As it turns out, I only wrote for five days out of thirty, and didn't always complete what I was writing. However, I'm still doing my background reading, and I love the concept enough that I plan to continue with this whenever I have the time - hopefully next year, on my Year Abroad, in particular.
In the meanwhile, here's what I wrote on the first day.
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The deck swayed unevenly under her feet. Beatrix skittered across its surface and pulled herself up on the railings, staring out at the endless blue expanse, rolling out on every side like a glittery, silken carpet.
She was rocked gently by the movement of the ship across the waves, and endlessly mesmerised by its motion, and the crests of white foaming out in the distance like snow on water. The sun beat down cruelly on her skin, and she fidgeted uncomfortably, reaching for her parasol, which she had slipped through the sash of her dress.
The rails were flecked with salt and water, their metal roundness offering her smooth shoes little purchase. She struggled to pull her parasol out – the spokes had caught on her sash – and as she tried to wrestle them free, her precarious position, now maintained with only one hand, slipped, and she tumbled down, letting out a little squeal as she fell.
“Beata! Beata, what are you doing? You know your father expressly forbid you from climbing on those railings. You could fall in the ocean, you silly girl!”
Before Beatrix had a minute to sit up, delicately rearrange her ruffled dress and dust herself down, Johannes was already kneeling at her side, looking at her earnestly from behind twinkling spectacles, and a wave of brown hair he had to keep brushing out of his eyes.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you, Beata? Here, let me see your arms, let’s make sure you haven’t any bruises.”
Johannes gently rolled up the sleeve of Beatrix’ dress, fingers gently probing the girl’s chubby arm. Looking him in the eye, she declared, with all the dignity of her seven years, that she was perfectly unharmed, thank you, and she’d be most obliged if he didn’t say a word to papa.
At this, the earnest young German laughed and winked conspiratorially. “Not a word to your papa, I promise,” he said, smiling. “But I think he’ll notice for himself that a certain young lady has been spending rather too much time up on deck. You’re turning quite brown, Beata.”
Beatrix scowled. True, her skin had been darkening as they travelled farther into these strange waters – and those bothersome freckles were showing up all over her arms, and across the bridge of her nose – but it was no fun to be trapped down in the hull of the boat, staring out of the porthole as the level of the sea went up, and then fell down again. Up here, the waves seemed so much more alive, with the sun skimming along their surface, and bouncing off in a million crystal droplets, where a trail of white foaming horses galloped behind, where she could stare out across the waves, looking for a trace of those legendary monsters she had seen drawn on maps, and heard so many tales of ...
And up here, there were people, too. Downstairs, in the suffocating air of the cabin, she felt so lonely and so bored. Staying up on deck, whenever she had grown fed up of watching the waves, squinting vainly after sea-monsters, she could take a quiet stroll across the deck, not bothering anyone – hardly being noticed, for after all, she was only a small girl – and watch the men in their sunhats and white suits, reading and puffing on their pipes, their fat wives swathed in fashionable clothes and fanning themselves furiously. One old man fascinated and terrified her; she peered out at him with unstoppable curiosity from beneath her parasol. Numerous medals were pinned to his clothes, and every time he spoke, his fat, gingery-white moustache wobbled precariously along his face, threatening to creep up his cheeks and join his eyebrows, swallowing up his entire face in a curtain of prickly, bristly hair.
“Come on, Beata,” said Johannes gently. He was using the same tone he used on the ship’s scrawny orange tabby cat – a grown-up sounding voice, which he only put on when he was afraid Beatrix’ dad would overhear him. “Let’s go downstairs, and you can take a nap. It’s far too hot for anything else right now.”
Beatrix held his hand uncomplainingly all the way down the staircase. She hated the trip into the endlessly creaking, grumbling bowels of the ship: it made her think that she was travelling into the heart of some massive, living creature, being eaten alive by its wooden darkness, like the whale that ate Jonah whole and then spat him up on some distant shore.
Once in her cabin, Beatrix ran straight to her trunk, and standing on tiptoes, pushed the lid all the way open, until it was just propped up by the wall of the cabin. Then, leaning right in, she felt around under layers of clothes and trinkets, until her fingers found what she was looking for.
Almost too heavy for a seven year old, carefully bound and serious-looking, with its musty old pages smelling of magic and adventure and far away lands, the book was Beatrix’ treasured possession. Given to her by her grandfather before they left England, secretly stowed in her trunk so that papa wouldn’t find it and disapprove, whenever Johannes looked after her, he would read to her from its aging pages.
