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.
I’m sorry. I wish I could have skipped this part. I really do. Gretel cutting off her own finger? And putting it into a keyhole?
If there was any question about the truth of this part of the story, I would have left it out altogether. Maybe she could have found another chicken bone. Or maybe, if she wished hard enough, and said some magic word, the door could have opened on its own.
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.
After a few moments of painful, confused silence, Gretel bent down beside the smallest swallow. “It’s time to go home, little bird,” she said. “Your mother misses you.” The swallow held her in its black gaze.
Hansel thought back to the boys’ father, and suddenly he remembered that tear hanging from the end of his nose. “Your father misses you, too,” he told them.
Suddenly the claws on the swallows’ feet softened, and their thin black legs began to lengthen and grow thick. Wings stretched outward, until fingers appeared at their ends, and then there were wrists, elbows, shoulders, and all the rest. The swallows’ black eyes paled, their feathers turned to hair and clothes, and finally, in a circle around Hansel and Gretel, stood the seven brothers.
“He misses us?” the littlest one asked. Hansel and Gretel, amazed by the transformation, nodded dumbly.
The boys began to rejoice, and, after a fit of hugging and laughing and cheering, the eldest turned to Hansel and Gretel and invited them into the Crystal Mountain, where they all drank warm milk and ate Black Forest cookies and talked late into the evening.
The next day, the brothers invited Hansel and Gretel to return home with them.
Hansel and Gretel said they wanted to talk it over. As soon as they were alone, Hansel said, “I don’t want to, Gretel. I don’t want to go with them.” Gretel nodded solemnly. Hansel sat down heavily on the ground. “I don’t want to live with a father that could do something like that to his children.” He thought back to all the other parents he had known. His own father had cut off his head. The baker woman had tried to eat Gretel. And then this new father had wished his sons into birds.
Gretel was thinking the same thing. She felt the space on her hand where her finger had been. She looked up at Hansel. He was leaner and stronger than she had ever seen him. They had both grown much over the difficult journey to the Crystal Mountain. “Perhaps we don’t need parents at all,” she said. “Perhaps we can take care of ourselves.”
“Yes!” Hansel cried, leaping to his feet. “Let’s live without any terrible parents at all!”
And so the two brave children, now a little older, and a lot wiser, and with only nineteen fingers between them, set off into the world to find a life that they could call their own.
I won’t even bother saying “The End” anymore. You know it isn’t.
As for this next story, it is really dark. Frightening things happen. You may feel upset—I’m talking to the big kids now.
And as for the little ones, if they are still around, I warn you, I plead with you: Make them go away. Don’t let them hear this story. They may have nightmares. No, they will have nightmares.
At least read it yourself first. Then, if you think they can take it, maybe, maybe you can read it to them. And then you have only yourself to blame if they can’t sleep for a week.
Brother and Sister
Once upon a time, a brother and a sister clasped hands (one of which was missing a finger) and strode out of the white mountains, across green hills, and into a large and wonderful wood.
Trees towered above them like the pillars of Heaven—strong and straight all the way up. Birds sang and flitted by their faces. Little rodents—chipmunks, squirrels, mice—dashed in and out of the underbrush. A fawn appeared and looked at them from behind a stand of ferns, and then bounded off after his mother. Everything was greener here, more full of life, than anywhere Hansel and Gretel had ever been.
The vibrant power of the place began to take hold of the children. Hansel rushed out ahead of his sister, bounding through the ferns, and then running back again, like a dog that’s been let off his tether. Gretel laughed and sang and collected bluebottles and daisies and other wildflowers.
“We could make a life here!” she shouted to her brother.
Hansel hooted with delight and took off after a low-flying blackbird.
Soon the two came to a clearing where there stood a magnificent tree. It rose to such heights that they could barely make
out where the lowest branches began, though they could see, if they looked really hard, a crown of green far above them. Gretel jumped when she noticed, in the wood of the tree, what appeared to be a woman’s face. It was made of bark, with brown hair wrapping around its smooth cheeks and wide eyes. Gretel walked up to it, mesmerized.
“What a magnificent tree,” she said.
“Thank you,” the tree replied.
