The Grimm Conclusion (14 page)

The Devil's grandmother glared at the little carving. Then she said, “Right . . . you're the boy with that cute ivory monkey . . .” Suddenly, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body went stiff as a board, and she fell over.

“What the Hell!” cried the Devil. “What just happened?”

Joringel looked frantically back and forth between the Devil and his grandmother. The plan was failing. Utterly failing. “I-I think,” he stammered, “I think she said something that made her fall over.”

“Yes! I think she did!” cried the Devil, crouching over his grandmother.

“What was it?” Joringel asked.

The Devil looked up at Joringel. “You want
me
to say it?”

“Say what?” asked Joringel. The Devil could hear his heart beating. Joringel was sure of it.

“You want me to say what my grandmother just said?”

“What did your grandmother say?”

The Devil squinted at the little boy. “You know.”

“What?”

“You know!”

“She said ‘you know'?”

“No!” cried the Devil. “You know what she said!”

“What did she say?”

“You just want me to say it!” cried the Devil.

“Why would I want you to say ‘it'?”

“No! You just want me to say ‘cute ivory monkey'!”

Joringel breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

The Devil's eyes rolled back in his head, his body went straight as a board, and—

He grabbed Joringel by the throat.

Joringel dropped the monkey.

With one hand, the Devil held on to Joringel. With the other, he scooped up the ivory monkey from the floor.

Joringel was choking. The skin of his throat was burning. He could not breathe.

“You thought you could overpower me with this? With
this
?” The Devil grinned, brandishing the monkey in one hand, while the other was wrapped firmly around Joringel's neck. “The monkey is cute, I'll grant you. But it's a parlor trick, good for old ladies and mortals. Do you know who I am? I am the Prince of Darkness. I am the most powerful force under Heaven. Do not play with me, boy.”

The Devil took a deep breath. Joringel was choking. The Devil's grip tightened. “But I am glad you're here. Do you know how long I have been waiting for one of you to come back down here and try to fool me? Seven generations! Seven generations since your great-great-great-great-great grandfather dressed up like my maternal grandmother and made a fool out of me! Oh, I have been waiting for you. I have been waiting, little boy.”

Joringel could barely hear what the Devil was saying. His vision was fading. His skin was burning and blistering under the Devil's hand.

“And now I shall punish you. I have a special punishment for you, just as I had for your sister. Do you know what it is?”

The Devil waited, as if Joringel would try to guess. Joringel could not breathe. Guessing was out of the question.

“No?” smiled the Devil. “Your punishment, boy, is to
watch her suffer.
You will get to watch your dear sister suffer
for all eternity
. And no matter what you do, no matter how good you are, no matter how many times you say ‘please, pretty please with a cherry on top,' I will never, ever,
ever
let you out. It will be excruciating pain from now until eternity.”

Joringel kicked his legs frantically. His lungs were collapsing. He was dying. He was dying, and when he did, he would stay in Hell for ever and ever and ever.

The Devil's grandmother sat up.

“Grandmother,” said the Devil, “say ‘cute ivory monkey' again.”

“Cute ivory monkey again,” she repeated.

The Devil rolled his eyes. “Close enough.”

“Hey! Who's that?” she demanded, pointing at Joringel.

“He came to get his sister out of Hell. His plan has gone rather awry, I'm afraid.”

“Well, put him down! You don't strangle little boys! It's not nice!” She pulled herself slowly to her feet.

“Grandmother, I'm the Devil. Nice isn't what I
do
.”

Joringel began to slip in and out of consciousness.

The Devil's grandmother put her hands on her hips. “Well, you're in my house, you eat my food, and you follow my rules when you're here. Put the little boy down!”

“
Grandmother!
” the Devil whined, his voice lower, “you're
embarrassing
me!”

“Lucifer Satan, I wouldn't care if I was embarrassing you in front of God himself! You listen to your grandmother! We do not strangle little boys in the house!”

