The Storyteller’s Daughter

by Victoria McCombs

  There was a thick blue blanket on the bed, and pillows that would put all the ones at home to shame. A long vibrant rug lay at the foot of the bed with fibers so soft looking that I could fall asleep on them and be just as comfortable as I’d ever been back home. I turned to ask the guard if we were in the right room, because surely this belonged to some important guest, but he had left already. I wandered further into the room, hoping to get some pleasure out of it before they kicked me out.

  Little did they know they were putting a poor girl with no Gift in such nice accommodations. I didn’t deserve this.

  I should leave now, return to the King and tell him the truth. He had gotten a room full of gold already; perhaps he would count that as a blessing and let me go. The longer I stayed, the harder it would be to convince them I couldn’t spin gold.

  I wasn’t sure if it was fear or exhaustion that stayed me, but I decided I would never get another chance to enjoy a room like this and let my curiosity lead me to the back room behind the grand bed, where I found a deep tub by the wall. Vanilla-scented salts sat on the floor nearby, smelling as nice as a field in spring. There was no water in the tub, but I was determined to find a way to fill it so I could soak in the vanilla scents.

  Behind me, a girl hovered in the doorway. “Are you the Lady Cosette?” Her short black hair looked as soft as the rug by my bed, and her smile as sweet as the vanilla.

  “Just Cosette,” I corrected her.

  “I’m your maid, Anna.” She bobbed into a curtsy, holding the edges of her light brown dress in her hands, revealing a large birthmark that covered most of her wrist. When she straightened, she clasped her hands in front of her waist, looking at me expectantly as if I had a list of chores for her to do.

  My surprise couldn’t have been more evident. What did they think I needed a maid for? I knew how to clothe myself. My mind was drawn back to the bath and I clicked my tongue.

  “If you could tell me where to get water for the bath,” I said. “I can go fetch some.”

  Anna laughed as if I’d told a joke. “We keep some heated water downstairs; give me a few minutes and I will fill the tub for you.”

  I shook my head, begging her to let me go with her, but she was adamant that I stay. “It’s my job, and you wouldn’t want to put me out of a job.” I gave up at that. I didn’t want to cause her any trouble.

  With her smile still wide, Anna left to get water. She filled the bath after several trips and then gave me space while I enjoyed the warm water and salts. This bath was much more enjoyable than the last one, during which I fretted over what the King wanted. I wasn’t without my worries this time, but at least I knew what I was up against.

  After the bath, I found a dress waiting for me. “I hope it’s your size, we have extras that I’ll tailor to fit you.”

  I’d never had a dress tailored to me before.

  Clean and dressed, I sat on the window seat gazing out over the gardens. Back home, we didn’t have money for flower gardens, and only wild flowers grew. But here, they had an entire courtyard attached to what must be a magnificent garden in the summer months. For now, it was frosted soil with a few lingering bushes, barren of their leaves. For a second I was torn by my desire to leave the castle, and my desire to see the beauty of the flowers. Winter would leave us in a few weeks and then spring would bring blossoms. Westfallen wasn’t as far north as other countries, which were plagued with thick, relentless snow. Winter touched us gently, bringing soft frosts and crisp winds that kept us inside, but didn’t prevent us from doing our work.

  Anna had started the fire while I was in the bath, and it crackled gently in the background as she perched herself on a large pillow near the fireplace to knit. I wondered if she would remain there all day. I had no tasks for her to do, and even if I did, I felt uncomfortable asking. Mama would have a fit if she knew I was using a maid instead of my own two hands.

  The silence was periodically interrupted by Anna’s questions. She was enthralled with my presumed Gift and had many questions for me about how I made the gold. I wished I had answers for her. Uncomfortable with lying, my shoulders shrugged, and I said the Gifts can’t be explained. Luckily, she let it go. Anna was friendly and would be a delightful companion during my stay at the castle, however long that proved to be.

  A knock came at the door, drawing my attention across the room. Anna must have heard the knock before I did, because she had already sprung up and dashed to answer the door for me. I slipped off the window seat as she pulled back the handle.

  “Oh, Your Highness.” Anna dropped into another curtsy far better than mine. Maybe I would have a task for her after all. She could teach me how to curtsy like that.

  I waited for the King to come around the door, but it was Prince Conrad instead.

  “Oh!” I started to curtsy, but he raised a hand.

  “Please, it is me who should bow to you. You are saving my kingdom,” he said. To prove his point, he gave me a deep bow. When he straightened, he brought something out from behind his back.

  “I thought it might be nice to write a letter to your family, let them know you are alright.” He came forward with the paper, quill, and ink. Embarrassed, I took it, not wanting to tell him that I couldn’t write.

  He rocked on his heels for a moment, and I was unsure what to do, keenly aware of my inexperience with speaking to nobility, especially the likes of a handsome prince, but in the same moment that I started to panic, his eyes softened and shoulders relaxed as he looked at me in a way that comforted my nerves. There was a distinct difference in how he looked at me compared to the King—Conrad didn’t regard me as someone he commanded, but rather with the gentleness of a friend offering a gift.

