The Spinner and the Slipper

by Camryn Lockhart

  © 2016 by Rooglewood Press

  Published by Rooglewood Press

  www.RooglewoodPress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  This volume contains works of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of each author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover and book design by A.E. de Silva

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One: A Promise and a Vow

  Chapter Two: A New Family

  Chapter Three: A Different Kind of Life

  Chapter Four: Loss

  Chapter Five: A Fateful Boast

  Chapter Six: A Royal Summons

  Chapter Seven: Real Gold

  Chapter Eight: Rising Tensions

  Chapter Nine: Tears into Glass

  Chapter Ten: Abandoned

  Chapter Eleven: The Power of a Name

  Chapter Twelve: Broken Hearts

  Chapter Thirteen: Feigned Pleasantries

  Chapter Fourteen: Mischief Making

  Chapter Fifteen: Forgotten Memories

  Chapter Sixteen: Of Dancing and Games

  Chapter Seventeen: Lingering Threats

  Chapter Eighteen: A Bargain

  Chapter Nineteen: Glass Slippers

  Chapter Twenty: Nameless

  Chapter Twenty-One: Home

  Diwedd y Stori

  About the Author

  To my lovely mother

  who makes books come alive with her accents

  and taught me to love a story well told.

  Pronunciation guide:

  Dienw (dee-en-oo) – Nameless

  Diwedd y Stori (dih-weth ih stori) – the end of a story

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Promise and a Vow

  The gentle light of sunset fell through the open window to gleam upon her mother’s golden head. Spun gold, Eliana thought, as she often did when she saw her mother’s hair down and loose. Ordinarily the miller’s wife kept it carefully tucked away under a cap, so the sight of it was a rare treat enjoyed only by the miller himself and his sweet young daughter.

  Now Mother’s hair spread across her pillow in a fan of shimmering gold. Yet while those locks gleamed with the very light of life, the pretty face they framed was gray and faded.

  “She’s not sick,” the local physician had whispered to the miller only a few short hours ago. “She has no fever, no sickness or consumption that I can detect. She is simply… fading.”

  Eliana sat at her mother’s side, holding tight to one limp hand. Occasionally she reached out to stroke either one of those lustrous curls or one of those sunken cheeks. Tears stained her face, though she did not cry. She had wept enough, she decided; and if her mother woke just once more before the end, Eliana wanted her to see a cheerful, smiling face, not one red and puffy and full of sorrow.

  Mother stirred. Eliana’s breath caught in her throat. Father was not here; he had wandered out into the yard, his grief so great that it sent him fleeing from the deathbed of his beloved. Should she call him back? Eliana could not decide, and she feared to leave her mother’s side for even a moment. Her grip unconsciously tightened on the thin, wasted fingers she held. “Mother?” she breathed.

  A slight line puckered the dying woman’s brow. Then, her paper-thin eyelids fluttering gently, she gazed up into the face of her only child.

  They were very alike, this mother and daughter, or had been up until now. Oncoming death had robbed the miller’s wife of her beauty, sparing only her spun-gold hair. Her features were pinched and strained and gray. But Eliana was blooming into what her mother once had been—lovely and round-eyed, with a dainty mouth eager to smile. Eliana lacked her mother’s crowning glory, however; for her hair was an ordinary brown and straight.

  Yet, to the miller’s wife, this girl was the most beautiful creature in all the worlds.

  “My darling,” she said, her voice raw in her throat. “I am so sorry to leave you.”

  “Don’t say that, Mother,” Eliana replied, scarcely able to force the words around the lump in her throat. “You’ll feel better soon, you’ll see. The doctor says you aren’t even sick!”

  “No, I am not sick,” her mother replied. “I have never been sick a day in my life. But I cannot live in this world any longer. I must go on to heaven, where I will wait for you. I promise.”

  Eliana tried to answer, but the tears were rising thick and fast, and she feared they would escape if she spoke. She turned her head away, fighting for control. When she looked at her mother again, she smiled a valiant, determined sort of smile.

  The miller’s wife, not fooled in the slightest, wished she could do something, anything at all, to ease her daughter’s pain. There was little enough she could do now. Except . . . except . . .

  “Here, Eliana,” she said, and with more strength than she had demonstrated in many days, pulled her hand from the girl’s grasp. She held it up so that the simple gold ring shining on her finger momentarily gleamed as brightly as her own hair. “Here, I want you to take this. And my necklace,” she added, putting up her other hand to touch the gold chain that lay upon her gaunt chest.

  “No, Mother,” Eliana replied, shaking her head quickly. “They look so pretty on you. You will want them when you get well again.”

  “They will look better on you,” her mother insisted. “And . . . and they will remind you of me. Please, my darling. Please take them. I want to see you wear them, before . . . before . . .”

  She could not find the strength to finish the sentence. Tears welled in Eliana’s eyes again, but she forced another brilliant smile and, to please her mother, took both the ring and the necklace and put them on. “There,” she said. “See? Do you like how they look on me?”

