A Tale Dark and Grimm (5 page)

The man's wife laid a steaming plate of boiled meat and potatoes before the children.

Gretel hesitated. “Will we have to do chores if we live here with you?” she asked.

The woman was kind but firm when she said, “You will.”

“And go to school?”

“Of course!” the woman scolded.

“Good.” Gretel thanked the woman for the food, and she and Hansel, slowly and not-at-all greedily, began to eat.

Meanwhile, the father wondered where his new children's bath could be. For the seven brothers, in their haste not to displease their father, had lost their grip on the tub and sent it tumbling into the well. “He'll be furious!” the eldest whispered, while the youngest cried, “He'll beat us for certain!” They crowded around the well, wondering what they should do.

At home, their father was getting more impatient by the minute. “Where are those foolish boys?” he whispered to his wife as she worked in the kitchen. “Our new daughter and son will be wanting their bath at any moment!”

When, a short time later, the boys still were not home, the man swore and said, “They are useless! I wish they would all just turn into birds and fly away!”

At that very moment, in the village, the seven boys turned into seven swallows and wheeled into the evening air. They flew past their house's kitchen window before disappearing into the nearby wood. The woman saw this and turned on her husband in a fury. But he said it was all for the best, and that they had always wanted a daughter more anyway, and he made her promise never to tell their new children what had happened. For, he said, what good could come of their knowing? Reluctantly, and with tears in her eyes, his wife agreed.

 

At first, things were fine in the cozy little house. Hansel and Gretel's new parents were very kind and always took especially good care of Gretel. But the children soon began to worry. Their new father was happy, but their mother seemed to bear a great sadness with her wherever she went. Gretel in particular loved her new mother very much. She could not stand to see her so upset.

“Tell me, Mother!” she would say. “Tell me what's wrong!” But always her mother would pretend to laugh, and shoo her away.

There were other strange things that Hansel and Gretel began to notice. Their room had seven beds in it, and more than once they asked their new parents what these seven beds were for. Their parents told them it had been a guest room before Hansel and Gretel had come to live there, but Gretel didn't believe them. “Who has seven guests all at once, and makes them sleep in the same room?” Gretel wondered aloud.

Hansel was less worried. Once he came upon their new father staring at the seven empty beds in their room with a tear hanging from the end of his nose. But he didn't know what to make of it. Besides, he was happy to be in a place where your father wouldn't cut off your head, and your mother wouldn't try to eat you.

But Gretel grew more and more uncomfortable living there. She heard whisperings about the town. “Oh, nice children, yes. But such a sacrifice! All seven sons at once!” And she wondered more and more about their new mother's sadness.

 

In time, one of the children of the town told Gretel the whole story, and a few other children, wide-eyed and earnest, confirmed it. Everyone in a little town knows everything about everybody.

“We can't live here anymore!” she implored her brother that night. “It's our fault that the boys were turned into swallows! We must do something!”

Hansel was devastated. “Aren't there any good parents in all the wide world?” he muttered.

“It's my fault,” Gretel said, for the children had told her how badly the father wanted a daughter. “He did it because of me.” She turned to Hansel. “We've got to find them.”

“What? Who?”

“The swallows.”

“How are we going to find seven little birds out there?” he said, and gestured at the window of their room. The gesture was so weak and small that it made “out there” seem utterly unconquerable.

Gretel didn't know. But she did know that they had to try. Otherwise her heart would break from guilt. Hansel didn't think they had any hope of finding them—but he had suddenly begun to worry that this new father would wish
him
into a swallow, too. So he agreed to go and try.

 

When the night was heavy and their new parents were asleep, Hansel and Gretel slipped out into the darkness to find the seven swallows. They walked all night and all the next day and all the next night. “I still don't know how we're going to find them,” Hansel sighed.

Gretel shook her head. But as the sun came up the next morning, dazzling their eyes, Gretel said, “I know! The sun! She sees us everywhere we go. She must know what happened to the seven swallow boys! Let's ask her!”

Hansel thought she was crazy. On the other hand, he didn't have any better ideas.

So Hansel and Gretel climbed the tallest tree they could find, until they were right up near the sun. They tried to speak to her, but she was too hot and terrible. They had to hide their faces. Hansel tugged on Gretel's shirt. “I think she eats children,” Hansel whispered. Gretel thought he was probably right. They climbed back down the tree and started walking again.

That evening, as the moon rose above the trees, Gretel said, “The moon sees us just as much as the sun. And he's not so hot and terrible. Let's go and ask him!” So they climbed the tallest tree and got as near as they dared to the moon. The moon wasn't hot and terrible. Instead, he was cold and creepy. “Fee-fie-foe-fesh, I think I smell child-flesh!” he said.

Hansel and Gretel hurried down the tree as quickly as they could.

 

 

 

 

Scared and dejected, Hansel and Gretel walked on until they came to a beautiful lake that shimmered in the starlight. “We've been walking forever,” Hansel said. “We'll never find them! Can't we just give up?”

But Gretel's guilt was bubbling like a boiling pot inside her. “It's my fault that our new mother's sons have disappeared!” Gretel moaned.

