Beheld

by Alex Flinn

  I wish I had such choices. But perhaps I am better off not having them, for when I do have choices, I invariably make the wrong ones.

  “Are you angry at your mother for leaving you?” I ask him. “You are so . . . remarkable. If she knew, she would wish to know you.”

  A bit of something darts behind his eyes, and he looks down toward the spinning wheel. “I doubt that. I am not angry. I am sure she felt she was doing the right thing, that she had no other choice. But . . .” Again, his voice trails off.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes, people think they have no choice, when really, they have not thought it through. Perhaps they do not know that others might help them.” He glances up. “I have talked enough about my dull life. Either read to me from that book or tell me a story of your own.”

  So I pick up the book and turn it to the next chapter. But, even as I read, I wonder. Do I have choices? Is there something I have not considered?

  The wheel spins and spins like Gretchen’s mind, and the room fills with gold, gold, and more gold.

  8

  At some point, I fall asleep, for when I wake, my visitor is gone and I am lying in a corner with a blanket bunched around me. I remember what the man said about no one covering him when he fell asleep. Had he carried me? The rest of the room is filled with gold, more gleaming gold, overwhelming me with its richness. I feel first gratitude, then guilt wash over me, like the rapids of the river. I did not thank him. I did not thank him, and he has done so much for me.

  I still do not know his name. What is his name?

  I will never see him again.

  Nonsense. After I marry Karl, I will seek him out. I will find him and thank him.

  After I marry Karl.

  Where is Karl? The palace is awake, for the men are taking away the gold. Also, they are bringing more straw, so much more straw.

  It is more than an hour before I see Karl, and in that time, the stable turns from golden to the dull yellow of straw. Outside, it is raining, so there is barely any light.

  Finally, he comes. He seems out of breath, as if he had run. He says, “My ladybird, I have heard what you have done. You are a marvel!”

  “So can we be married then? Today?” Even as I say the words, I know what his answer will be.

  “Well . . . ah . . . my father would like you to stay one more night.”

  I look around at the straw that fills every corner, piled to the ceiling. I realize that it is dark not only because it is raining but also because the windows are blocked. It is amazing that they have such a limitless supply of straw at the ready. But, then again, he is the king.

  “Stay another night, or stay another night and spin straw into gold?”

  He winces a bit. At least he is ashamed. “Thing is, we have some expenses. A barnful of gold could help with them. Just one more night.”

  I start to say that I can still spin straw to gold after we are married. But I stop myself. I cannot spin straw into gold. And something tells me I will see the man no more if—when—I marry Karl.

  The thought makes my eyes sting, and I feel like I have lost something precious. I want to see him again.

  “Just one more?” I ask.

  “I promise, my love, and today, I will come back and have lunch with you and take you for a walk on the grounds. The servants have brought you breakfast too.”

  They have, meat, likely left over from yesterday’s dinner, and soup. It is delicious, and Karl does come back to see me later on. It is a lovely walk, and I hate to complain, but my entire body aches from sleeping on the hard floor, and my arms itch from bugs in the straw. And I need to speak to Kendra.

  The grounds are beautiful, with tall trees and a fountain, and Karl weaves flowers in my hair, though my condition causes their scent to make me ill. We talk of the day when we will have a family.

  On our way back, I remember the question the man asked me. “Karl, what was your favorite part of the book you sent me?”

  “The book?” Then he understands. “Oh, the book I gave you. I am not certain, for I liked all of it so much. What was your favorite part, my darling?”

  I smile and say I liked all of it too.

  “That’s my girl. When we are married, you can—”

  “I know! I intend to read every book in the palace’s library and discuss them with you over dinners! I am so looking forward to it!”

  He laughs and pushes a curl from my shoulder. His hand lingers, then travels down to graze my breast. “I was going to say you could put such things behind you.”

  I nod. “But, at least, I will read bedtime stories to our children.”

  I watch to see his reaction to the words. I hoped he would be excited, but he does not react at all, as if it had nothing to do with them.

  “Of course, mouse. Whatever you want.” He kisses me.

  I kiss him back, but when his hands roam, I twist away.

  “Someone will see us.”

  “So what if they do? They are only servants.”

  His hand is hot upon me, and suddenly I know I do not want him to touch me. He did not give me the book. I am certain of it. It was a lie, all a lie I had perhaps told myself because I wanted it to be true. His love is a lie. I want to ask him if he ever intended to marry me, but I do not. I do not wish to know the answer. I want to hold just a bit longer to the possibility that everything is as I dreamed.

  But is it what I want?

  I remember what the man had told me about the foundling home and the baby wheel. I can find that home—he can tell me where it is when I visit him at the market. I can take my baby there. I can open the door and turn the wheel. Things can go back to the way they were.

  But I do not want that either.

  Before, I had dreams, hopes, expectations, the possibility of love. Now I know they aren’t real, for no man will want me if he knows I had another man’s baby. Yet if I hide it, would my life not be a lie?

  All I want is a man who will stay up with me throughout the night, talking of books we have read. That is what I want. Someone who understands the loneliness I have felt, someone who, like me, has thought of books as his only friends.

