Two more men stopped pushing. The other men could barely move the stones now.
Kewitt! Kewitt!
Two more men stopped to listen to the song.
What a beautiful bird am I!
The last two men could no longer move the stones an inch. They heard the final notes of the song. They threw open the windows of the mill. “That was the most beautiful song we’ve ever heard,” they cried (because apparently everyone in this town talks to birds). “Will you sing it again?”
And the bird said, “I never sing twice for free. Give me one of your millstones, and I’ll sing it again.”
Now, the millstones belonged to the miller. They weren’t the men’s to give. But they wanted to hear the song again so badly that all ten of them bent their legs and heaved a millstone onto their shoulders and staggered with it out the great wooden doors of the mill. The bird bent his little head and the men slipped the hole at the center of the wheel right over it, so the bird had the giant millstone around his neck.
How, you might ask, did a tiny bird support a millstone that weighed as much as a small automobile?
That’s a good question.
My answer? I have no clue.
He just did.
So get over it.
The bird sang the song for the miller’s men again. And then he flew back to the house with the juniper tree.
The little bird flew around and around the house, singing his song. Inside, the stepfather and mother and the little girl still sat at the table.
My father, he killed me, the bird sang.
The stepfather suddenly felt as if an arrow had pierced his heart. “I don’t feel so well,” he said.
My mother, she ate me.
“Do you hear that song?” Jorinda’s mother cried. “It’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard!”
My sister, Jorinda, buried my bones
’Neath the juniper tree. . . .
Jorinda felt hot tears pressing at the corner of her eyes. She blinked madly. Choke them back, she thought.
Kewitt! Kewitt!
What a beautiful bird am I!
And the bird sang the song again.
My father, he killed me . . .
The stepfather slid out of his chair and onto the floor under the table. “I feel like the world is coming to an end!” he said. “I think I’m dying! I can’t see!”
My mother, she ate me . . .
“I have to go outside!” the mother cried. “I have to see the bird that sings this beautiful song!”
She leaped from her chair and burst out of the door. As soon as she was outside, the bird opened one of his claws and let fall the golden chain—and it fell directly around the mother’s neck. She took one look at it and ran back inside. “Look what the bird gave me!” she cried. “A beautiful golden chain!”
My sister, Jorinda, buried my bones . . .
Jorinda was now blind from the tears she would not let fall. “Maybe I should go outside, too,” she sniffled. And she stood up and walked to the door. She emerged into the twilight, wiping her eyes hard, and the bird immediately dropped the two red shoes before her. Without so much as a pause, she slipped out of her own and stepped into them, and suddenly her heart was light. She ran back into the house. “Look what the bird gave me!” she cried.
’Neath the juniper tree . . . the bird sang.
The stepfather was cowering under the table. He began to moan, “Oh, I feel like the world is coming to an end! I feel like I’m burning in the fires of Hell!” Suddenly, he cried, “I can’t breathe! Air! Give me air!” And he threw the table over, sending the stew pot and all the plates clattering to the floor, and burst out of the house.
Kewitt! Kewitt! the bird sang.
And as the stepfather came clear of the door—
BANG!
The bird dropped the millstone right on his head.
And it sang, What a beautiful bird am I!
The mother and little Jorinda ran outside to see what had caused the great thudding, crunching noise.
They saw the millstone, lying in the center of the yard. The smell of sulfur and brimstone rose from its center.
And beside the stone stood Joringel. As good as new.
“Oh!” his mother said. “You’re back!” And then she said, “Now, where did your stepfather get to?”
But Joringel had no chance to answer.
For Jorinda ran at her brother and threw her arms around him and held him so tight he could not breathe.
Their mother scratched her head and started looking all around the grounds for her husband.
Little Jorinda and little Joringel held each other for a long, long time. Neither said a word.
At last, Joringel withdrew and looked at his sister. “If you won’t leave me,” he whispered, “I won’t leave you.”
And Jorinda—hesitated.
Just for a moment.
And in that moment, they heard the sound of hooves. They turned. The prince, tall, strong, handsome, and very, very clever, rode up to them.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “are you ready to go back to the castle?”
The little boy looked at the prince, and then he looked at his sister.
Jorinda said, “Prince, this is my brother.”
The prince squinted at the little boy. “He’s not very tall,” he said. Which had nothing to do with anything. And then he reached down, picked up the little girl, and put her on the back of his horse.
“Wait,” Jorinda said.
The prince waited.
She looked down at Joringel. Her arms were around the prince’s waist. She glanced over at her mother, peering in the bushes for her vanished stepfather. She looked at the house. She looked at the juniper tree. She looked back at her brother. She felt a stabbing pain in her back—as if she had just lain down on a sharp stone.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t stay here. I just—I can’t.”
And without any further warning, the prince spurred the horse, and they galloped away.
