In a Glass Grimmly (6 page)

Happy birthday,
he thought.
Today you could have become your own man
.

And then, at the edge of his father’s property, Jack saw a small form crest the hill. It came toward him slowly, shufflingly. Jack watched it approach. It seemed to be a lump of brown, with two dirty human feet sticking out the bottom. It waddled right up to where Jack was sitting.

“Hello,” said Jack. “What are you?”

“Your cousin,” said the lump. “Dummy.”

And the lump sat down on the grass beside Jack. It began to molt. The brown fell back from its head. The brown was actually just a filthy blanket, Jack could see now. Jill, also filthy (but, I should add, now wearing clothing), had been hiding under it. She smiled at him wanly.

“I had a bad day,” she said.

Jack smiled in a scrunched up way. “Me too,” he said. “It was my birthday.”

“It was my mom’s half birthday.”

“I got in trouble. Really bad.”

“Me too.”

“What’d you do?”

“I went out in front of the whole kingdom naked.”

Jack tried to stifle a laugh.

“Hey!” Jill said.

“Why did you do that?”

Jill shrugged. Then she said, “What’d
you
do?”

“I traded Milky for a bean.”

Jill laughed out loud.

“The bean’s magic,” Jack insisted. “Wanna see?” He held it up. The moon illuminated it. It did look magic.

“It isn’t magic,” said Jill.

Jack looked at it. “No,” he said. “I guess not.” Suddenly, inside the house, Jack’s father slammed something and again shouted that word I’m still not printing. Jill put her arm around Jack’s shoulders. He returned the favor.

Besides being cousins, you see, Jack and Jill were best friends. Whenever one visited the other, they played imaginary games and told each other stories and made up stupid jokes together. And, every once in a while, when they really needed it, they put an arm around the other’s shoulders.

“Oh, I want to introduce you to someone,” said Jill.

She reached into her brown blanket and produced a frog.

“Ooh!” cried Jack. “A big fat frog!” And he grabbed the frog and held him up.

Jill tried to stop him, but Jack was too excited. “He’s big and he’s fat and he only has three legs!”

Then Jill said, “Jack, I think he’s peeing on you.”

Jack shouted and dropped the frog. Jill looked down at the plump little amphibian. “I’m sorry, Frog,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he replied. “Boys will be boys.”

Jack stared at the frog, then at Jill, then back at the frog. “Did he talk?” said Jack. Then he said, “And did you just apologize to
him
?
He peed on me!”

“Yes,” said Jill. “You shouldn’t be so rough with him.”

The frog smiled up at Jill and said, very simply, “Thank you.”

Jack stared at the frog and his mouth hung open. At long last, he said, “That’s amazing.”

“See?” Jill said to the frog, “I told you he’d like you.”

“In that case,” said the frog, “Jack, I am sorry for peeing on you. We frogs don’t have many defenses, you know.”

Jack laughed and smiled kind of sideways. “That’s okay,” he said. “Little boys don’t either.”

And just like that, the three of them became fast friends.

And had the day ended there, it would have been a very eventful day indeed.

But it did not end there.

If it had, much suffering, much bloodshed, many tears would have been avoided.

In fact, if you’re the kind of person who does not like to read about suffering and bloodshed and tears, why don’t you just pretend that the day did end there, and close the book right now?

On the other hand, if you’re the kind of person who does like reading about suffering, and bloodshed, and tears . . . well, may I politely ask, “What is wrong with you?”

Just then, at the edge of Jack’s father’s land, there was a rustling in the trees. Jack and Jill and the frog turned toward the sound, and then, in unison, they all shivered.

Standing at the edge of the property was a tiny woman, no taller than a child. Her posture was hunched, and her hair was wispy white. But her face was smooth as a baby’s, and her pale blue eyes shone through the murky dusk. As she walked toward the children (and the frog), both Jack and Jill had the uncanny sensation of recognizing her. Though neither could quite place where from.

The frog whispered, “There’s a creepy old lady walking toward us.” He burrowed down into Jill’s blanket.

When the old woman stood right beside them, she still had not said a word. There was a sudden wind, and her thin cloak fluttered. Jack realized how dark it had become. Jill felt cold.

