A Tale Dark and Grimm

“We’d better get that one something proper to fight with,” Hansel said, pointing.

Gretel chuckled and nodded.

By late afternoon, the children felt better. Before them stood some five hundred soldiers. It wasn’t an enormous group. And it certainly wasn’t a pretty group. But it would do. It would do.

The children’s chests swelled. They had done it. They had raised an army.

The king and queen, however, were suddenly no longer so keen on Hansel and Gretel’s plan.

“Wait, you’re going out?” said the queen when the children came before them that night. “You never said anything about you going out.”

“They’re not going out,” the king said. “I will not allow it.”

The queen looked at the two children as they stood before her, stone-faced and armed. “Please,” she said, “we’ve already lost you once. We couldn’t stand losing you again. Please. My children.” She began, softly, to cry.

Their father came and knelt before them and took each one by the hand. “Please, my dears,” he said. “Understand. You are children. Why can’t you send someone else out in your stead?”

“Father,” Gretel said, “maybe you should try to understand that yourself.”

She and Hansel drew their hands away. Their mother began to cry louder.

Hansel and Gretel went to the stable to ready the oxcart with the golden apples. The apples were held securely under a canvas tarp and—except for the one apple they had given to the poor family, and the other they had given to their mother—they were all there.

As Gretel hitched the cart up to Betty, Hansel looked under the cover of the other. “What about the wine?” he said. “Maybe we could get the dragon drunk.” Gretel smiled. But he said, “Really. Why not?”

“It couldn’t hurt, I guess,” Gretel said. So they hitched up Ivy, too.

When the sky was black and dotted with stars and the moon was just beginning to creep above the horizon, big and round and white, the two children led the oxcarts out into the darkness. Hansel and Gretel looked back over their shoulders with pride. Behind them followed their army.

They led them down a road to a large wood that stood not far from the castle. As they approached, the army began to whisper and point. The ground at the wood’s edge seemed to glow, as if the moon was reflected by the very soil. It shimmered and sparkled, an earthbound Milky Way. Was it magic? the soldiers asked one another. Or a sign from the dragon?

But Hansel and Gretel confidently followed the path of white pebbles that they had scattered on the forest floor the day before, leading their army deep into the wood, to a large, grassy clearing.

Here, for the first time, Hansel and Gretel told the army their plan. They would all stay in hiding until the dragon came for the bait. When it came—if it came—they would wait until it was distracted by the contents of the oxcarts. Then, when it was least ready to defend itself, they would spring out of their hiding places and attack.

“You have every right to be afraid,” Gretel told them. “The dragon is big. The dragon is strong. The dragon has divided our families and taken our children and stolen our childhoods.

“But that is no reason to cower. Until we stand up to him, our lives will remain shattered, our hearts will remain divided against themselves, our heads will remain severed from our bodies.”

The moon was white and bright behind Gretel. Hansel stared at her. He didn’t quite understand what she was talking about.

“But we will soon be healed,” she went on. “We will be healed. There will be blood first. But then there will be tears of joy.

“For our kingdom!” she shouted.

“And our families!” Hansel cried.

“And our children!” they said together.

The soldiers repeated their cry. In the silence that followed, all could hear the word children echoing off the thick trees and then away through the black wood.

Gretel readied the oxcarts in the clearing. In the moonlight, the apples glowed golden, as if they possessed some fairy magic. Hansel unharnessed Ivy and Betty from the carts and tried to shoo them off. But the two oxen took to cropping grass nearby. Someone had to draw them by their halters far off into the woods, as far as possible from the field of battle.

Don’t worry. Ivy and Betty will be fine.

(I just wish I could say the same for everyone else.)

Leaving both carts out in the clearing, the two children retreated to the cover of trees to watch, and wait.

The forest made sounds. Branches creaking. Leaves whispering to one another. Bats flapping between trees, looking for prey. Hansel plucked the grass at his feet. Gretel fingered a small dagger strapped to her belt. The volunteer soldiers began shifting uneasily. One did not venture into a wood at night. Especially not when there was a dragon about. Sword handles became slick with sweat, bowstrings were pulled back and released, pulled back and released. An owl hooted. Far off, they could hear its great wings beating against the air.

No.

They were not the wings of an owl. The beats were too far apart. Too deep and distant. Hansel and Gretel peered out from under the cover of branches and leaves, but they could see nothing against the black, starry sky.

And then there it was. In front of the moon. The long, thin silhouette of the dragon, its wings resting on the currents of night air.

Its body was narrow, its four feet were tucked up underneath it, its long tail trailed out behind. Its wings were so thin that the moonlight shone through them. Stifled gasps arose from those who had never seen it. It was disgusting. It was enormous. From below, one could see the outline of its head, broad and viperlike. It looked nothing like the dragons in storybooks.

Not even the dragon on the cover of this book, dear reader.

Go ahead, take a look.

That dragon, you see, was designed to alert you to the presence of a dragon in these pages. What it was not designed to do is make you sick with horror and awe. So the snakelike head, the eyes with no pupils, the translucent wings—those were all left off.

You’re welcome.

Gretel made a sign to the army. Arrows were notched. Bows began to bend.

The dragon disappeared from sight. Down below, all waited. Then it appeared again over the clearing—a little lower this time. It had seen the gold. It was circling. Gretel could hear her brother’s breath coming quiet and quick. Hansel heard his sister’s heartbeat mingling with his own.

The dragon flew over them again, lower, and was gone. Then again, lower still. Then again.

Gretel gestured at the sky. Arrows were aimed. They waited. The dragon flew over again. It was close enough that they could see the delicate scales of its skin gleaming in the moonlight, and its enormous, jagged talons. It flew over again, and this time the leaves on the trees shook from its passage.

The trees became still. They waited.

And waited.

No dragon.

Hansel and Gretel and all their soldiers stared up at the black, starry sky. Empty, save for the moon.

“What happened?” Gretel whispered to her brother. He shook his head and shrugged.

They waited longer. The people began to feel uneasy. They let their bowstrings go slack. They rubbed the sweaty handles of their weapons, trying to find a good purchase. Where, they wondered, was the dragon?

The darkness seemed to become heavier, more menacing. Glancing over their shoulders, they could see no more than a few feet into the forest.