The stories alone were marvellous, but told in Johannes’ funny, lilting accent, his voice dusted with fairy magic and carrying pictures of far away forests and deserts where everything was different, they became alive. Beatrix leant her head against him as he sat on the couch, opening the book thoughtfully on a particular story, and as he read to her, she drifted in and out of curious dreams.
HANSEL AND GRETEL
Once upon a time, very long ago, there was a gingerbread house in the middle of a forest. An old lady had lived in this house for hundreds of years, all by herself, with no one to talk to but the birds.
And the old lady was never happy, because kings and princes and noblemen would ride through this forest on their beautiful steeds, blowing their horns and chasing the foxes, and she would come out and shake her broom at them, but not one of them ever looked at her.
Now, the old lady used to be beautiful, but every day, as the huntsmen went past, and never turned her way, she would get bitter. And every day as she got more bitter, another wrinkle would appear on her face, until eventually she looked as gnarled and wrinkled as an old silk handkerchief.
And little by little, the kings and princes and noblemen went out on more and more hunts, and they came to know and love the forest very well, and they decided that they would build homes and castles for themselves in the forest.
First came the noblemen, and they built great mansions for themselves, with stables, and ponds, and balconies, and flags, each one more magnificent than the last. Then the princes came to the forest, and they built themselves castles of stone, castles of bronze, castles of marble, each one larger and more spectacular than the one before. And every day they would ride out on a hunt, and the old woman would come out and shake her broom at them, but they never looked at her; and every day, she would grow another wrinkle on her face.
Finally, the king came to the forest, and he decided that he would build a palace unlike anything ever seen on the face of the earth. And he commissioned many builders to build him a palace of gold and silver, where milk and honey flowed freely from the fountains, and the trees were filled with singing birds. And within the walls of the palace, the king’s servants and slaves and their families lived freely, and sometimes they would join the king and his princes and nobles on the hunt, but they too would never see the old lady.
And now the old lady grew even more bitter with the king and the princes and the nobles, for they had come to the forest where she had lived for hundreds of years, and they had built their mansions, and their castles, and their palaces of silver and gold, and all she had was a small gingerbread house, on which the crows landed every day, and took another bite out of the sweet-tasting roof.
Now, within the palace, there were two young children, the son and daughter of the king’s cook. Their names were Hansel and Gretel, and two such beautiful children you have never seen. Their hair was pale as moonlight, their skin soft and white, and their bright eyes studded their open faces like sapphires. And because of their beauty and their innocence, they were the king’s favourites within the palace, and he would give them gifts of gold rattles, silver flutes, diamond horses and marble bowls, and would treat them with so much love and attention that everyone who came to the palace believed that these were the king’s children.
But Hansel and Gretel were no longer babies, and they longed to know the world beyond the palace. Every morning, they would look out at the tops of the trees, menacing and dark like rows of spears, reaching out to the horizon on every side, and they would look at each other and wonder what lay beneath those trees.
One day, they contrived a plan to get out of the palace. Gretel filled the pockets of her skirt with fresh white rolls that her mamma had baked, while Hansel stood and opened the gate for the huntsmen as they rode out. Just as the last of the horses had cantered through the gate, Gretel scuttled out afterwards, and Hansel, closing the gates, pretended that he had accidentally locked himself on the wrong side. By the time the aging doorrman noticed, the two children had disappeared into the shadows of the trees.
The forest floor was cool and damp underfoot, the carpet of age-old leaves giving slightly with every step. Before long, the splashes of colour, and the baying of hounds and the sounding of bugles had disappeared entirely, as the hunt passed out of sight. The forest closed in on the children in bewildering silence.
“Where do we go now?” asked Gretel, her voice trembling.
“Straight on, until we catch up with the hunt!” declared Hansel.
“But, brother, they have horses and dogs, and we only have our small feet. We will never catch them up. And what if we get lost in this forest? How will we find our way back? I’m scared.”
“Listen, give me one of mamma’s soft white rolls, and I will make a trail, and we can follow it all the way home.”
Gretel gave her brother one of the soft white rolls, and he tore it into small, white pieces, which he scattered delicately, deliberately, as they walked further into the forest. For a long time, they walked together in silence, gazing at this strange, ominous new world around them. Then Gretel happened to glance back over her shoulder, and saw a long line of little jewelled forest birds on the ground behind them.