Jorinda turned and waved at her brother.
Joringel did not wave back.
He just stared.
Why?
Why would she do this?
Well, maybe we’ll understand it if we assess the facts for a moment:
Fact 1: Jorinda’s mother ignores and neglects her.
Fact 2: Her stepfather and stepsisters were really, really mean to her.
Fact 3: She killed her brother. Or at least, she thought she did.
Fact 4: Her mother ate her brother in a stew.
Fact 5: Her brother turned into a bird, pecked out their stepsisters’ eyes, and killed their stepfather.
Fact 6: Now a prince wants to take her away from this insane and terrifying home and make her a princess.
So I understand her thinking.
On the other hand, she promised Joringel she wouldn’t leave him.
And she is leaving him.
So I understand how he feels, too.
The Three Hanging Men
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was having trouble sleeping.
Joringel tossed and turned, as if a stone were lodged under his mattress, until his bedsheets strangled him and he went flailing to the floor. Then he sat on the floor and thought about his stepsisters, who had been blinded by a bird, and his stepfather, who had been crushed by a millstone. (The boy had some vague feeling he’d had something to do with both of these events, but he wasn’t sure how that was possible.)
Then he crawled back in bed and thought about his sister, who had said she would never, ever leave him. Which made him toss and turn and fight his twisted bedsheets some more.
And then he heard his mother trudge up the creaky stairs of their little house, sigh, and close the door to her room. It had be
en three days since his sister had gone away and his stepfather had been crushed by a millstone, and he had not seen his mother once. She spent all her time in her study with her precious books. He wondered what was so special about them. Whatever it was, it was obviously more special than Joringel.
She took wisdom from them. She took solace in them.
Suddenly, Joringel threw his bedsheets to the floor.
If she could, so could he.
Joringel crept down the creaking stairs, until he stood just outside of his mother’s study, staring at the doorknob that he had never dared turn. He put his hand on it. It was cool and smooth. He sucked in his breath, turned the knob, and pushed the door open.
The windows were like black paintings, it was so dark outside. But inside the study, one oil lamp, housed in a glass globe, burned faintly on. The floorboards creaked as Joringel approached the nearest wall of books. He could see very few titles—most of the old volumes’ names had long faded away. Joringel tilted an old book from the shelf and peered at its cover. Flubelhoffer’s History of the Rhenish Farmer: A Glossary. Joringel didn’t know what that meant, so he let it slide back into place and tipped out another. Professor Weiner Frankfurter: The Collected Letters, Volume 63. The boy wondered how the collected letters of someone named Weiner Frankfurter could be important enough to have sixty-three volumes. Then he saw, at the very bottom of the shelf, an enormous, leather-bound book with metal brackets on the spine. He knelt down and tipped it back. It slid right out of its spot and thudded to the floor. The whole house shook. The little boy froze.
Upstairs, he could hear his mother roll over in bed. Joringel did not move. He did not breathe.
Silence fell again.
As carefully as he could, Joringel leaned over the massive tome. The title read, Extraordinary Plants of Great Power, by F. Johannes.
Plants? Not interesting, the boy thought. Great power? More so.
He opened the book. The hinges that bound the cover to the spine creaked. Joringel froze again and listened for movement upstairs. The only sound was the sputtering and snapping of the oil lamp in its globe. Joringel took the delicate pages between two fingers and began to turn them. He passed the title page. He passed a long introduction about the author’s important post as adviser to a king.
At last, he came to an illustration. It was of a green plant with long, slender leaves and little red flowers. The title read “Blood Blossom.” Under the title was an explanation of where to find said flower—some mountains south of the kingdom of Märchen, wherever that was—and then there was a description of what the flower could be used for. “Staunching bleeding, inducing bleeding, making designs and patterns out of bleeding.” The little boy didn’t know what staunching or inducing meant, and he had no interest in making patterns out of blood. He turned the page.
On the next page, there was a sketch of a wide, flat, brown fungus, growing among the roots of a stout tree. The fungus, apparently, was called Swamp Volcano, and the only explanation on the page read “Caution: If ingested, explosive defecation and emesis will ensue.” Joringel didn’t know what defecation and emesis were, but he certainly didn’t want to explode. So he turned the page again.
If you, on the other hand, are curious to know what defecation and emesis are, you’re going to have to look them up. I’m certainly not going to tell you.
And I recommend you don’t ask any adults, either. Because if you do, they will ask why you want to know. And then you will have to tell them that you read about “explosive defecation and emesis” in this book. At which point, they will take the book away from you.
