There were two windows, one on the wall opposite the door and a second up in the loft, both barred. My head might fit through, but my shoulders never would.
I ran to the window anyway. Maybe someone on the outside would see me and take pity.
A stream ran around Westnut Castle, and I could hear it before I even reached the window. Looking out, I saw that it wasn’t more than a stone’s throw away, though I didn’t see how that would help me. Beyond the stream was an open field, leading to scattered trees, all layered with a hint of snow. There must have been a tree next to the window, because I could see the branches. I reached through and pulled one of them through the window, unsure of what to do with it next. Eventually I let it go, knowing it was useless to me.
I stuck out my arm and felt along the wall to see if there was a loose rock I could use to bash on the door. I clawed at the cold stone, but nothing came loose.
A growl escaped my chest, and I plunged my second arm out, feeling along the other side. Coming up empty, I banged on the bars, hurting my hand in the process, which only fueled my frustration.
With little else to do, I yelled for help. I yelled until my voice felt strained and my throat was dry. Somewhere along the way I started to cry, and I cried until my tears overtook my screams. Defeated, I turned my back to the window and slid down the wall, crying until my eyes were too dry to offer another tear.
With my tears emptied and my energy drained, I closed my eyes.
This would be my last night.
In the morning, the King would kill me because I couldn’t spin straw into gold.
Did my family know? Surely they would tell them before I was killed. Papa could set the record straight, tell the King that the story was purely fiction, and he would save me.
But even that brought me little consolation. I was still trapped in a room in the castle with an impossible deadline hanging over my head.
I took a shaky breath as I tried to grasp what today had brought. I had one night to spin gold, or else the King would take my life. I couldn’t spin gold, and Papa was too far away to come and rescue me with the truth. The room was locked with no apparent way out. Every option for survival seemed out of reach.
Unless.
Unless the dark magic that I had heard whispers of existed.
Unless there was a power here that was strong enough to save me.
I had no experience with magic, and I was bitterly aware that I was the only person in Westfallen who didn’t have it in my soul. Would magic come to me, if I called? Would it hear the cries of a desperate heart and take pity? Would it turn my straw into gold, or change the King’s heart, or set me free?
How did one call upon magic? I hadn’t the slightest clue, but with nothing to lose, I lowered myself to the ground. This was twice in one day that I was begging from my knees. Anika would be so disappointed in me.
I wasn’t sure how to start. I began to speak the words that were in my head, willing someone to answer. “Please, if there is a deep magic here, please save me. Please. I know that I am small and unworthy, but please spare my life. I don’t want to die.”
It sounded pathetic, but I kept uttering my pleas, hoping that someone could hear me. The words turned to frantic prayers mixed with tears falling on my cheeks. It seemed I had tears left after all.
“Please come to rescue me. Please give me some of your strong magic. Please help me live.”
I cried out until my voice felt weak. I buried my head into my hands and sobbed until my eyes were dry and my stomach cramped.
It was only when I quieted that I heard the shuffling of feet on the floor. Small, hushed shifting in the dark of the evening.
My head yanked up and eyes darted around the room. Had I heard the noise inside, or was it the sounds of the night coming from the window behind me?
Now focused, I heard it again, but this time, I saw something too. In the darkness under the loft, a figure shifted. How had I not seen someone there before?
Was this the spirit that the guard spoke of? It had to have been. Either it was coming to save me or to hurt me. My breathing quickened and legs wobbled at I pulled myself to my feet, never taking my eyes off the shadows. Perhaps I didn’t have to wait until tomorrow morning to die. Perhaps this figure would kill me tonight.
My back met the stone wall, and my trembling hands pushed against it while my knees shivered with fear. I begged them not to fail me. Nothing around me could be used to attack or defend, and I doubted my hand could throw a stinging punch. Still, I’d fight if I had to.
Gracefully, the figure moved again, this time coming forward out of the darkness. I braced myself to see the face of a spirit.
Instead, I saw the face of a man.
“Dear one, why do you cry?”
Chapter Seven
His voice sounded as smooth as honey and as light as the wind. Golden curls circled his face and reached for his thin lips that turned downward as he examined my tears. His nose was long and sharp, his chin rounded, and he had two freckles on his face: one by his lips and the other above the arch of his left brow. He walked steadily toward me, and I moved backward, shifting myself along the wall to keep as far away from him as I could.
Not a spirit, but a man. I was no less afraid of the figure before me as I had been when I thought him to be a spirit.
As he examined me, his head tilted and his eyes squinted, not in aggression, but rather in confusion, pondering over the girl before him. In reply, I narrowed my own eyes at him, anything to make myself look fierce, but I trembled far too much to reflect fearlessness.
His gaze shifted to the straw and them the spinning wheel, where he arched his brow. I didn’t dare take my eyes off him. After a pause, he turned his attention back to me. His face remained soft and eyes blank, so his thoughts were a mystery to me.
I knew what my thoughts were, however. Run. Hide. Neither of these options were available to me, and even if there was somewhere to run to, every part of me stood frozen in fear, waiting for him to do something
“Why are you sad?” he asked again in a gentle tone meant to calm me, but my growing worries would not be calmed by his soft disposition.
