"Come on!" Jace said to Tula.

  "What?" Tula asked.

  "We're not dead, okay?!" Jace said.

  "Fine, if that's what you want to believe" Tula said, shrugging her shoulders and folding her arms.

  "Just follow me!" Jace ordered his sister as he began chasing after the birds.

  Tula rolled her eyes and began following him, but she only needed to walk, as Jace wasn't a very fast runner. They lost the birds as they came to a clearing in the woods. Tula managed to catch up to her brother, but as she did, he gave a loud gasp and pushed her behind a tree.

  "Ohmygod" He said.

  "What?" Tula asked, rolling her eyes.

  "Look!" Jace instructed her.

  Tula looked out from behind the tree and saw a house. But not just any old house, this house was made of gingerbread and cakes and the windows were made of clear sugar. She brought her head back around the tree.

  "It's a gingerbread house" She stated.

  "Which means?" Jace asked her.

  "Someone in Heaven got creative" Tula replied.

  "No," Jace replied with an annoyed sigh, "It's the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel"

  "Handsome and what?" Tula asked him once again.

  "Hansel and Gretel," Jace said, "My favourite fairytale. We must be in the book"

  "Right," Tula said awkwardly, "So you know who lives there then?"

  "Yup.." Jace replied with a gulp.

  "So, it should be fine if we just knock on the door and ask them if they know what's going on" Tula stated, heading for the gingerbread house.

  "Yeah..," Jace replied, then realising what his sister just said, "Wait, no!"

  He ran after his sister as they approached the front door of the house.

  "Tula, you've never read a fairytale before, you don't know-" Jace blabbered, but he was too late as Tula knocked on the door.

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  Which her hard knocks made a hole through. She raised her eyebrows and peeped down into the hole.

  "Don't do that!" Jace said.

  At that moment, an old lady's face appeared in the hole. Her eyes were squinted and she had grey hair tied in a bun, a long nose that stretched out and ended in a pimple and a mole at one side of her chin.

  "Who's there?" She asked.

  "Hi, lady," Tula said, "Me and my brother were wondering if you could help us out"

  "Oh! Of course!" The lady said, opening the door to let them in, "Are you hungry?"

  "No! No! Not hungry at all!" Jace said quickly as the two walked in.

  "I am" Tula replied as she walked over to the table that had a whole heap of desserts splayed out on it and taking a cupcake.

  "Do you need a job?" The old lady asked them.

  "Actually," Tula said, biting into the cupcake and approaching the woman, "We're a bit lost, and need some clarifications"

  "I can help you with that, no problem, just take a seat in the living room, I'll be with you in a moment" The lady told them.

  The two siblings walked into the living room, where there was a long sofa made of red velvet cake and a long coffee table made of gingerbread men.

  "Why'd you do that for?!" Jace asked his sister quietly.

  Tula looked at the half-eaten cupcake, then back up at her brother, "I was hungry"

  "Not the cupcake, the knock on the door!" Jace told her, "Do you know what that lady is?!"

  "A nice lady who's going to help us find out what's going on" Tula replied.

  "To you, someone who's never read a fairytale before, maybe," Jace replied, "To everyone else, she's the witch that almost-"

  Just then, they heard the old lady, or the 'witch', talking to someone. They peeked around the gingerbread walls of the house to the front door. They saw she had opened the door to two small children. The boy had short blonde hair cut in a bowl cut and was wearing a red woollen top with some blue shorts. The girl had brown hair tied in pigtails with little pink bows and was wearing a blue dress with a white apron attached.

  "Not to worry, children, I can help you out," She was saying to them, "There's plenty of soft beds and delicious food in here, come in"

  She motioned for the children to come in as they did. Jace put a hand over his mouth as he moved back into the room, realising who the other children were.

  "What's wrong now?" Tula asked, crossing her arms.

  "Those two are Hansel and Gretel!" Jace said quietly.

  "Hanky and who?" Tula asked.

  "Hansel and Gretel!" Jace said, "From the fairytale! We have to hide!"

  Jace pushed his sister into the nearest room and shut the door as the old lady led Hansel and Gretel into the living room.

  "Here we go, Hansel and...Gretel, did you say?" She said, "Just relax in here with the other two and I'll sort you out when I can"

  Hansel and Gretel looked at each other in confusion at the lady's sentence about there being two more kids here. Because there were clearly no other kids in the living room but the two of them. Hours passed and the lady still had not returned. Jace opened the door ajar, and noticed that Hansel and Gretel were still here. The two children had fallen asleep on the red velvet couch. Jace and Tula tiptoed past the sleeping children and Jace began heading for the front door.

  "What are you doing?" Tula asked, whispering, "We still don't know anything"

  "Well, we can try and find another fairytale character that can help," Jace whispered back, "I don't want to be witness to what happens to those kids"

  "Why, what happ-" Tula whispered back, but got cut off by a creaky noise from the corridoor that sounded like it was coming towards them.

  They both stood frozen and looked towards the direction of the sound. Jace looked at his sister with a terrified face.

  "Maybe we can find them in the morning" He whispered to her as they snuck into the nearest room to sleep.