Hansel awoke coughing and sputtering as the ice water ran in rivets down his body and in his mouth. He felt fuzzy and slow, but his memory was crystal clear. The second his muscles could bare weight he shot to his feet, anger fueling his movements and unrelenting glare. Kaspar was casually leaning against the fence, empty bucket dangling in his hand and looking bored.
"What the hell?" Hansel choked out, still struggling to find his equilibrium and make sense of the situation beyond having been attacked by someone who didn't feel the need to finish the job. He was both thankful and insulted.
Kaspar pulled a loose thread from his shoulder and absently dropped it in the dirt. "Calm down, or don't. I think I might get the reaction I'm looking for if you stay all riled up." There was a clinical detachment to his voice and Hansel felt like a specimen in a display jar at one of the local doctors the siblings had first sought out when Hansel had become sick as a child.
The words didn't seem to permeate Hansel's brain in a way that made sense and a silence stretched between the two men, framed only by the hunter's raged breaths. He never considered himself a man of many words but even Hansel's few words seemed to be failing him. "What the hell?" he repeated, with little hope of receiving an answer he could make sense out of.
Shaking his head dismissively, Kaspar flicked his wrist bring his hand palm side up with his index finger pointing directly at Hansel.
It was like a bolt of energy smashing into Hansel's left leg. The pain was brief but intense and his knee buckled under the strain. Dropping to his knee, he clenched his hands in to fists by his side, grinding his teeth in a vain attempt to distract himself from the agony and lingering numbness.
Kaspar tossed the bucket to the side, letting it hit the ground with a muted thud. Without urgency or apparent purpose he sauntered over to the kneeling man. Undeterred by the hostility radiating off of Hansel, he smiled. "Your sister coddles you too much. More importantly, despite your promise to her to try, I think you're holding back."
"And what would you know," snarled Hansel, barely getting his breathing back under control.
"I know you should have made more progress by now. Did you know the first born male witch is almost certain to inherit their mother's magic and demonstrate it within the first year of their life? A second born male witch will demonstrate their power, should they inherit it, by age five and after that should any other male heirs be produced and possess magic, they will demonstrate it by their twelfth year. The most rare and latest case I have ever heard of is sixteen, but you… you're older than that. Why?"
Hansel snorted as he stood back up. "Just lucky I guess."
"I doubt that. Your sister's not practiced enough to have done it, perhaps mother?"
"Done what?" Of all the times for Hansel to be caught off guard without a weapon, he'd never so desperately wanted to bash the end of his rifle into someone's head so much. The riddles and games were tedious and getting him nowhere. At least regular witches were transparent in their desire to kill you.
"Your magic has been suppressed and by someone rather powerful. Without this spell, I think you would have been Lamiae fodder long ago. It would also explain your belief that witch's magic doesn't work on either of you."
The words sunk like led in Hansel's gut. The only other person who could have possibly had the power to do such a thing would have been their mother, the one person Hansel had spent years hating more than anyone else. He had hated her for abandoning them, for leaving them to the lives they would take up in their family's absence. Then Muriel had happened and that hatred had softened slightly. Hansel had spent his whole life looking out for Gretel and he could forgive their parents for sending them away in order to protect his sister, but he couldn't forgive their mother for the evil that followed in his veins. The potential of this revelation threatened to turn his whole world upside down and make a mockery of his beliefs. His hatred gave him strength, without it where would he be? The world had been black and white and in the wake of numerous revelations it was painted in far too many shades of gray for him to make heads or tails of.
The hunter was snapped back to the present with a sharp jolt radiating up his arm. "Seems like your magic's working rather well," protested Hansel, trying to shake the numbness out of his arm. Andrea's evil had worked on him too when so many others had failed because deep down inside, he wanted it to. Surely he didn't have some deep seeded desire to let Kaspar remove him from this world, did he? His anger was rising up, demanding to be released on Kaspar for everything he had done and everything others had inflicted upon Hansel.
Kaspar chuckled, "Hardly. My magic is very powerful. If something wasn't deflecting most of it, you'd be dead.
Hansel's glare sharpened. "You knew that before hand?" The thought of some smug son of a bitch gambling with his life for their own general amusement was as off putting as Kaspar's ability to seemingly know everything.
"I suspected, and now I'm sure," he offered casually.
"You son of a bitch!" Hansel could feel something swell up inside of him and instead of fighting it, stomping it back down to the depth of hell in which it was born, he just let go. The display of magic was unlike anything he's yet produced. While his aim was practically nonexistent, he still felt like he made his point, if only to the now smoldering remains of the former large pine tree.
Over the rapid pounding of Hansel's heart, he could just make out the high pitched wails of the Lamiae in the distance as they fruitlessly tried to breach the barrier and acquire their prize, like a grizzly that finally got its first taste of human blood and hungered for more, magic was in the air. He could feel their hunger and desire too, like someone had told them their prize pig was ready for slaughter and a most bountiful meal was due.