Then, through the silence, there ran a sudden whisper in the leaves. The whole army stopped breathing all at once. They stood still and listened. Hansel felt something beneath his feet. Carefully, he lowered himself and put his hand on the earth. He felt it again.

“Gretel,” he whispered. “The ground is shaking.”

“I know,” she whispered back. “I feel it.”

It shook again. And again. Now all the men and women were looking frantically back and forth between the ground and the black forest that surrounded them.

People began to whisper. “What is it?” and “What’s happening?”

“Shhh!” Gretel hissed. “Quiet!”

But they wouldn’t quiet. They were afraid.

And then they saw it, weaving through the trees like an enormous snake with legs. Its wings were folded along its spine; its wide, viperlike head swung back and forth as it moved; and its golden eyes were shining in the moonlight.

It had come to take them from behind. And it was moving fast. So fast that the first villagers barely had time to scream before it was upon them.

Oh, I forgot to mention. The little kids? They really shouldn’t be here for this.

Its mouth opened wide and snapped down on a woman with a bow. She hadn’t even moved to defend herself. There hadn’t been time. Now half of her was gone. Simultaneously, with a massive, taloned claw, the dragon swiped at a man with an ax. He landed on his back, ten feet away, without his internal organs.

With that, the forest awoke. Some of the people tried to fight the giant creature. Most tried to run. Occasionally, with a horrible, tearing sound, the dragon would kill someone else. Hansel grabbed Gretel and held her tightly. “Don’t go out there. It’ll kill us. All of us.” And then he called at the top of his lungs, “Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!”

The woods became madness. Screams rose and died. People ran in all directions. “Retreat!” Hansel shouted. “Retreat!”

“It’s no good,” Gretel said to him. “We’ve got to go.”

“Where?” Hansel asked.

“To the dragon.”

“What?”

“To lure it away. Run out ahead and make it chase us.”

“It’ll kill us,” Hansel said.

Gretel set her mouth. “It’s us or them.”

Hansel took a deep breath. He nodded at Gretel. Then he stood up and made his way toward the sounds of death.

As he came near, he saw a man and a woman hiding behind a tree. The dragon was on the other side, its head moving this way and that, trying to see where they had gone. They had no weapons—they were shaking so badly they’d dropped them at their feet. Suddenly the dragon darted to one side of the tree. They froze.

Hansel cried out. The dragon turned in time to see Hansel scoop up a fallen spear and with one motion launch it the dragon’s way. It glanced harmlessly off the dragon’s black, snakelike scales. Hansel stopped. He stared.

Oh, he thought. And then he thought, That’s bad.

Hansel spun to his left into the woods. The dragon followed.

“Get away!” Gretel bellowed at the remaining troops. “Get away!” And they did. They ran. On the ground were many bodies. But many more were now escaping through the dark underbrush.

The dragon was coming back. Gretel could hear it, feel it through the vibrations of the ground. She scrambled to hide. The dragon passed her, swift as water, its serpentine head swaying from side to side as it moved. From its mouth dripped blood. Suddenly, Gretel wondered what had happened to Hansel.

The dragon headed straight for the gold at the center of the clearing. Briefly, Gretel considered going to look for Hansel. But instead, making certain she wasn’t seen or heard, Gretel followed the dragon’s path. She crouched behind a thick thornbush at the clearing’s edge. An ax lay not ten feet from her, out in the open. Gretel left it where it was.

The dragon was standing beside the cart of apples. It turned its head this way and that, and then began to pace, its golden eyes glaring at the glowing mountain.

Now the plan was working, Gretel realized, incredulous. The dragon couldn’t figure out how to take all the apples at once. It was confused. Frustrated. If only she still had an army to attack it.

After a few minutes, the dragon seemed to notice the other cart. It approached it and tore at the canvas with its teeth, revealing the barrels. It picked up one of the barrels with its massive jaws. It crushed it. Wine poured out—some down its throat, most onto the ground. The dragon spit out the staves of the broken barrel, shook itself, and resettled its wings on its back. It stood a moment, considering the stack of barrels. Then it took another in its mouth and drank it down just as it had the first one—but this time catching more of the wine in its throat.

It seemed to like it.

It did it again. And again. And again.

Gretel could not believe what she was seeing.

After the dragon had drunk six barrels of wine, it tried to rise into the air. But now its flight was wobbly and uncertain. The dragon is drunk, Gretel said to herself. She almost laughed.

The dragon came back to the ground and drank down four more barrels of wine. Soon it was teetering back and forth, even when it walked. It came up to the cart with the golden apples, stuck its head underneath, and tried to lift it.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Gretel leaped from the thornbush and began to sprint toward the dragon. She could see its black leg, stuck out behind it, straining against the weight of the gold. She could see a thick pulsing vein running over the dragon’s backward-bending knee joint. Gretel stooped for the ax without breaking her stride.

She covered the distance between the ax and the dragon quickly. She lifted the weapon high and brought it down.

The dragon screamed. It was a scream like nothing Gretel had ever heard before. She thought a hundred woodland creatures must all be dying at once—that was the sound. It pierced Gretel’s head like a spear.

The dragon turned. It saw the little, golden-haired girl, holding an ax, frozen by the sound of its scream. It watched, shocked, drunken, disbelieving, as the little girl dropped the ax and sprinted off toward the woods. Behind her, on the ground, was an ax, covered in black dragon-blood. And two dragon toes.

The dragon shook itself, bellowed once, and followed, limping, after her.

Gretel heard the dragon coming. It sounded clumsy. Heavy. The wine, she thought. And the toes, of course. She cursed herself for missing the vein. She had never wielded an ax before.

Gretel wove through the trees, trying to keep ahead of it. Where was Hansel? What had happened to him? She could hear the dragon, wine-sodden and wounded as he was, catching up to her. Just get away from it, she thought. Get free of it. So I can find Hansel, and we can get out of here.

But how to get free of it? She thought of diving into a bush and letting the dragon run past. But it wouldn’t run past. It would see her, and kill her. She thought of finding a narrow cave and crawling into it. Good idea, but where would she find a cave? And then, up ahead, she saw a tree. It was an enormous pine, easily the tallest tree in this part of the forest. Without thinking, without any plan at all, she made for it.

