Hope you like! Don't mind the exposition; it gets way better after that. ;)

"'You cannot survive your fairy tale if you cannot survive the Woods'" (155/1).

~Yuba the Gnome

Chapter 1 - A Single Step

September

The thing about Rotten Peach Rd is that it wasn't much of a road at all, and the crumbling Gingerbread House that Hester reluctantly called home, Number 18, wasn't much in the way of neighborliness. For one thing, the so–called road was actually a dirt path that wound through the forest until it disappeared just shy of the rock candy drawstring well; and for another, the other seventeen houses in the so–called neighborhood were vacant and never to be filled.

Number 18, originally owned by one Gertrude the cannibal witch, solemnly sat alone in its forest enclosure several miles from the tiny farming community of Ravenswood. The town's only form of communication with civilization was with the city of Ravenbow. But most people preferred to not go there if they could help it. Everyone knew that they couldn't just leave without paying the price.

As for the other houses, all secluded several miles away from the main village, we'll just say people had moved out pretty quick once they realized their little children were disappearing into the witch's stomach at the end of the block. Those houses had quickly deteriorated over the years, and some say that the witch's mental health went down the drain along with them, and that's what caused her to go off the deep end and rebuild her house out of gingerbread. Some even say that Hester wasn't even her real daughter, or some other such nonsense.

To eat as many people as she could before her death was the only thing on her bucket list, and by golly gee, Gertrude almost did it until those silly orphans Hansel and Gretel came along to be number seventeen and eighteen.

For most of Hester's childhood, she had seen little of this house. With the pronouncement of Gertrude's timely death, tiny toddler Hester had been shipped off to Ravenbow Orphanage. But now, many years later, she was back to reclaim the cursed Gingerbread House and what little was left of her mother's legacy.

The striking thing about the House was its front door's solid wood build. Compared to the rest of the sweet and sticky building materials of the edifice, this oddity was practically sacrilegious. While the House was in the possession of the Everwood Architecture Society, visitors had also been surprised to see that the interior of the house was also designed with normal materials like wood, brick, and mortar.

This odd little building, due for redecoration, now housed the odd little girl of Gertrude the Gingerbread Witch herself. Not that Hester was little; That was just a foolish sentiment. Hester had always been a tall young woman, but you couldn't tell if she bent down. She was short in torso, tall in legs. It was a matter of pride that she never bent, so that everyone would know her superior stature. For if she bent, then she kneeled, and if she kneeled, then she was subordinate, and that was something Hester could never permit. So why was she kneeling now? Simple, it was practical and no one was around.

Hester had been sitting back on her haunches for the better part of an hour now. Poking a stick at the embers wasn't helping the fire, she finally admitted. The nights grew longer this time of the year, but she wasn't having any of it! There weren't any housekeeping spells in her arsenal, but she was still determined to fend off the cold.

She stood up and, stretching, glanced out the small square window. The forest surrounding the Gingerbread House was a mix of browning green leaves and surging oranges ones. Autumn was generally dark and gloomy like her, but the transition part irked her.

It all looked wrong; The weather was not supposed to look like summer and fall had had a mutated love child (though her great aunt Mildew did dabble in interspecies breeding). She preferred autumn and winter weather in all its glory, that was all. That didn't mean she liked the cold though. Her clothes were in tatters, and it's not like her mother was around long enough to teach her daughter some practical skills or anything.

She'd only moved back in that week for Evil's sake! All of two boxes sat by the door looking very out of place. Of course, it didn't matter. She didn't need to feel comfortable in her own home in order to live there. Hester would fend for herself with what little she had or else she'd lose it.

It was still technically early in the day. Long shadows cast by sunset would appear later on, but she was confident she could try her luck in hunting before night. Fortunately the few tools she'd brought with her hadn't been damaged during the wars, just shoved in a corner no one paid attention to. Traps, knives, useful things, of course; Hester only used the best. On the other hand, Sophie had been just "nice" enough to stick a flowery box of silly Evil–styled makeup and accessories into Hester's crate as she shoved the tattooed witch out the gates with a smile and a wave.

Gee, thanks, Dean. The moment Hester had left the castle, she'd destroyed the foolish little box.

She'd simply been too tired to object and had instead pretended not to see it as she sneered her goodbye. The gates changed shut and Sophie glided away to her joyous tower. That summer at the Evil Castle before she'd gotten the okay to move back to Ravenswood had been much too long for Hester, and Sophie had surely felt it too.

Sure, Dot had offered Hester a place to stay while Sophie finalized the paperwork to retrieve the House from the claws of the Everwood Architecture Society, but Hester had turned it down on account of wanting to help rebuild the Schools and to not be bored at Nottingham Castle, even though Anadil lived nearby in Bloodbrook too.

