In a Glass Grimmly (10 page)

“Leave the mermaid alone!” Jill bellowed.

And she brought the blade down as hard and as fast as she could. The man raised his arm to protect himself. The rusty blade hit his flesh with a
thwack
and buried itself in his bone. The man howled. Jill tried to pull the ax out, but it seemed to have become lodged there. Jill turned and grabbed the long, curving knife from the wall. She raised it and brought it down—but before it could enter the man’s flesh, she was flung back by a kick to the chest. She tumbled over the rope and out into the daylight.

The man lay amid the fallen tools in the tiny shed, blood pouring from his arm onto the ground. He was staring at Jill.

“You leave her alone!” Jill snarled again, and then she ran.

Jill passed the tavern so quickly she did not see Jack looking out the window, watching her run up the road. Not that seeing him would have stopped her now. She kept going, up, up into the steep and misty hills. The wet grass was like a sponge beneath her feet. She could smell the peat smoke rising from the fires in the houses of the village. It was a sweet, musty smell. She passed a flock of sheep, lying on the green wet hillside. They bleated at her.

At the edge of the little valley behind the first hill, there stood a small sheepfold—just a wooden structure with three walls and a roof, where the sheep could gather if they wanted to get out of the rain. Jill made her way to that. She sat down in it. She looked at herself. Her clothing was splattered with the man’s blood.

She was sorry she hadn’t killed him, but she thought that maybe, lying there, he might just bleed to death on his own. She thought of the beautiful mermaid—how perfect she was. And how she loved Jill. She loved her, Jill knew it. And to think that there had been six more of them, and that the bearded man had killed them all. It made her sick. And then, to think of his little daughter, who had died from grief because of him. Oh, what he had done to his little daughter.

Perhaps, she thought, she would return to his hut that night and be sure the job was done.

When the night was black, and Jill was certain that the people would have left the tavern and gone to their homes to sleep, Jill hurried back across the field of sheep, skirted around the edge of the silent fishing village, and made her way down to her little harbor. The mermaid was singing again. The song seemed to penetrate Jill’s soul. It was intoxicating. It was unbearably beautiful.

Come, come, where heartache’s never been.

And where you’re seen as you want to be seen.

Come, come, the place of shadow and green,

Where you’ll never cry no more, dear lass,

Where you’ll never cry no more.

Jill’s vision became blurred. She couldn’t see the houses of the village, nor the sky above it. All she could see was the black, heaving ocean and the craterous, craggy rocks that rose up around it, like teeth around a great mouth. The mermaid was singing more sweetly and sadly than she ever had before. Jill came to the water’s edge. She looked out at the mermaid’s rock, surrounded by the spuming, frothing ocean, but the mermaid was not there.

“Here,” she heard. Jill looked down. There, directly below Jill, just beneath the surface of the sea, the mermaid floated. Jill bent over and, staring down at the mermaid, it felt like she was staring into a mirror of obsidian, and the mermaid was her beautiful, perfected reflection.
If only the mermaid really were Jill’s reflection,
she thought. If only. She wanted it so badly it made her heart ache.

The mermaid’s eyes were wider and blacker and greener than Jill had remembered, and her hair that looked like the shining of the moon on the water at night blew every which way under the waves. And she was smiling at Jill.

“Beautiful girl,” she said from under the water. “Beautiful, brave girl. You have done something to defend me, and to avenge my sisters. I can feel it.”

Jill sat down on the edge of the rocks. She folded her feet behind her and dangled her fingers in the cold, wild water. “I tried,” Jill said. “I tried to.”

The mermaid beamed at her. “You beautiful, brave girl. Here,” she said, “let me kiss you.” And then she was rising up out of the water, her white body shining in the moonlight, her green and black scales shimmering darkly below. She raised her face to Jill’s face and brought her foamy lips to Jill’s left cheek. Jill felt them brush against her skin, and it was the softest, sweetest feeling she had ever felt. She closed her eyes. Above her, a great black wave rose into the night.

The great wave rose, and then paused.

