The wrinkles around the lady’s eyes deepened. “Perhaps he can only spin straw into fairy gold, like what you found in his cave? Maybe it’s really Della he’s after and the real treasure you earned is to provide for her truly?”
“But she wasn’t even born. How could he love her? His scheme must have something to do with the inheritance.” He shook his head. “And yet, I was a bachelor, nothing more than an orphan, and a street rat, too…”
“But a very clever street rat. Clever enough to use your third wish to send him back into the lamp where he would be imprisoned again. And clever enough to use your first wish to receive the knowledge of how to obtain wealth rather than wealth itself.”
“But stupid enough to agree to a third promise before knowing what it was…no takebacks, no substitutions...Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Della’s mother began to sob.
“Enough,” Tad told the globe as Della’s father’s arms snaked around his weeping wife.
So it was Della’s father who had made a deal with a jinn. But what did the jinn want with Della? Tad mulled over this predicament as he forked his dinner into his mouth that night. Whatever else, he now knew that solving the case was urgent business. Somehow he had to settle matters before Della’s memory and her very self became the property of this mysterious creature called a jinn.
The whole thing was very romantic, though. It sounded like Della’s father was a believer in true love, and he had made a terrible deal with a magical creature to get it. Tad didn’t even know anybody other than the Lady could grant the greatest gift of all. He drummed his fingers on the table next to his empty plate.
To tell Claire or not to tell her? He was on the verge of solving this case, except for the part of needing to break the jinn’s claim to Della and get him back into a magic lamp. Della’s mother had said the jinn might be able to spin straw into fairy gold, which was apparently some form of fake gold. The next thing for Tad to do would be to search the library for information about creatures capable of such a feat. And probably they had yellow eyes.
Chapter 13
After over an hour of searching for information in the library, Tad was ready to crash into his warm bed. The only thing he had learned was that creatures known as jinns or genies were half fairy and half something else. They were mischievous, somewhat clever, rather unpredictable, and could be either helpful or harmful, depending on their nature. There was one story about a miller’s daughter being tricked by a creature that could spin straw into gold, and it seemed it might be the same jinn that had tricked Della’s father. But in that case there wasn’t a reference to any lamp.
Tad had no idea what time it was in his home realm but if his energy levels were any indication, it was well after bedtime. He was just contemplating a short nap when Claire appeared in the library with her eyelids dropping. She rubbed her face and yawned.
This provoked a wide yawn from Tad. He didn’t even try to stop from mimicking her, he was so tired. “I think you ought to know the case is very urgent,” he murmured. He filled his assistant in on what he had learned and how Della would become the jinn’s property when she turned twenty-one, which gave them less than a day to solve the case. At least he hoped he had mentioned all of the relevant details. He hardly heard his own words through the haze of fatigue.
“I suppose we can work together just this once,” Claire replied in another yawn.
“I suppose so.” Tad massaged his eyes in a desperate attempt to stop their blurring.
“Because science is not afraid of competition.”
“Because romance isn’t afraid of scientific methods.”
Both of them were mumbling now.
“Fine, then it’s settled,” Claire said.
“Fine.” Tad looked at her expectantly.
She gave him a limp-wristed flick of the hand. “Since you were here first, go ahead and ask the globe to show us what we need to see.”
Tad was too bone weary to enjoy her submissive air. His feet shuffled toward the globe. “Show me…where to find the jinn Zaen is trying to capture.” He still had no idea how to get the creature back into the lamp but at least this would be some progress.
The image of a merchant appeared in the globe. He was a respectable-looking person gesticulating wildly to a small throng in an attempt to gather them around his cart. Tad searched each of the figures in the globe but no amount of eye rubbing produced the creature he had seen in the woods
“That’s a jinn?” Claire asked. She closed her eyes for several moments, her stance wobbling a little as she did so.
“No, the merchant is not the creature I saw in the woods. It was smaller than me and it had yellow eyes.”
“Looks like an ordinary merchant to me.”
“Me, too.”
“Not the one who sold you the necklace?”
“Nope.”
“But it must be him, I guess.”
“Must be.”
“First one to help Zaen capture the jinn wins the bet?”
“Yep.” Tad’s eyes shot wide open at this unintended arrangement brought on by sheer exhaustion.
He and Claire looked at each other. Without a word, they magicked themselves away.
“Guess my name and it’s yours,” the merchant told a young man as Tad and Claire landed at the edge of the crowd.
Tad’s spirits lifted. It was the same demand the jinn from the story of the miller’s daughter had made. Only he couldn’t think of what the creature’s name was. Something very unusual, very silly, and it started with an R. He and Claire couldn’t see over the other onlookers no matter how they craned their necks so they navigated around the crowd until they found a spot almost behind the merchant.
The merchant had laid out gold necklaces and bracelets on the cart but instead of trying to sell them he kept asking the onlookers to guess his name. If they guessed right, they could have any item they wanted. He assured them if they failed he would not require any payment.
