Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (9 page)

I stood on the edge of The Woods. They were so dark you could hardly tell that it was daytime, and spring’s warmth seemed far away. There was a clean blanket of snow on the ground, and it was unnaturally quiet. It should have looked peaceful, but it felt eerie. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat and ears.

I looked for the path that Red had shown me before, when we went to the honey. Something about that path made me feel a little safer, but I didn’t see any sign of it. Perhaps it was hidden beneath the snow. Perhaps the witch didn’t want to be found.

I started to think this was a very stupid idea.

Just as I was about to turn back, a twig snapped and Red appeared, her cheeks and nose rosy with cold and her breath raspy from running.

“What do you mean you’re going to see the witch?” Red asked.

“I have to,” I said.

“Rump, witches don’t help with things like this. It’s not that they can’t. They don’t like to, and even if they do, sometimes they cause
more
trouble.”

“Opal is in trouble because of me.” My chin began to tremble.

“Opal got taken away because her father is a greedy pig!”

“No,” I said. “Because I spun all that gold. And then I traded it with the miller, even though you told me not to. And then I tried to hide the gold, but I dropped it right in front of the king!” I held my breath to keep the tears from spilling over.

Red was stunned into silence. She probably thought I was a bigger numbskull than ever. I thought she might hit me over the head again or punch me in the nose. Instead, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into The Woods.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m taking you to The Witch of The Woods.”

“You are? You know where she lives? How?”

“Just stay on the path.”

“But there isn’t any …” I trailed off as I looked down to see the path beneath my feet again, stretching out into The Woods. Now I was certain this was a path that only revealed itself for Red.

We followed the path for a ways until dark trees surrounded us and the village had disappeared behind. This path didn’t wind or wander much. It was narrow, but clear, with stones along either side.

Red walked fast and determined, still pulling me by the arm. A squirrel chirped and screeched right above my head. “Squirrel!” I squeaked, crouching down and covering my head with my arms.

Fitzgerald, a boy younger but much bigger than me, was once challenged to run into The Woods and he got attacked by mad squirrels. He still has little teeth marks all over his face and neck.

“They won’t attack you,” said Red. I slowly looked up and saw that the squirrel was gone. “And they never attacked Fitzgerald, either. That’s the story he tells, but his scars are really just from the pox and scratching so much.”

We were walking uphill now. And the farther up The Mountain we went, the colder it got. Soon snow began to fall, even though it had been warm in The Village. Big, fat flakes came and settled, threatening to cover the path if we didn’t hurry. My feet were numb.

Then finally, as if it had just materialized before me, we saw a cottage, nestled in the trees, smoke rising from the chimney.

I stood frozen for a minute and I almost ran back just as fast as I had come, but the door unlatched and someone came out, hobbling bent over a stick.

I stared. My mouth hung open.

“Red, child, is that you?” said the old woman.

“Hello, Granny,” said Red. “Rump wanted to see you.”

My mouth ran dry. Red’s granny! The Witch of The Woods! Red’s granny was The Witch of The Woods!

My tongue got all wrapped around my teeth. “Y-y-you-your granny! Your granny’s the W-w-w …”

“She’s not actually a witch,” Red said defensively. “She’s
perceptive
.”

The witch laughed. “Yes, very,” she said with a wink.

“You have very good senses, Granny. Ears and eyes and nose and all. It’s part of your destiny.”

“Oh, and what a treat to feast my senses upon. Well, come in, my boy. I’ve been waiting for you. I am sorry
about your gran.” Red’s granny didn’t look how I always imagined a witch would look. She was old, of course, but she didn’t have warts or green teeth and her smile was sincere and inviting. Maybe witches were supposed to be inviting, so they could lure you in to chop you to bits and put you in a stew.

“Come on. I’ve got stew brewing in the fire.”

I stepped back again. “Stew …? What kind of stew?”

“She’s not going to eat you, Rump.” Red shoved me forward. Then I smelled the stew. My mouth watered, it smelled so delicious. I walked in the door.