Now you might have expected Gretel to jump, or Hansel to fall backward over a conveniently placed log, but neither did. The tree’s voice was so gentle that neither child was startled at all.
“Welcome to my wood,” she went on. “It is called the Lebenwald, the Wood of Life.”
That’s pronounced LAY-ben-vault. Go ahead and say it. German is fun.
“Plant something,” the tree went on, “and watch it sprout before your eyes. Spy on the wild beasts, and see them leap and bound and grow. You, too, will grow here, and live, and be happy.” Her woody eyes drifted over them, and then she asked, invitingly, “Do you plan to stay?”
Hansel looked to Gretel. She nodded and said, “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” The tree smiled, and then added, “But I ask of you one thing. Please, take no more than you need. Life here exists in a delicate balance. Do not upset it.” Then she told them that, less than a league hence, lay a lovely spot where they could build their home. The children thanked the tree, because it is always best to thank talking trees. Then they bid her farewell and started for the place she had told them of.
They soon came to a small clearing. Some large stones were partially buried in the earth there, and nearby a brook burbled and babbled over smooth rocks. The sun shone in through the green leaves. Hansel and Gretel agreed that this was the place the tree must have meant. They gathered fallen branches and fronds of fern and laid them against the great rocks so that a little hut was formed, half green, half gray. They gathered more ferns, as well as moss and leaves, and made two little beds for themselves, side by side. Then Gretel gathered seeds to begin a garden, and Hansel gathered nuts and berries for supper. That night, they feasted.
Gretel swore that nothing could make her happier, and Hansel agreed. They decided that they needed nothing else—certainly not parents—and that they would be able to live happily, just like this, for the rest of their lives.
Yeah, right.
(Oh, did I say that out loud?)
The next day, Hansel was out gathering food for dinner as Gretel tended their garden. He walked beneath the towering trees, and heard the birds singing as they flitted by, and he thought, What life! What excitement! I want to be part of it all! Just then, a brown rabbit ran across his path. Hansel felt his legs twitch. Before he knew it, he was pursuing the rabbit through the underbrush.
As the sun set that evening, he walked back into the clearing, exhausted but as happy as the chirruping birds. He had the rabbit in his hand. It was dead. He placed it before Gretel on the ground. “Now we must make a fire,” he said, “and eat.”
But Gretel was upset. “Why did you do it?” she asked. “We don’t need this!” Suddenly Hansel felt sorry for having killed the small beast, though he had enjoyed hunting it so. They made a fire and cooked the rabbit and ate it so it would not go to waste. But Gretel made him promise not to kill any more animals. “We have everything that we need right here,” she said. “Remember what the tree told us.” He felt bad, and promised.
But the next day, as he walked through the woods looking for nuts and berries, he saw a tiny baby fawn, nosing a stand of fern. His legs began to twitch again, and his heart began to race. He remembered what his sister had made him promise. He told himself to turn away. But there was something about the air here, the color of the green, the musty scent of the wood, that made him want to burst as he watched the tiny fawn among the fronds of fern. He couldn’t help it. In a flash, he lit off after the frightened creature.
As the sun set that evening, he walked back into the clearing, exhausted but as happy as the little animals that run among the underbrush. Over his shoulder was slung the fawn. He placed it before his sister on the ground.
“What have you done?!” she cried.
He attempted to calm her. “Now we can eat meat for a whole month!” he said. “And I won’t have to kill another animal for a long, long time!”
She looked at him in disbelief, and then began to weep bitterly over the dead fawn. “Why did you do it?” she muttered. “We have all we need here. Remember what the tree said.” Hansel suddenly remembered once more, and remorse swept over him.
That night, he tossed and turned. He was furious at himself. Hadn’t she told him? Hadn’t they both told him? Don’t take more than you need. He and Gretel had eaten as much of the fawn as they could that night, and it looked as if they hadn’t even touched it. Now the carcass lay outside on the grass attracting flies, its stench wafting over their beautiful clearing. As Hansel stared at it, he vowed to be his own master, and not let his impulses carry him away again.