Where Hansel usually felt weak and spent, now he felt energized and alive. His hand tingled in anticipation as he experimentally rubbed his thumb across his fingers, leaving a magical oil slick in its wake. The pressure was back, begging to be released, demanding to be put on display and then freed into the world like the living thing it was and Hansel obliged.
With a wicked smile he extended his hand toward Kaspar and reveled in the bright green flash that followed. Like many of the witches they young hunters had come across, his target seemed to possess lightning fast reflexes. Much to Hansel's dismay, his attempt missed the mark.
A childish smile curved Kaspar's face, his eyes shining with the glee of a young boy enthralled in a riveting game of chance. He ducked past several more attempts to repay his unorthodox lesson for Hansel while delivering a few more shots of magical encouragement himself.
After several failed to make contact with his intended target, Hansel found himself with his back against the side of the house, nowhere to go that would put him out of the way of Kaspar's next shot. As the ball of yellow energy accelerated towards him, Hansel raised his hands to try and absorb most of the shock and spare himself some of the impending pain. He screwed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw in anticipation but nothing happened.
Hesitantly, he cracked on eye open and then the other, his jaw gaping slightly at what he saw. Floating before him like a giant bubble was a sphere of beautiful color. The yellows morphed into golds and oranges but remained in a perfect sphere shape outlined in electric green. His fingers twitched and the bubble flinched slightly, bending to his command. Hansel let out a shaky breath as he realized, he had done that, he was in control.
Ever so slowly, Hansel reached out with one hand, his fingers brushing the delicate lining of the bubble. Applying a little more force to his touch, he pressed against the magical sphere. The light molded around the hunter's finger for a moment before it finally burst, letting loose like a bucket of water dumping. The light within splashed to the ground, painting it with a yellowish tinge.
Applause echoed through the space which now seemed so miniscule and yet so vast to Hansel. His eyes flicked over to Kaspar, who seemed happy; the first real emotion the man had expressed besides indifference towards the hunters since their arrival.
"I knew you had it in you," commended Kaspar. "Now you can really begin. Follow me."
Hansel stood deathly still as Kaspar walked into the house. He felt lost at sea, unable to pin down any single emotion that was stirring within him. Parted of him wanted to run after the witch like a lost dog that had finally found its master, another part craved more, to learn more, discover more. The part that had made Hansel the man he was today hesitated at the threshold of the door. He considered his limited option for a moment, then ducking his head in shame, stepped inside the house.
Kaspar struck a match against the rough grain of the work bench causing the tip to burst to life in a flash of light that quickly muted to a more stable level. The nearby candle coughed and sputtered it's acceptance of the fame, throwing enough of a glow to push the darkness back. As the flame lapped and licked at the wick the shadows cast on Kaspar's face highlighted the think black vines of magic that curled across his features.
It was a sobering reminder of just who's company Hansel was keeping. In the exhilarating rush that had followed each burst of magical release the harsh lines of reality had melted away. This man was not his friend, this man was a witch who learned to keep the beast at bay. Sure he had offered to impart that wisdom upon the hunter, but he couldn't help but feel as though he was on the edge of a slippery slope and the fall would be treacherous if he slipped.
"Know that we've seen you're potential, we can explore it and then learn to control it," said Kaspar as he perused though a stack of dusty old books Finding the one he sought, he pushed the others off the table with a thud and began fervently flipping through the pages. "Here," he exclaimed, practically shoving the book into Hansel's chest.
The hunter to the book trusted at him, turning it around to read the script painted on the page. "I don't even know what language these words are supposed to be," confessed Hansel. The few letters he could identify in the fancy scrawl didn't form any combination to any words he had picked up. While his vocabulary wasn't expansive by any means, he could always pick out something he recognized.
"It's an ancient tongue, you shouldn't recognize any of the words but say them anyways." Kaspar looked at Hansel expectantly.
"Um."
Kaspar took pity on Hansel's bewildered look and read the passage out loud taking care with each word. The hunter dutifully repeated with only a few stumbles here and there. The words were few but the sounds unfamiliar enough that his tongue didn't curve around them with the same grace as Kaspar.
The candles that adorned the small house ignited all at once and Hansel had to shut his eyes against the sudden change ambiance. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. It wasn't prefaced with the same swell of pressure or warmth or the subsequent green light but he knew what or rather who had caused the candles to burst to life. The exhilaration and tingle still followed and Hansel let his eyes slide shut as he got lost in the feeling. It was warmth and safety while at the same time it felt like standing too close to the edge of a cliff, with the wind running its finger through his hair. It was the edge of a knife in which he could tumble back to safety or oblivion and he loved the feeling.
"Come let's try another one. We don't need grandiose displays to learn to temper your hand; simple children's spells should help you gain control." Excitement radiated off of Kaspar
Hansel found his new found enthusiasm infectious almost as much as the feeling he got when he stopped trying to hold back what was so desperately dying to get out. One spell turned into two, turned into ten; the minutes to hours as time slipped by without notice. As Hansel collapsed into bed that evening, black book all but forgotten, the feeling that he had spent the whole day chasing lingered in every extremity and curled deep in his gut with belonging and longing. He felt complete and sated.