Gingerbread House — Laura Briggs

In the time of witches and fairies, one expects strange disappearances, mysterious happenings, and enchanted ruins. But not in an age where magic exists only on the theater stage.

But in the shadows of a vast forest, a terrible secret lies. Trapped in the mind of young soprano Elsa, lost and alone in these woods, is the key to past horrors now forgotten by others�"and a truth she must face if she wishes to survive.

Beneath the influence of a young composer's dark new opera, the tale of two lost children and the worst fears of a young girl will become one within a cottage's malevolent ruins…



Excerpt from Gingerbread House:

The stage's light fell upon the witch as she paused before them, a hunched figure in a dress of grimy homespun cloth. Beneath the peeling paper layers and plaster nose, the face of Frauline Truda was almost invisible; her twisted features painted in a corpse-like green and grey.

“Kommt, kleine Maus-lein, kommt in mein Haus-lein,” she intoned, beckoning towards them entreatingly.

It was not the voice of Frauline Truda the Viking Maid or Queen of the Night; it was the voice of something cold and evil. Wickedness oozed from it; a seeping, sickly tone that emerged in a slow rhythm, matching the finger coaxing them forward with its long nail.

“Come, little mous-ie,” she crooned. “come into my hous-ie...” Her trailing skirts swept across the stage as she moved backwards towards the painted cottage. Elsa was frozen in place; Adler propelling her forward by force in step to the witch's song.

The ground was closing between herself and the witch, the girl's heart pounding as her heavy boots scraped against the floorboards. Frauline Truda's smile seemed inhuman beneath her malformed mask, exposing teeth stained black beneath.

“Hocus, Pocus, witch's charms!” With a shriek of delight, Frauline Truda aimed the witch's broom at them, its pointed end dwindling to a wand…