The pine’s bristly branches started low to the ground and ran densely up the trunk. As soon as she arrived at its base, Gretel leaped onto the lowest ones and began to climb. She climbed around to the far side of the trunk, in the hope that the dragon might not see her.

When, a moment later, the dragon, drunk and limping, arrived at the tree’s base, it was indeed confused. It seemed to know she had gotten up in the tree. But she was forty feet up by the time it realized she was on the other side of the trunk.

It set off after her. It tried to use its wings, but they would catch on the branches of the surrounding trees. It tried to climb, but the branches were too thin, and they went cracking and tumbling to the ground when it put its weight on them. So the dragon ended up digging its rough talons into the soft wood and ascending the trunk in leaps, smashing branches as it went.

The pine needles brushed at Gretel’s face as she climbed, and the sticky sap of the tree stuck to her palms. Her heart was pounding from fatigue and fear. But there was no chance to rest. The dragon was gaining. Its leaps up the trunk gained it ten feet or more, while its occasional slides back down—stripping whatever branches it hadn’t smashed on the way up—gained her only a few seconds at most. Her hand reached for the next branch and she pulled herself up. Her feet gained a secure hold and pushed her up to the next one. Go, she told herself. Go. And then she thought, Where? She looked up, hoping that perhaps the top of the tree would be too thin for the dragon to follow her onto. Perhaps it was. But it was also far above the other trees around it. Up there, the dragon could use its wings. Just climb, she told herself. Just climb. She reached up and grabbed onto the next branch.

“Wha—well, excuse us!” a voice said.

Gretel lost her grip and nearly fell out of the tree.

“Well, I never!” said the voice. “Some people!”

Gretel looked up. There was a thick mess of twigs and needles on the branch above her head.

“Well,” said another voice, “see who it is!”

And then a black head, with black eyes and a black beak, peered over the branch above her.

“Well, I’ll be!” said the first raven. “If it isn’t Gretel!”

“No! Here?” said the second.

“Tell her to be more considerate of a raven’s nest!” said the third. “Has she no manners? Was she raised by apes?”

“I think she was raised by a king and queen,” said the second.

The ravens? In this very tree? Gretel could barely believe it. In fact, had it not been for all the strange, incredible things that had happened to her already, perhaps she wouldn’t have. But after eating a house, and talking to the stars, and all the rest of it—well, she believed it just fine.

“Please!” she said. “Help me!”

The sound of tearing wood came from below. She looked down. The dragon had just slid halfway down the trunk again. “Please! There’s a dragon after me!”

“Help you?” said the third raven. “After what you’ve done to our nest?”

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said the second raven.

“You’re not the one who’s going to fix it, though, are you?” replied the third testily.

“I have my responsibilities, too. When food is scarce, and my job gets difficult, do I complain?” said the second raven.

“Yes,” the other two ravens answered at once.

Below, the dragon regained his footing and was climbing again.

“Please!” Gretel cried.

“We can’t help you,” said the first.

“Yes,” said the second. “It’s not what we do.”

Gretel looked down. The dragon was gaining quickly. She hadn’t time to plead. “Then move!” she shouted, and clambered up onto their branch, just barely avoiding crushing their nest with her foot.

“Careful there!” the third raven cawed.

Gretel pushed past their branch, straining to keep ahead of the dragon. The first raven beat his wings beside her. “I’m sorry for my companion’s rudeness,” he said. “We understand the gravity of your situation.” He looked down. “No pun intended, of course.”

Gretel didn’t know what he was talking about. “Are you going to help me or not?” she cried.

“I’m afraid we can’t,” the raven said. “You see, we can only tell the future. We can’t attempt to change it. It wouldn’t do any good, you see? It’s the future.”

There was an enormous crack from below, followed by terrible squawking. Gretel hurried her pace, but up ahead, the branches were thinning out to almost nothing. She was just about out of branches to climb to. And at any moment, the dragon would be able to fly. Just as Gretel realized there was nowhere else for her to go, around her head there was a frantic beating of wings and a very angry raven.

“Did you see that? Did you? Our nest! Gone! Crushed! Unbelievable! The height of inconsideration!”

The second raven fluttered up beside the third. “Inconsiderateness, I think, is the word.”

“Either one is acceptable,” said the first judiciously.

“I don’t care about the stupid word!” the third raven cried. “I care about our nest!”

Suddenly, Gretel was nearly blown off the tree by a swift burst of air. She turned. The dragon was hovering beside her, beating its translucent wings, staring at her with its terrible golden eyes. The dragon’s mouth was no more than six feet away. He opened it.

“Kill!” the third raven shrieked, and in one of the more comical acts of heroism Gretel had ever seen, the raven dove at the dragon’s head. The dragon snapped at it, and the raven turned and headed back for the tree. “Retreat!” he cawed. “Temporary retreat!”

Now, the third raven was not afraid of dying. As the ravens have already implied, there are some things that they do, and some things they do not do. Dying is of the latter group.

Of course, getting trapped in the stomach of a dragon is, even for a creature that cannot die, an indescribably unpleasant experience.

Though not quite as unpleasant, I would imagine, as getting out again.

The dragon flew closer to Gretel. It snapped at her feet. Gretel could smell its hot horrible breath; see the blood and the foam mingling between its long, sharp teeth; hear the beating of its enormous heart out of time with the beat of its enormous wings. It lunged at her, not only with its head, but with its entire body. It knocked the branch she was standing on clear off the tree. She fell and grabbed hold of the only thing she could.

The dragon’s neck.

The dragon reared backward. Perhaps if it had had its full wits about it, it might have managed to get her off its back. But as it was drunk, it circled in the air and snapped at its own shoulders, but could not manage to get her off.

“Attagirl!” cried the first raven.

“Yeehaw!” yelled the second.

“Incoming!” crowed the third, and it dove for the dragon’s eyes. The dragon twisted away from the attack and beat its huge wings three or four times to rise above the tree. The ravens followed.

Up, up through the black, starry night they rose. Gretel held on tightly to the dragon’s supple, scaly skin as its muscles rippled beneath her. Occasionally the dragon would twist to try to snap at her, but she was too close to its head. She worried that it might use its claws to get at her, as a dog gets at its fleas. But a dragon is not a dog, and that hadn’t seemed to occur to it yet.

From time to time the ravens would reappear beside Gretel and make diving attacks at the dragon’s eyes.

