Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (12 page)

“Close the windows,” I said, and started to spin. My limbs still ached from the previous night’s work. My leg pulsed with pain every time it pushed down on the treadle. But I kept going.

Whir, whir, whir
. Gold, gold, and more gold. I had searched for it my entire life, and here it was, pouring out like water. I hated the sight of it.

Opal fell asleep faster this time, one hand twined in the gold, the other clutching some straw. As the first rays of morning light reached the sky, I grasped the straws from her hand and spun them too. The gold was piled all around me now, and to me it just looked like heaps of shiny straw. I didn’t see why people loved it so much.

Just as I was descending the tower, the door unlatched and King Barf said in his nasally drawl, “Ah, my sweet girl, you are a treasure beyond compare.”

My fingers were stiff and sore. My leg was cramped, and my back and head ached. Climbing down the tower was agony, but all I could think of was going home. Home and food. My stomach rumbled as I touched the ground, but then I heard another rumbling. It was growing louder, and it was definitely not my stomach.

I stood in the middle of the castle grounds, not
bothering to hide myself. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t speak, even though my mouth hung wide and my tongue wagged. I started to drool.

A procession of wagons rolled through the gates and up to the doors of the castle. One, two, three … more than a dozen cottage-sized wagons.

Wagons stacked high with straw.

I sat against a tree and watched as the servants unloaded the straw, bundled it up, and hauled it inside. With each bundle they carried in, I felt weight pressing down on me, heavy as gold. I had a hard time breathing, and I realized what should have been obvious to me from the beginning. This was my destiny—to spin gold at the whims of a greedy king for the rest of my life.

I thought that when you found your destiny, you were supposed to be happy about it. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was something you just had to accept. Succumb to. Hadn’t I seen the villagers on The Mountain succumb to their fates all my life? They accepted it because they had always known their name and the destiny that came with it. And they knew those things couldn’t be changed. Maybe I just needed to accept what was in front of me.

I felt very heavy and sleepy. There was so much spinning to do. I should go right back to Opal now, but I needed to close my eyes just for a little while. I moved in the direction of the stables, but someone stopped me. “Ho there, boy, where are you going?”

“To the stables,” I said sleepily. I didn’t care what he thought.

“Not now, lad, we’ve got work to do,” and he dropped
a bundle of straw at my feet. “Take it inside and follow the rest.” I looked up and saw a procession of people carrying straw on their backs into the castle.

With a deep breath, I swung the straw onto my back. My knees buckled under the weight. I followed the line, into the castle, up some stairs, and into a chamber. We must have been in a different tower, because this room was three times the size of the last one. The straw was piling up in the corners and crawling up the walls, covering the tapestries, the paintings, and the windows. This would never stop. As long as there was straw in The Kingdom, King Barf would want it spun into gold.

I fell helplessly into the straw and buried myself under it. No one noticed me as the workers piled straw higher and higher until it covered the windows and all the light was shut out.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
One Bargain Too Many

I woke with a start. How long had I slept?

Someone was sobbing. Was I too late? I dug through the straw until I rolled out of the pile and onto the floor at Opal’s feet. Opal squealed. Her face was red and wet, but it got redder, and her sad eyes narrowed to angry slits.

“Where have you been?!” Opal demanded, hands on her hips.

“Unloading straw.”

Piles of straw reached nearly to the ceiling. They were stacked right up against the fireplace, where flames snapped precariously. Opal stood between the fireplace and the spinning wheel.

“Well, just look at this room,” she said, as if she were my mother and scolding me for not picking it up.

“Lots of straw,” I said.

“Exactly! The king has promised to make me queen after this batch, and if you mess it up, you’ll be the first person I behead!”

I was going to say that if I messed it up, she wouldn’t be queen to behead anyone, but I was too tired to argue. My only comfort was that if I messed up, Opal and the miller would be punished too. I imagined them both chained in a dungeon.

I sagged into the wheel and piled straw on my lap. The window was covered by straw, so I couldn’t see if it was still light out or if night had fallen. It had been early morning when I fell asleep, but there was so much straw. No matter what time it was, I needed to work fast. I took a deep breath and twisted the straw into the wheel and pressed my foot on the treadle. All the aches and cramps returned.

