Winterwood by JG Faherty

problem to solve.
    How to escape and get back home.
    Anders tore his eyes away from the tearful reunion and looked around the room, really seeing it for the first time. Many of the other prisoners were sitting up, staring with wide eyes at the unexpected moment of joy occurring amidst the despair and hopelessness of their situation. A terrible cold, worse than the freezing air of the dungeon, crept through Anders’s bones as he got his first real look at their faces.
    All children.
    Every one of them. Children. All of them of a similar age, between seven and ten. Dressed in threadbare coats and pants over pajamas or undergarments. A few only had slippers to protect their feet. All of them looked bruised and scared.
    Children. Captured for the feast.
    Anders’s heart delivered a sharp jolt but he ignored it and turned back to his family. “We have to get out of here. Now.”
    â€œNo escape,” one of the captives whispered. “No escape from the witch.”
    â€œWe have to find a way.” Anders got to his feet, tugging at Paul to get him to stand. “And fast. We can’t be here when morning comes.”
    Somewhere in the depths of the dungeon a door slammed, the sound echoing from one ancient wooden wall to the next until it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
    â€œToo late,” a child said, and all of them lay down on the piss-soaked, filthy straw, pulling their hoods over their faces. Several of them whimpered or cried into their sleeves.
    Two figures emerged from the darkness, dancing into the chamber with manic glee. Their elongated, misshapen faces peered out from the hoods of their matching green hide coats to show eyes alight with madness.
    â€œHere, Mother! Here! These are the ones we want next.” The two jegere pointed into the cage, right at Nick and Jake.
    â€œDon’t let them take us again!”
    The boys pressed themselves tighter against their mother, hiding their faces, and Anders knew instantly who the newcomers were.
    The Yule Lads. The murderous sons of the Holly King.
    The ones who took my grandchildren.
    He placed himself in front of his family, blocking them from the gesturing fiends, just as a third figure entered the dungeon.
    Someone gasped, and more than a few of the captive children moaned at the sight of the old woman. Even Anders backed up a step, despite the bars between them.
    Ancient as the tree surrounding them, she exuded evil like a fetid body odor. Hunched and emaciated, she still projected a sense of power stronger than any man ten times her size. A long nose with a sharp hook at the end dominated her craggy face. Beneath it, her lips were two pallid worms and her chin a jagged spike split by a deep cleft from which sprouted several long whiskers. Wild, stringy, white hair fell haphazardly over her ears and down to her shoulders, giving the impression she’d never learned to use a comb or brush. Her eyes, black as a starless night, glared from under a brow too large for her face. When she opened her mouth to speak, she revealed brown, misshapen teeth with several empty places along her gums.
    â€œGryla.” The word escaped Anders lips before he could stop it.
    The crone narrowed her eyes at him. “And who have we here? A human who knows my name? Where are you from, old man?”
    Anders shook his head. “I’ll not speak with you, witch.”
    The ancient woman made a tsk-tsk sound through her crooked teeth. “You don’t need to converse for me to know your secrets.”
    She leaned forward, one hand cupping a pointed ear. She listened for a moment and then lifted her head and took a deep breath through flaring nostrils.
    â€œAh, I can smell the strength fading in your blood, which thickens and slows with every beat. You fear for your children and your grandchildren, but your worries should be for yourself before your family. They’re going to die, ’tis true, but you won’t be