“Oh,” she gasped, “How lovely. Look, Hansel.”
Hansel looked, for one moment, then ran straight at them, flailing his arms and screaming for them to shoo. But it was too late. The forest floor was picked clean behind them. The birds had eaten all the bread crumbs the children so carefully scattered.
Gretel’s bright blue eyes clouded with tears, which she brushed away hastily.
“What do we do now? How shall we get back?”
“It should be all right. We haven’t gone too far yet. We’ll just walk back in a straight line – it won’t be long before we see the palace again.”
So the children turned around and began to walk back through the forest. The floor no longer felt cool and damp, but soft and threatening under foot, as though it would gape open and swallow them at any time. Behind them, birds perched silently on the branches, and the leaves rustled lightly as they landed, sending a menacing whisper echoing around the trees.
Hansel and Gretel walked until they grew weary. Every tree looked new, different, frightening. For hours they stumbled through the trees, but not once did they glimpse the golden walls of the palace, nor the brightly coloured coats of the huntsmen. The darkness around them thickened, and their eyes began to squeeze shut as night fell around them.
Then, suddenly, they saw one warm dim light growing in the distance, crossed every now and again by a flickering shadow. Overjoyed, they ran towards it through the forest.
The house was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Small and squat, with two windows glowing orange, and a lamp burning on the table. An old lady, with a face wrinkled beyond imagination, shuffled between the stove and the rocking chair. Noses pressed against the window, the two children stared in with eyes wide.
The old lady had now been so bitter for so long that there was no shred of goodness left in her. Seeing the children, she wanted to fling the door open and shriek at them and wave her broom until they ran away in fear. Then suddenly, her face creased into a semblance of a smile, as the most delightful, wicked idea occurred to her.
Swinging the door ajar, she leaned out, and shouted to Hansel and Gretel.
“Hello, children. Won’t you come in and visit a lonely old lady?”
The children started nervously.
“Come in, do. I have made the most lovely onion stew, do you not smell it?”
They sniffed nervously. A beautiful aroma drifted out of the cottage door, making their mouths water and their eyes light up with hunger. Hesitantly, they walked towards the door, which the old lady swung wide open, and followed the children inside.
“Won’t you check the stove for me, young man? I am old and my back is stiff, I can barely bend down any more. Won’t you tell me if the food is cooked?”
Obediently, Hansel bent down, opening the stove door and looking inside. Then, with a surprising force, he found himself tumbling forwards. The stove’s giant belly seemed to swell and distend, swallowing him up in a tidal wave of heat. From a distance, he heard his sister’s screams, and the old lady’s voice laughing out loud.
“What a lovely plump young man, such a lovely dinner he will make for me.”
Gretel’s eyes widened in fury. “You old witch! You will not eat my brother!” She grabbed the soup bowl from the old lady’s table, raised it high in the air, and slammed it down hard on the witch’s head. She howled, and toppled down. Jumping nimbly over her, Gretel pulled the oven door open, reached in one hand, and pulled her brother out.
Gasping and shaking, he looked around him, and saw the witch’s body lying on the floor. “Quick, Gretel,” he cried, “We can’t stay here! Let’s run away now, before the witch wakes up again!”
The children grabbed each other’s hands and ran out of the door as fast as possible. Stumbling into the forest, they ducked between the trees, running as fast as they could until their legs were so tired they could not run any more.
Then, all of a sudden, they saw splashes of colour and heard bugles sounding in the distance ...
Johannes’ voice tailed off, not telling of the children leading the huntsmen back to the strange little cottage, where they killed the nasty witch – who they finally saw for the first time – and then they took the walls of the house apart, and brought it back to the palace, where they and their children ate it, nor of Hansel and Gretel, who slept behind them on their horses as they rode back to the palace, and were delivered back to their mother, and the king who doted on them, safe and sound, and who never dared to leave the palace again – for Beatrix had fallen fast asleep.
Johannes closed the book, and balanced it on the arm of the couch. Getting up gently, he lowered Beatrix onto the cushions, and stroked her long, blonde hair softly before putting the book back into the trunk and leaving the room.
Sleeping uneasily in the stuffy heat, Beatrix dreamt of menacing forests marching on the ship, of broad-bellied ovens that swallowed children whole, of old ladies who captured and ate little boys and girls, and of golden castles and brightly-coloured huntsmen galloping through a far away, magical land.
[Arctic Nettles (c) 2008]
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