And then it came crashing down upon the mermaid and little girl. It slammed Jill’s body into the sharp rocks. It dragged her, with an irresistible pull, down, down, down. Jill tried kicking, fighting it, but she just sank deeper beneath the waves. She opened her mouth to scream, and water rushed into her lungs. She opened her eyes and they burned from the salt. But she could see. She could see the beautiful mermaid, holding on to her wrists, her face contorted, demented. And behind the mermaid, Jill could see six other mermaids, rushing toward her, their faces twisted, warped. And they sang as their hands grabbed at Jill’s arms, Jill’s legs, Jill’s hair. They sang:

Come, come, where heartache’s never been.

And where you’re seen as you want to be seen.

Come, come, the place of shadow and green,

Where you’ll never cry no more, dear lass,

Where you’ll never cry no more.

And finally, Jill saw the body of a little girl, tangled among the seaweed at the rocky bottom of the harbor. The body was pale, and it floated lifelessly, its eyes staring up unseeing toward the surface.

It was a lie. The mermaid had lied.

The last breath left Jill, the last fight died in her arms and legs and lungs. She went limp. The sea grew dark.

And then, falling through the darkling sea, there was a net. It fell and fell, sliding over the mermaids as if they were not there, as if they were no more than beams of the moon. But it fell around Jill and cradled her, and it pulled her up, up, away from the mermaids’ grasping hands, up to the surface of the water, up above the obsidian waves and into the moonlight and the freezing, bracing air.

Jill was placed gently on the rocks and the net was opened. She coughed and coughed, seawater pouring out of her mouth. She held herself up with her hands and wretched until every last drop of brine was purged. Then, drained, Jill sat back.

A pair of arms draped themselves over her. Small, thin arms. Jill opened her eyes. She could see only a white bandage. Then she felt amphibian skin on her neck.

She looked up, over the bandage that was nestled under her chin, and saw that the big-bellied man with the red beard was staring at her, shaking his head. He looked like he was crying. “I got ya this time,” he whispered, as if to himself. “This time, I got ya.”

The bandage pulled back. It was Jack, holding the frog in his hands. Little Jack was smiling tearfully. The red-bearded man approached and picked Jill up, cradling her, with his one good arm, away from the bandaged one, and carried her back toward the tavern. “I told ya,” he said to her as he walked, Jack following just a pace behind. “No man can cast such a net as can catch a mermaid. But a mermaid can surely cast such a net as can catch a little girl.”

The man with the red beard was all better now. His arm had been in a sling for a few weeks, and each night he removed his bandages and rubbed it with a local whisky. He said that was better than any doctor could do.

His heart was better, too. But he didn’t need any whisky for that. The innkeeper told Jill that, for the first time since his daughter had died, the man with the red beard was his old self again. “I got her,” you could hear him say to himself. “This time, I got her.”

The man treated Jack like a son. Jack, who had watched Jill go down to the little hut, who had seen the man come home from the fishing boats, who had wondered at Jill sprinting away past the inn. Jack had tried running out of the inn after her, but he hadn’t seen where she had gone. All that had been left to do was go down to the little hut. He had found the bearded man, unconscious in the shed, still bleeding. “He saved m’ life,” the bearded man said after they’d told Jill the story. “And yours, too.”

The days were fine, there in the little village by the sea, and the people had grown to love Jack and Jill. But the children had to move on, for they were no closer to the Seeing Glass.

And besides, the mermaid still sang at night, tormenting Jill with her beautiful song.

So the children asked the red-bearded man if he knew where they could find goblins.

The man’s face grew dark. “Why would you want to see the goblins? It’s an evil race, the goblins are.”

“We’re looking for a mirror,” said Jill. “The Seeing Glass. It’s in the deepest part of the earth.”

The man smoothed his red beard with his meaty hand. He shook his head. “If it’s the belly of the earth you want—ay, the goblins could show you there. But they’re more likely to trap you, and kill you, and sell you for parts.”

Jack started, but Jill just set her jaw and said, “Where are they?”

The man heaved himself to his feet and walked with the children out of the tavern. Through the morning mist, he pointed out into the hills. “The Goblin Market is that way.”

The children embraced the big man with the red beard, and then set out into the steep green hills behind the village. They walked away from the small seaside village, away from the sea, away from the tall green hill, and if their sense of direction deceived them not, far, far away from home.

