I nodded to my shadow, the dark figure applauding my victory. Even the fire seemed to congratulate me. The flames licked wickedly as they sent sparks flying into the air with every pop.
I knew his name, and I had nothing more to fear. The last Rumpelstiltskin would die for his treason, just as he should have all those years ago.
Chapter Eleven
Thread:
verb: pass a thread through the eye of (a needle) or through the needle and guides of (a sewing machine).
verb: move carefully or skillfully in and out of obstacles.
Unhappily: Rumpelstiltskin
I watched the sun begin to sink, and I luxuriated in imagining the king in the castle, prey to the most sickening worry for his brat.
If I closed my eyes, I could see him, fingers drumming against his chair, anxiety bleeding through every cavity of his heart, sweat beading on his forehead until it rolled down his neck. I drifted pleasantly through these images, then a sharp summons voice cut through my peace like an ax through butter.
Come to me!
The king along with his delicious fear dissolved, and I was left with nothing but Laila’s voice scraping in my head.
Come!
Vicious pain spread across my brain. I fought to block it. No one had ever summoned me like this before, but then again, no one had ever bound my blood to them in a contract. No doubt, that’s how Laila found this channel through to me.
COME!
The veins in my temple throbbed, and my skull wanted to crack from the pressure. The agony was unrelenting, merciless, and I feared if I did not answer her fraught cries, my head would undoubtedly split in two.
What a lovely visit this promised to be.
Clenching my teeth to dull the pain, I closed my eyes and willed myself to go to her. I focused on the familiar despairing flame blazing in her chest I wished I didn’t want so badly. In an instant, my room’s wooden floorboards turned into palatial stone beneath my feet. The kiss of a burning fire heated my skin.
Opening my eyes, I saw Laila standing regally in the center of her private salon. There was a look of grim determination on her face. I sighed, partly because I didn’t want to fight her, and partly because I wanted to kiss her frown away. Neither was a good option. The sooner I could get this fiasco of a visit over with the better.
“It takes courage to summon me here. Especially tonight,” I hissed.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she replied, every inch of her glorious form radiating queenly dignity and strength.
“You should be. I do not take kindly to house calls,” I growled. “What’s so important you dragged me up here? Are you going to appeal to my humanity again?”
“No.”
“Really?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. The Laila I knew and understood would have rushed at me, begging and full of rage. This icy queen was an unknown player in my little chess game, and I had to be on my guard now more than ever.
“Your last display of humanity has left me more than a little uneasy,” she replied. “What you offered was ridiculous. Three days to guess your name? Giving that blasted quill to Edward instead of me? You wanted his signature instead of mine, even though the debt was not his to pay. I want to know why.”
“Always so suspicious! Can’t I just be generous?” I snapped. “I gave you a chance. True, I might have placed the responsibility of this new contract on your dear husband, but I thought it time he protect someone other than himself for once. I don’t see what you are so concerned about. I’ve granted your every request, and yet you still don’t seem to trust me.”
“Why should I?” she asked with a delicately-arched scornful eyebrow.
“Let me ask you. Have you gotten everything you wanted so far? Haven’t I always been true to my word?”
She was silent for a moment, but in the end remained unmoved. “None of that matters.”
“How so?” I asked, surprised.
“Because I know you hate him. You hate him more than I do. I see it smoldering behind your eyes. Even now it burns,” she said, taking slow, deliberate steps towards me. “I can’t trust anything you do when it is all born out of a hatred such as yours.”
I swiftly moved back to keep the distance between us.
“I told you that’s my business,” I warned.
“Not anymore,” she said calmly, approaching close once more. “The moment you had me sign that first contract, your rage became my business. Tell me. What are you planning?”
I opened my mouth to tell her off, but no words came to me. No one had ever demanded an accounting of my motives. No one had ever dared to question me. No one…until a miller’s daughter who became a queen and then a mother, and who now stood before me like a magnificent avenging goddess swathed in purple and gold.
“What did Edward do to you?” she pressed again, now standing toe-to-toe with me. “You want to break him, and I demand you tell me why!”
The perfume of her hair maddened me, and every dip and curve of her face begged for my kisses. There was no earthly reason I should desire her, should feel this agonizing yearning within my being to hold her and protect her from everything and everyone, including myself.
“You are just a coward, rigging a fight so no one but you has a chance of winning,” she continued. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re just pulling the wings off a fly, the legs from a spider, and enjoying watching as it squirms.”
I made no conscious decision. It was simply that one moment, she was standing there, berating me, and the next, I had grabbed her and pulled her against me, as if I could force my pain into her just by touching her. She had to understand. I had to make her understand. The black bile of my hate pushed up out of my throat, boiling over like lava, and there was no stopping the damage it was determined to cause.
“He destroyed everything in my life that I held dear,” I snarled, pushing her toward the wall with my body. “I am only repaying the favor.”
“Repaying the favor?” she laughed. “I’m just supposed to accept that as a reason for you to destroy everything I hold dear in my life? This is madness!”
“It is justice.”
“There is no justice when innocents are sacrificed!”
