makes them. They're like soldiers." Dick said. "Pamela makes them." he corrected. "Do you have any weed killer?"
It had been meant to be a joke but he knew Gretel wouldn't know what weed killer was and wouldn't understand him. He swung the axe again, cutting down the nearest plant person. As the green man fell to the ground, Dick couldn't help up let out a shout.
"Timber!" he yelled.
Gretel watched as Dick took out the rest of the plant people with extreme prejudice. He cut the head off one. Cut another in half and the split the final one down the middle. With a grin, Dick regained some form of composer. He sorted out his hair and let the axe drop.
"We need to find Bruce." Dick said.
"Father should be in the house with the witch." Gretel answered. "What would you have me do with the jewels?"
"Go hide them, and yourself, in the log store we were just in. If anyone comes, scream and I'll come back, okay?"
"Okay?" Gretel said. "Just don't let that witch hurt you. Your track record with witches isn't very good."
"Well, now it's time to even the score." Dick said.
He turned away from Gretel, swung the axe so the wooden side rested against his shoulder and walked towards the house.
When he reached the door, Dick checked Gretel was out of sight. Even if she was a figment of some twisted trap, she was an incredibly nice figment and Dick didn't want to watch her die. He looked at the door and wondered if he should knock or just go full out and axe it down. He decided to go with the former, simply because if his axe was in the door then it couldn't be in Pamela. His morals about the deaths of figments of traps didn't expand to Pamela – she was a witch figment and soon she was going to be a dead witch figment.
What am I thinking!Dick's mind screamed at him. I haven't wanted to kill anyone since Zucco and... Bruce made me stop thinking about things like that.
Dick looked at the axe. He dropped it to the floor.
I'm going to see if there's another way first, a different way to win this. There's got to be some sort of fantasy dungeon I can lock her in.
Dick knocked on the door.
"Father! Mother! It's me, Hansel! I just wanted to tell you that I'm really happy about your news and..."
Dick stopped talking. His acting had been interrupted by a leafy green hand being placed across his mouth. Dick struggled but he knew the strength of one of Poison Ivy's plant people. The door was opened and Pamela walked out, with Bruce in tow. He seemed to be completely under Pamela's power. It was upsetting. Dick remembered the last time his Bruce had been under Poison Ivy's power. He had been about to sign over Wayne Industries.
"Look, little Hansel escaped." Pamela said with a smile.
Dick struggled in the plant person's grip but couldn't get free. He tried every judo move he knew and some he had made up but none of them freed him from the plant person. Pamela raised one of her hands and out of the ground more plant people grew. They stood like body guards for Pamela and Bruce.
"Interesting, isn't it?" Pamela began. "You're such a stubborn boy, just like your father. I needed an emotional time to weaken his defences enough to get full control. At first I thought abandoning the two of your would do it but he searched for you and became convinced that you were still alive. Then I made up about being pregnant to produce that emotional time but it wasn't enough. You and your sister's return was. You gave me full control."
"No." Dick breathed.
"Yes." Pamela laughed.
Dick's heart was thundering. He needed to find a way to get free. Pamela was going to do something bad. He knew she was. It was what all villains in her position would.
"So what is your plan? Now you have control of my father, what now?"
"I'm going to use him to find my sister. With our powers combined we will take over the kingdom. She lives in the wood after she was driven away by a mob. I have to find her."
"Is her name Talia al Ghul?" Dick asked, slowly, carefully.
Pamela nodded. Dick frowned.
"She's dead. Me and Gretel killed her. She was going to eat us so I taught Gretel a move that would push her into the oven and the witch died."
Dick tried to sneer but was proud of himself when it became clear we was too much of a nice person to manage it. He looked at Pamela as she turned away. For a few seconds it looked like she was cry but then she turned back it was clear she hadn't.
Water burns witches. Dick reminded himself. I wonder what Pamela does when it rains.
He looked hair straight in the eyes. Suddenly a plant was offering Pamela the axe Dick had been carrying. The plant person holding Dick forced him to the ground.
"Hansel Wayne, you have been found guilty of murder. Your punishment is execution." Pamela declared.
She handed Bruce the axe and he raised it into the air. Dick took a deep breath. He wondered if it was ironic or just plain stupidity on his part that he was going to be killed by the mirror image of the man who had given him the skills and chances to get him to that situation. He heard the swish of air as Bruce raised the axe and closed his eyes.
Mum and dad, I'm coming to find you. Dick thought, knowing that struggling was useless.
"I'm the one who pushed Talia in, not Dick!" Gretel called then realised her mistake. "Hansel!"
She ran so she was close enough to see them. Dick noted that she had not come from the direction of the log store but didn't comment. He also wondered what Gretel was holding in her hands.
"Talia had him in a cage." Gretel added. "She was going to cook us both but she asked me to make the fire. She tried to push me in but Hansel warned me and I threw Talia in instead. She cooked."
Pamela turned away from Gretel and back to Bruce. The axe was hovering above Bruce's head. At any second he could bring the axe down and kill Dick. Dick knew that well.
"I'm the one who should be executed." Gretel said.
Pamela seemed to be considering it for a few moments and then smiled.
"Kill the boy and then the girl!" Pamela ordered.
Bruce began to bring the axe down. Gretel didn't know what else she could do. She threw what was in her hands. It was a bucket, full of water from the well. It flew over Pamela. For a few seconds the witch looked shocked and then cackled. Bruce had paused with the axe to watched Pamela and Dick pulled one of his hands free. He pulled the axe out of Bruce's hands and attacked the plant people who were trying to restrain him once again. He kept the axe out of Bruce's way, reserving hits or kicks for his father. He didn't want to kill him in case he was the real thing. Out of the corner of his eye, Dick was aware of Pamela closing in on Gretel. The girl didn't seem like she was panicking at all. She just stood there, watching as Pamela approached, and then Dick realised why. Pamela's legs were turning into wood as she moved closer. Her hair was turning into leaves. Her arms began branches, her legs a trunk and soon Pamela was a tree.
"So that's what water does." Dick smiled and raced over to Gretel's side. "And the weather forecast is leafy with outbreaks of rain."
Gretel smiled and hugged Dick. Around them the creatures where disappearing into the ground. Bruce came over to them, shaking his head.
"You two better explain everything."
It had taken Dick and Gretel until sunset to explain everything they knew and get the leaves out of their hair. They were dressed in fresh clothes when Bruce turned to Dick. Bruce thought that he had lost his son, Hansel, but, Dick guessed, Hansel would return when he left. He offered Gretel and Bruce warm smiles and they watched the sunset from the roof.
"You know what you two should do..." Dick began. "You three should do: you, Hansel and Gretel. You should set up some sort of witch fighting group. I bet you'd be awesome. It'll get you more money than chopping down trees."
"I could be called Axeman." Bruce said.
"I was thinking something more along the lines of Batman." Dick suggested.
Bruce considered with with a smile. Dick turned to Gretel.
"And you could be Batgirl." "No, I would prefer to be called, what was that bird we were following, um... Robin." Gretel smiled.
"Okay, tell Hansel when he comes back that he's Batboy for me." Dick said.
He smiled and drifted into a sleep. Gretel didn't want him to go. When she rubbed his shoulder the boy sat up.
"Dick, don't go to sleep." Gretel said.
"Who's Dick?" the boy asked. "I'm your brother: Hansel. Seriously, Gretel, you get stranger with every passing day."
"Speaking of strange..." Bruce began and told Hansel the story of Grayson and Gretel.
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