Hey everyone, Aquila here !

I've finally managed to upload chapter 6 ! This varies a lot with narratives from a few new characters. (You can find out below!)

Enjoy this while you still can, because I won't be able to upload much frequently anymore, as I'm quickly nearing the end of collage. As much as I would like to write this shin ding all day long and crazily scribble away in my jotter when the bird of inspiration lands and lays eggs of awesome ideas on my head, I do have to read up my dust laden, long written notes and actually study! I'm practically not meant to be here right now and should have my nose buried in my books. The same goes for Anne - my very good friend and other twin separated at birth (she's the kinder one of both of us. )

I've been illegally sneaking away at night to write this out, so don't come break the glass windows off my house with bricks if you don't see my new chapter anytime soon. Before, I had been updating every day, if you go by Czech timings, so don't get off kilter if you don't see my next chapters as soon as you'd like to !

Chapter 6

Ginger was lonely.

It was a feeling that she was very familiar with, ever since she had been a little cookie.

First of all, there was the undeniable fact that she was the daughter of the evil candy witch of Hansel and Gretel's story. And by evil, she meant Evil with a capital E.

That by itself gave nearly everyone a sense of apprehension. But coupled with the fact that her mother was a fairytale villain, with a disastrous reputation in cooking class-ic when she had been at Ever After High (The fact that she had aced potion making and mastered the art of administering poisons only made the situation worse), a house deep in the wild woods, as well being best friends with the Hood family, not to mention her mother having that stupid weakness of slipping people baked goods with secret spells cooked in them. All of this made the other so called 'good' fairy tale creatures shriek and break for it, or else chase her with burning torches and pitchforks.

It also made little Hans and Greta - the Hansel and Gretel of her story – running away as fast as their little legs could carry them, screaming guttural screams of terror in warped German accents as soon as they set eyes on Ginger – even when she was smiling sweetly and holding out a plate of freshly baked cinnamon cookies.

Ginger sighed. She stared at the glassy reflection of herself in her silvery cupcake shaped mirror. Did her smile really look like a creepy, evil grin that said "I'm going to eat you up!" ? Was that why Hans and Greta always ran away from her?

Resigned, Ginger got up and headed to the bathroom. She desperately needed to wash her hair and take a good long bath. Her hair was a sticky, greasy, ragged mess - streaked with white self raising flour and drenched in lemon orange citrus filling and slopped all over with thick maple syrup. The remnants of a smashed egg yolk dripped down the side of her ear. Her apron looked like a dish wash rag – stained with a medley of different colours of food colouring. Her brand new tights were covered in apricot glaze. A limp buttered pancake was hanging off one side of her high heel. Her face was the worst. One part of it was hidden under a layer of rich butter cream frosting and the other side was dripping with cooking chocolate. The remains of a sugared donut were encrusted on her chin, like the rim of a dirty plate. A splat of chunky strawberry jam on her face completed the overall effect of a hideous monster.

Ginger's soul was crying. It didn't matter whether she was a monster or not, she certainly looked like one now.

She gazed at the conglomeration of colours that was her face. What it needed was soap, water and some Christian tolerance.*

The events that led to her look like she hid in garbage cans for a living was branded and emblazoned in her mind. She doubted whether she would ever forget the utter humiliation she had suffered.

-Flashback-

Ginger had just finished baking all her favourite treats. She gazed fondly at the beautiful array of chocolate éclairs, bonbons, jellies, jam tarts, donuts covered with powdered sugar, marzipan fruit and a massive Victoria sponge cake with citrus filling and a generous dressing of melted chocolate on the large tea tray.

She wandered down the long corridor carefully balancing the tea tray in her hands, it was rather heavy.

Faces of fairytale creatures all with the same hostile look peeped at her from behind the door and then proceeded to quickly slam them shut. Ginger sighed, her face downcast and hesitantly carried on walking.

She perked up a bit when she noticed Hans and Greta perched precariously on a window sill chomping voraciously on cheese straws and walnut muffins. Sure, they always ran away, but maybe, just maybe, they would try one of her treats before bolting. Maybe they might find them really spellicious and come back for more. Maybe...

She walked over to them quietly and held out her tray.

"Have some." She offered with a gentle smile.

Hans and Greta looked up at her with their pasty fat faces and beady currant eyes.

Suddenly, Greta shrieked, her face morphing into mask of pure horror.

Hans screamed too.

"AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH !" He yelled. "Leave us alone, you evil witch!"

Before Ginger could react, Hans grabbed all the dishes off the tray and threw them at her one after one at her with extreme precision.

It all happened so very fast.

Sweet after sweet splattered on her shoes, her apron, her face, her hair. Ginger tried putting up her hands to defend herself, but she didn't even stand a chance against Hans' fiery onslaught.

As if this weren't enough, Hans kept on screaming a slew of terrible words at her. Greta kept on yelling as though the sky were about to fall down.

A few words jumped out at her. Most of it was a string of German curses. But the one that hurt the most was-

"You're a MONSTER! Stay away from me! Leave Greta alone!"

They hurt much more than the flying arsenal of sweets did.

Suddenly, an unexpected voice called out.

"WHAT is the MEANING of THIS MESS ?!"

Headmaster Grimm stood framed in the hallway, with a scary, disapproving frown etched across his face. Steam seemed to be pouring out of his ears and the tips of his ears were red. There were bright spots of colour in each of his cheeks and his drooping moustache bristled with rage. Ginger swore she could see flecks of spit shooting out of mouth.

"WELL ?"

