Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (6 page)

The next rations day, the line at the mill was very long. Everyone was eager to stock up before winter came, and it was almost here. The air was biting now. There was always frost in the mornings. The pixies were more subdued, and they began building nests for their winter sleep. Now we were just waiting for the snow.

When it was my turn, the miller gave me a sack of meal, bigger than usual. I looked at him, surprised. No one else got this much meal.

“Gold means food,” the miller said gleefully.

I looked at him, confused. I had found only a few pebbles of gold in the last week. And the miller wasn’t kind or generous.

I opened the sack just outside the cottage and a thick, dusty powder billowed out. I choked and coughed as the dust went into my lungs. The miller had filled the bag with chalk and sawdust.

Gold means food
.

The miller was giving me a message.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Gold Means Secrets

I did not know what to do. We needed food. The miller had the food and he wanted gold. I had lots of gold, spun into perfect little coils with my mother’s spinning wheel. Spun with magic that Red insisted was dangerous.

“Where are the rations?” Gran asked. I was empty-handed, having thrown away the sack full of sawdust.

“I suppose I didn’t find enough gold,” I said, looking at my feet.

“Well, I’ll go give that miller a piece of my mind.” Gran rose up from her chair, then staggered and fell back.

“Gran!” I rushed to her, but she waved me away.

“Only a little dizzy spell.” She closed her eyes and took a few breaths. Her hands shook. She needed food. I would have to take some of the gold to the miller. Maybe I could mix the coils with some dirt and other gold flecks and
pebbles from the mines. He might not notice the difference. But a dark feeling rose in me. If the miller was as greedy as he seemed, he would notice. So I kept the gold hidden and hoped that the miller had only made a mistake with the sack of sawdust.

“We will make do,” Gran said. “We have the chickens and the goat. So we won’t starve.”

We killed one of our two hens. The meat would have to last us until the next rations day.

Gran and I ate in silence. Eating the chicken should have been a celebration, a great luxury, but we were both melancholy. My gaze kept wandering over to the spinning wheel and to my bed, where the gold was hidden.

Gran followed my gaze. “I hope you haven’t touched that wheel,” she said. “You don’t know how to work it properly. You could hurt yourself.”

“Did my mother hurt herself?” I asked. The question flew out of me without warning.

Gran froze with a bit of chicken raised to her mouth. She lowered her hands. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Why didn’t you tell me she was from Yonder?”

“Who told you that?” Gran asked.

“Red.”

“Red. Yes, well, her grandmother …”

“What did my mother spin?” I asked.

Gran stiffened. “What did she spin? What do people usually spin? Why—? Have you—?” She looked from the
wheel back to me. I could see her struggling, trying to decide what to say.

“Your mother spun trouble,” she said, “and then left it on my hands.”

“Is that how you think of me?” I asked. “As the trouble she left?”

“Oh, child.”

“Rump!” I shouted. “My name is Rump!”

Gran’s eyes were shiny with tears. “You are my grandson, Rump. I have always loved you. I have always tried to protect you, and I will do my best to protect you now. Do not concern yourself with your mother or her spinning wheel. It will only bring you sorrow.”

I didn’t ask any more. I felt strange, like things had shifted around me when I wasn’t looking, but I didn’t know what it meant.

The strangeness crept into my dream that night. A woman was spinning by the fireplace. She had long black hair and green eyes, like mine. I had never seen this woman before, but I knew she was my mother. She was spinning straw into gold.

She smiled at the gold at first, and the glittering skeins piled around her feet, like a golden pool. But as the pile grew larger, her smile faded. Her spinning slowed and seemed to be difficult, but still she spun. The pile grew and grew and grew, spreading wider and rising higher.
When the gold reached my mother’s chin, she looked panicked, like she was submerged in water and didn’t know how to swim. When it reached her eyes, they were full of fear. Finally, the gold covered her whole head, and I couldn’t see her anymore. But the pile of gold still grew.

When it reached the ceiling, I woke up.

CHAPTER NINE
Gold Found, Treasure Lost

Rations day came again at last. I went outside, eager to get an early start, and was showered with sparkling white. Winter had arrived. At first I was happy, because a fresh blanket of snow made the world look peaceful and new. Nothing bad could happen in such fluffy white. But then the cold bit my skin and I remembered what winter really meant.

It meant that soon the pass up The Mountain would be closed. No one would be able to get through to trade gold for food. It meant slow, grueling work in a frozen mine. It meant cold and hunger—more hunger than usual.

Milk gave only drippings of milk, our one remaining hen had no eggs, and Nothing bellowed at me because his hooves were frozen to the ground. When I finally pawed him loose with icy fingers, he kicked me from behind and I landed face-first in the snow.