The real reason, of course, was that Hester wanted to make sure Sophie didn't do anything insane to the beloved Evil Castle before the next school year, and yet her time was cut short when the Society begrudgingly let go of the House months earlier than anyone had expected. A bittersweet sacrifice, but all the same, Hester had found herself increasingly befuddled that Sophie seemed to get away with whatever she wanted. And then she had love-sick Hort to deal with. Following Sophie's every move like he was on cloud nine was enough to make her sick.

She'd seriously considered leaving early and dealing with Dot gushing over how "hot" and "cute" and "mind-blowingly handsome" Hort was instead. Keeping her sanity was half the battle.

Once out, she also bleached her mind of Sophie's spontaneous and atrocious makeovers. While the Flowerground Train didn't like Nevers, she couldn't help but feel relieved getting tied in, courtesy of her Camelot-approved pass. Then she had been on her way.

Stepping out onto the threshold of the House's front, Hester snatched her knife from a wooden crate, and pulled some soft powdery peppermint off the underside of the porch and bit a chunk off.

Surveying the overgrown grass stretching a few yards before dark and dead trees enveloped the land, Hester concluded that her misdirection runes were working well as ever and no wild animals or wild people could get in. Now was the time to leave the safety of the bubble and take a gander at her trade. She stalked out to the edge of the meadow the House was built on and reached out in midair. The air rippled orange sparks and opened a yawning chasm for her to step through.

Even if someone was to come close, they wouldn't find the Gingerbread House, and the townspeople agreed with Hester that this was a great idea.

The woods around the House weren't quiet at all. The runes also functioned as a silencer for the chittering of birds and small animals which Hester absolutely hated. She grinned; At least one of those nuisances was going in her stew pot that night.

Trekking through the gnarled darkening trees, she backtracked down the home-ward path and searched for the traps she'd set a few days before. The glaring truth was that only a few rabbits had accidently strangled themselves on the ropes and nothing else. Still, they were some extra rations to work with.

Kneeling in the foliage, she cut the rabbits loose and stuffed them into a burlap bag. Her little walk had taken more time than she'd expected.

The moss covered trees cast their silhouettes on Hester. The setting sun glared orange behind the dark horizon. Above it sprawled purples and blues masking the black sky and the first stars of the night. The moon shone overhead, sure to become a full and bright harvest moon in the coming weeks.

The Gingerbread House and its surrounding territory sat atop a plateau of earth overlooking a scant road leading to the village of Ravenswood. The particular trap Hester set should have caught some moles or something similar that lived in the crumbling hole-filled dirt ramp down to the path, but was to no avail.

As she tried to retie the trap ropes, she suddenly heard voices from down the hill. Her ears perked at the sound, and she folded back the bushes in order to get a better view.

The dirt path stretched along the hill leading to the plateau. Sparse trees lined the other side, fewer as the road got closer to the town. The voices became louder now as she crouched forward.

A line of wagons rumbled up the trail towards town in the twilight. Men shouted as they drove horses and oxen. Women lit torches as they tugged along tired children.

The gypsies of the Ravenbow territory made their annual trek across the Endless Woods unceasingly, only to end up at dreary Ravenswood village at the start of autumn. Their camps were known for song and dance, their tents and clothes for multitudes of colors. People came from far and wide for fortunes and for knowledge. But Hester scoffed. The only good thing about the ragamuffins was when they left. Their gaudy clothes and pyrite jewelry weren't even classic examples of villainy. People loved them! They came, they took, and no one batted an eye. Hester'd never been able to do that! The charlatans…

Night was falling, so the gypsies were soon to make camp in their accustomed space. Then one of the wagons exploded.

Practically an inferno, a huge load of festive fireworks must have been set off. Accident or no, she couldn't tell. The heat slashed at her eyes and plowed her back at the dirt. Time seemed to slow down for a moment and all was silent. Then the screaming started.

Hester would have run off with her prize, but the explosion just had to knock the bag out of her hands.

She scrambled back up, pushed through the bushes and skidded down the hill. The fire blazed high and spread to the other wagons and the dry grass left behind by summer was caught in the explosion. Children screamed along with their frantic mothers. The men scrambled about desperately. Any water source was used to put out the flames and save their possessions.

She shot after the bag as it skidded down the dirt hill towards the chaos. Smoke caught her off guard and forced coughs as she made her way down. People ran back and forth screaming in a foreign gypsy language. They were trying to streamline buckets of water towards the make shift fire-fighters.

There was also a group of men suspiciously not dressed at all like gypsies, but in a more common fashion. They were not helping with the main fire at all or trying to direct the mass of people to calmness. They were instead minding their own business, pulling heavy crates out of a mildly burning caravan a few vehicles down. Odd.