"It was her! Witch Breadhouse! She attacked us and tried to poison us with her food and then, she tried to eat us up !" blurted out Hans in one long breath. Greta nodded, and hiccupped tearfully.

Headmaster Grimm turned to face Ginger.

"I understand you are very eager to poison people Miss Breadhouse. It is, after all, your destiny to be the next Candy witch. But please restrain yourself until your story starts. You do not want to kill off your main characters before that, do you? I do not want to see this type of behaviour again." He said sternly, before striding away.

-End of flashback-

Ginger limped into the bathroom, shaking her head to try to rid herself of those horrible memories. A few drops of syrup splashed on to the tiles.

She ran the hot water and then peeled off her mucky damp clothes with difficulty. She checked the clock. Another 45 minutes until dinner. Plenty of time to indulge herself, she thought. She poured in some bubble bath liquid, some lavender bath salts and a handful of dried flowers. She carefully lit some vanilla scented tea lights and arranged them around the edge.

Slowly, leisurely, she climbed into the bath, one foot after the other. She revelled in the luxurious feeling of the silky smooth water on her skin.

She reached for the bar of lemon soap and lathered herself all over. She grabbed the bottle of muscle relaxation body wash too and rubbed it in with her fluffy sponge. Just as she was foaming up her hair with her special cotton candy shampoo, there was a slamming of a door and the sudden loud beat of a catchy tune reverberating through the empanelled invisible speakers.

"You in there, Ginger?" Melody's voice sang out.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming out. Give me a sec!"

Ginger sighed and broke out of her euphoria wonderland.

She hurriedly cleansed her hair with her handheld shower, climbed out the bathtub and wrapped herself in a bathrobe.

Melody was stretched full length on the bed in her signature Goth chic clothes, her ever present headphones jammed on her head, blissfully ignorant of what was going around her.

"Hey Mel, How did your date go with Meeshell today?"

Melody didn't seem to hear her, and then started to rap out a rapid number on her bedside table.

Ginger sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

She dressed herself in her favourite chocolate coloured dress with its bands of sparkly hundreds and thousands sprinkles. Then, she grabbed her black cardigan and slipped on her custard yellow heels. She looked at her reflection in the mirror critically. Not the best, just average. Well, at least she wasn't covered in baking ingredients now. She pulled her pink wavy hair into two pigtails and put on her cupcake hair band. She had once thought of curling her hair to make it look like strawberry candy floss, but then decided not to make herself look more deranged or scarier than usual.

" You coming, Mel?"

Melody continued rapping to her song.

Ginger moved to her desk and pulled out a biscuit tin filled with sticky pieces of gingerbread covered in generous amounts of treacle.

"Here, eat this. The castleteria's food isn't that good anyway."

Melody looked at the tin proffered. She gave a guilty smile.

"Um, no thanks. I'll come down."

Ginger felt hurt.

Then, she grit her teeth. She should have expected it.

Ginger walked into the cramped castleteria, and picked up her tray. She went to sit down next to Cerise, her acquaintance of sorts. She didn't run away screaming. That was a good start.

After a few minutes, Ginger gave up on her food.

There was some kind of slimy stew with string beans and Brussels sprouts floating in a pool of vinegar. The steamed potatoes had hearts of stone and simply refused to be cut with a knife. They skidded off her plate on her 4th attempt. There was some kind of watery cabbage soup too which Ginger refused to touch. The poached fillet of cod lay limp and unappetising. For desert, there was a suspicious looking milk pudding.

Cerise was gazing dreamily at the distance, in some sort of trance. It didn't seem to be a spell, though. More like...she drew an imaginary line from Cerise to the subject of her intense concentration...

...Rosabella ?

One sided attraction, huh?

Well, Ginger knew plenty about that.

Her eyes moved to another table.

This one was occupied by only two people, or one couple – choose your pick.

The table was strung with heart shaped bunting and a huge crystal vase of roses. There were placemats, linen napkins in neat napkin rings, silver cutlery, wine glasses, finger bowls, pink candles in Italian Chianti bottles...and was that a freakin' ICE sculpture?

And in the middle – C. and Dexter Charming were French kissing, you know, with the tongues and all. Freakin' FRENCH KISSING. A plate of forgotten spaghetti Bolognese sat in between them.

Just a few metres from the table stood Blondie Lockes. She was stock still, stiff as a ramrod. Her face was ashen, a sickly green colour. She had an unreadable emotion on her face.

What on earth?

...oh.

A splintering crash startled everyone into silence.

Everyone except Cupid and Dexter, who were still kissing, mouths glued to each other. And oh gods, was that a moan?

Blondie's tray had smashed on the ground, the remnants of her dinner pooling pitifully around her feet.

Blondie turned around in one fluid motion and flounced out of the room, oaken doors banging shut behind her.

Ginger immediately leapt off her stool and ran for the castleteria doors.

She turned around, wondering where she could've gone. Then, she saw a glimpse of blue around the corner, the corridor leading to the vegetable gardens and further on into the woods.

Ginger hurried after her into the bitingly cold air. The wind mercilessly whipped her hair around. A raindrop fell on her nose.

She sighed. Of all times, did meteorology have to prove its might now?

It began drizzling. Thunder roared. A jagged fork of lightning lit up the sky in a dazzling bright white.

In the sudden illuminating flash, Ginger spotted swinging blonde curls and a blue petticoat.

She screamed into the night.

"BLONDIE ! WAIT ! DON'T GO !"

*this is one of my favourite lines from my all time favourite book – 'The bell jar' by Sylvia Plath.