“Avenge the nest!” cried the third raven.

“A bird’s nest is his castle!” cried the second, finally getting into it.

“Habeas corpus!” cried the first, somewhat tangentiallly.

So the dragon kept rising. The air became cold around Gretel’s hands. Her knuckles turned blue. Soon, she and the dragon were higher than the ravens could fly. But the dragon didn’t seem to mind. Its transparent wings took them higher and higher and higher still, until Gretel had to breathe hard to get any air at all, and her head began to spin. Still the dragon climbed.

And then Gretel heard a voice. It was low. And soft. And creepy. It said, “Fee-fie-foe-fesh, I think I smell child-flesh!”

Gretel looked up. There—very, very close—was the moon. His eyes were hard and glistening, like diamonds. His white lips were parted around his sharp, ivory teeth. He was watching Gretel as the dragon rose.

“Oh boy,” Gretel muttered.

Snap! The cold breath of the moon froze the sweat on Gretel’s neck. The dragon felt it, too, and turned. The moon snapped again. The dragon twisted. The moon wanted nothing to do with the dragon. Not that the moon is afraid of dragons. The moon is not afraid of anything, except the sun, and only then because the sun calls him names and he does not appreciate that. Still, the moon does not generally bother dragons. Of course, dragons do not often have children on their backs. And the moon rarely passes up an opportunity to taste the succulent, tender meat of a child.

The dragon twisted, and the moon snapped his teeth.

Twist!

Snap!

Twist!

Snap!

Twist!

Snap!

Gretel fumbled at her belt. She wanted to be eaten by the moon even less than by the dragon. She took out her little dagger. As the dragon twisted and the moon prepared to snap again, she plunged the dagger into the dragon’s neck with all her might.

It did not pierce the scales, but the dragon turned toward her. And toward the moon.

It screamed.

Gretel fell through the air. Her arm was covered in black dragon-blood. Above her, the dragon was screaming its terrible scream and writhing back and forth. Above that, the moon was trying to spit the disgusting dragon-meat out of his mouth, and cursing himself for missing Gretel’s tender flesh. She watched them disappear into the blackness as she fell.

Gretel would die any moment now. That was clear. She had been thousands of feet in the air. Higher than the ravens could fly. Soon she would hit the ground, and all of her bones would be broken, and her brain would smash through her skull, and her heart would stop beating immediately. Or, she thought, she would land on a sharp branch and be skewered like a piece of meat. Her speed increased as she fell. The cold air grew a little warmer. She could see the stars twinkling at her from above.

Then she hit something. It was soft, and she rolled off it and kept falling. She hit another soft thing, and then rolled off that. She hit a third soft thing, and then rolled off that and into the branches of a tree. She fell all the way down the tree, hitting its leafy branches as she fell. Then she hit the ground.

She was not dead.

She sat up and looked around. She was covered with black feathers. She heard a fluttering sound, and saw three woozy black ravens, missing most of their plumage, settling on a branch overhead.

“Ow,” said the first raven.

“Ow,” said the second raven.

“Ow,” said the third raven.

“That hurt,” they all said at once.

“You saved me!” Gretel said.

“Not intentionally,” said the third raven.

“You just happened to hit us on your way down,” said the second.

“Of course, we knew that would happen,” said the first. “We just didn’t know it would hurt so much.”

Suddenly Gretel leaped to her feet and ran off into the woods.

“Manners!” said the third raven.

“We saved her life, and she just runs off without a thank-you?” said the second.

“She’s going to find her brother,” said the first.

“Oh yes,” said the second.

“We knew that,” said the third.

Gretel tore through the wood, branches slapping at her face, vines grabbing at her ankles. “Hansel!” she cried. “Hansel!” The creepy, child-eating moon shone down through the branches of the trees. She ran by his light.

Ahead, in the shadow of a pine sapling, lay a body. It was facedown on the ground. Gretel slowed and approached it. She turned it over and quickly turned away. It was not Hansel. It had a gash across its chest. And half a head. Gretel got up, swallowed bile, and began to run again.

She saw another body, lying half in a bush. She ran to it and pulled it out. A woman. Her chest was caved in, and her neck was bent at an unnatural angle. Gretel turned and ran on.

Bodies. More bodies. Gretel hadn’t realized so many had fallen. There were dozens of them, scattered, lifeless, throughout the woods.

But where was Hansel? Where was he? Was he as lifeless as these bodies she found in the underbrush? Was he as still? As cold? Where was he?

Then the forest floor began to shine. White pebbles. The white pebbles were lighting her way. She followed them. They brought her to the clearing.

There, standing at the clearing’s center, was Hansel, covered in blood. She ran to him and threw her arms around him. “I’m okay,” he said hoarsely. “It’s not my blood. I was helping the wounded.” She nodded and held him.

They followed the path of shining pebbles out of the woods. As they walked, the creepy moon illuminated the forest floor and the bodies scattered among the silent trees. Some faces were covered in blood, with eyes open but dead. Others were crushed beyond recognition. A hand was lodged in the crook of a branch. A young woman lay facedown, her hair spread out about her bloody head like a halo.

The children hid their faces.

Lost lives.

Empty bodies.

Hansel and Gretel held each other as they walked through the quiet, awful night.

Okay.

Take a breath.

Last story.

Here we go.

HANSEL and GRETEL and Their Parents

Once upon a time, two children, a boy named Hansel and a girl named Gretel, followed a path of shining pebbles out of a dark, bloody wood and into a small town. The inn of the town was lit, and the children could hear loud voices within. They walked to the door. They opened it. They were met with a roar.

“They live!” someone shouted, and they were swarmed by people, slapping their backs, rubbing their heads, embracing them.

“You did it!” they cried. “You survived!”

“And you saved us!” It was the man who had been hiding behind the tree. The woman was next to him. She beamed at them.

“Most of us,” someone said. The cheers began to fade.

“And the dragon?” another asked. Now all became silent.

Hansel and Gretel stared at the people, their faces expectant, hopeful.

“It lives,” Gretel said, shaking her head. “The dragon lives.”

A long, heavy sigh passed through the room.

“We’re sorry,” Hansel said. “We tried.”

“Oh, well that’s good!” There was a young man sitting in the corner. He had a long fresh cut across his face that was yellow with balm. “The children tried! Well, that makes it all better!”