She began to weep, and her tears fell into the shimmering lake. When they landed, they shook the reflection of the stars on the water, waking them from their glittering sleep.

“Whose tears have woken us?” the stars asked. At first Hansel and Gretel were scared. Did stars eat children, too? But the shining stars seemed far nicer than the blistering sun or the creepy moon. So Gretel told the stars all her troubles.

“We've seen the seven swallows flying,” the stars said. “They live in the Crystal Mountain. You can save them, but it will take great courage and sacrifice. The mountain is months of hard travel from here. If you decide to go, take this chicken bone with you. It will open the door to the Crystal Mountain and let the seven swallows out.” Just then, the children noticed a chicken bone beneath the surface of the water, at the edge of the pool.

Hansel did not want to go. “Months?” he bleated.

But Gretel said, “Please, Hansel!” And she grabbed his arm and held it tight. At first Hansel resisted, but once he saw that his sister would not change her mind (and that he was losing feeling in his arm), he reluctantly agreed to go.

 

So Gretel put the chicken bone in her pocket, and the two children journeyed for a month and a day, and then another, and then another. They passed through dark forests and sunny fields, blazing deserts and muck-filled swamps. They grew much during their travels and became strong and lean from hardship and perseverance. Gretel carried her smoldering guilt with her always, but it was bearable so long as she knew she was doing something about it.

Finally they came to a massive mountain range and proceeded through the whipping snow and wind. The peaks of the mountains rose up white and sharp all around them, like the craggy teeth of some stone beast. Above, the sky was pale and clear but so, so cold. Their cheeks became red and chapped, their lips blue with frostbite. Hansel wanted to turn back. But Gretel would not let him.

After days and days of climbing, they finally arrived at the Crystal Mountain. It was tremendous—the most wonderful thing they had ever seen. Its crystalline crags rose straight up from the ice and snow that lay at its base. Kestrels and merlins twirled around its peaks, screaming to the skies.

“It's beautiful,” Hansel murmured, and Gretel nodded wordlessly. “At last,” he said. “I couldn't have gone any farther.”

Before them was an enormous door made of ice, with a keyhole just about the width of a finger—or a chicken bone. Gretel reached into her pocket.

She found nothing. She reached down farther, and farther, and farther, until she felt the cold alpine air swirling around one of her fingers. She had a hole in her pocket.

She had lost the bone.

They looked all around for it. “When did you last have it?” Hansel asked. “Last night? The night before?” But Gretel couldn't remember, and she became more and more afraid. Soon she collapsed on the ground and sobbed until her little body nearly broke. “All these months,” she wept, “for nothing! What I've taken you through! And I've failed our new mother!” Hansel wrapped Gretel up in their traveling cloaks, and, as the night came on, lay down beside her to sleep.

But Gretel could not sleep. After many an hour her tears subsided. But still she could only think of her failure. Her guilt burned her like the scouring wind. And then the stars came out and reminded her of her failure again, and she felt so guilty, so foolish, so worthless that she could not even look at them.

Near daybreak, she looked down the long path that she and Hansel had trod. They would have to go back now, having accomplished nothing. Months and months more of suffering. And all the while, her guilt would throb inside of her.

Suddenly, Gretel ran to the door of the Crystal Mountain and began to bang with all her might, pleading to be let in. She banged so hard, in fact, that she cut herself on a shard of ice. She woke her sleeping brother, who offered to tend to her wound. But she refused. “I'd rather make it worse,” she said.

She picked up a sliver of ice, as sharp as a knife, and brought it down on her middle finger, severing it from her hand. Hansel stared, aghast. Gretel's face was white and her voice trembled when she said, “Now I can make things right.” She was bleeding swiftly from where the finger used to be, but she stood and walked, resolute and grim, to the door of the mountain. She picked up the finger, slid it into the keyhole, and turned it.

The door opened.

 

 

But there's no doubt about the finger. Besides, if I left it out you'd be wondering why Gretel had only nine fingers at the end of this book. Which reminds me of another question you're probably asking.

Why did the door open?

I don't know. A finger is enough like a chicken bone, I guess? Why a chicken bone, even, in the first place? Again, I don't know. I have no idea why either a chicken bone or a finger should open the Crystal Mountain. (As for the location of the Crystal Mountain, that's quite clear, and if you have any interest, I'd be happy to share it with you. Just write me.)

Now I've got to say something about cutting off one's own finger, in case any young children are still reading or hearing this tale—which would be almost beyond belief, given all of the terrible things that have happened so far. Cutting off your finger, my young friends, is about the stupidest thing you could do. Don't do it. You won't be able to open
anything
with your finger. Only Gretel could.

Why?

I've already told you. I don't know.

Though it may have something to do with sacrifice.

As the door swung open, a storm of brown wings knocked the children back onto the snow, and seven swallows swirled out of the mountain. They settled on the ground, their black eyes studying Hansel and Gretel curiously.

“It didn't work,” Gretel said incredulously, her bleeding hand really beginning to hurt.

Hansel watched the swallows walk mutely around on the white snow. He didn't know what to say. They were still birds. He wanted to cry.