  “Yes,” said the miller’s wife. “I like them very much on you.”

  “Then I will never take them off,” Eliana assured her. “Never.”

  But her mother slowly shook her head. “You must not say that, my dear. They are made of real gold. Real gold loses its luster if those who own it cling to it too tightly. You must promise me, if someone asks you for either this ring or this necklace, you will give them what they ask right away, without question. And you will only take them back if they are returned to you just as willingly.”

  Eliana scarcely heard what her mother said. Why should she care for jewelry now, whether or not it was real gold? The only gold she loved was her mother’s spun-gold hair. But the light was fading from it even as the sun set lower beyond the horizon and darkness fell.

  “Will you promise me, Eliana?” her mother asked, her voice a faint, whispering breath.

  “I promise, Mother,” Eliana answered. “Anything you ask. I promise. Only, please . . .”

  She did not finish. She saw that, as soon as her promise was spoken, her mother’s spirit slipped away from her body, never to return.

  Eliana bowed her head and wept now without comfort. But the simple ring on her finger and the delicate chain around her neck glowed bright with the warmth of a mother’s love, which lingers on long after death.

  Beyond the miller’s yard, across the mill stream, safely hidden in the woods, a tall figure stood beneath an oak tree. No one saw him, for no one looked to see him. Even someone looking would spy no more than a flickering shadow and think nothing of it.

  He stood still, like
a stag scenting the breeze. As the sun set and his own shadow lengthened across the forest floor, his bright green eyes watched the window of the miller’s house as though waiting to see something appear there.

  Suddenly his gaze quickened with interest. He blinked and seemed to follow the flight of a swift little bird, which darted out of that window and off into the twilit sky. But there was no bird to be seen, at least not by mortal eyes.

  The man whispered in a voice like the gentle stirring of leaves, “She’s gone. Poor, dear lady.”

  A single tear trembled in his eye before falling down his cheek. He was quick to catch it—for it would not do to leave something so priceless lying around in the mortal world. He caught it on his handkerchief, which he tucked away in the breast pocket of his tunic.

  Then, on silent feet he glided out from among the trees and over the stream. He navigated around the miller easily enough. The man sat on the bank of the stream, weeping quietly, unaware of his surroundings. The poor mortal had lost his wife, after all. The silent stranger spared him a brief moment of pity.

  He slipped across the yard like the shadow of a cloud until he came to the window of the miller’s house. He peered inside and saw the body of the miller’s wife. How strange she looked to him! So hollow. So empty.

  But beside her sat her very likeness in living, human flesh! Dark-haired, certainly, and younger by far. Nevertheless, the resemblance between mother and child was unmistakable, especially now that the daughter stood upon the threshold of womanhood.

  The shadow-man’s heart went out to the girl as he saw how desolately she cried. He wished he might catch and save her tears even as he had caught his own. But he dared not approach her for fear he might frighten her. And he did not want her to fear him—not in the least.

  He spotted the gold ring on her finger and the gold chain about her neck. The sight made him smile, albeit with some sorrow.

  “I’ll watch over you,” he whispered to the maiden, though her ears heard nothing more than the sighing of a breeze through the tall grasses. “I will protect you in honor of your lady mother.”

  With this promise, he vanished. But not for long.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A New Family

  “I will be home soon, I promise you,” said the miller to his daughter one day in spring, three years after the death of his wife. “I cannot bear to visit my brother for longer than a week and will return to you within a fortnight. You may rest assured!”

  Eliana kissed her father’s cheek. She preferred that he not leave, of course. She was not used to staying home alone for such a long period of time. But she was mistress of this humble house, and she knew how to care for the mill, the geese, the pig, and the cow. If she grew lonely, she could always walk down the lane to the village church and say her prayers amongst others.

  She held out his hat. “Give my very best to my uncle,” she said. With a grateful nod and a smile, her father donned the hat, mounted his donkey, and set off down the road, leaving Eliana behind on the doorstep.

  She watched until her father disappeared through the trees. Then, with a sigh, she went about her solitary day, doing her solitary tasks, preparing for a solitary two weeks. First, she decided to chop wood for the fire, then draw water from the well. There were plenty of tasks to keep her busy, and she did not shirk a single one of them. The more she worked, after all, the more time she filled before her father’s return.

  Since the death of her mother, Eliana and her father had grown close, depending on one another in their grief. For the first few months Eliana had feared the miller would sink so far into despair that he would never recover. However, slowly but surely she had drawn him back into the world of the living, giving him reason to smile again.

  Now, though both felt the hole left behind by her mother’s death, they got on with their lives well enough. The mill was prosperous, serving to grind the grain of three separate villages, and though they were not rich, Eliana and her father were comfortable in their lot. Sometimes the miller even spoke of adding on to their small house, though Eliana protested that they had no need of more room.

  On the third morning Eliana woke to find that one of the geese had broken free of the pen and wandered off into the wood somewhere. With a heavy sigh she set out after it; if she let the fool thing roam free, it might become a feast for some fox. She followed the trail of downy white feathers, calling and clucking to the goose as she went. The whole flock knew her voice and, while not exactly obedient, they would often come to her when she called.