I spun as fast as I could, and Opal paced in a little circle, rubbing her hands together impatiently. “Can’t you spin any faster?”

“No.”

“Keep the straw close to you! Don’t let it spill!” She snatched some of the straw that had fallen from my lap and threw it on my head. “Don’t you know what will happen if every last bit isn’t turned to gold by morning? No wonder my brothers say you’re a numbskull.”

I stopped spinning. “Would you like to continue?”

Opal pressed her lips together and glared. “Keep spinning, or else …”

Or else we were both dead. I worked faster than ever. I piled the straw on top of me and worked the treadle as if I were pumping in order to breathe.

Hours passed. My whole body felt like one big cramp from sitting at odd angles and spinning for so long. Despite the growing pile of gold, the straw loomed over me like a beast prepared to swallow me whole.

I worked faster. Soon I could see the tapestries on the walls. Then the windows. It was dark out, which meant there was still time.

The sky began to lighten as I was coming close to finishing. The walls were now stacked with skeins of gold. I kept an open space between me and the window so I could leave. I just hoped these walls were as easy to climb as the other tower.

Only a few handfuls of straw remained at my feet. Opal had fallen asleep by the fire, her head resting on a pile of gold. A string of slobber hung from her mouth. The fingers of one hand were clasped around a finger on her other hand, as if she were missing something there. Her ring.

I stopped spinning.

I hadn’t made Opal give me something. I’d been so concerned with getting the spinning done in time that I forgot to ask. I had spun the gold, but what would happen if we didn’t bargain? Would it turn back to straw? Would someone get hurt? Maybe I wouldn’t be able to leave the castle.

“Opal,” I whispered loudly. “Opal, wake up.”

“Huh?” She sat up. Her face had big red marks on one side from the way she’d slept in the gold. Her hair was pushed up and ratted all funny. She smacked her lips and wiped the slobber from her mouth. “Are you done yet?” She yawned.

“Almost, but you forgot to give me something.”

“You never asked,” she said with an innocent smile.

“Well, I’m asking now. What will you give me?”

“Nothing,” she said haughtily, like she already thought herself a queen. “You’ve almost finished spinning, and I have nothing left to give. I already gave you my two most valuable possessions.” She still rubbed at her ring finger.

“Well,” I said, spinning the last of the straw, “I can’t let you have the gold unless you give me something. In fact, I can’t even leave here until you give me something. Won’t it be a surprise when the king comes in and finds me here, sitting at the spinning wheel?”

Her face scrunched up in anger, making her look wild and ugly. “Get off! Get away from that wheel!” she growled. “No one would believe a little numbskull like you could do it! This gold is mine!” She bent over to pick up a skein of gold, but couldn’t. She tugged and pulled and scratched, but it was like the gold had all melded to the floor and hardened together. I let out a mirthless laugh. She couldn’t take it! The magic wouldn’t let her.

“What have you done?” she snarled. “You little scoundrel! I’ll have your head for this!”

“The gold isn’t yours,” I said calmly. “You didn’t give me something, so it’s not yours. When the king comes, he won’t be able to get it, either.” I smiled. Magic is so clever and logical!

The wild look fell from Opal’s face. She seemed to shrivel, and her tongue flicked out and wound around and around.

“Give you something,” she muttered. She scratched at herself, pulled at her hair, yanked at her dress. Oh no, was she going to give me her dress?

“You don’t have to give me a
thing
,” I said desperately. “You could make me a promise to give me something later.” I had no idea if that would work, but Opal was making me nervous, and suddenly the witch’s warning was echoing in my brain.
Strange promises can come out of the desperate
.

“Promise you something?” She thought out loud. “Well, I’ll be queen. I suppose I’ll be able to give you most anything. But I can’t give you gold, no, the king, my future husband, won’t allow it. But what can I be sure I can give you? I don’t know what my possessions will be.”

I was getting impatient. The sun was spilling over the stables now. “Just promise me something. You can give me anything, anything you know is yours. I’m not asking for your firstborn child.”