I gave him no answer as he studied me, not even when he came a few steps closer. The man was taller than me, but not by much, so I didn’t have to tilt my chin more than an inch to look him in the eye. He wore a white tunic shirt with full sleeves and buttoned cuffs, an older style that not many wore anymore. His eyes looked dark, but in the dim light it was hard to be sure. He was older than me, by five years perhaps.
He didn’t make another move, but kept those dark eyes focused on me, waiting patiently. My mouth opened, but what came out could hardly be called words. “You…who…who…?”
He smiled at this. “Ah yes. You wonder about the strange man who is locked in the room with you.” His disposition changed suddenly and he grinned, pacing in front of me with his hands clasped together. “Well, my dear. I’m afraid you haven’t answered my question yet. Give me an answer and I will do the same for you.”
He paused in front of me, close enough to touch. I pushed myself further into the wall until the stone dug into my back. His voice came again, still soft. “Why are you crying?”
I licked my lips as I tried to form an answer. While encouraged by the fact that I wasn’t dead yet, I still had my qualms about the stranger with the golden hair. I tried to find a simple answer to his question, and he waited for me patiently. “I … I fear, come morning, they will kill me.”
His eyes widened ever so slightly as he glanced at the locked door. “Have you done something worth killing you for?” The notion that I was a ruthless criminal trapped here for some horrible crime sounded ludicrous to me, he couldn’t know any different, and while that was a possibility, he didn’t sound scared.
I shook my head, keeping my back tight against the wall. My hands stopped shaking but my stomach still felt weak. I prayed this man revealed his intentions soon so my worries would be sa
tisfied. “It’s rather what I will not do.”
He nodded his head as if he understood now, though I knew he couldn’t.
“And why not?” he asked. His voice was still as gentle as a spring flower.
For the first time since he’d appeared, I took my eyes off him to glance at the spinning wheel sitting on the woven rug. It taunted me. “What they ask of me, it isn’t possible.”
The stranger tilted his head, keeping his eyes on me. “I know of nothing that is impossible.”
I tightened my eyebrows. How could it be that he could not think of one impossible task? Hundreds of ideas came to mind, including the one given to me. His face kept the look of an innocent doe as he waited for me, so with a sigh, I spoke. “I can’t spin straw into gold.”
His eyes brightened as he looked back to the straw and the spinning wheel. “Ah. I see your problem.”
He glided over to the spinning wheel, circling it, and his bare feet made soft padded noises as he turned about the room. He grew stranger by the second, but as peculiar as he seemed, he didn’t appear dangerous. Relaxing slightly, I took a step away from the wall, keeping my eye on the stranger as he picked up some straw and pulled it through his fingers.
“Have you tried?” he asked over his shoulder.
His question shocked me. No, I hadn’t tried. I hadn’t seen a point to it. No one can spin straw into gold.
“The straw hasn’t even been retted,” I said from my corner. The stalks still had their hard shells, hiding the soft fibers underneath. They would need to be retted and hackled before I could spin them.
He laughed. “No, I suppose it hasn’t.”
He sat himself down at the spinning wheel, straw in his hands. I paused, curious what he would do next.
He put the straw through the spindle, binding it to some starter thread on the bobbin. His long fingers worked quickly as he brought the straw back down and placed his foot on the treadle.
Without a word, he pushed on the treadle, twisting the straw in his hand as it worked through the bobbin. With a creaking noise, the wheel started to spin. His hands worked effortlessly as he twisted the straw, then reached down to grab more and twisted it in with the first.
I was impressed he knew how to work the spinning wheel, though I couldn’t fathom how he spun the straw without retting it first.
Quietly, I took a few steps closer to watch him work. It was thoughtful of him to try to help me, but thread would be no use to the King since it couldn’t pay soldiers or settle agreements with other countries. Thread couldn’t save my life.
As I got closer, a hint of moonlight angled off the spindle. My breath caught in my throat.
The spindle shone like the sun.
Gold.
He had spun gold.
I blinked, sure that I must have been seeing it wrong.
A few more steps closer helped my eyes see better. The man remained hunched over the wheel, feeding straw into the bobbin. Where it entered as straw, it left as gold. The gold wrapped around the flyer, growing thicker as he continued to spin. My head spun along with the wheel.
I dared to bring my hand close as it kept spinning around. Could this be true? Was I saved?
He stopped spinning so I could touch the gold, which was woven into narrow strands like thread, but hard. I was unsure what gold thread felt like, but this was what I’d expected it would look like. I struggled to find my words as I held the gold in my hands.
“Is this real?” I breathed.
He grinned in triumph. “It is, my dear. And I will happily spin it all for you.”
Questions flew through my head, but I chose them carefully, for fear that the wrong words may scare him away and I’d lose the gold. No doubt he’d expect payment for this service. What could I offer him? I had nothing; my family had nothing.
