“Of course.”
“Which would mean you’d have to pay your taxes until then.”
“I see.”
“Plus whatever you owe from years past.”
The ogre looked at her. For a while he was silent. And then he said, “You’re quite an impressive little girl.”
“Thank you.” She smiled.
And they shook hands.
* * *
The king could not believe the size of the sack that Jorinda handed him the next day. It weighed at least twenty pounds. And it was filled entirely with gold coins.
“This should do,” she said. “Just leave him alone, and he’ll pay every year, right on time.”
“How did you do it?” the king demanded. He was gaping at the little girl.
“I just talked to him.” She smiled. “That’s all.”
The king was not happy.
But he was impressed.
And more than a little bit frightened.
Sleeping Beauty
Once upon a time, some years before the tale of Jorinda and Joringel began, a queen gave birth to a baby girl. She was named Briar Rose, and to celebrate her birth, the king and queen held a great feast, and they invited all the great and powerful people of their land. In particular, they invited twelve Wise Women. There were actually thirteen Wise Women in the kingdom, but the king only had twelve golden plates for them to eat from. So one of them had to stay home.
I know. That sounds like a stupid reason not to invite the thirteenth Wise Woman. But that’s how the story goes.
Also, sometimes these women are called Fairies, and sometimes they are called Witches. No one really seems to know what they were.
You call them whatever you want. Call them Zombies in Tutus, if you want. I’m calling them Wise Women.
Well, the feast went splendidly. All the guests gave the infant princess the finest gifts they could think of. At last, it was the Wise Women’s turn to bestow their gifts. The first Wise Woman gave the little girl beauty, the second gave her intelligence, the third gave her an impeccable sense of direction, and so on and so forth. The eleventh Wise Woman gave her a blessed childhood, full of happiness and sunshine. The twelfth wise woman had just opened her mouth to bestow her gift, when suddenly the thirteenth Wise Woman swept into the room. She was furious at not having been invited—especially for such a ridiculous reason as a shortage of golden plates; she could have brought her own stupid plate!—so she bellowed, “When this girl has lived for thirteen years, her blessed childhood will end, and she will suddenly sicken, sadden, and mourn. She will feel as if every injury in the world was being done to her and her alone. She will suffer every day of her life!” Then she swept from the hall, muttering, “And get yourself some more stupid plates. . . .”
The guests stared, horror-stricken. But then the twelfth Wise Woman, who had not yet bestowed her gift, stepped forward. “I cannot undo the curse,” she said, “but I can soften it. The girl will not suffer every day of her life. Only once a month, for a span of a few days. And then the pain will leave her, and she will be as she ever was.”
Well, this was some consolation to the king and queen.
They raised their daughter with all the love in their hearts, until the day of her thirteenth birthday. On that day, the princess sat up in bed and began to weep.
“What’s wrong?” her mother asked her.
The little girl tried to explain. There was so much suffering in the world. So much injustice. Every day, beetles were dying and lambs were stillborn and people starved because of a bad rainfall. It wasn’t fair. The world was a terrible place. Nothing the queen said made her daughter feel any better. The girl just buried her head in her hands and wept.
The second day after her thirteenth birthday, the girl raged around the castle, breaking things and shouting at people for no reason. Nothing was right. Nothing was good enough. Her father chased after her, begging her to be reasonable. She threw a chamber pot at his head. It had just been used. He left her alone after that.
The third day, she lay in bed and writhed in unbearable pain, and no medicine could ease her suffering.
On the fourth day, the girl felt fine; she passed the month happily. And then the cycle began again.
This happened every month for twelve months. And then, at the beginning of the thirteenth month, the girl wept all through the first day at the horrors of the world, raged all through the second at nothing in particular, and writhed in unbearable agony all through the third.
“Oh, I can’t take it!” the girl cried. “I hate my life! I hate it! Make the pain go away! Make it go away!”
Just then, by her bedside, appeared the thirteenth Wise Woman, the one who had not been invited to the feast. “There, there, my dear,” said the old crone. “Let me help you.”
“How?” the girl begged, writhing in her sweaty sheets. “All the doctors, all the Wise Women, have tried everything! Nothing helps! The world is a terrible place, full of suffering and stupidity and pain!”
“I can make the pain go away,” the thirteenth Wise Woman said. “Would you like that?”
“Yes!” the girl cried. “Please make it go away!”
“Do you wish to feel no more sorrow? No more anger?”
“Oh, yes! Please!”
“Never again will you weep at suffering or rage at injustice—”
“That’s all I want!”
“Never will the pain of living encroach on your peaceful mind.”
“JUST DO IT ALREADY!”
The Wise Woman smiled. “Here,” she said. “Take a bite of this apple.”
The girl sat up in bed. She looked at the apple—speckled with gold and flashing in the morning light. She grabbed it, took a huge bite, and swallowed without chewing.
Suddenly, she began to choke. She fell back in bed and choked and choked and choked. And then she lay still.