  I placed the writing equipment down on the wide desk near the bed as I thanked Conrad. When I turned around, he was still standing in the same place, looking uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not used to being in a lady’s room,” he said as he looked between me and Anna. Now it was my turn to feel uncomfortable. “You will let me know if you need anything else?” he asked as he took a few steps back toward the open door.

  “Of course, Your Highness,” I said.

  He put a hand up. “The girl who is saving my kingdom may call me Conrad.”

  Behind him, I saw Anna raise her eyebrows. I ignored her and thanked the prince again. Before he left, a question came to my mind.

  “Your Highness?” I called out quickly, forgetting that he had just asked me to use his name, but he didn’t seem bothered.

  I wasn’t sure how exactly to ask my question and wished I had thought it through a bit before blurting it out. “I’ve heard stories. Stories of a spirit who wanders the castle?”

  Conrad’s face was difficult to read at first, but after a pause his chest rose. “Yes. There are tales of an old king from long ago who made a bad deal with a sorceress. As a result, he was left to wander the castle until his curse ended.”

  My interest grew. These rumors were related to the ones Seamstress Kira had spoken of.

  Seeing the look on my face, Conrad quickly spoke again. “They are only stories. Don’t worry, the only magic in this castle is from the Gifts. Your Gift is the most magical of all.”

  My Gift. Right.

  I stayed still as Conrad left. Spirit or not, I had met someone last night. Someone who could spin straw into gold.

  As soon as Conrad closed the door, Anna started babbling about the Gifts again. “I wish my Gift was elaborate like yours, but I just make flowers grow. They are very pretty flowers, but they can’t help the King! They pleased the late queen, but she’s gone now, and the King has little use for them.”

  I nodded politely, but my mind was on what Conrad had said. An old king who made a bad deal with a sorceress. Was I meeting some old king who was forced to wander the halls? It was possible, but not likely. Rumpelstiltskin was no more than a few years older than me. Twice now, the king in the story had been referred to as old.

  Other
options, besides him being a spirit, was that he had a key to the room. He could have slipped in while I was crying or yelling and back out when I was asleep.

  Another option was that there were two ways in and out of that room. A secret door behind the bookshelves in the loft, or an exit under the rug.

  Under the rug. How had I not checked there before? I would be sure to look there first that night. If Rumpelstiltskin showed, and for the sake of my life I hoped that he did, I wanted to see how he was getting in.

  Anna’s voice snapped me back to the present. “I’ve heard those tales too, from my papa and his papa before him. They swear them to be true. Said the king made a deal to bring magic to the land. But something happened and he got cursed. Until his curse is broken, he can’t be free.”

  “What happened? How did he get cursed?” I asked with more intensity than I meant to show, but she smiled at my eagerness.

  “Don’t know, but I do know that he’s not to be trifled with. He has a lot of dangerous magic to him. And a man who wanders for a hundred years? He’s likely more animal than man now.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Rumpel!” I called out to the empty room. “Rumpelstiltskin!”

  I had checked under the rug, and there was nothing but stone floor. I tried to check behind the bookshelves, but they were too heavy to push aside, and I decided I would hear them being moved if that was how he was getting in the room.

  I waited for a few minutes until I started to fear that he would not come. The King had filled the room with even more straw than last night, and once again the door had been locked behind me. I tried not to worry, but time after time I called Rumpelstiltskin’s name and he did not appear.

  I wondered if it was because I was watching the room like a hawk. Perhaps he wanted to keep his point of entry a secret. I weighed my desires in my mind—the desire to know how he was getting in verses my desire to live in the morning, and decided I preferred my life.

  Keeping my ears sharp, I turned back to the window and began to count silently.

  A noise frightened me, though I shouldn’t have been startled. I was waiting for him, after all. When I turned, I found him already sitting at the spinning wheel, feeding straw through the bobbin.

  “You came!” I said, relieved. I hadn’t made up my mind if I trusted him, but he was my best chance at survival. I was grateful he had showed.

  “Of course I came. You’d die if I didn’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “Plus, I like having the company.”

  I approached him with much less fear than I had last night. If he had intended to harm me, I believed he would have by then. So far there was nothing but gentleness in his eyes, and he never made a move to touch me. I needed to know more about this strange man. I needed to know how he made gold. “Can you tell me who you are?”

  He kept his eyes on the spinning wheel. “I already told you. My name is Rumpelstiltskin, though you seem to like calling me Rumpel.”

  “Ah. Yes, well. Rumpelstiltskin is far too long,” I said. Slowly, I lowered myself to the ground next to him, keeping my eyes focused on him. He continued to spin without giving me a glance. I felt guilty that I wasn’t helping, but I didn’t see any way around that. Instead, I tried to rephrase my question. “I mean, who are you? Where did you come from?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Those are two separate questions, I think. But I shall answer them in return for two questions of my own.”

  “As you are saving my life, that seems like a fair trade.” I remained sitting stiffly, waiting for him to answer my questions. He took longer than I anticipated, but I had nowhere to go, so I was content to wait.