  I don’t want Karl. I know who I want, but he will not want me.

  I jerk away from Karl. “I feel ill. The baby. And I should sleep if I am to be awake all night, spinning.” The word, spinning, is a hiss, and in that moment, I make a decision. I do not want to be with Karl, not if I must do everything he asks and hope that he will love me.

  He nods. “You are not well. I will take you back.”

  “Back to the barn?”

  “It is only one more night, my lambkin.”

  I do not answer but follow him back to the barn, which is now filled with so much straw that it is nearly impossible to walk.

  As soon as Karl leaves, I search for the mirror, finally finding it under a bale of straw. “I need him to come back,” I tell Kendra.

  “Again? You are using him sorely.”

  “Just once more.”

  She shrugs. “Very well.” She squints, as if trying to see something at great distance. “I wonder what your Karl is doing now.”

  And then she is gone, leaving me with her question. I do not take the bait. I try to sleep, but that question and so many others make my head burst like an egg left on the stove after the water has boiled out. Several times, I am tempted to check the mirror, to ask to see Karl, to know if I will see what I dread—him and Agathe, or maybe Karl making love to a servant girl, or another girl he met at the market. Yet I do not. It should not matter what Karl is doing. My decision should not be based upon him but upon me.

  Finally, I give up on sleep and pace the floors as best I can, waiting for him. The one I truly want to see.

  Just at nightfall, he appears. “Kendra said you needed me. Just once more.” He surveys the roomful of straw.

  “Yes.” I sigh. I realize I have no means to pay him. The ring and the necklace were all I had except for the book, and why
would someone who works at a bookseller’s stall want that?

  He is walking through the bales of straw, but he turns to look at me.

  “About my payment for my labors tonight.” He meets my eyes, and his own seem so falsely stern that he resembles a child trying to imitate a parent. I hope to reach through to the kindness I know is behind, to the little boy who cried over the chickens.

  “I have nothing left to give you, nothing you would want.”

  He steps closer. “I think you do. You wish me to spin the straw so that you may marry your Karl.” He says your Karl not with a sneer this time, but with an air of disappointment. “If he marries you, you could promise to intercede, to have me appointed as a sort of palace librarian.”

  I smile at this. “So you can read all the books?”

  He looks down, his bravado gone, and his voice is barely a whisper. “So I can still see you every day.”

  I catch my breath, then exhale just as quickly, feeling a bit light-headed. He does not know about the baby, I remind myself. If he did, he would not say such things.

  He sees my silence and walks away through the maze of straw, looking for the spinning wheel. He slaps his hands together as he walks. “So we have a deal, then? A barnful of gold to impress your Karl in exchange for a royal appointment?”

  I know I have to ask him the question that has been on my mind. I follow behind him, and I place my hand upon his shoulder. He starts when I do.

  I say, “I believe you know something about the book I have.”

  “The history book?” He does not look at me.

  “Yes.”

  “I might know something about it.”

  “I was hoping you might have remembered who purchased the book I have? Are you sure you don’t know?”

  He finds the spinning wheel and begins to drag it back, but I am in his way. He turns and faces me.

  “What do you want me to tell you?” he asks.

  “Only the truth.”

  “You know the truth, though you may prefer the lie.”

  I do know the truth. I’ve known from the moment I entered the palace, maybe before. I knew the truth, but I wanted to believe Karl cared about me, did not just view me as a plaything. I nod.

  He laughs. “Poor fool I was! Ugly fool. For months, I saw you at the market reading the books. Every Thursday, you came, every Thursday for months, and I waited for you. It was the high point of my week. I wanted to speak to you. Of course I was an idiot. One as lovely as you would never look at one like me, a nobody with no family, no name. I know I am not handsome. I know that. But I thought, perhaps, if I brought the book, we could talk about that, at least. I imagined you would know I sent it. After all, we had discussed it. I asked after you until I learned who you were, where you lived. I hoped we could be friends—a fool’s fantasy. I left the book upon your doorstep and hid behind some trees to watch you find it. You did, on the way back from the chicken house.”

  I nod, imagining him doing this, remembering. “It was I who was a fool,” I whisper.

  He goes on as if he has not heard me. “And all the next week, I waited for the day that you would come. I waited for Thursday, for you.”

  “You wanted merely to be friends?” I ask.

  “I did not hope for anything more. I wanted someone with whom to discuss books.”

  “Then why not Kendra? Or any one of the men who walked into the stall? You could not discuss books with them?”

  A sad smile. “Maybe I hoped for more.”

  And I had ignored him that Thursday like all the others, intent only upon finding Karl. “I wish I had known it was you.” I feel tears in my eyes, for I suspect it would have made little difference, had I known. I would likely still have been enchanted by Karl, the liar. I would still have overlooked this kind, clever, shy man. Nothing would have been different.

  I say, “I don’t think I can accept your offer, your offer to spin the straw in exchange for a favor by my husband. It wouldn’t be right, because I do not think I will be marrying Karl.”

  He smiles. “Really?”