  She crossed the mill stream and continued on into the forest. The long shadows cast by the trees never gave her pause. This was her forest. She had grown up in it. She knew every deer trail as thoroughly as any merchant knew the cart paths to and from the various towns. Never once in all her days had she felt afraid.

  This day, however, something felt different. Perhaps it had to do with the isolation she’d experienced since her father’s leaving. Somehow, knowing that no one waited for her back home made the forest itself seem much bigger . . . much more brooding.

  “Ho-oh!” She whistled twice, a low and high note. “Ho-oh, here, goose!” she called, but her voice faltered. What was that whisking away behind the oak tree? Was it only her imagination? Or perhaps the shadow of some silent bird wafting between tree limbs?

  Giving herself a little shake, she hastened on her way, whistling shrilly. “Ho-oh, here goose! Ho-oh!” She called more loudly now, as if to convince herself that she wasn’t afraid. “Where are you, silly bird?”

  Something crackled behind her. Something heavy-footed.

  Eliana whirled around, her mother’s gold necklace swinging free at the suddenness of her movement. Chills crawled up her spine. Her eyes round, she stared into the shadows. But there was nothing to be seen. Not even a little fawn startled into flight. The forest was empty around her.

  Suddenly, a noisy honking startled her; but her fears subsided a moment later, for she recognized that raucous voice. “Ho-oh!” she called, turning and hurrying down the deer trail. She found the goose waddling toward her, shaking its little tail and flapping its wings as if trying to fly. It looked spooked, as though it fled from something. Though it was a heavy bird, Eliana knelt and scooped it up into her arms. It nestled there like a lost child relieved to be found at last.

  “What frightened you, feather brain?” Eliana asked it, peering around the goose’s nuzzling head into the forest beyond. The silent, looming forest, shot through with rays of early morning sun . . .

  Some sixth sense told her that something was there, but she could not quite see it.

  “Come on,” she murmured to the bird. “Let’s get you home.”

  She turned and strode swiftly back along the trail, carrying her fat goose. Though her arms were slender, they were strong from hard work, and she did not mind the burden. Having something to hold, something that needed her protection, gave her courage.

  She did not see the shadowy figure that appeared from behind the oak tree and watched her walk away.

  “She almost saw me,” the shadow-man whispered. “Amazing! No mortal eyes could spy me”—he chuckled in disbelief—“but she nearly did. I must take care to keep my distance if I don’t want to be found out.”

  With that he flitted away, and the forest was silent once more.

  As the end of the fortnight drew near, Eliana could not help watching the road with a little more eagerness than usual. She had not been completely solitary during her father’s absence, having taken the opportunity to pay calls on neighbors and visit the village church, as was her custom. But the nights were lonely and dark, and she longed to have her father home to fix meals for and to talk with him about the day.

  Just two days before Eliana knew she could reasonably expect to see her father home again, Grahame the milkman’s lad drove his cart into the mill yard. This appearance was not unusual; Eliana often sold some of their cow’s creamy milk to the milkman, and Grahame liked any excuse to
pay a call on the miller’s daughter. He was a rough-skinned, ill-spoken young fellow, and he certainly would never have dared “speak up” to lovely Eliana. But he liked to sit a few minutes in her presence every so often, enjoying her gentle voice and polite manners.

  Eliana, recognizing the bell on the milkman’s donkey, stepped out into the yard and shaded her eyes as Grahame drove up. “No milk to sell today,” she called out as the cart creaked to a stop. “I needed all of it to churn my butter.”

  Grahame shrugged at this, quiet as usual. To Eliana’s surprise, he reached inside his threadbare jacket and pulled out a letter, which he handed to Eliana without ceremony. He then sat hunched in the driver’s seat to see how she reacted.

  Eliana blinked several times, turning the missive around in her hands. She recognized her father’s scrawling hand, unused to practicing penmanship save in the keeping of ledgers. Why should Father write to her when he was due home soon?

  An inexplicable feeling of dread creeping over her, Eliana opened the letter and read it under Grahame’s watchful eye. Her face paled. She tried to smile then, but it was a weak attempt.

  Grahame, seeing the object of his affections distressed, dug up words from deep inside himself and rumbled, “Be aught amiss?”

  “No,” Eliana said quickly, glancing up at him and trying to strengthen her smile. “Not at all. My father is . . . he’s getting married. He’s bringing a new wife home at the end of next week.”

  Grahame grunted. Realizing that something more was probably required, he pushed out the traditional phrase: “Best wishes.”

  “Thank you. Yes . . .” Eliana’s thoughts whirled. Though she had been lonely only a few minutes before, she suddenly wished she knew of some miraculous word that would send Grahame on his way. She needed no one looking at her as she tried to comprehend this revelation. She needed the creak of the mill, the gurgle of the stream, the sounds of her animals, the wind in the trees . . . and solitude. She needed solitude. But she was too polite to ask Grahame to leave.