by Adam Gidwitz
The second raven rolled his black eyes.
“Fire.”
He rolled them again.
“Spiders! Spiders are scary.”
“You eat spiders!” retorted the second raven.
“Serves them right for scaring me!”
Suddenly a branch cracked and came tumbling through the trees. It landed with a heavy thud not three feet from the little boy.
“That could have killed me,” Joringel said aloud. Strangely, the fact did not seem to bother him.
“Keep moving,” announced the first raven. He flew from tree to tree, perching for a few moments to let the boy’s short legs keep up. His brothers followed suit.
“Falling branches scare me, it turns out,” continued the third raven. “I didn’t know that until just now.”
They flew on.
“Drowning scares me. And sharks. Sharks scare me.”
“You’ve never been in the water!” exclaimed the second raven. “How could you be scared of something that lives where you will never, ever go?”
“Talent,” replied the third raven. “And a prodigious imagination. I’m also scared of goblins and dragons and mean fairies. And dog bites. And cat bites. And bug bites.”
The air grew colder as the party went deeper and deeper into the wood. The ground became softer and squelchier. The trees thinned under the graying, darkling sky.
“I’m scared of getting hit by a carriage or a train or a bus.”
“What’s a train?” asked the little boy, still not at all bothered by the forbidding wood.
“I’m scared of flying in airplanes.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why would you ever go in an airplane? You can fly yourself!” cried the second raven.
“I don’t think I would feel very comfortable in a submarine either. I get claustrophobic.” Joringel didn’t understand anything the ravens were saying.
“Oh, and I’m scared of birds.”
“WHAT?”
“That Hitchcock movie The Birds really bothered me. And ever since, birds have made me uncomfortable.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever—”
“Quiet,” the first raven commanded. “We’re here.”
They stood in the barren, dark heart of the wood. The wind moaned angrily in the trees, and the mist enveloped them like a funeral shroud.
“Where’s here?” asked the second raven, squinting at his surroundings.
The first raven intoned, “We are in the wood at the edge of Mörder Swamp.”
The third raven said, “Murder Swamp? Spelled M-U-R-D-E-R?”
The first raven laughed. “No! Of course not! That would be creepy. It’s spelled M-Ö-R-D-E-R.”
“Oh,” the third raven sighed, relieved.
“Wait,” said the second, “isn’t Mörder just German for ‘murder’?”
“What? Oh. Yes. Technically,” agreed the first.
“Right,” said the third. “So I’m terrified.”
The first raven turned to Joringel. “Do you think that you could spend a night here all by yourself?”
Joringel glanced around at the rotting branches, the thick, wet mud, the cold, drifting mist. Somewhere, a wolf howled. He shrugged. “Why not?”
“You wouldn’t be afraid?” asked the first raven.
“I would be afraid,” interjected the third.
“Yeah,” said the second, “we’ve established that.”
Again, Joringel shrugged. “I don’t think I know how anymore.”
The first raven gave the second raven a knowing glance. So the second raven said, “Well, let him try it.”
“Can I build a fire?” Joringel inquired. “It is a bit cold.”
“Sure,” the first raven replied.
“Do we have to stay here?” asked the third raven.
“The whole point,” said the first raven, “is that we leave the boy alone.”
“Oh! Good!”
The first raven said, “We’ll be back in the morning.” And with that, he flew away. The second raven followed him. The third raven, sitting on a stump in the middle of the eerie clearing, stared wonderingly at the little boy. Suddenly, he shook himself and looked around. His brothers were gone.
“WAIT!” he cried. “WAIT FOR ME!” And he went flying out of the clearing after them.
* * *
The clearing in which Joringel stood was dominated by one enormous tree. Its bark was black and rotted, and worms seethed over its soft surface.
The air was cold, and getting colder, so Joringel set out among the trees to collect wood and kindling. And while any other child—no, any person at all—would have jumped as branches popped under his feet, as wolves cried in the distance, and as bats screeched overhead, little Joringel was not afraid. He did not, it appeared, remember how to be.
He brought the wood and kindling back to the clearing and began to make a flame with a little flint box he kept in his pocket. When the fire had sparked into life, its yellow light danced against the trunk of the great tree under which he stood.
At which point, Joringel noticed three shadows. Shadows that seemed to sway back and forth upon the branches of the trees. His eyes followed the shadows up, and up, and up.
And there he saw, hanging from a branch, three men. Ropes were tied around their broken necks, and their feet dangled lifelessly.
“No!” whispered the third raven, who was hiding, with his brothers, in a tree not very far away.
“Shh!” hissed the first. “Just watch.”
Joringel put his hands on his hips and stared at the three hanging men.
“What are you doing up there?” he called.
They didn’t answer. Being dead and all.
The third raven looked inquiringly at the second. The second shrugged his black shoulders.
Joringel sat down by the fire. But he kept glancing up at the three dead men. They swung slowly this way and that, their ropes creaking in the darkness.