CHAPTER SIX

The

Gray Valley

O
nce upon a time, a boy named Jack, a girl named Jill, and a frog named Frog stumbled through high mountains and rocky valleys in a land very far away from the kingdom of Märchen. They were tired; they were hungry; they were thirsty; and they were sick to death of walking.

The sky was as gray as the loose stones that lay on the sides of the mountains, which was as gray as the sodden sod in the shallow valleys. The wind blew cold and wet, and would have been gray, too, if wind had a color.

At last, Jack, Jill, and the frog collapsed on their backs on a wide, smooth stone, and wondered if they were dead yet.

“So hungry,” Jill moaned.

“So thirsty,” Jack groaned.

“So worried,” said the frog. “I hope we don’t starve to death.”

“Yes,” said Jill, “not starving to death would be nice.”

“So would not thirsting to death,” said Jack.

“Thirsting isn’t even a word,” said Jill.

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the word?”

“I don’t know. Dying of thirst.”

“You can starve to death. Why can’t you thirst to death?”

“I don’t know. You just can’t.”

“Oh.”

This is, of course, the kind of inane conversation that occurs when people are slowly losing their minds.

Through it, the frog was staring up at the sky, as he used to do when he lived in his well. For not the first time in that frog’s long life, he was wishing he were back in it, salamanders and all. He could hear them now: “What is smelly?” “When is smelly?” “Why is smelly?” “Who is smelly?” “Am I smelly?” “Who’s smellier, me or Fred? Is it me? It’s me, right? Me?” He sort of missed them.

“Frog, I have a question,” said Jack, who was now lying on his back, staring at the sky.

“Shoot.”

“How do you talk?”

Jill looked over at Jack, and then at the frog. “Yeah,” she said.

The frog sighed. He purposely did not look at Jill. “It’s kind of a long story.”

“Okay,” said Jack.

“Okay,” said Jill.

“Okay what?” said the frog.

“Okay, tell us the story,” Jack answered.

The frog thought about it for a minute. He continued to purposely not look at Jill. And then, at last, he said, “All right...”

So the frog told them the story of how he came to talk. He started with the very smelly well, moved on to the very annoying salamanders, then described the princess with her ball, and so on, all the way through him trailing his froggy blood after him, all the way back to his well.

When he’d finished, Jack said. “That’s a good story.”

“Thank you,” said the frog.

“My favorite part was when your leg got eaten by the weasel,” Jack added.

The frog did not thank him again.

But Jill was silent. She stared into the great gray sky. After a long time, she said, “I think that was my mother.”

The frog watched her. Jill said nothing more. But the frog could tell she was thinking. Thinking hard.

The frog glanced up. Three black specks had appeared through the heavy cloud. He watched them as the specks grew into dots, and the dots into blots, and the blots into splotches, and the splotches into birds, and the birds, at last, into ravens.

The frog catapulted himself out of Jack’s pocket and dove for a dark crevice beneath a stone. Jack and Jill gazed at him like he was crazy. Then they heard the wings.

They looked up in time to see three black shapes fluttering down and landing on the stone beside them. The children stared. Three large and stately ravens shook their plumage and stood, dark and imperious, before them.

A vague sense of dread took hold of the children.

“What do you think they want?” Jack whispered.

“I know what they want,” Jill whispered back. “They’re scavengers. They’re here to eat us after we die.”

“What?” cried one of the ravens.

Jill toppled over backward.

Jack ducked as if something were about to strike him in the head.

“What did she just say we were going to do?” demanded another raven.

Jack’s eyes were spread wide. Jill’s head tilted wonderingly off to one side.

“They said we were going to eat their corpses,” the third raven replied.

“That is the most repulsive thing I have heard in many, many years,” declared the first.

“Did that raven just
talk
?” Jill hissed at Jack.

“I think they all did,” he whispered back.

“Why are you whispering?” whispered the second raven. “We can hear, too, you know.”

Jack and Jill silently wondered if they were hallucinating.

“Really, I’m not sure why you’re so surprised,” said the third raven. “You travel with a talking frog.”

