The girl woke to her brother's excited eyes staring down at her, his hands frantically shaking her shoulders.

"What?" She asked blearily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "What's wrong, Hans? I was dreaming. I was dreaming Mother was back with us. It was wonderful. And then you had to come and wake me up."

"I'm sorry G," her brother said, "but look! Look around!" The girl frowned at her brother, and stood up off the soft grass she had been - wait. Grass?

The girl looked around. A river ran nearby, but it was more like a river of mud, flowing slowly and glooping as it went. There were trees nearby - but there was something curious about them. All the leaves were very light green and thicker than leaves should be. They didn't seem to wave in the wind like the leaves she was used to. The bark, also, had a strange texture; it looked too brown, and lacked the whorls and crevasses of normal bark. But what was stranger was that, while she recognised her surroundings as country, (previously being a country girl - two years ago when she had been just fourteen their family had moved to London and not seen a tree since, except for the posh places in Covent Garden and the like which had gardens and coaches and nice horses with pretty embroidered bridles.) she had no idea such a peaceful place was anywhere near the city. And while the river Thames had been brown, it was a lot wider and filled with different coloured junk, not to mention the sewage. This river seemed thick, but purely liquid - unlike the Thames which seemed kind of solid until you stepped on it. And the air here seemed sweet, and fresh, a sensation the girl could only remember from the country, as the air in London was thick enough to choke you if you didn't learn to breathe through your mouth and not your nose. Another funny thing was that there wasn't a street, person or building in sight, unlike the city which was full of ramshackle houses that looked like they could fall over at any time - and frequently did - and people that constantly were moving, talking, swearing and generally living. The only people she could see here were her and her brother, who had come over to her with a leaf in his hand.

"Here, sis! Try this!" He proffered the leaf. She looked at him in suspicion and disbelief.

"I'm not kidding, honest! Try it!" She picked it up and looked at it. It was heavier than a leaf should be, and smelled like mint and icing sugar. She raised an eyebrow at her brother. He rolled his eyes in return.

"Look." He took the leaf, broke off a bit and ate it, grinning. Cautiously, she took some, and gasped as the sweet taste of sugar filled her mouth. Startled, she glanced up at her brother – but he was gone. She scrambled up and whirled around to see him jumping up to rip another leaf off the tree. The bough bent under his slight weight and snapped back as the leaf relinquished its attachment. He stuffed it in his mouth and ran back over. Grinning, he lunged at the piece in her hand, but the girl whipped it away and quickly ate the rest of it. The last time she had had anything so sweet was when their mother had bought them a toffee apple at a street fair when their father wasn't looking, and between the two of them it hadn't lasted long at all. That had been just over a year ago.

"Gretel! Hey! Watch me!" Her brother interrupted her train of thought and she glanced up, to see his booted leg swing up into a tree. He stood shakily on the branch, but then thought better of it and bent over, placing his hands on the wood. He checked to see if he had her attention, then ran across and leaped off! He landed in the river, making a huge but sluggish splash.

"Hansel!" Gretel yelled as she ran towards the river bank.

"What are you doing!?"

Grinning, her brother clambered out, covered head to toe in the brown liquid.

"It's made of chocolate, G! The water's made of chocolate!" He licked his hands clean and used them to get the chocolate on his face so he could open his eyes again.

Avoiding the puddles made by her errant brother, the girl knelt by the river and dipped in a finger, then licked it cautiously. Her brother was right! It was made of chocolate. But how? How was that even possible?

"Don't think about it so much! It's chocolate!" Her brother shouted, flinging his arms back and spinning so the chocolate flew from his fingers and dripped from his sleeves.

Gretel smiled at his antics, then flinched as he chucked chocolate at her, hitting her shirt.

"Hey! What the hell? You'll stain it and Daddy will get mad!"

"Daddy isn't here, stupid! This ain't exactly London, and well, I don't know where we are, but I don't care!"

Gretel started to protest, but she soon understood where Hansel was coming from. Wherever they were, their father wasn't there. She licked off the chocolate on her shirt and scrubbed it with her wet finger until the stain was less obvious. This seemed like Paradise, a place she had heard of in the sermons every Sunday when their preacher felt the need to give them a little more incentive then hellfire and brimstone to be good. A pity her Paradise included her brother instead of her friends, though. If she had to spend eternity with someone, she'd prefer someone like Ruby – or maybe John, although he had never given her more than an odd glance… but he had nice brown hair, and even though he wore glasses and the popular kids mocked him for them, she thought he looked cute, and clever.

Why was she thinking about him? This was not the time for that kind of thing.

While she had been daydreaming, her brother had run off. She sighed, and got up. Always running after him, getting him out of trouble – and then a second later he'd find a new manure pile to throw himself in, a new person to pilfer from. She looked around.

"Hans?" She said. Then she yelled "HANSEL!"

"WHAT?" came from a short distance away. She sprinted after him.