While Hester was all for leaving people in the dust, she still found it odd that the gypsies, normally a single cohesive group, let strangers with strange cargo travel with them.

Some desperate woman in jangling bangles and purple cloth knocked into Hester and tripped her to the ground. She made to flip off the retreating woman, but people kept shoving into her, and one even stepped on her hands. She squealed painfully and batted at the person. All the while, her bag was being kicked dangerously closer to the flames.

Despite possible burns, she lunged through the burning grass and caught the bag in her hands. It was clearly the wrong moment for it since a man running down the path from the strange men, holding up a strange object in his hand, tripped on her and barreled over.

She shoved him off the same moment he jumped up and swore at her and the fire.

A commonly dressed figure by the fire brigade, seemingly supervising, called over to the man, but he wasn't listening. He'd already swept Hester up by her collar.

"What do you think you're doing, ingrate!? We're running a delicate operation here!" He yelled, looking wildly at the fire blazing around them. Then he noticed she wasn't wearing any of the hallmarks of a gypsy girl.

Suffice to say, she recognized him before he did her. And what a frightening recognition it was; She'd remember those burning violet eyes anywhere.

Hester punched him in the face. She had nothing to say to him.

Aric dropped her and rubbed his jaw. "You little—Were you the one who started this mess? 'Cause if so, you're dead!"

Hester pulled her bag close and snarled, "I'm offended you don't remember me, or my fist." She started to cough as the smoke swirled around them into the open sky.

He swung at her, pulling a knife. "Like I care about a f*cking forgettable face like yours, b*tch!"

She dodged him. That same flicker of anger and hatred suddenly burned hot in her chest, squashing that practical bit of fear. How dare he not remember her!? How f*cking dare he?!

"Alright, let's play dirty!" She ducked as he made a grab for her arm and twisted around to kick him. "My name is Hester of Ravenswood, and you better not forget it!" She shoved him backwards and made a quick two-step backwards out of his reach. "We defeated you and Rafal at the Last Battle and I busted your face like there was no tomorrow, and you dare to come back from the dead and not know who I am?!"

This time she was the one who pulled him by his collar down to her height. A crazed flame suddenly leapt to his eyes, but Hester couldn't care less.

"You traitorous wench."

"How. Did. You. Survive?"

He cocked his head and jutted his chin out. Fury boiled beneath the surface. "Dovey's a dumba*s."

Somewhere off in the distance, the gypsy firefighters seemed to be giving up. A man's voice shouted, "The hell're you doin', Lesso!?"

That's when the fiery spell broke, and Aric snatched the bag of strangled rabbits and swung it off her shoulder and into the fire. Her eyes followed the its flight distractedly, her malnourished belly suddenly rumbling loud in her ears. Hester suddenly found herself on her stomach, her chin banging hard on the ground, flames up to her ears, and a thick black boot digging savagely into her back.

"So, this is where you've been the whole time. Hiding out in your little Gingerbread House. I bet some of your b*tchy little friends helped you with some good deflection spells. I bet they're good and powerful, and yet here you are. Out in the open."

He came down to kneel on her back, the point of his knee cutting deep into her shoulder blades. "It was smart, I'll give you that, to try to protect yourself even without the undead armies up in arms. Luckily, I had the element of surprise." He was utterly shameless. "I'd like to see you struggle a little, after what you did to me." She dug her nails in the dirt and did struggle, trying to find purchase enough to push herself up. She spat out a flurry of curse words that'd make her family proud. "Maybe a little more." Hester shrieked against her better judgement. This wasn't the worst pain she'd ever experienced.

"What I did to you was take you down a peg. Oh, I bet your ego is still," She coughed hard and wondered if blood might come up. "bruised. Like the mama's boy you are."

"Don't talk about that b*tch." He growled throatily. He pulled on her oily hair, hard. Tears came unbidden to her eyes. They evaporated instantly in the blowing heat.

"You know, I didn't even have to look very hard before you came out of your hiding place." She could feel his crazed smirk above her, dripping with foul victory. "It's almost as if you wanted to be caught, like to traitor you are. I'd pay to see you marry into some prick's kingdom, you little slut." Her jaw dropped in disbelief. "Did you also know I had to travel all the way up to f*cking Bremen just to find out where you supposedly lived? That d*mn Society, running me in circles."

Hester was sweating profusely now. She wasn't worried about whatever half-baked threat he might make but the roaring flames. They got higher and higher as he spoke. The acrid smoke filled her lungs quickly. Hester's chest, compressed firmly under Aric's boot, desperately needed to cough again and again and again.

