She didn’t see it that way. I had always wondered why.
Now, I had more than a sneaking suspicion that it had to do with the dangerous man named Rumpelstiltskin.
My blood curdled. What had he done to her? To all of us?
I banged on the door, not bothering with the light, polite taps as I usually did. No, this knock sounded like the boom of cannon fire at her door that would blow it in if she didn’t answer quickly enough. “Mother? Open up!” I hollered.
The door flew open, my mother’s normally coiffed appearance not nearly as put together as usual. Her face was free of makeup, and her hair was tied up in a sleeping cap.
“Eliana? Are you all right? What on earth is going on?” Her worried eyes scanned my body from head to toe, taking me in and inspecting me for any possible injuries. Finding none, she hastily knotted the belt of her dressing gown and motioned me inside as her concerned expression gave way to bewilderment.
“What’s going on?” she asked again.
“Where’s Father?” I returned. Did he know too? I wondered. Who exactly was to blame for all these years of secrets? Who besides her had intentionally kept me in the dark?
She opened her arms wide, indicating the rooms, empty of all but us. “He left already. He had to meet with some advisors early this morning. But if it’s important and you need him, I’m sure he’d be happy to come. Shall I ring and have him join us?” Her hand gravitated toward the bell pull and was halfway there when I shook my head.
“That won’t be necessary. I may speak with him later as well, but it’s really you I wanted to talk to.”
Her hand stilled, something in my tone giving me away. It was grim and foreboding; not the tone of someone who just had a hankering to see her loving parents.
“All right,” my mother said slowly. Her hand drifted through the air to settle in her lap. Her eyes flicked over me in a crude inspection. Before, she’d looked me over for injuries, but now she seemed to notice my furrowed brows, my stiff posture. And now, she understood this wouldn’t be an altogether pleasant visit. She seemed to gather herself, squirming in the chair—wriggling left and right until she found a position comfortable to her, and she straightened like someone who was preparing to be dealt a great blow. Now that her initial concern had passed, she seemed to sense the charged air between us and gathered that something was amiss. Something that was a big enough deal to send me charging to her door, pounding on it like the palace was under attack. “What’s—”
“What’s going on?” I air quoted with a great deal of sarcasm, then crossed my arms aggressively. I could hardly believe she even had the nerve to ask me that. “That’s funny. Hilarious, even. What. A. Coincidence.” I punctuated each word with a rhythmic and insincere cadence, tilting my head from side to side. “You see, it’s funny because I had the same question for you. But you did always teach me to respect my elders, so why don’t you go first?” I gestured toward her as though I was passing the conversation her way.
She squinted in confusion, forehead wrinkling as though she’d be able to spy my meaning if she just looked at me hard enough. “I’m sorry, darling, but I just don’t understand what you’re getting at. What is that supposed to mean?”
I could speed this up quickly enough. So I did. I held a single finger in the air and glared at her. “One word, Mother: Rumpelstiltskin.”
All of the air seemed to leave her body like I’d socked her in the stomach unexpectedly. It was that quick. That effective. Her perfect posture disappeared as she inhaled a shaky breath and sagged back into her seat. She suddenly looked old beyond her years. She rubbed at her temples. “I had hoped never to have this conversation.” She looked back up at me. “What do you know?”
“I don’t want you leaving anything out because you think that I don’t need to know it anymore. I know enough that I’m here,” I said curtly.
…Well, that simply wasn’t true. I tried again. “Well, I know some,” I corrected myself. “It’s not nearly enough. And that’s why I’ve come. So you could be honest with me for once in your life.”
But I could see that she still wasn’t ready to relinquish the truth. She was like a safe that had been shut for so many years that the lock was rusting. I needed more than just a key to open it with. She eyed me warily. “And what you know is…?”
I took a deep breath and said it again. The word. The name that would tell her all that she needed to know. “Rumpelstiltskin.”
She shuddered visibly upon hearing it, but I forged on, unsympathetic. “I know he’s a man. A dangerous one. I know he makes deals.” Another deep breath and I went for the kill shot. “And I know that you made one with him.”
She scooted forward in her seat and smiled wanly, running stressed fingers over her cheeks. She leaned forward onto her knees and looked me in the eyes. “I knew this day would come someday. But gods, I hoped to be wrong and that I’d never have to tell you. This knowledge is not kind to anyone, and I vowed that I would be a kind parent. Not like my own father. You remember me telling you about him? About how he was not a kind man? A lazy drunk?”
“Yes, of course.” A frisson of pity for the girl my mother had been sparked, but I hardened my heart against it. I wouldn’t let her distract me like this. I’d come here for answers, and I was damn well going to get them.
