Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (21 page)

Before long I heard muffled voices in the distance. It was still dark, but I could just make out the shadowy movements of something farther up the road. I veered off into the trees. It might just be a farmer bringing wool to the village, or a peddler coming to trade his trinkets and treasures, but I didn’t want anyone to see me. As they drew nearer, their voices became clear.

“I don’t think this is right,” said a boy’s voice. It was irritatingly familiar.

“The woman said he came this way,” said another voice, also familiar.

“But she didn’t see the gnome! We were supposed to be following the gnome! If you hadn’t lost it—”

“It’s impossible to keep up with a gnome, you idiot! And, anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re on his trail. When I find that Butt, I’m going to punch him so hard he sees pixies!”

“You punch like a girl, Frederick.”

“Quiet! If we don’t find him, Father’s going to make us go back to The Mountain and work in the mines. Do you want that?”

“No.”

A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the freezing air. My heart began to thump in my chest. Frederick and Bruno were standing just feet away from me. I shifted nervously, and a dead twig snapped beneath my boot.

“Shhh! Did you hear that?”

“Probably a rabbit.”

I held very still. Frederick moved in my direction. If he came any closer, I would need to run. I stepped back, bracing myself.

This is where I would like to really complain about The Witch of The Woods’s advice. You see, if you’re going to give someone advice, it’s important to be specific.
Watch your step
is not specific at all. You take a lot of steps every day, so it would really help to know
which
step to be careful on! Watch your step when you’re around poop, or
a trap. Watch your step when you’re near a tower window. Or a pixie nest!

I stepped on a pixie nest.

I think my aunt Hadel’s advice was also lacking. Waking one pixie from its winter sleep is foolish. Waking a nest full of pixies is a death wish.

A piercing shriek exploded from the ground and filled the air so that it must have reached every ear within a mile. Pixies shot out and pelted toward me like a thousand tiny arrows, pink and blue and red and orange sparks, their teeth bared for war. I screamed like a mountain lion and fell to the ground and rolled, throwing mud and dirt all over, but those pixies bit my nose, my cheeks, my ears, and all ten of my fingers. They bit clear through my clothes on my arms and legs. Three went up my pants and bit me right on my namesake.

Finally, the pixies flew away through the trees, either satisfied that they had punished me enough or tired of the dirt. I could feel all my body parts beginning to swell. My bottom expanded beneath me. My legs felt like fat logs floating on water, just bobbing around without any control. My face puffed up, making my skin stretch and tighten. Although my eyes were swollen nearly shut, I could see enough to know that Frederick and Bruno were standing over me. They wore soldiers’ uniforms and both pointed big hunting knives right at my face.

“Hello, Butt,” said Frederick. “Fancy a stroll?”

“No thank you, I’m rather busy” is what I meant to say, but that’s not what came out through my swollen lips.
It was more like “No shaksoo, I sathoo bithy,” and drool ran down my face.

Frederick laughed. “I didn’t think you could get any uglier. Tie him up.”

Bruno knelt down and grabbed my puffy hands to tie them together. He had a time of it, though. My hands were so fat it was almost impossible to get my wrists together. Finally, he tied me at the elbows, which was probably the only place the pixies didn’t bite.

“We’ve missed you so much, Butt,” said Frederick, and he patted my swollen face. I winced.

Bruno laughed. “Father misses you too, and so does our sister, the queen.”

I was afraid they were going to tell me she’d had the baby, but they didn’t. I breathed. As long as she didn’t have a baby or I didn’t hear of it, there was a way out of this. Of course the miller wanted me to spin gold for him, but I didn’t have to. I wouldn’t. Not for anything!

They dragged me out of the trees and then marched me down the road, in the direction I had already been traveling, but definitely not where I wanted to go. I knew this was a very serious problem. Frederick and Bruno were kidnapping me at knifepoint. I should have been terrified. But I couldn’t think of any of that because I was seething mad at that swarm of pixies and at Red’s granny for her vague advice. I had sausage fingers, I could barely see, I was drooling out of fat lips, and my butt was lopsided. It’s very awkward to walk with a lopsided bottom.

