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here?”
    Sofia had her annoyed look set firmly on her face. “Do you even listen when Master George talks? He said that she was sent here to study this Reality. That’s why she lives here.”
    “And this whole world is a swamp? I’m pretty sure they have a mountain or two somewhere. A sweet forest dig. A desert would be better than this.”
    “I just hope Master George didn’t send us here so we’d be out of the way.”
    Paul snorted. “You kidding? He probably figured we’d drunk a ton of water, so here we are—waiting to ask if we can use this lady’s bathroom.”
    “I wonder who died here, or how many,” was Sofia’s reply.
    Sometimes she chose to ignore his comments as her best line of defense. Paul didn’t mind. “Maybe there was a battle or something. It sure isn’t a graveyard.”
    “It looks like the path starts here and goes in that direction.” She pointed down the long trail, which wound its way through the nasty, steaming marshland.
    “I bet we get bitten by mosquitos the size of my dad’s truck.”
    “Probably.”
    “We’ll get malaria and die.”
    “Probably.”
    “Okay. Let’s go.”

    They reached Gretel’s house about ten minutes later.
    It was the exact kind of place Paul expected would be in the middle of a swamp. Old, moss-covered wood, the sideboards of the small cottage warped from too much moisture. Faded, worn paint that used to be white. A screen door that was half off its hinges. A porch that looked like it was about to collapse. The biggest trees they’d seen yet surrounded the place.
    Paul had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t make any Hansel and Gretel jokes since he’d first heard the woman’s name from Master George, but he couldn’t resist.
    “We forgot to drop pieces of bread on our way here.”
    Sofia gave him a fake courtesy laugh. “I was waiting for that.”
    “Comedy never works when it’s obvious.”
    Sofia flashed him a smile that wasn’t fake, and Paul broke out in goose bumps. He hoped she couldn’t tell. He started walking toward the porch to hide it.
    When he reached the steps of the porch, he couldn’t help but hesitate. It seemed as if their feet would crash right through if they dared take one step on the old, rotten boards. But before he could take that first step, the front door tore open with a bang. The screen that had barely been hanging on fell off completely. It clanged against the porch, bent and torn.
    An old, old woman stood in the doorway, a huge knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Paul yelped and backed away. He ran into Sofia, and they both collapsed to the soggy ground.
    Gretel moved forward, the boards creaking under her feet. She had gray hair springing in all directions, a face as wrinkled as a newborn pup, and a tattered dress that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in years. But her body seemed strong, solid. Especially the fingers gripped around those two weapons.
    “How dare old Georgy Porgy send two rats here to nibble on my cheese,” she said, her voice low but somehow full of venom. “I told him what would happen if he did that. I sure did. Death, true and true.”
    The old lady lifted her pistol and aimed it at Paul’s face.

Chapter 9

    A Dusty Road
     
    Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Paul shouted, holding his hands up as he got to his feet. Sofia did the same next to him. “You haven’t heard why we came yet!”
    Gretel cocked the old silver pistol and took a step forward. She kept the barrel pointed directly at Paul. “Don’t need hearing your nonsense, boy. I’m here for a reason, and that reason is more important than two pipsqueak babies begging for their lives on my lawn.”
    Paul’s immediate instinct was to tell her she was crazy for calling the mud and weeds on which they stood a lawn. Luckily, Sofia spoke up before he could, as calm and collected as a sheriff in an old Western movie.
    “You want to shoot us, Gretel? Go right ahead. But you’ll need to answer our question before you