The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady standing right next to us.”

And then, the creepy old lady spoke.

“Had a bad day?” she asked. Her voice did not match her body. It was high and light and lilting, almost like a child’s.

Jack and Jill stared at her, silent, mesmerized.

The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady talking to you.”

Jack looked up into the strange, childlike face. “Who are you?”

“We have many names,” said the old woman. The wind blew harder.

“We?”

“And we know many things. Especially about the children ’round here. You might say it’s our job.”

“Who’s job?” said Jack.

The old woman brought her face right down beside the children’s. Her pale blue eyes sparkled. “Ours,” she said.

And then she said, “We’d like to do something for you.”

Jill asked, “What?”

“We’d like to change your very lives.”

The frog whispered, “Now there’s a creepy old lady scaring the bejeezus out of me.”

But Jack said, “You wanna change our lives?”

“Yes, Jack. What if everyone liked you and admired you? Especially that tall boy. What’s his name?”

“Marie,” Jack replied.

“Yes. Marie would admire you. And, better yet, he would like you. He, and the whole world, would really, truly like you.”

There was a pause. Crickets sang through the darkness. Finally, Jack said, “You can do that?”

“Surely can,” replied the old woman.

Jill squinted her eyes uncertainly.

“And you, dearie,” the old woman smiled at her. “How about we make you into the most beautiful girl in the kingdom? Would that please you?”

Jill caught her breath.

“Her? Beautiful? Not possible,” said Jack. Jill hit him.

The old woman chuckled. The darkness was becoming heavier, but her pale eyes shone all the more brightly.

Jill looked from Jack to the old woman. At last, the little girl said, “You can’t really . . .”

“But I can, my dear. If you wish it. Do you?”

Jill stole another glance at Jack, and then she nodded fiercely. Even after the silk, and the procession, she wished for this. More than anything.

“Good,” said the old woman. “You won’t be sorry. Now, before we grant you these gifts, before we change your very lives, you’ve got to agree to do something for us in return. Nothing too onerous. A small favor. Just so we’re even.”

At this moment, under the spell of the old woman’s words, Jack and Jill would have agreed to anything.

“We just need you to run and fetch us a glass.”

“A glass?” asked Jill.

“That’s easy,” replied Jack. “Where is it?”

“Well,” said the old woman. “It’s lost. It’s been lost for a little while now. But if you can find it, Jack, we will make you admired, and Jill, we will make you the beauty of the kingdom.”

“You swear?” Jack asked.

The old woman’s grin stretched across her wide, smooth face. “I swear on my very life,” she said. “Now will you swear on your very lives to get us this glass?”

“Okay,” said Jack.

The old woman looked at Jill. “And you?”

“Don’t do it!” the frog hissed from deep inside the blanket.

Jill hesitated.

The old woman, in a voice as low as the wind, said, “If you swear to get that glass, I will swear to make you as beautiful as you have ever dreamed of being.”

And then Jill said, “Okay.”

The woman turned her pale, glowing eyes on Jack. “Now, my boy, will you give me that bean?”

“How did you know about . . . ?” Jack stammered.

The woman smiled and held out her hand. Jack, watching her carefully, placed the bean in her wrinkled palm. The bean glowed in the bone-white light of the moon.

“Give me your thumbs,” said the old woman. Jack and Jill stuck out their thumbs. The old woman plucked one of her thin, silvery hairs from her head. Then she took the end of her hair and poked Jill’s thumb with it. Jill winced. A bead of blood appeared. The old woman did the same to Jack. Then to herself.

Then she scooped a handful of earth from the ground with long, hard fingernails, and placed the white bean, still shimmering by the light of the moon, in the earth. She held her thumb over the bean. She motioned for the two children to do the same. They did.

“I swear on my life,” she said.

“I swear on my life,” said Jack.

“I swear on my life,” said Jill.

Three drops of blood spattered the white bean. Then the old woman covered the bean again with black soil.

“As soon as I’m gone,” she said, “this beanstalk will grow to the sky.”

“What?” said Jack.

“And when it does,” the old woman smiled, “you must climb it.”

“Why?” Jill objected.

“To find the glass!”

“Your cup is in the sky?” said Jack.