There was something very childlike in his appearance, though he must have been at least forty years old with a graying beard and twinkling brown eyes creased at the edges. Yet he laughed and laughed as the crowd presented name after name. No matter how ridiculous or exotic, the merchant shook his head and declared, “Not it! Not my name!” And then he would break into a silly song, hopping about and kicking out his legs and insulting the persons who had guessed wrong. “Try again. No one knows it. No one guesses is,” he said in a giggle of a voice.
“How about…Rumpelstiltskin?” a voice called out. Tad cringed as he recognized who it belonged to.
The merchant’s face paled. He rotated his head to look at the figure that had just spoken. There stood Tante Iezavel at the edge of the crowd, wagging a finger at him. Another female figure stood at her side.
“Almajnoonatayn,” the merchant cried.
Tad dug a finger in his ear and turned it round. He looked at Tante Iezvel. “The what?” He and Claire moved to where the witch and her cohort stood. The crowd had backed away and was staring at both women in awe.
“The two crazy ladies,” Tante Iezavel replied. “He must have learned that expression from the locals, and being the big baby that he is, he just repeats what he hears. Still, it’s an improvement over what he usually calls me.”
Tad scratched his forehead. “Oh.” Tante Iezavel certainly earned the crazy label. But the lady on her left looked nothing like her, and was beautiful to the point of being otherworldly.
Tante Iezavel addressed Claire and nodded at the object in her hands. Tad recognized it as the spinning wheel he had bought. “I don’t know how you came across this, but I found it with your science projects and knew at once who it belonged to. There’s only one like it.”
“My wheel! Give it back!” the merchant called Rumpelstiltskin shrieked. He stomped his foot thrice.
Tante Iezavel’s companion took a step forward. A pair of striking wings lay against her back—fairy wings that glittered as gold strewn
amidst a field of diamonds. “I see you are playing games with the humans again, Rummy, offering them what you spun on the wheel Father gave you and claiming it’s gold. You know very well humans cannot tell the difference.” She tilted her head down and frowned at the merchant, though she was so lovely even that expression glowed with radiance. “Shame on you.”
Rumpelstiltskin turned his eyes down.
Tante Iezavel swept her hand to the stunning figure at her side. “Claire and Cursed Drabling, this is my sister, Paribanou, or Pari, as we sometimes call her.” She turned back to the merchant, whose expression had turned pouty. Tad felt a wave of irritation at the moniker the witch had just given him, but the look he sent her in reply went unnoticed as her gaze was fixed on the merchant. “And this creature here is our brother. Rumpie, you put off that disguise right now.”
The merchant covered his ears. “Not my name. Not my name.”
Paribanou snapped her fingers. The merchant’s face morphed into a heap of wrinkles set with golden eyes. His form shrank to one no bigger than a child. Murmurs went through the crowd and the people backed farther away. “Rumpelstiltskin, you heed me this instant or I shall ask Father to take away your wheel forever. And then what will you do to amuse yourself?”
Tad leaned toward Claire and nodded at Rumpelstiltskin. “That’s what I saw in the woods.” And if he was Tante Iezavel’s brother, that made her a jinn, too. And maybe she wasn’t exactly a witch but this was the next closest thing. He gave Claire his best I-told-you-so look.
Claire didn’t reply but crinkled up her face as she observed Rumpelstiltskin. Tad could see her mentally plotting experiments on the jinn and all his kind.
“But…” Rumpelstiltskin’s frown deepened as he regarded Paribanou.
“I will tell Mother…” Paribanou turned a sharp eye on her brother. “And you know what she will say.”
“Firstborn is best loved,” Rumpelstiltskin bellowed out like an ox.
Tante Iezavel’s expression hardened. “Again with the firstborn?” She turned to Claire. “Last time it was a miller’s daughter, and what a mess he caused.”
“Oh no, is that what you have done?” Paribanou cast an apprehensive look at her sister.
“Firstborn is best loved,” the sulking jinn repeated with a grumpy expression.
“As you are so fond of saying, Rumpie, humans cannot calculate true value,” Tante Iezavel answered. “They simply haven’t the apparatus for it. And that is why you need to stop making deals with them. Besides, you are wrong. Pari is not best loved among humans because she is firstborn, but because she’s beautiful and kind. I’m too free-spirited and peculiar to qualify for anything other than a weird neighbor or a witch…” She pointed a finger at her brother. “And nobody likes you because you’re a little jerk.”
“But once upon a time you were a sweet little brother,” Paribanou said. “And with some very great discipline you will be so again. But now…what did you promise in return for the firstborn this time, Rummy?”
The jinn crossed his arms and tucked his chin to his chest, his lower lip protruding as a child in a silent tantrum. Mumble, mumble. He said something nobody could understand.
“What?” Tante Iezavel looked at Claire.
Claire wobbled her head in a why-do-you-ask-me expression.
“I believe it was the greatest gift of all,” Tad said.
Paribanou gasped and leveled a horrified look at her brother. “You promised someone true love? Rummy, you cheat!”
“Nobody will give me what I want,” Rumpelstiltskin said. He lifted his chin and stomped his foot again.
“Because what you want is absurd,” Tante Iezavel replied. “Remember what Mother told you? You have not obeyed her, have you, and worked on wanting something sensible?”