As soon as the girl stopped moving, a deep sleep spread over the entire castle. A banquet was being held in the great hall, and instantly the king, the queen, and all the lords and ladies fell headfirst into their bowls of soup. The horses fell asleep in the stables, the dogs in the courtyard, the pigeons on the roof, and the flies on the wall. Even the fire on the hearth stopped flaming and fell asleep, and the roast stopped crackling, and the cook, who was about to pull the kitchen boy’s hair because he had broken all the eggs on the floor, let go and fell asleep. And the wind died down, and not a leaf stirred on the trees.
All around the castle, a thorny briar began to grow. Each year it grew higher until in the end it surrounded and covered the whole place, and only the tower where the princess slept loomed over the secluded, sleeping valley.
The story of Briar Rose soon spread. From time to time, a knight or a prince came to the castle and tried to pass through the thorny briar. But none succeeded, for the briar bushes clung together as though they had hands, and so young men were caught and couldn’t break loose and died a pitiful death.
And so the castle stood, silent and still, in the midst of the thorny thicket, with the slumbering king and queen and lords and ladies and servants—and the princess, lying in her bed in the highest tower.
* * *
Many, many years later, the castle stood in its quiet valley, forgotten by time.
Its heavy gray tower loomed in the darkness of the early morning, framed by fading stars and the high hills that surrounded it. But below the tower, the stones of the castle were not framed by stars—but by briars; a thicket of thorns encased the castle like a coffin. Birds flitted out of the briar and away, crying that the morning approached.
Three ravens sat on an abandoned well and stared up at the strange sight.
“What happened to it?” asked the second raven.
“No one knows,” said the first.
“Well, we do,” said the third.
; “Right,” said the first. “No one besides us. The story has been lost to the ages.”
Joringel stood beside them, gaping. “Do people live in there?”
“Well, in a sense. But no one feels any pain anymore.”
Joringel walked up to the thicket. The sky in the east was not so dark as it had been just a moment ago. He tried to peer through the thorny, tangled briar. It was at least half a mile thick.
“No one feels any pain?” Joringel asked. The tingling in his chest was fading, and the feelings that had tormented him at home were growing again like weeds. Images of closed doors and chests of apples and princes on horseback rose before his eyes.
“None at all,” replied the first raven. “But the price—”
Joringel cut him off. “I don’t care. I want to go in.”
“That doesn’t seem like a good idea,” said the second.
“I think I see a corpse in the thicket over there . . .” began the third.
But Joringel had already slid through a small gap in the thorns and into the briar.
* * *
There was no room to walk. Joringel slid and crawled and pulled himself through the thicket. A thorn tore his shirt. Another dragged across his cheek, leaving a ragged red line beaded with dots of blood.
Then he stopped. There was a man ahead of him in the briar. He yanked himself through the thorns, opening a long red gash on the back of his neck. The man was wearing a mail shirt and had a sword raised above his head, as if he was trying to hack the briar to bits. Except that the man was not hacking anything. He stood perfectly still.
Joringel drew himself up beside the man. The sun was just starting to peer over the horizon, its yellow light filtering through the tangle of thorns.
Joringel looked up at the man.
The boy fell backward, trying to push himself away. But there was nowhere to go. The thicket held him and cradled him in a blanket of thorns.
The man’s mouth was open, as were his eyes. But his face was locked in the frozen silence of death.
Joringel turned around and pushed on. The sun rose higher. The tingling feeling in Joringel’s chest was gone. Sweat began to stand out on the back of his neck, stinging the fresh cut. The briar was becoming even thicker. Joringel had to grab branches of thorns—which punctured his palms—and rip them out of his way. He paused, trying to collect his breath. His muscles burned. Perhaps he should just stay where he was for a while. His eyelids became heavy. Yes, it would be much easier to rest right there . . .
Just then, he noticed another man ahead of him in the thicket. This man was as still as the first, but he was strangely gaunt. Joringel shook the lethargy from his eyes and forced his arms and legs to keep dragging him forward, until he was alongside the man.
Joringel’s heart turned in his chest. The man’s skin was pulled back so tightly you could make out his skull beneath it. His eyes were shut tight, but his mouth was open, as if he had been screaming. His teeth were blackened in his gums. Suddenly, a spider skittered out of his mouth and down over his chin.
Joringel spun away from the dead man—tearing a long, beaded line of red across his nose and face. Joringel grimaced. But he told himself, “In the castle, no one feels any pain.” And he pushed on.
He could see the wall now. The stones were heavy and gray and crusted with yellow lichen. As Joringel got closer, he slowed. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and his breathing was heavy. He came to a stop. I’ll just rest here for a moment, he thought. His eyelids drooped. It would be so easy just to sleep . . .
And then he noticed that someone was standing just where the thicket embraced the stone wall. Joringel shook himself. No, he thought. Don’t sleep yet. And he forced his exhausted muscles to push on.
The body at the edge of the thicket was not a body. It was a skeleton. Shreds of clothes hung from its bones. A bird had made a nest in the man’s rib cage.
That is disgusting.