I hate winter.

When I arrived at the mines, Frederick threw a snowball at my face. Bruno got me on the back of the head. Then a tree branch dumped a load of snow down the neck of my shirt.

Winter hates me.

It was a long day in the mines. I kept myself from going crazy by making up rhymes.

                
Frozen fingers
,

                
Frozen toes

                
Where are you, gold?

                
Nobody knows
.

                
Spin a sock, spin a hat

                
Spin a stupid, ugly rat

                
A furry cat

                
A winged bat

                
Spin them in a tasty stew

                
I like the sound of that!

I went to the mill for my rations and waited in the long line with a grumbling stomach. I had found a little more gold than usual this week. I think it helped that the pixies were now sleeping for the winter. If gold meant food, then the miller would have to give me my rations. But when I reached the front of the line, he simply looked down at me over his bulging belly and said, “No gold, no food.” His eyes had a greedy gleam. He
knew
.

I understood my dream now. I hadn’t spun that much gold, but it was already choking me.

When I came home, Gran was still in bed. Her eyes were open, but she just stared up at the ceiling.

“Gran?”

She blinked but didn’t look at me or speak.

“Gran? Are you all right?” I walked to her and placed my hand on her cheek. I pulled away quickly. Her skin was so hot it burned my cold palm.

I stumbled backward and fell, then ran outside and down the road to Red’s house. I didn’t know anywhere else to go. I pounded on the door, hoping someone was home.

A woman swung open the door, brandishing a wooden spoon. Red’s mother. She looked fierce, just like Red, but she gave a start when she saw me panting and crying.

“Rump?” Red peered out from behind her mother.

“My gran … something’s wrong. Please …”

Red’s mother threw down her spoon and grabbed her cloak. “Come,” she said. Red followed, and we ran back to the cottage.

When we walked in, Red’s mother went right to Gran. “Elsbith …” She gently touched Gran’s forehead. “Red, go outside and get a bucket of snow.”

I stood by the bed while Red’s mother looked Gran over. Gran opened her eyes and made a little gurgling sound, but she didn’t speak. It was like she was trying to say something, but the words were heavy and got twisted on her tongue.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

Red’s mother didn’t look at me. “She’s old.”

“But what’s wrong with her?”

“Oh, child.” She looked at me now, and her eyes were so full of pity I thought I might be sick. “No one can keep going forever. She’s ill. Her brain isn’t working right.”

Her brain! I needed Gran’s brain!

“Can you help her? Will she get better?”

She gave me a tragic smile. “We’ll just have to see.”

My whole body sagged, and she touched my shoulder. “It will be all right.”

Red and her mother placed cold cloths on Gran’s face and rubbed warm ones on her feet. They boiled water and the leftover chicken bones and spooned the broth in Gran’s mouth. A lot just dripped down her cheeks and chin, but Gran seemed a little more awake while we fed her. She looked at me, or at least I thought she did, and then she fell asleep.

“She should sleep for the night,” said Red’s mother. She picked up her cloak and went to the door. “I’ll be back in the morning. Come, Red.”

“I’ll be there in a moment.” Red’s mother nodded and shut the door.

Red only waited a few seconds before she did what I knew she would: boss me.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking? I’m an idiot, remember? I don’t think that much.”

Red’s eyes saddened. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Rump.”

“Well, you’d be the only one.” Including myself. I
was
an idiot. Why did I have to spin all that straw into gold? I should have listened to Gran. But maybe trading the gold for food could make her better.

“Rump, don’t trade the gold.”

“What makes you think I would?” I glared at Red and she backed away a little.
Red
, backing away from
me
.

“Things will turn out all right,” she said. “But not if you trade that gold. It’s not safe.”

I sat by the fire, picked up bits of straw, and flung them into the flames. “Just go away.”

“Rump—”

“Just leave me alone!” I shouted.

Red breathed in sharply and opened the door. A cold gust blew in and made me shiver. “I take it back. You
are
an idiot!” And she slammed the door.

I sat in front of the fire until it was cold ash.

I didn’t sleep all night. And when the village bell chimed for the mining day to begin, I didn’t go. I stayed by Gran’s side and fed her broth. She still didn’t speak or look at me, but I got the broth in her mouth and she swallowed.

She needed more food. She couldn’t get well without more food.

When Gran fell asleep after dark, I went to my bed and took out three skeins of gold. I wrapped them in a dirty rag and tucked them inside my jacket. Then I walked outside and headed toward the mill.

Gold meant food.

Opal was the one who answered the door. She stared at me with her blank face.

“I want to see the miller,” I said.

Her tongue stretched and wound around her mouth. “What for?” she asked. It was the first time I’d ever heard Opal speak. She sounded annoyed.