At first I saw what I would expect to see in a witch’s lair. There were bottles everywhere, tiny vials to giant jugs. It was too dim to see inside of them, but I imagined they contained eyeballs, blood, snakes, or roaches. Little fingers, maybe. A hen clucked and rattled its cage in a corner. Herbs and plants and flowers hung from the ceiling. They looked very fresh, and I wondered how she managed to grow things in the frozen ground—not to mention in a haunted wood. By the fireplace there was a giant pot. That’s where the witch would put all my little chopped pieces, no doubt.

The witch, or Red’s granny (I didn’t know how to think of her now), beckoned me over to the fire. The pot was full of broth and vegetables I hadn’t seen in ages, even though I had been eating a lot. Basil, celery, onions, meat, and other smells reached my nose and made my stomach rumble.

“So,” said the witch, blocking the path to the stew, “the trouble has begun.”

“Begun?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re just getting started, my boy.” She laughed, a wheezing cackle. “Spinning gold? Bargaining with the miller? Great mountains, boy, where did you ever get such an idea? What would your mother say? Oh, how things come full circle!” She laughed some more.

“It’s not funny,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” said the witch. “It’s dreadful. So dreadful I have to laugh to not cry.”

I was starting to feel surly. I hadn’t come here to be teased. “What do you know about my mother?”

“Sit.” The witch pointed to a chair by a spinning wheel, and I froze.

“I don’t want to,” I said. I would never touch a spinning wheel again. Never!

The witch ladled a bowl of steaming stew and held it before my face. “I’m not asking you to spin.”

“I don’t want to,” I said.

“Then don’t. Now sit.”

I sat on the floor, and she chuckled and handed me the stew. I sniffed it. Could you smell poison? Poison or not, it smelled delicious. I took a steaming spoonful and let it sit in my mouth until I had sucked out all the flavor before swallowing. I had never tasted such a wonderful stew, full of flavors I couldn’t name.

“Now, then,” said the witch. “Did your gran ever tell you why your mother left Yonder?”

I shook my head. “I never even knew she was from Yonder, not until Red told me.”

“Hmmm. Where to begin … Well, I suppose the best place to start is the beginning. Your mother was a born spinner. Here, on The Mountain, we search for gold. In The Valley they farm, and in Yonder they raise sheep and gather wool. They dye their wools and they weave and knit and spin. Your mother was one of the best, an unusual spinner. She had … special gifts.”

“You mean she was a witch,” I said.

“Well, I don’t think that word means what people think it means. Magic is nothing but transformation of what is already there. The gold in this very mountain is embedded in dirt and rock. How did it become gold? The earth is full of mystery and magic, and so was your mother. So, yes, in that sense she was a witch. Spinning with magic was in her blood.”

I looked down at my hands, wondering if I could see the spinning blood in my veins.

“But every strength can become a weakness. Your mother foolishly abused her magic.”

“My mother was not a fool—” I said.

“An innocent fool,” the witch said, cutting me off, “but she didn’t understand the power of her transformations. She didn’t realize they would rob her of her life. When she came to this mountain, she was nearly at her end. I found it a miracle that she lived long enough to marry and give birth to you.”

“But why? What was so wrong with her spinning?”

“Well, surely you’ve guessed at the consequences of such magic,” said the witch.

I thought for a moment. “Something to do with bargains?”

“A fair guess. When you gave your gold to the miller, you made a bargain, no?”

“A fool’s bargain,” said Red.

“Hush, girl.”

Red was silent.

“He gave me food,” I said.

“How much food?”

I hesitated. “Enough for me.”

“But an even trade?”

I stood still. I knew it hadn’t been an even trade, but I didn’t want to believe our trades had been anything but normal. “The miller has
never
been fair. When has he ever made an even trade?”

“Spinning straw to gold is a dramatic transformation,” said the witch. “It would take a lot out of a person, even their own control over their magic. You were unable to demand a fair bargain for your gold. You couldn’t even name a price.”

A chill ran through me. But that couldn’t be true. “What about the king?” I said. “He took my gold and he didn’t give me anything.”