Perhaps he was a spirit after all, just as the guard had said. He certainly possessed unexplainable abilities. Whatever he was, I would be forever in debt to him for saving my life. It was funny that the King trapped me to spin straw into gold for him, when he had someone with the ability to do so living under his own roof the whole time.
“Who are you?”
He paused from his spinning, turned back at me, and offered a thin smile.
“Rumpelstiltskin is my name.”
Chapter Eight
“So,” the King said, looking very pleased with himself, “you decided to share your Gift with us.”
After the guards came in the morning to inspect my progress, the King had been called in. I waited for him while devouring the breakfast they brought. I hadn’t found time to eat yesterday, and my stomach complained heavily.
The King walked, with his son in tow, around the room. He looked different than he had last night. There was no crown on his head, just whispers of hairs that were growing thin, and if it wasn’t for his deep blue coat over his collared shirt with small gold buttons running down the side, he might have looked as any elderly man I might meet in the village.
Conrad dressed similarly, but he looked more regal than his father without the crown. I wondered what meeting I had walked in on yesterday that they were dressed so formally. Conrad’s coat wasn’t blue, but tan, matching his pants. The lack of color made the red in his hair stand out brilliantly, along with the mass of freckles across his face and under his chin. His jaw was wide and his nose thin, with thick eyebrows lying flat over light eyes.
The King wandered around the room. He stopped to touch every spindle of gold, turning each about in his hand. The guards stood along the wall, still blocking the exit from me. I didn’t have a reason to run today. I had done my job; I should be free to go.
Rumpelstiltskin had worked well into the night. He had little to say, but he hummed an enchanting tune while he worked. I had watched him until I dozed off, not waking until morning came and he was already gone.
In his absence, he had left a room full of gold.
I knew now that he must be a spirit of sorts, for I searched the entire room and he was not there. The door remained locked, and unless he had a key there was no other way to leave the room except by magic.
That must have been how he made the gold. He had magic in his hands. Perhaps my pleas worked, and magic had sent me Rumpelstiltskin. I whispered my gratitude into the air as the King inspected the gold, hoping my words reached him, wherever he was.
Satisfied, I ate my meal as I waited for the King to finish his assessment. The warm bread melted on my lips with the taste of butter, and it took all my manners not to shove the food into my hungry mouth, but even slowing myself, it was devoured in a matter of minutes.
I was licking my fingers when the King was ready to face me.
“It seems you are not as selfish as you previously appeared to be,” he said.
My heart twisted and I yearned to correct him, but I had no knowledge of the man who helped me and didn’t want to spend any more time in this castle trying to explain it. I was ready to go home.
So I remained silent in the presence of the King.
He held two spindles, one in each hand, and looked at them with joy. “These will save our country and end the war.”
I curtsied, happy that something good came of my time here. I would be so proud to go home and tell my family how I helped in the war. My family was probably worried about me. “May I go home, Your Majesty?” I asked.
The King looked surprised at my question, and dread came over me. “Go home?” He looked between me and the gold. “Home? You have just become our most valuable asset in the war. You can’t leave now.”
I motioned to the gold. “I already did my job.”
The King laughed as if I was joking. “You have made only a little bit of gold. We will need much more to offer Tames and Osmelee in return for ending the war.” He laughed again. “You’ll remain here and assist us.”
My stomach dropped and I felt sick. “I can’t stay here. I want to go home.” My voice sounded like a child’s whine in comparison to the
King’s. Still, I was desperate. He couldn’t keep me here. There was no telling how long these things took between countries. Even with all the gold, the war could still drag on for years.
And besides, I still wasn’t the one who could spin straw into gold. Rumpelstiltskin was, but I had no idea how to find him again.
I felt like crying.
Prince Conrad came to my aid. “Surely, she can come out of the room, though, since she cooperated. She can be given food, and a proper bed to sleep in. If she’s going to help us win the war, then she should be treated right.”
Relief rushed over me that I wouldn’t be spending endless months trapped in this room. I gave the prince a small smile to show my thanks and he grinned back, giving me my first look at his rumored kindness.
The King complied, and the orders were given. Most of the guards filtered out, but Conrad caught my hand before I followed them and leaned down to whisper. A red curl fell over his forehead, distracting my eye. “He’s not as bad as he seems. The war has driven him mad.”
I nodded but wasn’t sure what to say back. I didn’t have time to find an answer before one of the guards led me away, leaving behind a giddy king in a room full of gold.
I tried to enjoy the room and the endless food sent to me, but my mind kept reminding me that now I’d shown I could make gold, I would be expected to do it again. How many times would I need to complete the task before the King was satisfied? I had no way of guaranteeing that I could do it even one more time.
Worry followed me to my new room. There was a simple lock on the door with a key in it, which the guard took out and hung on the inside of the room. I was grateful that I would be staying on the other side of the lock. The room was wide, with a stone fireplace on one side and a bed on the other. In the middle was a deep window with dark blue curtains. Small flowers were stitched in the bottom of the curtains. I noticed a little door to the right of the bed, and guessed it led to a bathing room. A bath sounded luxurious, and my legs melted a bit at the thought of it.
The Storyteller’s Daughter Page 5