A Tale Dark and Grimm

by Adam Gidwitz

You see, the way the Brothers Grimm tell it, that is the end.

I haven't read the original Grimm, is this actually a story by them?

in case any young children are still reading or hearing this tale—which would be almost beyond belief, given all of the terrible things that have happened so far.

are we trying to be daniel handler here

All the grown-ups want to kill me! I don’t blame them! What is wrong with me? Her little body shook. Why am I so bad?

She had the sudden impulse to take all of the sadness that had been crushing her and hurl it away—to hurl it at those who had caused it in the first place—to make them feel the pain, and know it, and understand it. And understand her.

The young man leaped from his chair and began to chant the words of a dark curse, but before he could finish someone came up behind him and knocked him unconscious with a tray of sausages.

There is a certain kind of pain that can change you.

Trust me on this one. I know this from personal experience. I hope that you never will, but, since you’re a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes, you probably will one day know what this kind of guilt and shame feels like.

Ah, it makes me sad to even say it. Is there ever nothing wrong with grown-ups?

At least this was just pain, and not shame and guilt. This was not his fault.

But sometimes, coming home is the hardest thing of all.

In this moment, you will look at your parents and realize that—no matter what it sounds like they are saying—they are actually asking you for forgiveness. This is a very painful moment. You see, all of your life you’ve been asking for forgiveness from them. From the age you can talk you are apologizing for breaking this, forgetting that, hitting him, locking her in the garage, and so on. So, having them ask you for forgiveness probably sounds pretty good. But when this moment comes, you will probably be in a lot of pain. And you probably will not want to forgive them. In which case, what, you might ask, should you do? Well, you could yell at them, and tell them about all the ways they’ve hurt you. This is a good thing to do once, because—believe me—they need to know. But this is the first step on the road to forgiveness. What if you’re not even ready for that?

You could pretend to forgive them. This I would not recommend. It’s sort of like sweeping broken glass under the carpet; the floor still isn’t clean, and somebody’s going to end up with a bloody sock.

“I feel like something is pressing down on my chest,” Gretel said, lying in her bed that night, her eyes wide open. “Something heavy and sharp and painful. I’ve felt it for a long, long time now.”

there is a wisdom in children, a kind of knowing, a kind of believing, that we, as adults, do not have.