And then Joringel said, “I bet they’re cold. I should let them come sit by my fire.”
“WHAT?” cried the third raven.
“SHHH!” hissed the first.
The little boy called up to the three hanging men. “Hey! Do you want to come down and sit by the fire.”
“What is going on?” the third raven demanded.
The first smiled. “‘Side effects can include sudden idiocy.’”
“They must not be able to hear me up there,” Joringel announced. So he got to his feet, walked to the base of the tree, and began to climb it.
“No . . .” murmured the third raven.
Insects crawled over the little boy’s hands and his face. He tossed them off carelessly. Pieces of rotting wood crumbled in his grip, sending him sliding back down the trunk. He just climbed up again. His fingers dug into seething swarms of worms. The little boy didn’t mind.
He clambered up to the branch with the dead men and said, “Hey! Do you want to come sit by the fire?” The men’s heads lay at unnatural angles on their shoulders, and their thick blue tongues stuck out of their mouths.
“Maybe they’re too cold to answer me,” Joringel said. So he took a little knife out of his pocket and cut through the three ropes.
Thunk!
Thunk!
Thunk!
The three men dropped to the ground. Joringel shimmied back down the tree, ignoring the spiders creeping down his shirt.
The three men were splayed on the earth now, their legs and arms all twisted, their necks crooked and bruised. The boy tut-tutted them for being so lazy. He began to sit them up all around the fire.
“I can’t watch!” cried the third raven, covering his face with a black wing. The second raven winced to see the boy handling the broken corpses. But the first raven jus
t smiled and shook his head wonderingly from side to side.
At last, the little boy had managed to get all the dead men sitting up around the fire. He took his place beside them. He tried to make conversation, but they would not respond. At first, he thought they were being rude. But then he figured it was their thick blue tongues sticking out of their mouths that made them so quiet. He leaned over to one of them and tried to push his tongue back in his mouth.
Just then, the man across the fire from Joringel started to sway. He swayed, back and forth, back and forth. And then, whoomph. He toppled over, headfirst, into the fire.
All three ravens screamed. Quietly.
“Whoa!” cried Joringel, leaping to his feet. The man’s head had caught on fire. Flames danced all over his skull and shoulders. “Get up, get up!” the boy cried. He pulled the man out of the fire and hit the flames on his head until they went out.
“I do not believe what I am seeing,” murmured the third raven.
But just then, another of the men began to sway, back and forth, back and forth. And then, whoomph. He toppled over into the fire, too.
“Whoa! Stop that!” Joringel cried. Flames danced up and down the man’s skull. The little boy pulled the man up and beat the flames out. At which point, the third man fell over. His head caught fire, too.
The ravens’ beaks all hung open limply.
Joringel put his hands on his hips. “If you guys don’t know how to sit around a fire properly, I’m just going to tie you back up in that tree. Is that what you want?”
The two men whom Joringel had already rescued began to sway again, back and forth, back and forth, almost as if they were nodding. And then they both toppled over, face-first, into the fire. Their heads burst into flames.
All three ravens covered their eyes.
“Right, that’s it!” cried Joringel. So he dragged all three men out of the fire, beat the flames out, hauled them back up the tree, and tied them back to their branch. Then he shimmied down, sat himself under their creaking ropes, and began to pick spiders from his hair and centipedes from his clothes.
“Well,” said the third raven, “that was the most upsetting thing I have ever seen in my life.”
And the second raven replied, “Yes. Yes it was.”
“Shall we go retrieve the boy?” asked the first raven.
“To be honest,” answered the third, “now I’m kind of scared of him, too.”
“Yeah, I’m with my brother,” added the second.
But they flew down and landed on the ground by Joringel’s feet.
“So,” asked the first raven, “how’s it going so far?”
“Boring,” said Joringel.
The three ravens stared.
And then the first raven said, “Hey, you think the juniper berry is something? You should check out this castle I know. You’ll love it.” And with that, he took a loping, raven hop and leaped into the air. His brothers followed him.
And so did Joringel.
Malchizedek’s Mansion
Once upon a time, a little girl lived in a tiny room in the highest turret of the Castle Grimm.
Not only was the room tiny, but it was drafty, too. And sparsely decorated. Hardly the accommodations you would expect for a future princess.
Jorinda sat on the small bed in her tiny room and worried.
She worried about the king. She was pretty sure he hated her. Every time she spoke, he scoffed. Every time she made a mistake, he laughed. Every time the prince smiled at her, the king rolled his eyes.
She was also worried about the prince. Yes, he was handsome and tall and strong. And yes, everyone said he was very clever (though Jorinda had never seen any evidence of this). But he never had very much to say to her. And besides, he was an adult. And she, it had to be admitted, was a little girl.
Finally, she was worried about her brother. She kept picturing him standing in their garden, staring at her, as she rode away with the prince. She tried to stop thinking about it. And also about her mother, closed in her study. And also about the not-very-clever prince. And the king who hated her. She tried to not think about a lot of things.