  His gentle voice was no more than a whisper, so I had to lean in closer to hear him speak. “I’m not human like you are. Not anymore, that is. My shape takes form when I want it to, otherwise I am like the wind, drifting wherever I desire to go.”

  I squinted as I tried to process how that could be. Giving in to the temptation, I swiftly reached my hand out to touch his arm, and he smiled at my curiosity.

  “Yes. You can touch me. But I’m not bound to this room as you are.”

  “I see,” I said, though I didn’t. I couldn’t understand. Was he verifying that he was the old king from the tale? Was he the one who made a deal with a sorceress?

  “I can promise you,” Rumpelstiltskin said as he continued spinning gold. “That my intentions in helping are pure. I know you have nothing to give me, and I won’t ask you for any payment. I’m helping you simply to save your life.”

  “Why?” I blurted the question out.

  “Because I’m a nice person. You can never be sure of that anymore. Not around here, that is. Far too many evil-hearted people.” His voice trailed off as he spoke, so I wasn’t sure if that last part was directed at me or himself.

  He finished a spindle and took it off, resetting the wheel with a new one. Then he sat himself back down and got to work again. His hands worked effortlessly, as if this was a familiar task to him.

  I still had many questions to ask him, but I didn’t want to be so greedy for answers that I scared him off. So, I sat and watched in silence. While I stared at him, he didn’t glance at me more than twice.

  My mind went through several possibilities as he worked. I thought about him trying to gain my trust, then all the ways he could hurt me. My feet inched away from him at that point. I had no reason to trust this man before me. It was safe to say that my mind had still not settled from arriving here yesterday. It all still felt like an elaborate dream that I would wake from and my mind was still trying to work through everything that was happening.

  But while the situation was difficult to process, I understood why the King wanted me here. I understood his desire for gold and why he thought I could provide it; that was easy to wrap my mind around. But Rumpel? I didn’t understand him at all. He had given me nothing about himself to try to understand. He was a mystery to me.

  I didn’t know Rumpel, but I wasn’t afraid of him. Knowing that helped settle my nerves. It could have been wrong, but something about him relaxed me. Studying him, I leaned back on my elbows and listened to him work.

  It was several hours before he finished, and while my eyes were sagging with tiredness, I had managed to stay awake.

  “I believe you owe me two answers now.”

  “That’s right.” I sat up straighter and rubbed my eyes. He spun around on the seat so that he was facing me and leaned forward on his knees.

  “One: why would the King think that you can spin straw into gold?”

  “Ah. Good question. My dear papa, who had the best intentions, mind you, told a story of me spinning straw into gold. So as to not ruin the fun, he gave a sly answer when asked if the story was true, and the King’s guard mistook his sneakiness for honesty.”

  Rumpelstiltskin nodded, looking interested. “So, then the greedy king drags you here and demands you spin him gold, or else he’ll kill you?”

  I affirmed that yes, that’s how the story finished. “I thought he would only want the gold from last night, but it seems he wants me to continue supplying it as a means to finish the war.”

  At the mention of the war, Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes went dark. The look passed so quickly, though, that I couldn’t be sure it had been there at all.

  “Second question. Are you close with your family?”

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting the next question to be, but that one threw me off. “Very much so, why?”

  “Then why did you not write them a letter when Conrad offered you the means to do so?”

  I gasped at him. He had been there for that conversation! I hadn’t realized he could do that. “You eavesdropper! Did you spy on me all day?”

  He held up his hands. “I am a gentleman, so I gave you your privacy when needed!”

  “That doesn’t make it okay! You have to ask before you do something like that!” I said, pointing my finger at him. He looked confused, but also amused.

  “
Alright. I will ask the next time. Though if you must know, I was watching Conrad first, and he led me to you.”

  That did make it a little better, though now I wanted to know why he was following Conrad. I still couldn’t be sure I fully understood what he was capable of.

  It dawned on me that if he was there to see Conrad give me the paper, he must have heard me ask the prince about the spirit that wandered the castle. I waited to see if he would acknowledge that, but he didn’t.

  “So,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “Why did you not write to your family?”

  I was embarrassed to answer his question. I lowered my head to my hands, so my voice was muffled. “I can’t write.”

  He goggled at me. “Can’t write, can’t make gold, what can you do?”

  “I can read!” I said proudly. “And do a few sums.”

  “Count. You can read and you can count. Is that all you know? How have you not been eaten by now?”

  I choked. “Because we don’t live in a savage world!”

  He shook his head at me like I was a child. “In my day, women were taught better than that.” I wanted to ask him what he meant by his day, but he was already standing up and sprinting toward the stairs. He ran up them, disappearing behind some bookshelves. There was some shuffling as he rummaged through things. A few moments later he skipped back down the stairs with a book and quill in hand.

  He sat down beside me and opened the book. The pages were plain. He lifted the quill and looked at me readily. “It seems I am doing everything for you tonight. What is it you’d like me to write to your family?”

  Unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears of gratitude. It had only been a day but so much had happened since I saw my family that the thought of reaching out to them gave me immense joy. First spinning straw into gold, twice, and now writing to my family. I doubted I would ever be able to thank Rumpel enough for what he was doing for me.