“But—”

“Lukey!”

The Devil put the little boy down. Joringel collapsed to his hands and knees, frantically trying to suck air down his crumpled windpipe.

“There, there,” the Devil's grandmother said. She lowered her great girth beside the little boy and began to pet him. The Devil's grandmother. Petting Joringel. The Devil watched, disgusted.

“Now, what's all this about your sister? In Hell?”

Joringel, still gasping at the air, tried to nod.

“Was she a much older sister? Was she loose? I bet she was one of those loose girls . . . I was never one of those. You could get me in the back of the car, but you couldn't—”

“She wasn't loose, Grandmother,” the Devil cut in, before any details emerged. “She was a tyrant. A bloody-minded oppressor of people.”

“What? How old was this sister of yours?”

Joringel managed to gasp, “Twins. We were twins—”

“What? A little girl? A tyrant?” She turned to her grandson. “Lukey, don't exaggerate. You know I don't like that.”

“Grandmother, I'm not! She was a tyrant! And this boy here would beat parents in the street!”

“What?” the grandmother looked sternly at Joringel. He was finally sitting up on the floor. His shoulders rose and fell dramatically, and it hurt to breathe, but at least he could draw air into his lungs again. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“They . . . they were abusing their children.”

“Oh! Then they deserved it!”

“Grandmother!”

“What? It's true! You don't hit a child. But,” she said, turning back to Joringel, “your sister, a tyrant? Was she really?”

Joringel shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Why? She was just a little girl . . .”

Joringel didn't know what to say. He thought back to his sister's reign. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't explain why he helped her, either. He had just felt . . . so angry. He told the Devil's grandmother this.

“Angry? About what?”

Joringel shrugged.

“Now don't do that. Talk to Granny. You've got to talk it out.”

Joringel looked up into her eyes. They were red. Entirely red, with little black dots for pupils. But, somehow, they looked kind.

“It's a long story.”

“Then let's go into the living room and get comfortable.”

“I don't know all of it . . . My sister knows the rest.”

“Well, then let's go get her!”

“What?” the Devil barked. “Grandmother, no!”

“Lukey . . .” Her voice was stern.

“Grandmother, I can't get a sinner
out
of a Cocoon of Solitude!”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . because it's embarrassing!”

“Lukey . . .”

“Grandmother!”

“Lukey, don't make me raise my voice,” the Devil's grandmother said, very quietly.

“It isn't fair!” the Devil pouted. He glared at Joringel. Then he stared at the ceiling. Then he stormed out of the house.

The Devil's grandmother smiled at Joringel. “You just take it easy until he gets back. Then we'll talk this whole thing through, okay?” Joringel nodded. “Would you like a nice, hot cup of tea?”

Joringel squinted. “What kind of tea?”

“Earl Grey's Blood.”

“No,” said Joringel. “No, thank you.”

The Devil's grandmother shrugged and rose to make some for herself.

Joringel waited on the couch made of human scalps, staring at the Devil's front door, waiting for it to open, praying that it would, and that the Devil would come through it with Jorinda (which, he realized, was a strange thing to pray for), hoping against all reasonable hope that she would be okay. In the kitchen, the Devil's grandmother was boiling blood for her tea.

At last, the doorknob turned, the door swung open, and the Devil appeared. A limp body was slung over his shoulder.

“Jorinda?” Joringel cried.

The Devil unslung the little body and dropped it, rather hard, on the floor.

“Is she okay?” Joringel asked, falling to his sister's side.

“She's just been in HELL,” the Devil said. “If she
is
okay, I need a new job.”

The Devil's grandmother appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. “I'll make her some tea.”

“No!” said Joringel. “Thank you. No tea.” He bent over his sister. Her face was white and peaceful as a cloud. “Jorinda?” he whispered. “Jorinda? Can you hear me?”

She moaned.

“Jorinda! Jorinda! Wake up!”