Hansel and Gretel stared at the young man and his grotesque, raw scar.

“They had a cute little idea,” he went on, “and they gave it a shot! Good for you two!” His tone suddenly changed. “Do you know I nearly died out there? Do you know that we all nearly died!”

“We didn’t, though,” said a large man with a beard.

“We didn’t. How many did? How many dead are there?”

There was silence. In their minds, Hansel and Gretel saw the bodies scattered among the trees. Gretel thought of the woman whose hair looked like a halo.

“They’re children!” the scarred man shouted. “Children! We followed children to fight a dragon? What were we thinking? What were any of us thinking?” He put his head in his arms on the table.

A woman nearby placed a hand on his shoulder. She glared at Hansel and Gretel.

The man with the beard stepped up to them. “Don’t listen to them,” he said. “You did good. Most of us lived. No one has ever survived a fight with the dragon before.”

“And what’s this on you?” said a woman, gesturing at Gretel. Gretel looked down. She was covered in the black blood of the dragon.

“We hurt it,” Gretel said. “We took two of its toes and cut the side of its face.” She did not explain that the moon had bitten half of its cheek off. She wasn’t sure they would understand.

Her news was met with a louder roar than the one that had met them when they’d entered.

“Hurt it!” “Took two toes!” “Gashed its face!”

The bearded man squeezed each of their shoulders with a meaty hand. “You see? This was just the first battle. We’ll get it next time. And now that we know we can beat it, you’ll have a thousand more recruits. Ten thousand more!”

“And it will be a thousand times smarter!” the young man shouted from the corner. “And ten thousand times angrier! How many more people will die for this ... this childishness? And now it will be worse than before. It will take revenge on all of us. On everyone.”

There were scattered murmurs of agreement from around the tavern.

“What have we done?” he moaned.

Gretel’s face was scorching. Hansel’s lips were pressed together so hard they had turned white.

“There are dead in the forest,” Hansel said at last.

“Yes,” said the veteran. “We’ll tend to them. You go home now.”

The children turned and walked out of the tavern. As the door closed behind them, something hit it and clattered to the floor.

They walked back to the castle as the eastern horizon was just beginning to change from black to deep, deep blue. The moon had set. The air was cold and moist. After a while Gretel said, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“So?” Hansel answered sullenly. “It did.”

“But how?” Gretel replied, shaking her head. “It must have known somehow.”

“Known what? What knew?”

“The dragon.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It knew the plan. It saw the apples, and then it came through the woods to take us from behind.”

“It didn’t know,” Hansel scoffed. He felt cold. He rubbed his arms up and down.

“It did. About everything except the wine.” Gretel kicked the road. “Who knew our plan?”

“It didn’t know,” Hansel repeated. “Maybe it figured out the apples were a trap.” His stomach twisted. “It was a stupid, childish plan.”

“No,” Gretel said. “No. It knew.”

At the palace, the queen rushed up to them and took them in her arms. “Oh, my dears! You’re safe! Oh, thank God you’re safe!”

They told her what happened, and her face grew long and serious. “It isn’t so bad. You wounded it. No one has ever done that before.”

The children nodded.

“You did a very brave thing. Very brave.” And she pulled them to her. When she released them, Hansel said, “Where’s Father?”

“He locked himself in his room while you were gone,” the queen replied. “He was so scared for you both that he was shaking. He said he tried to shave, but he cut himself. Quite seriously, it seems.

“Will he be okay?” Gretel asked.

“I’ll be fine.” Their father’s voice echoed from across the hall. He limped toward them, a bandage wrapped around his head. He took them in his arms. “Foolish of me, shaving at a time like this. It calms me down when the barber does it.... But forget about your foolish father. You’re all right?” He saw the dragon-blood on Gretel. “What happened to you? What is that stuff?”

So they all went and sat before the fire, and Hansel and Gretel told him about it, too. “You were very brave,” he said when they’d finished. “And you nearly did a very great thing. You nearly saved this kingdom from the dragon.”

“Nearly.” Hansel and Gretel repeated the word together, and it stuck in their throats like a lump. Each saw, in their minds, the dead strewn across the forest floor.

At last, the king and queen took the children to bed, with Hansel helping his limping father up the stairs. Once in bed, their father kissed them both, and then their mother did, and then they closed the door and went away.

When their footsteps no longer sounded in the hall, Gretel sat up and opened the window curtains. The sun was beginning to come up. She opened the window and let the cool morning breeze blow in. She shook her head to get the terrible images of the night out of her mind. And the weight, the old weight, had returned.

“It knew,” she said. “It knew our plan.”

Hansel sat up. He felt the weight, too. Heavier than ever. As if every person in his family were standing on his chest. And every person in the Kingdom of Grimm on top of that. “Come off it,” he said irritably. “It saw us, or heard us, or something. No one knew the plan until we were deep in the forest. And none of the soldiers ran off.”

“Mother and Father knew it.”

“Oh, please,” Hansel said. “Mother and Father told the dragon?”

Gretel admitted that sounded ridiculous.

She sat, looking out the window. The kingdom spread out before her under the rising sun. Maybe the dragon had seen the golden apples and figured it out. It had been an obvious trap. A stupid trap. A childish trap.

But then ...

“Why did Father have a bandage around his head?” Gretel asked suddenly.

“You heard. He cut himself.”

Gretel nodded. After a moment, she said, “Why was he limping?”

“Because—” Hansel said, and then stopped.

“Was he shaving his toes?”

“Wait ... I don’t understand,” said Hansel.

Gretel stood up. “Father,” she said.

“What about him?” Hansel asked, staring.

“Father is the dragon.”

“What?”

“When did the dragon first appear?” Gretel said. “When Father was away, looking for us. When did it kill the kingdom’s army? When Father wasn’t leading the army. Who knew of our plan? Mother and Father.”

“But the wine—you said the dragon didn’t know what was in those barrels.”

Gretel paused, but then she replied, “When did we decide to bring the wine?”

“After we told them—”

“After we told them. And now he has a bandage on his head, and he’s limping.”

“Not.”

“It’s him.”

“He’s our father.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gretel said. She went to the clothes she had worn for the battle, lying in a bloody pile on the floor, and drew from her belt the small dagger. She walked over to the door to the hall and opened it. She turned to Hansel. “I am going to kill the dragon.”