Some of the gypsies tried calling out to Aric as they ran for safety. He just waved them off and swung a tinkling talisman at them. At least, Hester thought it was something of the sort, as close as he was to her. Closer than the flames, and potentially more dangerous. Well, he would be if she were some sort of pansy. She suddenly noticed that the flames around them were receding.

"I bet you'd like to know what this is," Aric baited her.

"Nope," She choked out.

He soured. "It's the key to your safety." The golden talisman tinkled next her ear, glinting in the firelight. It was the shape of a solid gold diamond hanging on a golden chain, inlaid with small emeralds and rubies in an alternating square pattern, but no stone held the center space. The flames immediately shied away from it. "But I'm not going to give it to you." He said it petulantly, like a child with a toy. He laughed darkly.

She growled. "I don't need some rusty trinket to protect me from fire."

"You will, though, when I leave you here tied up." Aric sang. He stood up roughly, and the boot dug perhaps another inch into her back. Hester shrieked low in her throat. "Maybe the fire was a good idea, accident or not. As the saying goes, places to be, people to see, b*tch."

"A*shole!" Her face smacked the ground. She could almost feel a rib snapping.

"Point Lesso, zero to Gingerbread here. Oh, and death." He let out a chuckle, which morphed into an all-out laugh, as if her death was the funniest thing in the world. On any other day, Hester might have agreed.

But today was not that day.

Finally, there was enough flame around her to fully recharge her magical aura. Aric bound her arms to her waist with thick ropes and securely tied her feet together, then bent knees and tied the feet to the wait ropes. She violently recoiled from his touch and got another boot to the shoulder in repayment. Hester finally shoveled up as much hateful demonic power as possible until her neck tattoo glowed red as the fire.

She expected Aric to notice. But by then, he'd started to walk through the fire, completely unharmed and whistling a cheery time to boot, and it was too late.

Her tattoo exploded onto the scene in a rush of scarlet fire and midnight smoke. He was completely prepared to pounce on he who dared harm his mistress, his gaping maw hellish enough to make the greatest man wet his pants.

Hester took great pleasure in Aric's shocked scream. She shimmied onto her back, bruised though it was. "You shouldn't have underestimated me, motherf*cker!"

The demon let out a roar and proceeded to chase Aric through the flames. Suddenly, Hester realized her mistake. The power of the talisman fell out of protection range as Aric moved further away, and her demon's powers only exacerbated the burning situation. Flames caught her hair and licked her hands and feet. She shrieked in pain. Her first instinct was to shuffle away using her feet and bottom, hoping to burn away the ropes and not her flesh. The demon itself shrieked hellishly and Hester heard the slice of a knife in demonic flesh.

Hester vomited onto a patch of non-burning grass. She swallowed thickly and wondered what in the hell Aric was doing to her precious tattoo! It was practically impossible to injure a demon tattoo at full power.

Unless it wasn't in full power, and its health was tied directly to its master's. Awful for her, too, with the demon on the actual attacking end.

Damn it.

Aric shot back into view full tilt. The demon followed closely, blood squirting from a gash in its arm. The man tore a jagged piece of burning wood from a wagon and brandished it at the demon. Hester's loyal tattoo let out an unearthly screech and dove for Aric. He scratched at Aric's face in a flurry of claws. Shielding himself with his coat, Aric tried in vain to scratch the monster with splintered wood.

Hester scowled at the bloody mess, and grimaced at the fire slicing across the hay field and into the forest. Not a gypsy soul could be found, and her water magic was glitching by being surrounded by a complete wall of flame. "Return, hell's servant!" She called fearfully. "Untie me. Bog down the flames!"

Not a moment could be spared. The demon did as his mistress wished immediately. Aric was dropped against the wagon, and the demon shot toward his mistress, using the wind to beat back the flames in a circle around his mistress. He carefully clawed his way through her bindings with nary a thought to the Never behind them glaring at the two.

Aric scowled at Hester's quick save, wondering what kind of hellish creature could be so loyal, but then grimaced. No fire, demonic or natural, could burn him with the talisman in his pocket, but his arms and face were definitely scratched up badly.

Aric kept his eyes peeled in case Hester sent the creature back after him. She seemed to rely on that thing quite a bit. He might need a new plan to kill her. This battle was over.

It was time to regroup, so he cautiously skulked away.

"I'll get you back! Just you wait!" Aric yelled over his shoulder. His trench coat flew behind him. "I'll kill you in the end!"

"Not if I kill you first!" Hester yelled in return. She rubbed her wrists and waist, the creature perching on her shoulder.

The thing's beady dark eyes bored into his soul, and he felt a touch of anxiety. Aric Lesso took off running down the road leading away from Ravenswood the first chance he got, out of sight of the dastardly mongrel.