I pushed until she was against the wall, with no place for her gaze to rest except upon me. Still, there was no fear in her, no sign of the terror she should have felt at my power or at the knowledge of my pain.
“Is that so?” I asked, not recognizing my own voice anymore. I was no longer in that room. I was no longer talking to Laila. I was lost to my rage. “Let me tell you about the sacrifice of innocents. Imagine your mother, your sweet mother, locked in a room. Trapped. Fire blazes all around you and you have to listen as she cries out for you to save her. You can smell her flesh burn, and there’s nothing you can do but listen to her screams grow louder, more desperate, as flames broil her skin and singe her hair.”
At last, I saw reaction in Laila. She tried to turn her face away, but I grabbed her chin, digging my fingers into her flesh and forcing her to look at me. She wanted to know the reason, so I would damn well make sure she knew everything.
“There are also a child’s shrieks clawing at your brain. She is your sister. She is burning, and as her cries for mercy grow silent, you know it is because the flames have finally scorched her lungs.”
Laila shook her head against my hold on her jaw, but I would not let her go. She thought she had felt trapped in that dungeon? Let her feel the horror of being truly trapped through my words.
“Don’t forget your father, your loving father. You have to watch as the monarch he serves plunges a dagger into his chest. The sound of the metal scraping against his bones is the worst of all. Snap. Pop. Until there is a nauseous gurgle as blade meets heart and muscle.”
I struck the wall with my hand, and a thunderous crack fueled by my magic and rage echoed darkly through the thousand fissures that chased along the stones down to the very foundations of the castle. A wave of pain rippled
through my tendons but it was nothing against the agony of the memories that tore at my soul. She jumped in surprise as the stone rumbled behind her head. Pure horror shone from her eyes.
My throat was so tight I couldn’t breathe as I released her and turned away. I couldn’t look at her anymore. Retreating back to the hearth, I fell into a chair and leaned forward, pressing my elbows into my knees and resting my face in my hands. Silence loomed over us, heavy and wicked.
“I’m…sorry,” she finally whispered.
“Sorry?” I repeated with disgust, not bothering to look up at her. “That won’t fix much. I can still hear them screaming, you know. Still see the blood running out of my father’s mouth and chest. I have been taunted, kicked, chased out and betrayed. I am haunted, Laila, and the ghosts will not leave me until the king’s heart is silenced by my hand.”
She swallowed hard and stared at me. I watched dully as she struggled to collect herself and summon some reserve of inner fortitude.
“And after the ghosts are gone,” she asked. “What happens then?”
“That would ruin the surprise if I told you, and I’d hate for that to happen.” I tried to sound bored and blasé, but I was too hollow to hold any malicious mirth. This was not exactly the way my revenge was supposed to play out. “Stop wasting my time with these questions and get to the real point. I know you didn’t summon me here tonight just to offer your heartfelt condolences on the passing of my family. You want something more from me. I can smell it rising from your skin.”
She took a deep breath and asked, “If Edward fails to discover your name, what do you intend to do with my son?”
“There is no need to concern yourself. The child will be well protected, remember? You weaseled your way into getting me to sign my name to shelter it from any and all danger. I couldn’t let harm befall him even if I wanted to. Isn’t that knowledge enough to let you sleep at night? Isn’t that what you wanted? For you to be free of the screaming and the wailing of those infernal little lungs while you enjoyed being queen?”
She let her gaze fall to the floor. “I thought that’s what I wanted,” she confessed. “I was wrong. I see that now. A child needs a parent’s love. Otherwise, you are nothing but lost and scared. An orphan forever wondering why you were abandoned. I don’t want that fate for Tristan. I love him. I love him with my entire being and I want him to know my love. Don’t you see?”
I didn’t answer.
“Kill Edward,” she spat. “Take his kingdom and land. Take my wealth and title. I’d give it all up to stay with my child…to love him and be with him always. That is what I want. My debt cleared so my child can have its mother. Perhaps then I can start repenting for my sins. You know what it is like to grow up without a mother. Would you condemn another to your fate?”
I laughed at her. Cold poison coursed through my veins now, and it killed any remorse she hoped to spark. If only I wanted the king’s blood. I wanted his suffering, and that child was the only way.
“Can you really clear a debt such as yours?” I asked. “A mother who signed away their child, bound it to me with their own blood? You are truly stupid to think it could be such a simple thing to change. It is forever. Eternal. You belong to me, miller’s daughter, since the moment your father took my bait.”
An icy chill overcame her features.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“Does this really surprise you that much? You really don’t know how deep this all goes. How do you think the king discovered your little talent? Why would your father claim you could do something I just happen to be rather skilled at doing?”
She paled, and her pupils widened with shock.
“That’s right. I was there, whispering in his ear, egging your father on. How lucky that night there happened to be a group of guards to overhear him. He was happy to spin his tales in exchange for the river of whiskey I bought him.”
“You are a monster,” she said in a tone of quiet, horrified wonder, as if finally realizing the truth of the matter.