Gretel walked slowly down the stairs and through the hall to their parents’ room. She opened the door. The king stood in his nightclothes beside the bed. His foot was thickly bandaged, and blood was seeping through the wrappings.

“Where’s Mother?” Gretel asked.

The king turned, surprised. “I thought you would be sleeping,” he said. “She’s in the chapel. Why?” And then, “Gretel, why do you have that dagger? What’s wrong?”

“You are the dragon,” she said.

“What?”

“You are the dragon!” she shouted. She took a step toward him. He took a step back. She stepped toward him again. Then she charged.

“Gretel!” he cried as she thrust the dagger at his chest. He stepped to the side and grabbed her arms. “Gretel! Stop! Stop! What are you doing?”

Just then, Hansel arrived at the door. He watched his father holding his sister’s slender wrists with his strong hands. She was shouting at him, “You’re the dragon! You’re the dragon!” and trying to hit him with the point of the dagger. He shook her—violently—and the dagger came loose from her hands. It clattered to the floor. He kicked it, and it slid under the bed.

He held her wrists tightly. “Gretel, what are you doing?”

Gretel’s face was red and twisted with fury. “You did this to us!” she cried. “You cut off our heads! You’re the dragon! You killed those people! It’s your fault! Yours!” And she lifted her little foot and brought it down on his bandaged toes as hard as she could.

He threw his head back and screamed in pain.

She stomped on the bandage again and again. The bandage began to slide off. Still she stomped.

“Gretel!” Hansel shouted. “Stop! You’re hurting him!”

But Gretel fell to the ground. “He’s missing two toes!” she said. “He’s missing two toes!”

Her father looked up at her. His eyes were not his eyes. They were golden, with neither whites nor pupils. “Hansel!” Gretel cried.

Hansel had seen. He was looking for a weapon. Hanging on the wall there was a sword. He took it down and moved toward his father—the dragon. His father stared at him through golden eyes. “I’m sorry, Father,” Hansel whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” Gretel said.

And then Hansel’s sword cut through the air toward their father’s neck, and at that moment both Hansel and Gretel remembered just what it had looked like, just what it had felt like, when it had been them, not him. And then Hansel’s sword took off their father’s head at the neck and sent it rolling across the floor and into a corner of the room. The king’s headless body fell on top of Gretel.

And just like that, everything was still.

Gretel cradled her father’s body. Hansel’s bloody sword tip touched the stone floor. The light in the room was yellow like the morning. The birds outside did not sing.

Then, out from where their father’s head had once been attached to his body, two tiny claws emerged. They were quickly followed by spindly black legs, and then the golden eyes and head of a miniature, wormlike dragon. Its long, thin, black, blood-covered body slipped out of the king’s neck and scrambled down his shoulder, and, before she could even move, over Gretel’s lap and onto the floor. It skittered frantically toward the sewage grate, its claws scratching and scraping against the bedroom’s flagstones.

Gretel shrieked and Hansel flung himself at it, striking at its skeletal body with his sword. One furious blow broke its back. The next decapitated it completely. But Hansel didn’t stop. He raised his sword and brought it down again and again and again, until the evil little creature was nothing more than a mess of black, pulpy pieces on the floor. Hansel, breathing hard, eyes aflame, took the ash shovel from the fireplace. He collected the tiny beast’s mangled remains and threw them into the fire. The flames roared in greeting, and as they did a long, high, terrible scream pierced the air—just like the screams Hansel and Gretel had heard in the woods.

A moment later, all was silence again, and golden smoke drifted lazily from the blazing fire into the chimney, and then out onto the morning air.

The dragon was dead.

Hansel looked to Gretel. She sat, bent over her father’s lifeless body. She was crying. Hansel came to her side and hugged her. And Hansel and Gretel, brother and sister, sat on the floor of their parents’ room and thought of all they had seen, and all they had done. And they wept.

The End

Almost.

“Quick,” Gretel whispered through her tears. “Bring me his head.”

Hansel looked to the corner where it had come to rest. He went to it and—gingerly, trying not to look—he picked it up. Then he brought it to his sister.

From her pocket Gretel had taken out the warlock’s twine. It was nearly nothing. Just a frayed strand, no thicker than a hair.

“Hold his head on,” she said.

So Hansel put their father’s head on his neck. Then Gretel wrapped the twine around it and, fumblingly, tied it. As she untied it, the twine snapped. She let it fall to the ground.

They watched the skin on their father’s neck creep together, healing before their eyes. But he did not move.

Gretel began to cry harder. Hansel cried, too.

“We forgive you,” Gretel said.

“We do,” Hansel agreed. Their tears fell on him.

And he moved. Gretel nearly threw him off her, she was so surprised. The king groaned.

“Father? Father!” Gretel cried. He groaned again. His eyes opened slowly.

“Hello,” he said.

Hansel and Gretel fell upon him. “Oh, Father, you’re all right! You’re all right!”

Gretel said, “We wish we hadn’t had to do that.”

Hansel said, “But we did have to.”

He took hold of them both. “I understand,” he said. And then, blinking at them as if he had just walked into the sunlight after a long time in the darkness, he said, “I under-stand, my children.”

Just then they heard footsteps in the hall. The queen’s. Hansel looked at his father, covered in blood.

“Father,” he said, “did Mother know you were the dragon?”

“No,” their father replied. “I didn’t know myself, until just now. I just kept waking up in strange places. I really did think I was shav—”

“Okay. Get in the wardrobe.” So their father got in the wardrobe. Just as he did, their mother entered the room.

“Did you have a nice time praying, Mother?” Hansel asked.

She took her children in her arms. “Oh, I can barely pray. I think only of the dragon, and of our poor kingdom.”

Gretel said, “What if we told you, Mother, that we knew who the dragon was, and that the only way to stop the dragon would be to kill that person?”

The queen looked back and forth between her two children. “You know who it is? Then we must do it! Right away!”

“No matter who it is?” Hansel asked.

“No matter who it is.”

“It’s Father,” the children said at once.

The queen gasped. She fell to the floor and wept bitterly.

After a long time, she said, “If you’re sure it’s him, if you can prove it—then yes. I couldn’t do it. But I would understand.”