“Didn’t he?”

I thought back to when King Barf had demanded the gold from me. I hadn’t given it to him right away. I first asked him what he would give me.
Give me the gold and I will spare your life
. And I had given it to him.

“So … they can offer me
anything
? What if they offer me dirt, or a slug, or … or … something really awful?”

“Well, I suppose it could be awful. But so long as what they promise has some value and they are able to give it, then the bargain stands.”

“What if I don’t want what they offer?”

“Ah. That’s what makes this a dangerous business. Your mother never would have come to me had she been able to refuse a bargain. That is the reason she came to me. When an offer was made, she was bound. She had to give them the gold, and she had to take what they offered, even if she didn’t want it.”

My will. My control. That was the price, the consequence, of this magic.

I thought of all those times I had brought gold to the miller. “What will you give me?” I had asked, so desperately, as if I were offering rubbish instead of gold. I had never made demands or requests. I had never refused his offer, and I hadn’t even had the sense to question or wonder.

The magic had been working on me all this time, wrapping me up in tight tangles, robbing me of my control. I thought of my mother, drowning in all that gold.

“Couldn’t you have helped my mother at all?”

“Well, I believe I
did
help her, though not in the way she expected.”

“But she’s dead!” Anger flared inside me like a hot spark. “If you really helped her, she wouldn’t be dead!”

“Her fate was sealed long before she came to me,” said the witch. “But while she was still alive, I told her of the one thing that could free her from her bindings.”

“What?” I asked, feeling a speck of hope.

“Have you ever heard of a stiltskin?”

Stiltskin
. It had a familiar sound, but I didn’t know what it meant or where I might have heard it.

“A stiltskin is magic at its greatest. Pure magic, un-meddled-with and more powerful than any enchantment or spell.”

“Where can I get one? What do they look like?”

“Well … they could be anywhere, I suppose, and they can look like anything. It could be a tree or a rock or a mountain. A stiltskin’s magic grows with the object, becomes part of it. It’s a real deep-in-the-bones kind of magic. It can’t be taken away or undone or even abused. It’s stronger than even the strongest curse. I told your mother that was the only way to untangle her mess. But she never did find one. At least not until it was too late.”

“Then she did find one? Where is it? Do you have it?”

The witch looked startled, but then she smiled. “It is a good question, but the better question is, do you have one?”

“How could I? I’ve never heard of a stiltskin until now.”

“Well, then, a stiltskin is something that must be found on one’s own. It can’t be borrowed or stolen. It has to be yours.”

“How do I get one that’s mine?”

“Well …” The witch paused, and I waited, certain she was about to tell me some great mystery, a secret that would make everything clear. But all she said was, “You have to look.”

Witches are absolutely no help at all.

“What about her family? Did my mother tell you about her family in Yonder? Do they spin too?”

“Likely they do. She mentioned some sisters but never went into any great detail, not even whether they knew of her troubles. She may have run away before they found out.”

“But they
could
know,” I said. If I found my mother’s family, they might be able to help me.

Help. I suddenly remembered the real reason I had come.

“Opal,” I said. “The miller’s daughter. I have to help her.”

Red snorted. “Help her? You mean spin all the straw into gold for her?”

“Shouldn’t I?”

“Rump, don’t you understand what Granny was just explaining about the spinning and the bargains? What if Opal promises something really foolish?”

“How bad can it be? She wouldn’t offer something too horrible.”

“Strange promises can come out of the desperate,” said the witch. “Sometimes it’s best to leave others’ destinies alone.”

“And what of my own destiny?” I asked.

The witch’s bright gaze pierced me right through. “It’s yours to find, along with your name,” she said.

“It’s getting dark,” said Red. “We have to go now. Mother will worry.”

Gran would have been worried too. I wished she were here to worry over me.

We made to leave until the witch said, “Wait.” I turned around. She came forward with her hand in a fist. “Hold out your hand.” She reached out, and for a moment, I thought she was going to give me something special, maybe something magical that would help me. She dropped a speck in my hand, and all my hope drained away.