“I’m far worse,” I replied darkly. I could no longer bear her looks of both compassion and revulsion. I told myself it was because I had had my fill of her whining. I stood and turned away, preparing to vanish to anywhere but there.
“Edward will find your name,” she said softly, moving to stand over the crib where her infant son slept. “I will keep my son. And you? You will have to live knowing you have become the very thing you hate.”
The miller’s daughter spoke as if she conjured both prophesy and curse. My blood ran cold. I thought of summoning my magic and vanishing, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that something had just gone terribly, dangerously wrong.
Unhappily: Laila
I picked up Tristan, careful of his precious, sleepy form. He was still so tiny, impossibly tiny yet perfect with all those toes and fingers. He was the one gift Edward had ever given me that I was truly grateful for, and I did not hate the part of Edward that was him.
The stranger sat silently next to the fire, his thoughts lost in its flames. I shuddered at his revelations and felt an unwelcome wave of compassion for him. I couldn’t help but trace the lines of rage and grief reflected in the elegant lines of his brooding, handsome face. Oh, what a farce my life had become! Fascinated by a stranger while I held my son by another man. I disgusted myself. Yet, if there was one thing that could redeem me, it would be to save my son.
Desperation and pain once again made me clever.
“What if I came with you?” I asked quietly.
The stranger looked up sharply, narrowing his eyes at me.
“There is nothing in the contract that says that I may not accompany my son when he passes into your possession,” I persisted gently, allowing the faintest trickles of hope and humility through the sluice gate of my emotions. “You do not want the care of this child, and by bringing me with you, your vow to see the child well cared-for would be fulfilled.”
The stranger raised his brows mockingly, but I could tell by the twist of his mouth that he was actually considering my offer. I turned more fully toward him, letting my breasts rise and fall with my breath. His eyes grew dark as he understood my other, silent offer. I gave him nothing but honesty with my eyes. I knew deep within my secret self that I would gladly give my body to him, but in that moment, I realized that I would also give him my love, and a lifetime of patience to heal his heart. I shook from the enormity of it all.
He opened his mouth to speak, and the door to the room flew open, banging against the wall as Edward strode in, grinning like a cat with the cream.
“You needn’t hunch over the babe like a she-wolf,” he proclaimed. “We have nothing to fear from that man. He’s a coward.”
“Is that so?” the stranger said coldly, suddenly standing behind Edward. “What a rude thing to say. But then, you never were one much for manners.”
“I was wondering when you would grace us with your presence. I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost,” Edward said with a self-satisfied smile. “Care for some wine?”
The man curled his lips in disgust, and his eyes darkened with rage. I could barely breathe from fear.
“I haven’t come here to drink your rotgut,” he hissed. “I’ve come for something far more precious. Your child. Now, if you would kindly hand him over, I would love to be on my way. Don’t want to make this messier than it already is.”
He walked towards me, and I tightened my grip on Tristan. Edward put out his arm, preventing the stranger from coming any closer. For the first time, I was grateful for his foolish bravery. The stranger only gave an annoyed smirk.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Yes, actually,” Edward replied. “You told me I had three days to guess your name. Don’t you want to know if I succeeded?”
Rumpelstiltskin’s body stiffened, but he nodded in acceptance.
“Be my guest. Let’s see what that fine mind of yours was able to concoct.”
He went back
to the chair and sat down, pressing his fingertips together in an exquisitely sarcastic steeple.
Edward clapped his hands, and in rushed a servant holding a long scroll. The king took it from him and slowly unrolled the parchment, revealing it to be filled with names. Hundreds of names.
The man pressed his fingers harder together and I could briefly see his jaw clench behind them.
“Since you last saw us, I’ve made it my mission to discover every name in the kingdom. Collecting them as you can plainly see on this scroll, here.” He patted the paper. “Let’s see which is yours.”
Confusion overcame me momentarily for the reason for such theatrics until I realized the objective. Edward was playing a game, as he always did. He wanted to watch the stranger squirm, just as he watched me squirm when he threw me in that dungeon of straw. Only once his prey’s anxiety reached the level he desired would he go in for the kill.
A vicious smile pulled on Edward’s lips as he began the hunt.
“Is your name William?” he asked.
The man shook his head and cleared his throat.
“What about Thomas?”
“No,” he replied firmly.
“Gerhardt, perhaps?”
It went on like this for several minutes, and with each passing name, the man relaxed. He let his hands fall to his lap and crossed his knee. That familiar nonchalance he loved to exhibit returned full force.
“Yuri?”
“Come, you must do better than that.”
“Klaus?”
“God in heavens no!”
“Well, it has to be Victor.”
The man laughed and stood from his chair, but his laugh didn’t ring true. It didn’t’ hold the easy triumph that it usually did. There was a sharp, dangerous metallic sound to it now, and I feared the worst.
“Are we quite finished with this rubbish?” he asked Edward. “Obviously you don’t know anything about who I am. I can’t stand here all night while you waste my time with a bunch of nonsense. Now, if you’ll kindly excuse me, I am going to take what’s rightfully mine.”
Spin: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Spindlewind Trilogy Book One) Page 15