A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz Page A

while, the grandmother was, too.
    Hansel sat there in the dark closet, listening to them snore. Suddenly, he realized this was his chance. Hadn’t the old man said that it only required three golden hairs from the Devil’s head to escape this place? Carefully, he opened the door of the closet and tiptoed over to where the Devil was sleeping. Ever so gingerly, Hansel reached out and took ...
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    A golden hair from the Devil’s head.
    That’s what he’s going to take, right?
    Right?
    Wrong! Are you crazy? The Devil would wake up immediately! And then it would be all over for Hansel, forever and ever and ever.
    I hope that’s not what you thought Hansel was going to do. If you did, good luck if you ever end up in Hell.
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    Hansel reached out and took the Devil’s spectacles from the side table, retreated with them to the closet, and closed the door again. Then he waited there all night.
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    The next morning, the Devil arose and readied himself for another day of soul-collecting. His grandmother made him a breakfast of human fingernails—scrambled, of course—and packed up his lunch in a bag.
    But before he left, the Devil announced that he could not find his glasses. He was furious, for he could barely see without them. “I hardly recognize you, Grandmother!” he shouted. “Where in Hell did I put them?”
    â€œDevil knows!” his grandmother said.
    â€œNo, he doesn’t!” he shouted. Eventually he stormed out of the house without his glasses, grumbling about telling one sinner from another and wasting a perfectly good day of damnation.
    After he was gone, the grandmother went upstairs. Hansel ever so carefully opened the door to the closet. He peered up the stairs. The grandmother was carrying things to the attic. Hansel watched her carry an armload of objects up the stairs—including a crown with a head still attached to it, and something that looked like a squid—and come back down empty-handed. She did it again—this time carrying two giant feet. When she came back down, she was sweating from the heat and strain. She itched her gray hair and then took it off. Hansel grimaced at the scabby, bald head underneath. She disappeared into a room and reemerged without her hair at all, carrying instead a taxidermied child with a lollipop in his nose. As she turned for the attic, Hansel took a deep breath, and he followed her up.
    Each of his steps on the stairs made a loud creak, causing him to wince and suck in his breath. But the Devil’s grandmother was “singing” again, and she couldn’t hear a thing. When she disappeared through the door of the attic, Hansel hurried up after her. She was half buried in boxes and strange objects when he quietly shut the door behind her. To his amazement, relief, and glee, there was a key in the attic door. He turned it in the lock and went back downstairs.
    Hansel soon heard frantic banging on the attic door. Then the grandmother began shouting for help. But no one was around to hear. After a lot of banging and shouting, the grandmother seemed to resign herself to a day in the attic, and she quieted down.
    Now Hansel made his way into her bedroom. On the dresser before an obsidian mirror stood a wig stand, with the grandmother’s gray wig on it. Around it was her makeup—thick black lipstick that looked like a petrified oil slick and blush that looked like dried, powdered blood and fake eyelashes that looked like—no, were—the legs of flies. In the closet were her dresses.
    Hansel closed the door to her room.
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    He came out an hour later, dressed from head to foot like the Devil’s grandmother. He wore a billowing black dress, makeup all over his face (he had put it on as best he could, which wasn’t very well), and her gray wig. He’d skipped the eyelashes.
    In the kitchen, Hansel took what looked to be a pot of human fingers out of the icebox. He put