A House in the Woods

Dystopian fiction meets fairy tale re-tellings in this collection of three short stories:

"A House in the Woods" - At the conclusion of a scavenger hunt for Old World artifacts, Hansel and Gretel find themselves lost on the outskirts of the city after dark. They stumble upon a house in the nearby woods, hoping that they will find help inside, but the house's inhabitant has other ideas.

"The Girl in the Crimson Robe" – The Global Resource and Materials Allocation system is in charge of allotting food and other necessities to Rose’s village. When GRandMA grants an unreasonably low allocation that is far too little for the village to live on, Rose must try to convince it to offer more.

"The Music Box Maker" – In this retelling of "The Elves and the Shoemaker", Henry Wayne is a master craftsman whose skills have deteriorated with age. When a Chief Legislator asks him to build a music box, Henry finds that the job is more difficult than it first appeared. Fortunately, Henry has some help from an unexpected source.