“I can’t help what I want,” the jinn answered. His lower lip poked out again and his face wrinkled up as a newborn babe.
“Yes, you can,” Paribanou said. “Three hundred years is old enough for you to be held accountable for your misplaced desires. It’s back to timeout for you. And this time we’ll put the lamp where humans cannot go.”
At this the jinn began to weep. It started as sniffles and rose to sobs but was soon a series of hideous wails. He stomped and howled and shrieked.
“How did he get out, anyway?” Tante Iezavel asked Paribanou.
“We’ll tell you later,” Tad said, eyeing the crowd. “But someone overheard the words you used to open the cave.”
“We really must change the secret code to something humans cannot pronounce,” Tante Iezavel said.
Paribanou studied her brother’s new tantrum which had him rolling around on the ground and screeching like a mythical banshee. “And get the pixies to change the stories about him to something that will not encourage the humans to seek him out.” She turned to Claire. “But he is a good boy when he’s not trying to get himself a firstborn child. He’s a patron to humans if only he would persevere in benevolent deeds instead of—”
“Acting like a spoiled halfwit,” Tante Iezavel said.
Paribanou nodded. “I’m afraid we must tell Mother.”
At this, Rumpelstiltskin wailed all the louder
Tad didn’t blame the jinn for being afraid of his mother. He had seen her many times himself—though not since Claire had arrived—and those wrinkles of hers went soul deep, not to mention the hump. Everybody around Rosendale imagined something peculiar had happened to Tante Iezavel’s mother since she was such a sight and had simply disappeared one day. “Will she be visiting again?” he asked.
“My mother has never visited before.” Tante Iezavel frowned. Her eyebrows drew together as she squinted in apparent confusion. “Oh, you mean our other brother, Schaibar. Yes, of course. I forgot. When he’s among humans he wears a disguise so he doesn’t frighten everybody away.”
“His appearance is rather…” Paribanou paused.
“Grotesque,” Tante Iezavel finished for her. “But we love him.”
“He is very kind, only humans cannot see through his unusual form,” Paribanou said.
Tante Iezavel cast a knowing look at her sister. “Admit it. He’s country dog ugly.”
“Unusual,” Paribanou said again.
“Always the kind one, aren’t you?” Tante Iezavel answered. “If you had your way, Rumpie would never be punished for his naughty behavior at all. And that’s why the humans love you and—”
“Think you’re a witch?” Paribanou said.
Tante Iezavel waved her hand dismissively. “It’s good for business.”
“I have never understood why you want to live among the humans and peddle your magic as if it is something to be bought and sold instead of freely given.”
Tante Iezavel crossed her arms and turned her impish eyes away from Paribanou. At that moment her kinship with Rumpelstiltskin wasn’t so unbelievable. “And I have never understood why Rumpie refers to me as some witch and claims I tattle on him all the time.”
A laugh tinkled its way through Paribanou’s lips. “Because you do tattle on him all the time.”
“Not since the case with the miller’s daughter, but that was an extraordinary circumstance. And Mother only put him in timeout for thirty years.”
“But Father gave him a good spanking.”
“Which he deserved.”
Tad grinned at the familiar sibling conversation. Even if you had extraordinary magical powers, you still had to deal with ordinary relationship woes, it seemed.
Chapter 14
Della may or may not have been in love with Zaen but now that the two lady jinns had Rumpelstiltskin in custody and had removed whatever curse he had put on the lady, Tad was ready to allow exhaustion to overcome any concerns he had over anybody’s actual feelings. One more chore and he could crash into bed with not a care in the world.
Claire insisted on tagging along to see the case closed and Tad was too tired to argue that he didn’t need her help. Her weary expression suggested she felt
the same. They headed to the library to locate Zaen and then to the street where he was interrogating some locals. He turned as Tad and Claire approached.
“The jinn has been captured so we’ll take the lamp now.” Claire held out her hand to Zaen with a blank look.
Zaen clutched the lump in his shirt, looking back and forth between them. The person he had been talking to scooted off.
Tad and Claire looked at each other, their expressions mutually sober.
“Della’s front porch?” Claire said.
“Yep,” Tad replied.
They each took an arm and whirled their client away even as he cried in protest. The three of them landed on Della’s front doorstep. Zaen stood wide-eyed, turning his head to and fro as if trying to discern what had just happened. Tad reached out and took hold of the knocker. He drew it back and slammed it thrice in an attempt to wake the dead, if necessary, to close this case. His own ears barely heard the sound over his hazy thoughts. Moments later the door swung open and a manservant appeared looking quite disgruntled.
“We’re here to see Della,” Tad said.
Zaen’s face brightened. Tad and Claire released his arms. He immediately went about smoothing his hair though there was nothing to be done for his ratty garments.
The manservant hesitated, looking them each over. “One moment and I will inquire if the lady is receiving visitors.” He closed the door.
Tad turned to Claire. “I don’t want to argue with you but this really is a private matter. I think we should go back to the library.”
She shrugged and magicked herself away.
“Della’s curse is lifted now,” Tad told Zaen. “I don’t know if she loves you but I suggest you try something different than what you’ve been doing. Your letters are touching but she obviously needs something else from you.”
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