“It’s not a cup,” the old woman corrected him. “It’s a glass. A looking glass. A mirror. In fact, it is called the Seeing Glass, and it is very old, and very important. In fact, it might be the most important and the most powerful looking glass in the history of the world.”

Jack and Jill stared at the old lady like maybe she was a little bit insane.

Then Jill asked, “And it’s in the sky?”

The old woman, to the children’s great surprise, laughed. “I don’t know! It has been lost for a thousand years!”

“What?” cried Jack. “So what if we can’t find it?”

“You swore on your
life
,” said the old woman. “If you can’t find it, you die.”

“What?” cried Jack again.

“What?” cried Jill.

“What?” cried the frog from inside Jill’s blanket.

“What do you think
swearing on your life
means?” the old woman exclaimed. “Silly gooses.” She smiled at them sweetly. “Get the Seeing Glass, or you will die. And now, good-bye!”

And without another word, the old woman made a movement toward the trees—and was gone.

The frog poked his head out of Jill’s blanket and looked up at the children.

“That,” he said, “was stupid.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The

Giant Killer

O
nce upon a time, there was a beanstalk.

It started as a tiny shoot, peering up from the black soil where the bean had been planted, tender and green in the bright moonlight. Next it was a plant, small but sturdy. Then it was the size of a young tree.

All in a matter of seconds.

Soon, the beanstalk was as thick and as tall as an oak. And still it grew and grew and grew. Thick branches began to shoot out from its trunk, one every few feet, twisting upward around the great green stalk.

A little boy named Jack looked at a little girl named Jill.

“Don’t do it,” warned a three-legged frog named Frog. “Don’t even think about it.”

Jack took hold of a thick branch in his hands. He pulled himself onto the stalk. The branch held his weight easily. Above their heads, the beanstalk climbed and climbed and climbed, far out of sight.

“Come on,” Jack said. “Let’s go find that crazy old lady’s glass.”

“Care—ful . . . care—ful . . . careful . . . careful . . . careful, careful . . . careful careful . . . carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . . WATCH OUT!”

Jill grabbed hold of the sprout just above her head and pulled herself up. The frog clutched desperately at the brown blanket with his toes, staring down at the tiny dot that used to look like Jack’s house. The sun was just rising, slanting its yellow rays over the misty landscape below. Jill reached out her hand for the next sprout.

“Care—ful . . . care—ful . . . careful . . . careful . . . careful, careful . . . careful careful . . . carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . . WATCH OUT!”

Jill pulled them up to the next sprout and turned to the frog. Her words were very clipped when she said, “If you don’t shut up, I will drop you.”

“Right,” said the frog. “Sorry,” said the frog. “Okay,” said the frog. He tried breathing.

“Why don’t you look up?” Jill suggested. “Instead of down?”

“Up? Up! Yes,” said the frog. “Look up.” He looked up. Then he glanced back down at the green fields, the little house, the tiny specks of cattle in the distance. “Care—ful . . . care—ful . . .” Jill gritted her teeth and concentrated on not hurling the frog to his death.

Jack was sweating, though the air was much colder up here than it had been on the ground. He looked down at Jill, and then way, way below her, to the buildings of his village. They looked tiny. So tiny. He swept his eyes out across the miniature landscape. The castle was off in the distance, tiny turrets rising like a gingerbread fort. There were swaths of mottled woods shrouded in mist, with shining rivers winding through them. He took a deep breath.

He had been right. The bean was magic. The boys had been wrong to laugh. Marie had been wrong. Jack turned and gazed into the belly of white clouds overhead.

“Where does this end?” Jill called from below.

“Are you tired?” Jack called back.

“Tired of this frog having a heart attack every time I reach for the next branch.”

“Carefulcarefulcarefulcareful . . .”

Jack pointed at the clouds. “I don’t know. Up there?” Jill nodded.

The thick cloud cover seemed to grow bigger and bigger above them as they climbed. Jack approached the belly of the sky, and wisps of water blanketed his face, leaving trails of dew on his cheeks and neck.

Water vapor began to clog their lungs. Jack felt like he was choking. Jill took heaving breaths. A few more feet, and they could see nothing. Gray, gray all around them, as if this part of the world had no color at all, and only a faint wetness and a cutting coldness and a swaying back and forth, back and forth.