Her eyes roved behind her eyelids. “Joringel?”

“I'm here! Wake up! Open your eyes! Please!” Joringel was fighting back tears now. “Please, wake up!”

The Devil turned away. From the kitchen doorway, his grandmother dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

Slowly, Jorinda's eyelids fluttered open. She looked at her brother. And then there spread across her face a smile so sweet, so pure, so rich with relief that Joringel nearly buckled. He fell upon her. She lifted her thin arms and wrapped them around him. Quietly, they cried.

Joringel murmured, “If you won't leave me, I won't leave you.” And Jorinda murmured back, “I will never, ever leave you.”

Which, you will be glad to hear, is finally true.

Still, they're both in Hell, so that might not be a good thing.

As the children held each other, the Devil shouted, “This is
disgusting
! It is disgusting, and I will not have it! Not in Hell. Not in my grandmother's house. Stop this instant! Stop! I said stop it!” But Jorinda and Joringel didn't care.

The Devil's grandmother blew her nose into her handkerchief. Then she settled down on the couch and cleared her throat.

The two children turned to her. “Well?” she said. “Tell Granny all about it. And I want
details
.”

“She wants to know why you're in Hell,” Joringel explained to his sister. “Why you were a tyrant. Why we were both so angry.”

Jorinda's eyes, still shining and wet, drifted back and forth between her brother and this red-eyed, orange-haired, buxom old lady sitting on a couch of human scalps.

“I told her it was a long story.”

“Which,” the Devil's grandmother interjected, “is my favorite kind.”

Jorinda's voice was creaky when she said, “Where should we start?”

“Personally,” said the Devil's grandmother, “I think the beginning would do very nicely.”

The Devil rolled his eyes. “Granny—

“Shhhht! Not a word! The children are talking!”

Jorinda looked helplessly to her brother. Joringel shrugged. Then he smiled. Then he said,

Once upon a time, in the days when fairy tales really happened, there lived a man and his wife. They were a happy couple, for they had everything their hearts desired . . .

“How did your voice get like that?” the Devil demanded.

“Get like what?”

The grandmother and Jorinda were staring at Joringel.

“All loud and bold and boomy!” the Devil said.

“I-I don't know . . .” Joringel stammered.

The Devil's grandmother leaned forward. “Well, don't stop! It sounds good!”

So Joringel went on. He told of how badly his parents wanted a child and of how his mother had wished for it under the juniper tree after cutting her thumb.

She bore twins: a little boy with dark hair, dark eyes, and lips as red as blood; and a little girl with dark hair and green eyes and cheeks as white as snow.

She brought them to her husband. And this man took one look at his two beautiful children, and he was so happy that he died.

“WHAT?” the grandmother cried. “He was so happy that he
died
?”

Jorinda nodded and cut in. “It happens all the time. It's just . . . ‘Oh, I'm so happy! I'm so happy! I'm so ha-a-a-ack-ack-ack . . .'—Dead.”

The Devil snickered. His grandmother looked horrified.

Joringel went on with the story. He told of how their mother withdrew from them, how she spent all her time in her study, and how she eventually married their stepfather.

As he told it, Joringel's face became tighter. His shoulders hunched. When he described his mother taking the children into their study, Jorinda looked away. He told about the stone under the mattresses and stamping out the weeds.

“And never cry,”
Joringel recounted their mother saying.
“Choke back your tears. Tears are waves on the ocean of sadness. You will drown in them if you're not careful. Believe me. I know.”

The grandmother clucked. “That's an awful thing to teach a child! No wonder you're so angry at her!”

Jorinda objected. “We're not angry at
her
!”

The grandmother looked confused. “Oh! Excuse me!”

Joringel went on with the story. After a little while, he came to this part:

I bent down and leaned my head over the apples. They smelled fresh and rich, and their yellow skin was dappled with rose and—

BANG!

Our stepfather slammed the lid of the chest down.

Right on the back of my neck.