“My child? You want a child?”

“No, that’s not what I—”

“Of course, you will probably never be able to have any of your own. And I might have more than I can care for.” She was rambling to herself now. “My mother had ten children, and her mother had a dozen. I’m sure I shall be the same. What is wrong with giving one to someone who shall have none? Or if I never have one, I won’t have to give it away. What harm is it to promise something that may never be?”

“Opal—” There were footsteps coming up the tower. I wanted to tell her it didn’t need to be a baby. It could be a
biscuit, it could be an apple, it could be her dress! But my tongue became a rock in my mouth. “Just give me something,” I said. “What will you give me?”

The footsteps came closer, and Opal tensed. “Get out! Get out! You cannot be here when he comes!” She pushed me toward the window.

“What will you give me? You can’t take the gold until you give me something!” I teetered on the windowsill.

Opal looked back at the door and at the gold all around her. Keys jingled in the lock.

“Opal!”

“I’ll give you my firstborn child. I promise.” She snatched a skein of gold and held it to her chest. She smiled triumphantly at me and stroked the gold as if it were a furry pet.

The door swung open.

I fell out the window.

That moment would have been a good time to have a pile of straw beneath me. But for all the straw I had dealt with in my life, there was not even a tiny bit when I needed it most. I hit the ground, bounced and rolled, and finally came to rest against a thorny shrub.

“Ouch,” I croaked, and squeezed my eyes shut. Pain spread all over me and on me and in me. Thorn pricks and bruises and cuts and—

“Ouch!” It hurt to breathe. I think I broke my ribs and possibly my arm. I wasn’t sure I could even feel my legs.

A flurry of movement and noise surrounded me, but everything was blurred and spinning.

“What’s that?”

“He just fell from that tower!”

“Is he dead?”

“He’s alive, I think.”

Someone bent over me. “Are you alive?”

“I’m alive,” I said breathlessly, “and I’m going to have a baby.”

“What did he just say?”

“Something about a baby.”

“A baby,” I said, and then I blacked out.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Martha’s Endless Tales

“The king is going to marry tomorrow? A
commoner
?”

“It’s what they’re saying. A very rich commoner. Supposedly she can turn straw into gold. They say she’s a witch.”

A man and a woman were speaking in hushed but dramatic voices. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids were heavy.

“But the king wouldn’t marry a witch!”

“He would if she could turn straw into gold. Nothin’ the king loves more than gold, and I think he’d do anything to get it.”

I felt like I was waking from a very bad dream where I had just been promised a baby, into another bad dream where my whole body felt like I had fallen out of a tower. Then I remembered that both were true. I groaned.

“Oh, he’s waking! Poor thing.”

I opened my eyes to see the woman leaning over me. She was very plump, and even though she seemed worried, I thought she must be a kind person. Her cheeks were round and red as apples, and all the lines in her face looked like they naturally moved upward into broad smiles and hearty laughs.

“Here now, little lamb,” she said. “Drink up. There’s a lad.” She placed a cup to my mouth and I drank a hot broth. It helped me wake up a little and I looked around to see where I was.

The room was large and bustling. I hadn’t noticed all the other noise, but servants were coming and going, bringing dishes and trays and buckets and rags. Two large fireplaces were burning bright with large pots over the flames. The walls were gray crumbling stone. I was in the kitchens of the castle. This was not where I wanted to be.

“You took quite a fall there, boy.” A man came and stood beside me. He wore a red-and-gold uniform, with a big sword at his side. I shrank back. “Don’t worry,” he chuckled. “I’m not going to hurt you, though you were causing mischief, now, weren’t you?” The guard didn’t seem accusing; rather, amused. He was much younger than the kind woman, but he had the same laughing face, covered with a beard.

“Oh, Helmut, he’s just a curious boy,” said the woman, chuckling. “Remember how you were, now, always sneaking around corners, trying to get a peepsy at anything mysterious or exciting. I remember the time you pinched a swig of the king’s finest wine when you were just a lad and it all came back up on my clean kitchen floor!”