With all this not thinking about things, she was not sleeping very well at night.
* * *
In a grand room at the heart of the grand castle, the king paced the floor in grand, dizzying circles.
“She can’t marry him,” he muttered. “She can’t, she can’t, she can’t, she can’t.”
“Why can’t she marry me, father?” the prince pouted. The prince pouted often. It was not very becoming for a young man the prince’s age. But he did it anyway. “Why not?”
“Why not?” the king bellowed. “Because she’s a child! And a servant! And they call her Toilet Cleaner! How do you think you’ll look introducing your wife to your allies? Or worse, to your rivals?” Then the king adopted a vacant expression and said, “‘How do you do, King Vlad of the Tartars? I am the king of all Grimm, and this is my wife, Toilet Cleaner.’ Does that sound good to you?”
The prince looked at the floor. His shoulders went up and down.
“And stop pouting,” the king added. “You’re a grown man, for heaven’s sake.”
The prince crossed his arms and looked out the window. It was not that the prince liked the girl they called Ashputtle very much. He had found her very enchanting in her blood-red gown at the ball. But now? She was a little girl who didn’t make him feel quite so clever as everyone said he was. Still, he didn’t like to be told he couldn’t have something. Even if he didn’t want it.
A servant came into the room. He had a long scroll of parchment over his arm.
“What?” the king snapped.
“The tax lists, your majesty.”
The king grunted. “Everyone paying?”
“There’s a small matter of adjusting the value of Lord Lewes’s land holdings that border Mörder Swamp—”
“Just take care of it.”
“Very good, sir. And of course,” the servant went on, “Malchizedek isn’t paying.”
“Of course,” said the king, waving a lazy hand. “He never does.” But then the king stopped. “Wait a minute.”
“Your majesty?”
“Malchizedek isn’t paying?”
“No, sir. As you say, he never does.”
The king smiled. “No, he never does.”
“And we have tried countless times to make him pay.”
“We have tried countless times, haven’t we?” The king grinned.
“But the tax collectors keep—”
“Dying,” the king said. “They keep dying, don’t they?”
“Yes, your majesty. He kills them.”
The king was smiling beatifically, staring at the ceiling and stroking his long brown beard. “He does, doesn’t he?”
* * *
The carriage rattled along a rocky track, hugging the side of the cliff.
The little girl stared out the window, across a great crevasse. At the bottom of this crevasse, a dozen shattered carriages were littered among the stones. Jorinda held on to her seat with white knuckles. Across the crevasse, sitting at the top of a rocky promontory, stood a tall, sinister black house.
“That’s it,” the king said. “Malchizedek’s place.”
Okay, if I’m going to keep talking about Malchizedek, you probably ought to learn how to pronounce his name.
It’s Mal-KEE-zuh-deck.
Just what you were saying, right?
Jorinda, gazed at the dark windows and rotting shutters. “And I just have to ask Mr. Malchizedek to pay his taxes?”
“That’s it!” the king replied. “But he doesn’t like to pay. So I’m going to drop you off there and let you stay the night. See if you can’t convince him.”
“Did he invite me?”
“Invite y
ou? Ah . . . well . . . no. But he won’t mind, I’m sure.”
Jorinda returned to gazing out of the carriage window at the dark house. It was the most inaccessible, inhospitable house she had ever laid eyes on. She thought, maybe, he would mind.
“Why won’t he pay?”
“Oh, some poppycock about land confiscation and eminent domain and other complicated terms you wouldn’t understand.”
Jorinda nodded and continued staring at the great, dark house.
* * *
Malchizedek wasn’t there.
No one answered their knock at the door. So three men of the king’s guard broke the lock and knocked the door in. They searched the house, but there was no sign of him.
“Don’t worry,” said the king. “He typically only comes out at night.”
“That’s strange,” said Jorinda.
“Not really,” replied one of the guards. “Ogres typically only come out at night.”
“Wait, what?” The little girl started. “He’s an ogre?”
“You’ll find out for yourself soon enough!” The king smiled. “We’ll be back for you in the morning. Probably.” And with that, he led his guards out the front door. An instant later, the little girl heard the carriage begin its long, rattling trip back across the cliff face to the Castle Grimm.
And now begins one of the strangest, freakiest, most twisted stories the Brothers Grimm ever told.
If you are a fan of strange, freaky, twisted stories, I believe you will like this one.
If you are not a fan of strange, freaky, twisted stories, may I ask you, Why are you reading this book?
The little girl stood in the middle of a large room. Light slanted in through the windows hazily. White sheets lay on all the furniture, and enormous cobwebs stretched from the corners of the ceiling to the floor.
“Hello?” she called. “Hello?”
No answer.
So Jorinda sat down in the center of the black floor, under the black ceiling, surrounded by white-sheeted furniture, and taking a small sewing kit from her pocket to pass the time, she waited for night to fall.