Joringel followed the lichen-encrusted wall until he found an opening. He tore forward, the fingers of thorns gripping his clothes and skin and hair as if they would not let him go until, with a great gasp, he broke from the thicket and through the space in the wall.
Joringel found himself in a castle courtyard. It was much like a typical castle courtyard—there was a barracks festooned with shields in the eastern corner, a stream with a water wheel and laundry pots to the west, and so on—but littered around the courtyard were bodies sprawled upon the ground, as if they had been in the middle of doing whatever they normally did and then suddenly fallen down dead.
Joringel’s knees knocked gently together as he made his way to the nearest body. It was dressed as a washerwoman, and sure enough, a mess of linens lay across the short green grass nearby, as if they’d been hurled to the turf when she collapsed. The washerwoman lay facedown. Joringel gingerly turned her over. He pulled back. She was a very old woman—much too old to be a washerwoman. Her mouth hung open, but her eyes were gently shut, and a line of spittle ran from her mouth to her chin. Joringel put his head by her face. He could feel the gentle pulse of breath.
“Hello? Wake up! Are you okay?” he shouted at her. But the old woman did not stir.
Joringel made his way through the yard, occasionally turning over another body to find another old person, dressed as someone much younger, and each fast asleep. Joringel was unable to wake any of them.
He pushed open the door to the kitchens. There, he saw a man—not ancient, as most of the others had been, but clearly into middle age—half naked on the ground. He wore the tatters of what appeared to be children’s clothes. Spattered around him on the floor were shattered eggs, their yolks brown and rock hard. Behind the man in boy’s clothing, a shriveled crone lay in a puddle of apron and frock, as if clad in the garb of a fat woman.
Joringel picked his way through the kitchens, careful not to tread on anyone. He climbed narrow stairs into a great hall. Here, a banquet had been laid out. Two dozen people seemed to have done face-plants in their soup. Joringel climbed a broad staircase away from the hall.
He walked through deserted corridors and peeked into rooms where ancient lords and ladies lay in heaps on the rich rugs. All the windows were shrouded with brambles.
Finally, Joringel found a narrow stair where the windows were bright and airy. The thicket had not yet grown tall enough to cover these, for they led to the great tower that brooded over the valley. Joringel climbed up and up and up until he found himself in a small room. In the center of the room stood a bed, richly hung with bright fabrics. In the bed lay a girl. A beautiful girl. Unlike the others, she did not appear to be sleeping. She appeared to be dead.
Joringel approached her. He bent over her. Her delicate eyelids were closed. Her red lips were barely parted. Her locks, silky and dark, surrounded her face like a halo. Joringel drew his face closer to the girl’s. Closer still. He thought he could feel breath, breaking ever so faintly, over her lips.
Joringel leaned over and . . .
Kissed her.
Right?
He kisses her, and she wakes up, and they get married. Everyone knows that. Even the Brothers Grimm tell us that.
Which is why everyone, including the Brothers Grimm, are wrong.
(Sure, you’re thinking. The Brothers Grimm are wrong, and you are right? Why should we believe you? Well, maybe I’ll explain it to you later. If you’re nice.)
Anyway, what really happened was this:
Joringel leaned over and grabbed the girl by the shoulders and hauled her into a sitting position. Her head listed off to one side lifelessly. Joringel then tried to lift her to her feet, in the hope that no one could remain sleeping standing up. He had gotten her halfway to her feet when her legs gave out under her, he lost his grip, and she went crashing to the floor. Her hip hit the bare floorboards, and her head followed. Joringel did not move.
“Oops,”
he whispered.
Just then, the girl’s body shook. It shook again. Then it heaved, and a horrible scratching sound came from her throat and then she coughed and coughed and then she threw up.
There, on the floor, lay a chunk of apple.
The girl sat back against the bed, breathing hard.
“Hi,” said Joringel, staring at her. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. She nodded.
“Oh,” Joringel said. “Good.” Then he said, “I’m Joringel.”
The girl’s heaving slowed. “I’m Briar Rose,” she said. And then she said, “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to come to the castle where no one felt any pain.” Joringel paused.
The girl watched him.
“But now I’m not sure I want to stay.” He looked confused, and a little bit afraid.
“Why?” Briar Rose asked. “What’s wrong?”
Joringel helped her to her feet and led her down the winding stairs from the tower. They passed through the eerily silent corridors and down to the grand hall. There, the dozen people had their faces buried in their bowls. Briar Rose’s eyes went wide. “What’s wrong with them?” she demanded. She approached her mother and father, their faces submerged in a black mud that was once puree of carrot. She took her mother’s head and lifted it. Briar Rose screamed. She let her mother’s face fall back onto the table with a thud.
“She’s a crone!” Briar Rose screamed. “What’s wrong with her? Is she dead?” She moved cautiously to her father and lifted his face from the soup. She dropped him too, and his face shattered the soup bowl. “What’s wrong with them all? They look so old!”
Joringel shrugged. “You tell me.”
So Briar Rose told Joringel of the Wise Woman’s curse, and her promise to make the pain go away.