“I can’t see!” the frog cried. “I can’t see and it’s cold and it’s wet and I can’t see! I can’t see and I don’t want to DIE!”

Jill’s teeth were chattering. “Frog,” she said, “be quiet. Please.”

“We’re going to die, we’re going to die, weregoingtodieweregoingto . . .” the frog began repeating.

The gray around them was becoming less gray and more white. The cold was not so cold, the wet not so wet. Up, and up, and suddenly Jack felt an unexpected warmth on his face, as if he were getting close to the stove in his kitchen. The gray was now all white, and the white was becoming wispier and wispier.

And then Jack’s head emerged from the clouds.

He gasped.

Jack did not blink as he climbed up to the next branch, nor as he reached his arm out onto the blanket of clouds that surrounded him, nor even as he found that the clouds held him up. He did not blink once. He just stared.

Behind him, Jill pulled herself upwards, her arms shaking with strain, the sweat pouring down her face. She gave one last heave, and then she was above the cloud level.

She saw Jack, standing on the clouds. And then she saw what he was staring at.

“Oh
 . . .
”
she said.

Stretching out far, far into the distance was a line of towering white cliffs, undulating in and out before an endless expanse of the purest, deepest blue she could ever have imagined. The white cliffs, a thousand feet high if they were an inch, were topped with green tufts of high grass. Below the cliffs, between them and the pure blue sky, ran a long, smooth cloud beach, against which the blue of the sky gently broke like waves.

Jill gazed down the perfect white sky beach. She felt dizzy. It went on, quite literally, forever.

Jack, Jill, and the frog knelt among the clouds. They had walked for an hour down the strand of sky, marveling at the strangeness of it. But now they had stopped, for they had come upon something even stranger.

Just ahead, enormous men were punching each other, repeatedly, in the face.

“What are they doing?” Jill whispered.

A great, fat, bearded man clenched his fist, wound up, and knocked the teeth out of another great, fat, bearded man’s mouth.

The great, fat, bearded man who had had his teeth punched out staggered around for a few moments, wiped the blood from his face, clenched his fist, wound up, and returned the favor.

This continued for a good many minutes. The children watched in horror.

“They look huge . . .” Jack whispered in awe.

“Giant . . .” Jill agreed.

“Not giant,” whispered the frog. “
Giants
. Those are
giants
.”

Neither child asked how the frog knew this, for as soon as he had said it, they knew it was true.

“I’ll go talk to them,” whispered Jack.

“WHAT?” cried the frog.

“What?”
hissed Jill, not quite as loudly.

“Maybe they want to be my friend,” Jack murmured.

Jill and the frog looked at Jack like he was crazy. They were just about to tell him so, in fact, when he stood up and started for the giants.

“Jack!” Jill spat. “Stop!”

“Come back!” cried the frog.

But Jack was already walking toward the giants as if in a trance.

He had not gotten more than a few paces closer, though, when the giants suddenly wiped their bloody faces on their sleeves, turned, and trooped up a tall, thin, white staircase that led directly into a hole in the face of the cliffs. In a matter of moments, they were gone.

Jack hurried forward. Jill, reluctantly, picked up the frog and followed him.

Little Jack found himself at the base of the tall, narrow staircase that led into the cliff. He could see, at the top, a round door. Above the door ran gold lettering which read, T
HE
C
AVE OF
H
EROES
. Before the door stood a tall, thin giant with a gaunt face and a long beard and a shining shirt of mail.

Jack gazed up at him. “Hello?” he called.

The tall, thin giant did not stir.

“Can I come up?” Jack called again.

Jill arrived at his side.
“Jack!”
she hissed.
“What are you doing?”

But Jack was staring, fixedly, up the narrow staircase.

Jack stepped onto the first stair. The sky suddenly shook with the booming voice of the gaunt giant.

To enter here ye must be brave,

and do what no man dare:

Enter into our killing cave

And face to face encounter fear.

Little Jack nodded his head. “I’m brave!” he called up to the giant.

Jill said, “Jack! Be quiet!”

But Jack took another step up the stairs.