“Speaking of whom . . .” said the second. The frog was still trying to fit in the crevice between the rock and the ground. Really, he was not slim enough and just didn’t seem to want to admit it.

“What is he doing?” asked the third.

“I imagine he’s afraid of us,” said the first. “We do eat frogs.”

The frog’s three legs kicked and scrabbled with renewed energy at the dirt beneath the stone. Jack reached out and scooped him up and put him in his pocket.

“You can’t eat him,” he said, glaring at the ravens.

“Don’t even think about it!” added Jill fiercely. And then, a little less fiercely, she said, “And how did you know he can talk?”

“We know things,” said the first raven.

“Yes,” said the second, “It’s sort of what we
do
.”

Jill, crinkling up her nose, asked, “Like what kinds of things?”

“We know that you are Jack and Jill,” said the third raven.

“And that you are hungry and thirsty and lost,” said the second.

“And that you seek the Seeing Glass,” finished the first.

The frog poked a single eye out of Jack’s pocket. “Do they know where it is?” he hissed.

“Do you know where it is?” Jack relayed to the ravens.

“Yeah, we heard him,” said the second raven.

“We know where it is—” began the first.

“Where?”

“But we’re not telling,” concluded the third.

“What?!” Jack shouted. “Why not?”

“Because the Seeing Glass,” said the second raven, “is not really what you seek.”

No one spoke for a moment. The wind howled over the slick rocks and gray hills.

And then Jill said, “Yes it is. If we don’t find it, we
die
.”

The wind howled for another moment, and then the second raven said, “Right. I suppose that’s true.”

“But, dear children, you are con-fused,” said the third raven.

“Absolutely,” said the second.

“Totally,” said the first.

Jill said, “If you’d just met three talking ravens, wouldn’t you be?”

“Not really,” said the third talking raven.

But the first raven said, “Not
confused.
You are
con-fused
.”

Jack furrowed his brow. “What’s the difference?”

“We’re glad you asked,” replied the second raven.

And the third added, “Though we knew you would.”

“When you’re confused,” said the second raven, “you’re mixed up, right?”

“Right,” said Jack.

“Well,
con-fuse
means fused together, mixed with something—or someone—else.” The second raven paused significantly.

After a moment, Jill said, “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The first raven took over: “You, dear children, are con-fused. What you want, what you think, what you believe, all get mixed up with what other people want for you, or think you should want, or believe about you. Do you see?”

Both Jack and Jill nodded their heads and said, “No.”

The third raven took over. “Jill, you are con-fused with your mother. You think she is perfect, and that everything she does is good, and that you should be just like her and do just what she wants you to do. Right?”

Jill’s mouth grew tight and small. She shrugged.

“Did you see the silk?”

Shrug.

“Did you really think you’d look beautiful in it? Before your mother said you would?”

Shrug.

The third raven turned to Jack. “Jack, why did you trade your cow for a bean?”

Jack looked up at the raven heavily. He, too, shrugged.

“Did you think it was a good deal before Marie said it was?”

Shrug.

“When is the last time you disagreed with something the boys from the village said or did?”

Shrug.

“Children!” the third raven exclaimed, exasperated now, “You are con-fused. Totally, utterly con-fused. As long as you are, you will never find what you seek. Even though it’s right here.”

Jack scrunched up his face and looked all around him.

Jill looked down at herself and then back up the ravens.

“When you do what you want, not what you wish . . .” said the first raven.

“When you no longer seek your reflection in others’ eyes . . .” said the second.

“When you see yourselves face to face . . .” said the third.

“Then,” the ravens intoned in unison, “you will have found what you truly seek.”

Jack and Jill glanced at each other.

Jill said, “Do you know what they’re talking about?”

“No idea,” Jack replied.

They turned to ask for further explanation, but the three black forms were already whirling high into the air. The two children, and the frog, watched as the ravens shrank and shrank against the immense gray sky, until, finally, three black specks disappeared into the clouds.

“That was weird,” said Jill.

“Yeah,” said Jack.

After a moment, the frog asked, “What should we do now?”

Jill said, “I don’t know, but I am thirsting to death.”

Jack agreed. “And I’m about to die of starve.”