The children looked at each other, and then said, at the same moment, “Are we glad you said that!” Then they walked over to the wardrobe and let out their father, all covered in blood.

The queen screamed. Then Hansel and Gretel explained it all. The queen wept and beat the king’s chest with her hands. But after that she laughed through her tears and threw her arms around all of them. Then she wept some more.

“You’re all okay?” she asked, as tears streamed down her face.

“We’re all okay,” they said together.

And they all held one another—one big, happy, sad, complicated family—as tightly as they always should have.

The End

Nearly.

I’m sorry. Before I tell you the very, truly, absolutely end, I’ve got to interject one last time.

For fun.

Or to help you, if I can. (Though I wouldn’t count on it.)

Why did this patricidal beheading have to happen? Why something so awful? So gruesome? So upsetting? Why was their father the dragon? And did they really, really have to cut off his head?

And what about everything that came before that? All this blood and this pain. What sense does any of it make? Is there any sense at all?

I don’t know.

I mean, what does under-standing have to do with returning to your family? Or cutting off your finger have to do with turning into a wild beast? What does an old crone with a shackle on her leg have to do with Faithful Johannes? Or three black ravens with cages full of white doves? Why is the moon creepy and cold, when the stars are bright and kind? Why was the widow a good parent, and yet no more able to protect Gretel than the bad parents? What did all of this mean—these strange, scary, dark, grim tales?

I told you already. I don’t know.

Besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.

You see, to find the brightest wisdom one must pass through the darkest zones. And through the darkest zones there can be no guide.

No guide, that is, but courage.

As Hansel and Gretel and the queen and king held one other, the final golden fumes of the dragon drifted from the chimney and out onto the morning air. The gold mingled with the sunrise and slowly suffused itself over the whole kingdom. As people woke that morning, they saw it. They were drawn out of their houses by it, by the beautifully golden smoke that floated beneath the clouds. They followed it. Without wondering, without saying a word, they followed it. As if they knew, upon seeing it, that something had happened. Something important. And that, to find out what it was, all they had to do was follow the golden smoke.

Along the roads, the subjects of Grimm walked silently toward the source of the beautiful golden light. Toward the castle.

“You never told us,” the queen said to her children as they sat on the floor of the bedroom, blood winding through the crevices of the stones, collecting in little pools. “You never told us where you’ve been, and what you’ve done.”

Hansel and Gretel looked at each other.

“You don’t have to tell us,” their father said gently. “Not now. Not ever if you don’t want to.”

Hansel held his sister in his gaze. Her eyes, ocean-blue, sun-bright, were happier, clearer than he had seen them in a long, long time. Gretel returned her brother’s stare. He looked unburdened. Lighter. And he looked older than he had ever looked. Not old with care. Old with wisdom.

“We can tell you now,” Gretel said.

And so they did. Hansel started with what Johannes had told him, about the old king, lying on his deathbed. Gretel planned to pick up as soon as she and Hansel entered the story.

But just then there was a knock on the king and queen’s chamber door.

“Yes?” said the king.

A servant poked his head in. “Excuse me, Your Majesty,” he said. Then he saw blood on the king. “Your Majesty! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” said the king. “What is it?”

“I ... uh ...” The servant, named Wilhelm, shook his head and tried not to stare at the blood. “Your people,” he went on. “They’re standing outside the castle.”

“What? What people?”

“The subjects.”

“Which subjects?” the queen demanded.

“All of them, Your Majesties.”

The king and queen leaped to their feet. “But why?” the queen asked.

“I ... I’m not sure,” said the servant. “I think it might have to do with the golden smoke.”

“What smoke?” said the queen.

“The dragon,” Gretel whispered to her.

“What?” the king said. Hansel gave him a meaningful look. “Oh,” he said. “Right.” He turned to his wife. “Should we go down?” He looked concerned.

The queen looked at her children.

“It’s okay,” Hansel said. Gretel nodded.

But the queen said, “No. Let them wait.”

“But, Your Majesty!” the servant said. “They’re calling for you!”

“Let them call,” the queen replied.

The king added, “Try to keep them entertained.”

The servant was about to protest again, but, on seeing the expressions on his masters’ faces, thought better of it. He closed the door. Hansel and Gretel smiled at their parents, and Hansel started again.

In the hallway, the other servants crowded around Wilhelm. “What are we supposed to do?” one asked.

“Keep them entertained,” Wilhelm said. “Somehow.”

“What are they saying in there?” another asked. “I think I hear the children talking.”

So the servants leaned their heads against the door. Hansel was telling of the portrait of the golden princess.

“Quick!” said Wilhelm. “Go get everyone you can. Every servant in the castle.” So one of them did, as the others continued to listen at the door.

When all the servants were assembled, Wilhelm said, “Jacob and I”—he gestured to the servant to his right—“are going to listen at the door and relay everything we hear. Then you pass it down, as best you can, to the next servant, and keep passing it, all the way out to the balcony. The royal crier will stand on the balcony and relay it all to the subjects.” He turned to the kitchen staff. “Go and make food. For everybody.”

“For everybody?!” the chief cook exclaimed.

“Everybody!”

And so the plan was carried out. Hansel and Gretel told the whole tale, from the old king’s deathbed all the way through the beheading of their father. And the servants relayed it, as best as they could, down the halls of the castle and out to the royal crier, who in turn relayed it to the people of the Kingdom of Grimm.

The storytelling took all through the day, and into the early evening. And then, as the stars were beginning to twinkle, but before the creepy moon had made an appearance in the southern sky, Hansel and Gretel finished. The family hugged one another once more, very tightly, and stood up. They stretched their arms and legs, and then they went to the door. The servants had retreated to the opposite wall of the corridor. When the king came out, he asked what they were all doing there. Wilhelm said that they were ready to take them down to the great balcony, where their subjects were still waiting. They’d been fed.

“You fed them?” the queen said. “That was very clever of you.”

Wilhelm bowed.

“What did you tell them?” the king asked.

Wilhelm rubbed his hand nervously over his hair. He looked at Jacob and the other servants. They all looked at the floor. He said, “We told them what Hansel and Gretel told you. About their adventures.” The queen raised her eyebrows. “And let me be the first to congratulate the children,” he added quickly, “on the successful vanquishing of the dragon. We are all more grateful than words can express.” And he said it like he meant it.

