Yeah, this is pretty much the same idea as your Witch/Cinderella story except that the sexuality is gone. Unimpressed.

-V

I like this. Short and sweet. lol, 'I like this' sounds weird but I do.
Great work!
F.S.T~

I think it's neat that you tried to write in the old fairy tale style. I particularly liked "Ah, how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, and how her tears did flow down her cheeks!". But though repetition is a staple of the style, the first paragraph felt a bit laboured - I think it was the fact that Gretel did nothing but cry, which is fair enough given her circumstances, but she didn't /try/ to do anything but cry, which meant it didn't go anywhere. What was Hansel doing all this time? Would he not have tried to comfort his sister? Would Gretel not have tried to seem brave to keep his spirits up?
The first half of the opening sentence sets up a nice contrast (particularly the thought of having nothing to eat but crab-shells, it's a very cool image) but then you didn't do anything with it, you never made a comparison between Hansel and Gretel and the Witch again, so it became pointless. Also the way you've written the sentence makes it seem like there's some important link between eating crab-shells and crying oneself to sleep. They should be two separate thoughts but you've melded them together.
Gretel's motive for killing the brother she loves is because she ran out of grief, yes? The entire story turns on that motive but it's still a bit unclear exactly what it is. You also have a lovely inkling that perhaps the witch became what she was because she ran out of tears - if you could somehow bring that out, make that parallel between Gretel and the witch the focus, it would give the story a neater conclusion.
I think you've got the beginnings of something great. Good job.

This was really good, and it would have been awesome if you could have made it into a longer story. But its still very entertaining, Sad, but very good.

Take Your Bow