In response, the giant guard boomed out:

A band for heroes only—

But join us, brave one! Try!

Many before have tried to, too,

And one by one each one has died.

“I can do it,” answered Jack.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” the frog shouted. He looked to Jill. “Does your cousin have a problem or something?”

Jack took another step up the stairs.

Again, the guard bellowed to the sky:

Who shall submit his life to us?

Who shall sever his life’s left hand?

Who shall place his final trust

In our unbreakable band?

“I will!” cried Jack.

“What are you doing?” Jill exclaimed, grabbing him by the sleeve. But Jack jerked his arm away and took another step up the stairs. And then another. And then another. Up, and up, and up, until he was standing directly in front of the giant. Jack came up to the middle of his thigh.

“What is he thinking?” whispered the frog, staring in abject terror.

Jill could only shake her head.

Do you have any idea what Jack is thinking right now?

No?

Me neither.

But of course, when I was Jack’s age and saw people I took for giants, I never understood half the things I did either.

Suddenly, the gaunt giant guard seemed to notice Jack. He bellowed, “Who volunteers to taste fear and feel death?”

“I do,” Jack replied, in his bravest voice. “Me. Jack.”

Jill and the frog could only watch in horror.

“Jack, will you subject yourself to fear?”

Jack swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said.

“Will you enter the band and never flee, even to the point of death?”

Jack inhaled swiftly. Jill stared.

Jack gazed at the giant’s long face, his gray beard, his dead eyes.

Please,
Jill thought.
Don’t.

“I will,” said Jack.

“Then enter,” said the guard. And he turned and led Jack into the towering white cliff.

Jack stood in a great hall. It stank of the sweat of enormous men. The walls were hung with tapestries that showed giants slaying dragons and giants destroying cities and giants making off with damsels in distress. In the center of the hall stood a huge round table. Seated at the table were two dozen giants.

“Well, what have we here?” one of the giants bellowed, rising to his feet. He wore a thin golden crown on his enormous, shaggy head. He had a long brown beard, tiny teeth in blue gums (some of which, Jack could tell, had recently been knocked out), and small, blinking eyes. He, and all the other giants seated around the table, peered curiously at little Jack.

“The boy, Jack the Small, has asked to join the band,” announced the gaunt giant guard.

“Wonderful!” bellowed the one who wore the crown. “And that one?” he asked, and he waved fingers as thick as sausages at the door. Jack spun around. Standing at the top of the stairs, panting and staring, was Jill.

“It followed Jack the Small up the stairs,” said the guard.

“That’s Jill,” said Jack. “My cousin.” He smiled at her.

Jill thought,
I’m going to kill him.

“Wonderful!” the crowned giant bellowed ecstatically. (Giants are always bellowing; sometimes they do it ecstatically and other times darkly and other times imperiously; it’s just very hard not to bellow when you’re a giant. You understand.) All the other giants beat the wooden table with their powerful fists. “Be welcome! I am King Aitheantas. And these are the giants of the Cave of Heroes.” Then he pointed his huge sausage fingers at each one and named them. Jack didn’t catch many of the names. The guard was called Meas. There was an enormously fat one called Brod, whose stomach tumbled out over his belt in giggling lobes. And there was a skinny, young-looking one with big front teeth, whom King Aitheantas called Bucky. Bucky smiled at Jack. Jack returned the smile.

“Now,” bellowed King Aitheantas, “you wonder what giants such as we might want with such a pygmy as thee?”

In fact, Jack had not wondered. But Jill said, “Yes.”

The king announced, “We do not judge courage by size, do we?”

“No!” bellowed the giants. Jack grinned. Bucky flashed him a thumbs-up.

Yes, “thumbs-up” existed Once upon a time. Nowadays it means, “Good job,” or, “You’re okay with me.” Back then, it generally meant, “My friends aren’t going to kill you.”

“But we must know,” continued King Aitheantas, “if you are brave. You must pass harrowing tests if we are to let you join the band.”

Jack said, “I will pass them.”

“What happens if he doesn’t?” Jill demanded.

King Aitheantas raised his eyebrows at Meas, the guard. Meas bellowed imperiously, “He dies. And so do you. The secrets of the band shall not be revealed to the world!”