The oil lamp was nearly out now. Its orange glow illuminated the room one moment and then cast the chamber in darkness the next. The little boy peered at the illustration in front of him. There was a pine tree. Its needles looked deep blue in the darkness. An arrow, drawn in ink, indicated the underside of the branches, and an ornate circle highlighted little berries that looked for all the world like drops of blood. The little boy caught his breath and leaned in. The page read “Juniper Tree Berries,” and below those words, this: “Consume with caution. If eaten fresh from the bough on a night of no moon the moment before dawn, all feelings of fear will be eliminated. Duration varies. Side effects can include sudden idiocy.”
Just as Joringel read those words, the oil lamp sputtered one last time and died. His heart was pounding. “All feelings of fear will be eliminated.” His breath was shallow and quick. He stood and went to the window. He peered outside. The juniper tree stood in the darkness. No moon illuminated its branches.
Joringel walked through the house, out the back door, and into the garden. The stars shimmered tiny above him. The wind was gentle but chill, and the grass already dewy. He made his way to the dark boughs of the tree. He looked over his shoulder, to the east. The blackness had given way, just, to the deepest blue.
“The fewer feelings I have, the better,” Joringel said under his breath. And he reached up and took a little red berry between his fingers. He plucked it down. He closed his eyes.
He put it in his mouth and burst the bitter berry between his teeth.
“And so it begins,” came a voice from the darkness.
Joringel’s eyes flew open.
“Are you sure it’s him?” This was another voice.
The little boy looked all around. He saw no one. His head felt very strange.
“I’m sure,” said the first voice.
“Wait, who?” This was someone new. “Who are we talking about again?”
The first voice sighed. “The boy. You know. The special one. With the sister.”
“He doesn’t look very special to me,” said the second voice.
“I still don’t know who you’re talking about,” said the third.
At last, the little boy found them. They were sitting on a low branch of the juniper tree. And they were not human.
They were bird.
Raven, to be precise.
Joringel should have been shocked. He knew he should have been. There were ravens—talking. And talking about him, no less. But shock originates somewhere in your chest, just below your heart and just above your stomach. And at that moment, that part of Joringel was being occupied by strange gurglings and tinglings that had begun just after he’d swallowed the juniper berry. So he didn’t feel shocked at all. He just said, “I’m special?”
The three ravens looked at him all at once. Their small eyes were so perfectly black that they reflected the stars overhead.
“Yes,” said the first raven.
“Well, you will be,” said the second. “As will your sister.”
“I,” said the third, “still have no idea what they’re talking about.”
“That makes two of us,” Joringel replied.
The ravens chuckled.
“You have just ingested the berry of a juniper tree, have you not?” asked the first raven.
“I don’t know what ingested means,” said the little boy, “but if it means ate, then yes, I did.”
“Quite so,” replied the first raven. “Would you be surprised to learn that you are soon to undertake historic feats of courage and heroism?”
“I don’t know what you just said,” Joringel replied.
“It’s not the right kid,” the second raven interjected. “I don’t believe it.”
“WHAT KID?” the third raven squawked.
“Shall we test my hypothesis?” the first asked.
“I don’t know what you just said again,” answered Joringel.
“It’s not him,” the second raven sighed.
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT!” screamed the third raven.
The first raven ignored him. “Little boy, would you like to begin the greatest adventure in the history of the Storied Kingdoms?”
Joringel had no idea what the Storie
d Kingdoms were. But his answer, without any question, was yes.
“Then follow us,” said the raven. And he dove from the branch and swooped past Joringel. The second raven swooped down after him. But the third, with a flutter of wings, hopped down onto Joringel’s shoulder.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” the raven asked. Joringel shook his head. “Okay,” the black bird replied. “Then let’s find out.” And he took off after his brothers.
Joringel glanced back at the little house he had grown up in. A lump formed in his throat.
But he turned away, following the flight of the three ravens into the bloody, rising sun.
* * *
They had walked for nearly a day. Once, the third raven had asked him if he found it strange that birds could talk.
“Usually, you kids find it strange,” the raven added.
Indeed, Joringel felt that he should find it strange. He just didn’t. That place between his heart and his chest still tingled, and his head felt like it was swimming in brine.
As the day waned and the gray sky gave way to dusk, the strange party arrived in a dark wood.
“Now let’s see if that juniper berry works,” announced the first raven.
The trees were blackened and moldy. Their branches were bare, hanging at odd angles like broken, burned bones. As the muddy ground squelched under the little boy’s feet, he wondered why he was not frightened. He should have felt frightened. The wind suddenly whipped through the wood, and it moaned, long and low and mournful. Then it fell silent again. This was a place of death.
“Well, I’m scared,” said the third raven.
“What do you have to be scared of?” demanded the second. “It’s not like you can die.”
The little boy cocked his head. “You can’t die?”
“There are some things we do, and some things we do not do,” replied the first raven. “Dying is of the latter group.”
But the third raven said, “Dying isn’t the only thing to be afraid of.”
“Oh, really?” asked the second.
“Right!” said the third. “There’s snakes.”