The queen looked at the king, but the king only smiled. “Fine,” he said. “Well done. That’s fine.” He, too, said it like he meant it. Then the royal family followed the line of servants down to the balcony.

The subjects of the Kingdom of Grimm were spread out before the balcony in the thousands, sitting on the ground, eating the suppers that the kitchen had provided them, and listening to the end of the story with rapt attention.

“I understand,” the crier was saying as the king and queen and Hansel and Gretel emerged from behind him. “I understand, my children.”

A roar erupted from the subjects. The crier, thinking they were roaring for his telling of the story, took a little bow. But then he saw the royal family. Quickly, he retreated.

The subjects’ cheers were deafening. Hansel and Gretel stood before them and took it all in. They smiled.

Then the king raised his hands. The subjects quickly grew quiet.

“I have something I must say,” he announced. “These two children have killed the dragon. Killed the dragon, when everyone else had tried, and everyone else had failed.”

The subjects cheered wildly. The king raised his hands again for silence.

“The dragon would have destroyed this kingdom altogether,” he went on. “It would have left it an empty ruin.” He paused. He tried to swallow down a thickness that had developed in his throat. “I would have left it an empty ruin. I didn’t know what I was doing, of course. I did not know I was the dragon. But the dragon, I, would have destroyed this kingdom if Hansel and Gretel had not stopped me.”

The people of Grimm stared.

“I can no longer be king. How could I? After what I have done?”

In all the Kingdom of Grimm, not a single person made a single sound.

“I am passing my crown on. And I ask my wife to do the same. We will pass our crowns to our children.”

A murmur swept through the crowd. “To Hansel and Gretel? To children?”

“Yes!” the king declared. “They are children. But they are the wisest, bravest children I have ever known. My wife and I will help them as long as they need us to. But”—and here he held up his hand, and all murmuring stopped—“there is a wisdom in children, a kind of knowing, a kind of believing, that we, as adults, do not have. There is a time when a kingdom needs its children. These children. King Hansel and Queen Gretel.”

Total silence.

“They will, of course, marry other people,” the queen added.

Still, total silence.

And then, in the crowd, the tall man from Wachsend, the bald one with the boxer’s nose, shouted out, “But they’re just little ki—”

But before he could finish, someone else called out. It was a young man with long hair and a fresh, raw scar on his face. The one from the tavern. He had climbed up on the shoulders of a friend. Hansel and Gretel saw him. His face was shining. “They saved us from the dragon!” he cried. “Long live King Hansel! Long live Queen Gretel!”

The people of Grimm gazed up at Hansel and Gretel. There was something in what the king had said. About children. About these children.

“Long live King Hansel!” the young man shouted again. And then someone else took up the cheer. “Long live Queen Gretel!”

Another cried it. And another. More and more, more and more, rising up in a tumult all around Hansel and Gretel. “Long live King Hansel! Long live Queen Gretel!”

As they looked out over the people of Grimm, their father leaned down to them and said, “These subjects are your children now.”

And their mother said, “You must take care of them.”

“Better,” their father added, “than we took care of you.”

Hansel turned to him, and, smiling, gesturing at the crowd, said, “It looks like you did all right.” Gretel reached out and took her father’s hand, and then her mother’s.

The subjects continued to cheer, till their throats strained and the sky seemed to whirl. “Long live King Hansel!” they cried. “Long live Queen Gretel! Long live Hansel and Gretel!”

And you know what?

They did.

The End

Really.

Acknowledgments

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant woman named Gabrielle Howard, who wasn’t very tall, and had a lovely English accent, and who was the lower-school principal at Saint Ann’s School, in Brooklyn, New York. One fine day, Gabe, as she’s called, came into my second-grade classroom and read Grimm’s The Seven Ravens to my students (you now know, dear reader, that the Brothers Grimm should have called it The Seven Swallows—just another one of their many, many errors). As you also now know, the little girl in The Seven Swallows cuts off her finger. So after Gabe had finished reading the story, and after I had been resuscitated with a defibrillator, and after Gabe had assured me that I was not fired, because, after all, she had read the story to the students, and not me, I decided that there was something to these Grimm tales, and that I really should look into them. So it was Gabe Howard who introduced me to Grimm, and Gabe Howard who taught me, and still does teach me, to trust that children can handle it. No matter what “it” is. (Once, she proposed I stage King Lear with a class of second graders. We, led by the brilliant Sarah Phipps, did Twelfth Night instead.)

The students at Saint Ann’s are my muses. It was, in fact, a class of first graders who insisted I tell them story after story after story, and thereby suggested to me that I had stories that kids wanted to hear. It is my students’ thirst for understanding, their questioning, their calling-out, their thinking, their art, their calling-out-some-more, their writing, their still-calling-out-even-though-I-am-standing-right-in-front-of-them-asking-them-to-stop, and, above all, their growing that inspire me.

I must thank my teachers from The Park School of Baltimore. I think about all of them, every single day. I really do. One of them, Laura Amy Schlitz read the English version of A Smile as Red as Blood to me when I was very young, thus warping my mind forever. She still teaches me and inspires me and has kept my spirits up as I traveled through this dark tale.

I have done nothing in the realm of writing and trying to publish my writing without consulting Sarah Burnes, who has been right about just about everything she has ever said to me. She identified me as a writer before I did, and then she told me what in my writing was good and what was bad until we got to where we are. Among her most brilliant acts of guidance was introducing me to Julie Strauss-Gabel. Before she met me, Julie believed that she knew the true story of Hansel and Gretel. But, together, we figured out what the real story was. She has been as much a partner as an editor, and there is no question that I would have produced the wrong, fake, untrue story of Hansel and Gretel had it not been for her.

Some dear friends and family members have read this book and given me invaluable ideas and criticism: John, Patricia, and Zachary Gidwitz; Adele Gidwitz (my first reader); Erica Hickey; and Lauren Mancia.

Indeed, Lauren Mancia has been there for every good and bad idea I have had about anything for the last seven years. And I hope for the next seventy.

Finally, I must acknowledge the Brothers Grimm. It was they who wrote down these dark, grim tales, and it was their vision and voice that inspired this book. If you haven’t read their versions of the tales, you must. Their impact on me, and on all of us, has been immeasurable.

Also, their stories are awesome.