The next day, before he went out to find fruit, Gretel made him swear on his very life that he would kill nothing else. He swore it, and hugged her and kissed her for being so good and so forgiving, and he promised he would do nothing violent ever again as long as they remained in this forest. She kissed him on his forehead, as if he were much younger than she, and sent him off for the nuts and fruit.
He spent the whole day basking in the lovely green light of the leaves, picking berries and storing them in his tattered shirt, which he had tied around his waist like an apron. He felt the peacefulness and calm of the forest, and he wondered why he hadn’t always been able to feel it, why he had been overcome the last two days with that uncontrollable animal lust.
And then he saw a white dove perching on a nearby branch. Something tingled in his legs and arms. “Don’t,” he told himself. “It’s wrong.” He started to shake. “Go home. Turn away and go home.” But he found himself creeping in the direction of the dove. The berries fell to the ground.
As the sun set that evening, he walked back into the clearing, exhausted but as happy as a sated wolf. Blood covered his arms and his face, and he carried in his hands the broken, eviscerated carcass of the white dove. Gretel screamed when she saw him. “What have you done!” she cried. “Hansel, what’s wrong with you?” Hansel stopped. Then he looked down at the dead bird. He noticed that his arms were covered in blood, and his shirt was stained with a mix of blood and berry juice. He wondered where the berries were. Gretel began to cry. Hansel, confused and upset, placed the dead dove at her feet. She backed away from it, covering her face. He looked at her, and felt awful. But not as awful as he had felt the night before. He turned and walked back into the woods.
Gretel saw Hansel only infrequently after that. Occasionally, as she was out collecting berries, she saw him running through the forest after some animal or other. At first he had stopped to speak with her—just a few words each time. But soon she noticed that words were not coming as easily to him as they once had, and he was ever and always looking off over his shoulder, or following the flight of birds with jerky movements of his head. Soon he wasn’t stopping to speak with her at all.
She found animal carcasses littered all over the forest. Some were half-eaten, others barely touched. Once, she found a wild boar, larger than Hansel, with its neck broken. She wondered how Hansel had the strength to do such a thing. She wondered how he had the heart to do it.
She saw him only in flashes now. A blur of skin through the trees. The scream of a dying animal, and then a howl of delight. She thought he looked different. He was growing hair on his face, on his back.
She was frightened to be in the wood by herself, particularly at night. She heard howling—howling that she hadn’t heard when they’d first come to the Lebenwald. She wondered if it was Hansel.
She stayed closer and closer to the hut for fear of seeing him. Then, one day, he wandered into the clearing. Gretel stared. He walked bent now. He
had hair all over his body—his arms, his back, his face, his chest. Wordlessly, she offered him a handful of berries and nuts. He snarled at her. She dropped them and hurried into the hut. He growled and stalked around the clearing for a few minutes. Gretel wondered if he would kill her. But he left.
There were fewer animals in the forest these days. Gretel heard no birds in song. She saw no small rodents darting in and out of the underbrush. No deer nosed the stands of fern.
And then, early one morning, a hunting party—a duke and his household—entered the wood. They blew their horns and their hounds bayed and barked. Gretel feared for herself. But more than that, she feared for Hansel. She crept into the hut and stayed there all day, hoping he would come to her.
The dogs and huntsmen scoured the forest for some sign of animal life. To their surprise, they found none. All day they searched, and all day they found nothing. The duke became angry and impatient. And then, at dusk, he saw a strange, hairy, hunched creature peering out from behind a large tree. “There!” he bellowed, and instantly the dogs were in pursuit.
Hansel fled through the wood, thrilling at the terror of the chase. The dogs bayed at his heels; the horns sounded all around him. He dodged this way and that, panting, growling, laughing, howling. What fun! he thought. What tremendous, terrifying fun!
At last, he came to the edge of a brook. Across the way, the duke sat astride his horse, his bowstring pulled tight, an arrow nocked and aimed at Hansel. The animal-boy stared curiously at the sweating, red-faced man holding the strange bent stick. Then there was a snap and a hiss like a snake. An arrow flew through the air—a straight, simple harbinger of death. Hansel watched it all the way to his chest, to exactly where his heart was. It buried itself there. He felt a searing bolt of pain and fell to the forest floor.