As I waddled down the road, my heart swelled too—with
sadness. I could say that none of it mattered, that I should just give up and let the tangles keep wrapping until they covered the top of my head and pushed me down into the earth. What did it matter that Frederick and Bruno had captured me? What did it matter that they were taking me to the miller, who wanted me to spin him gold forever? But in my heart it mattered. I didn’t want to be trapped. I wanted to grow. I wanted to break free.

When the sun set, we stopped to camp, and I was tied to a tree near the road. I was actually grateful to sit on snow and ice. It soothed my sore, sorry rump. But I was also starving, and I watched hungrily as Frederick and Bruno tore through my satchel and ate all the food I had packed. They threw me a chunk of bread, which I had to bend down and eat in the dirt like a dog.

Frederick commanded Bruno to guard me. When they were together, Bruno did whatever his brother told him, but by himself he was meaner than Frederick. Maybe he was only mean to me because other people made him feel small and he wanted to prove that he was big. I suddenly felt sorry for Bruno in a way I never had, and Frederick too, because he probably felt small around the miller and the miller probably felt small around someone else, like King Barf. But I didn’t feel too sorry. Bruno might feel smaller than me even, but I didn’t think meanness was ever in anyone’s destiny. Meanness was a choice.

At first we only sat in silence, but then Bruno grew bored. He laughed and poked my swollen face.

“They made a good breakfast of you, didn’t they?”
He laughed and laughed until he fell in the snow and sputtered at the cold shock.

As darkness fell, it grew very cold. I sat shivering against the tree, while Frederick wrapped himself in a thick woolen blanket. Bruno tried to do the same, but Frederick yanked his blanket away. “Keep watching Butt,” he commanded.

“He’s tied up tight enough,” whined Bruno.

“I said watch him!”

Bruno faced me and glowered, but as soon as Frederick was asleep, he wrapped himself in his blanket and curled up by the fire.

“Good night, Butt!” Bruno whispered loudly, and then joined his brother in snoring slumber.

I waited and shivered. Everything was quiet. The fire was dead, and there was only a sliver of moonlight to see by. It was impossible to sleep because I was so cold and swollen with pixie bites. So I stayed awake thinking about my destiny, and when I got tired of that, I cursed pixies and gnomes, but mostly pixies.

But then a miracle happened. During the night, my swelling started to go down, helped by the cold air, I guess, and as it went down, my bindings loosened. I wriggled but it wasn’t quite enough to get me free.

I deflated a little more every hour, and I wriggled and wriggled as Frederick and Bruno snored on. Just as the sky was fading from black to purple, my hands and arms were almost back to normal and they slipped out of the ropes.

I praised the pixies. I wished they had bitten me a
hundred more times and made me as fat as the miller. Beautiful, lovely pixies! It’s funny how some things you think are so terrible can turn out to be really wonderful. I loved my swollen arms and fingers and my lopsided butt!

Something rustled in the bushes. Probably just a squirrel or a rabbit, but it made Bruno stop snoring. He smacked his lips and pulled his covers tighter around him.

I moved as fast and as quietly as I could. With my arms free, I was able to wriggle myself out of the rest of the ropes. Just as I pulled the last rope over my head, the rustling noise came again, and from the shrubs appeared a gnome. He was hopping with great excitement.

“Greetings from The Kingdom! King Barfy-hew Archy-baldy Regy-naldy Fife and Queen Opal both happily announce the birth of their new son, heir to the throne of The Kingdom. His name is—”

I clamped my hand over the gnome’s mouth, but it was too late. I had heard exactly what I didn’t want to hear, and Frederick and Bruno were awake now, staring bleary-eyed between the gnome and me.

I dropped the gnome, scrambled to my feet, and ran. Except I ran in exactly the opposite direction from where I wished to go. I had freed myself from Frederick and Bruno’s ropes, but the ropes that had been tangled and knotted inside of me were now tugging at me—pulling me like a stubborn donkey in the direction of The Kingdom.

It was time to collect on my worst bargain ever.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Miller and the Merchant

It is a very strange feeling to have your brain doing one thing and your body doing something else. It was like my mind was attached to some bizarre creature and it was carrying me away captive.