  “Really. He does not love me. He put me here in a barn on the hard floor overnight, with barely enough food, to spin straw to please his father. I cannot imagine he really wants me.”

  He hunches his shoulders as if trying to retreat into a shell. But he cannot make himself any smaller than he already is. I think I hear him murmur something, but I cannot make it out.

  Finally, he says, “I want you.”

  “You would not if you knew the entirety of my situation.” I turn away from him, surveying the room. If only there was a way out. If only I did not have to face him in the morning without the work done.

  “You asked me if I was angry at my mother for leaving me.”

  I turn to him, surprised by the change of subject.

  “I am not angry at her. I am angry at my father, the man who left her in a situation where she felt she had no choice but to abandon her baby.”

  I turn toward him. He knows.

  I say, “I want to have choices. I want to go home, but I do not know how to leave or what I will do if I go, what I will tell my father. Father does not even know where I am at this moment. I have no choices—persuade Karl to marry me or throw myself in the river. Those are my choices.”

  “You want choices. Here is one: The lady I work for, Kendra, is a kind lady, but lonely. She could adopt your baby, say she got it from her sister who died. Then you could go back to your life as it was.”

  That is a choice, but not one I like very much. I hated my life as it was.

  “Or, on the other hand, you could marry me.” He takes my hand and draws me toward him. “You could move into my flat and read all day and play with the baby, and other babies when we have them. And, when I come home, we could talk of books. Someday, I will have my own stall at the market. Not a bookseller, for Kendra has that, but something else. I am learning to be a businessman. You could help me.” He holds out his hand as if pointing it out, and his eyes are shining as he says this.

  “Could it be a bakery?” I say, caught up in his fantasy. “I am very good at baking cookies and cakes and bread. And you should taste my apple cake.”

  “A bakery!” He laughs, a great laugh, larger than he is. “Of course it can be a bakery. Do you want that?”

  He is still holding my hand. I squeeze his. “I wanted the man who sent me the book, for he is the man who understands me, who knows what is important to me.”

  “What do you want now?”

  “I want you to take me home, but I don’t know how to leave. I cannot spin a golden rope to escape.”

  “I can take you home.” His grip upon my fingers loosens. “But will I be able to see you again?”

  Once again, I am on the horns of a dilemma. I want to tell him yes, of course, to bring him home to my father as my future husband. But was it too much to ask him to raise another man’s baby?

  I look at him and see he is holding his breath, anticipating my answer. I know the answer to my question as well. Yes, it is too much to ask. But if I ask, he will say yes.

  “Yes,” I say. “I want to see you, not merely on Thursdays, but every day.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. And you would take care of me, and the baby?”

  “Yes. I may be only a poor clerk at a bookseller’s, but I can spin straw into gold.”

  “I would be happy even if you could not.” With that, I hug him, and then his lips are on mine. It is a different kiss from the ones I shared with Karl. Karl’s kisses were demanding, insistent. This kiss is soft, something he is giving to me, rather than something he is taking away. He whispers, “Can it really be true?”

  “It is true,” I say, thinking how fortunate it is sometimes, not to get what I want.

  With that, he releases my hand and walks to the spinning wheel. In no time, he has made a long rope out of the straw, like the one he told me about. He places it upon the ground, then picks up a small, thin st
rand of straw.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “You will see.” He feeds the wisp into the wheel. It is so small I can barely see it, but when he finishes, he takes it out and holds up the perfect little ribbon of gold. Then he stares at it until it moves. It breaks in half, then forms two unbroken gold rings. He holds one out to me to see, but before I can take it, he slips it into his pocket.

  “Soon, my sweet Cornelia.”

  He starts to pick up the rope, but first, he takes me into his arms once again. I feel him shivering, or maybe it is me.

  “I do not even know your name,” I say.

  “It is an ugly name, I’m afraid. At the foundling home, they had to name so many, so many who did not survive, that they ran out of names. They couldn’t name us all Hans. So it is the silliest—”

  I place my fingers upon his lips. “I have to know what to call my husband.”

  I remove my fingers, and he says, “Rumpelstiltskin,” looking down.

  “It is a lovely name,” I say, and I kiss him again. At that moment, I think it the most beautiful name I have ever heard, if a bit long.

  Finally, we break apart, for time is passing, and it is best not to stick around when a king will be angry. My reading of history taught me that. We pick up the rope Rumpelstiltskin spun. It is slim, but heavy and strong. He hoists himself up to the high window ledge, then helps me up. We leap down into the courtyard, hand in hand, and disappear into the night.

  Kendra Speaks

  At the very moment my clerk, Rumpelstiltskin, was sneaking the miller’s daughter out of the king’s barn, I finally saw something I recognized in the mirror when I looked for James. Finally, he was not in battle. Instead, he was walking by himself along the riverbank, and I saw in the background a majestic building, made of brick, with four large turrets visible. It flew the British flag.

  The Tower of London!

  James was in London!

  It had been many years, more than a century, since I had been there. A great deal had changed. But the Tower of London had been there since before I was born, and so had the river, the Thames.