Soon Frederick and Bruno caught up with me, and for the rest of our journey they led me by a rope like a cow, but I hardly noticed. Rumpel is tighter than any real rope. It can’t be cut or loosened. My legs would have carried me over the bridge and up the hill and to the walls of the castle. They probably would have carried me right through walls and through fire and spears to get to Opal, so powerless was I against this magic, but with Frederick and Bruno, it was all too easy. When we reached the castle, the guards saluted them and opened the gates.

We crossed the grounds, entered the castle doors, now gilded gold, marched up a grand golden staircase,
and down a long corridor to a large golden door with gold handles. Frederick knocked and we went in.

The room was smaller than I expected. In the center stood a cradle, covered in white satin and embroidered with gold thread. Opal hovered over the cradle. She looked very different from the last time I saw her. Her eyes were no longer blank, but sunken with exhaustion. She was pale and thin, and her golden hair was loose and disheveled. I guess being a queen and a mother makes you worried and tired—not to mention the added worry of your baby being taken away.

The cradle began to wail, and Opal reached inside to pick up her baby and hold him close to her chest. She shook and her eyes brimmed with tears as she saw me watching. “Please …”

I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t want her baby. I just wanted to get away and never make another promise as long as I lived. But I couldn’t. My tongue swelled in my mouth. I couldn’t say anything against the bargain.

“Well, well, well,” said another voice beside me. “Our little man has returned to make good on your promise.” It was Oswald the miller, fatter than ever, his girth covered in red velvet, trimmed with gold threads. He looked like a giant tomato ready to burst.

“Now, daughter, give the little man what you promised,” he said, his voice so oily it slithered.

Opal clenched her jaw and stiffened, clearly trying to fight her father’s command. But something prevented her—the magic. The same magic that commanded me. She was fighting just like I was against the invisible ropes
that pulled me toward the baby. When I had spun her the gold, Opal had laughed at the idea of giving me her firstborn child. She hadn’t taken the promise seriously, or perhaps she hadn’t considered what it meant to be a mother, how she would love her child. She had thought it a good joke. I’d never imagined she would make such a foolish promise. We had both been fools. I didn’t want her baby and she didn’t want to give it to me. What was the point of a bargain neither person wanted to keep? But the magic was closing in on both of us. We had no choice now.

“I knew you would go to her,” said the miller, “after the king took her away. I didn’t worry because I knew you would spin the gold and Opal could give you anything in return. Anything, and the gold would be hers.” He laughed, his whole body jiggling. “Oh, but her unborn child! Her unborn child! Well, I suppose this will teach her not to make such rash promises. Now, daughter, give him what you promised. Give him the child.”

I unwillingly took a step forward, and Opal shook as she tried to back away from me, but couldn’t. We were just a few steps apart. Opal clutched her infant tighter still.

“Don’t come near me or I’ll scream! I’ll scream and they’ll break down the door and you’ll be dragged into the dungeon or put in the stocks or hanged!”

The miller laughed. “Don’t talk nonsense, silly girl. What would the king say were he to learn that you never really spun the gold, but bargained his child to this … creature? This little demon?”

Demon? I’d been called many things, but demon? That felt a bit harsh.

“You’ve already fallen out of favor with him,” Oswald continued, “but give over the child and we can make things right. He will be forgiving of your carelessness if he has the gold. He’d rather have the gold than a child.”

Would he, really? People often said that the king loved gold more than anything, but certainly not more than his own son, his heir.

“No! No, he wouldn’t. He loves our son!” Opal protested.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the miller. “You made a promise. He spun you the gold. The child is his.”

I saw then that the miller understood the magic. It was like he could see the invisible ropes pulling at me. He knew—perhaps he had known all along—that I had to take the baby, that I had no control. But there was something else in his eyes, a malicious pleasure, as if he were enjoying the suffering. And it was only the beginning. He wanted me to take the baby so he could inflict more pain.

The miller clasped his hands over his belly. “Now, let’s get on with it, shall we? We have much more interesting things to discuss than babies.”

The invisible ropes pulled tighter, and this time Opal was the one who stepped forward. If I reached my arms out, I would be able to touch the baby. Opal was trembling. “I’ll give you all the riches in The Kingdom. Anything you want. Please don’t take my baby.”