“Well, there’s more to the story.” She took a deep breath and began. “My story—mine and Rumpelstiltskin’s—began when my father bragged in a bar one day that I could spin straw into gold.”
My eyebrows shot up. “But spinning straw into gold is impossible without magic.” And unicorns aside, there wasn’t a whole lot of magic in Vale, so I knew my mother certainly didn’t possess such a gift.
She snorted. “Impossible didn’t matter to my drunk of a father. And didn’t much matter to your other grandfather, the king, either. After my father made such a bold claim, and it reached the ears of the king, it was spin straw into gold or be killed. Those were my choices. And not much of a choice either, seeing as how I was just a miller’s daughter. Not exactly a sorceress with magic at the tips of my fingers.”
Her expression became far away. “And in the midst of the impossible… he appeared. Rumpelstiltskin. Though back in those days, I knew him only as ‘the imp.’ And he gave me a chance. I didn’t have any magic, but he did. He could do what I couldn’t. It was simple, at first. All he asked for was a small thing. The necklace I wore. It was just a trinket, and I couldn’t get it off my neck and into his hands fast enough. He did what he promised, and the king let me live. But your royal grandfather wasn’t done with me. Greedy, now that he had a room full of gold where only straw had been before, he shoved me in another room filled with straw—bigger, this time—and demanded I turn all of that into gold as well. Again, I thought that I was doomed, but again, the imp appeared, offering to do the deed so that I might live. This time, the price was a little harder to part with. The ring I wore.” She smiled sadly. “It had been my mother’s. But it still wasn’t worth refusing when it would cost me my life. I yanked it from my finger, and he spun the straw. I hoped that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.
“The king put me in another room, even bigger than the last. I was told he’d make me a queen if I succeeded one last time. The consequences if I were to fail remained the same. I’d die. I remember thinking the life he promised wasn’t much better. I’d be marrying a monster. But gods, despite knowing the life that awaited me, I wanted to live. And the imp told me he could make sure that happened. If I just promised him my firstborn child.”
Her child.
All of my anger suddenly flew away as though my rage had been a balloon, and my mother had just neatly punctured it with a pin.
I understood now. I understood why she was always so afraid for me, that some terrible tragedy would befall me.
I may not have been borne of her body, but I had never thought that I wasn’t her child. And all my life, she had had a reason to believe I was in danger
.
Would I have behaved so very differently if it was Fae’s life at stake? I wasn’t sure that I would.
“At the time, I didn’t have any children to be concerned about. And I certainly hoped that if I married the king, I’d be able to figure out a way not to conceive his children.” She shuddered a little, her thoughts clearly back in that time, back with the girl she used to be. “I agreed. He did it again.” Her expression brightened a little. “But it wasn’t your grandfather they intended for me, but your father.” For the first time in the telling of this story, a true smile graced her face. “Prince Bennet was good and kind. And even if it meant I’d be related to his father, I considered myself lucky to be marrying him. And we grew to love each other easily over that first year of marriage.”
My heart swelled. My parents were quiet together, but the love between them was evident and genuine. It was nice to hear that had been the case from the beginning.
“It was only after I married your father that I regretted my bargain. I was diligent with my contraceptive potions, but both Bennet and I longed for a child. When your father examined the magical contract the imp had left behind, he found a loophole by guessing his name—I’d known him only as a devious imp, you see.
“The clause was written in as a goodwill gesture, I supposed. He’d written in a cancellation clause, but never expected anyone to actually be able to use it. And he’d been confident that Rumpelstiltskin was a name we’d never, ever guess. He was right, too. Except that he grew cocky and didn’t account for the fact that we’d been combing the kingdom for him. We spied him, heard him gloating to himself that was his name. When he came the next day for our series of guesses, we were freed.
“But I was still afraid to conceive. Rumpelstiltskin had left us with a terrifying oath. ‘One day, we’ll play another game. And you will have only yourself to blame.’” Her face was white. “I knew we hadn’t seen the last of him.
“But then, a year later, I received the most wonderful gift.” A trembling hand caressed my cheek. “You, my darling girl. Two strangers—women—knocked on our door one night. You were snuggled up in their arms, cozy in your blankets and fast asleep. They told me you were ours if we wanted you. That we’d be keeping you safe if we took you. And ‘if we wanted you?’” She scoffed. “I’d never wanted anything more. And I thought perhaps that since you were my child, but not the firstborn I gave birth to, and since we had theoretically broken the agreement with Rumpelstiltskin, I said yes. I was still afraid, but based on what they said, there was other danger out there for you as well. Perhaps the protection we could offer you from that outweighed the risk from Rumpelstiltskin. Whatever the risks, you were worth it.”
She swallowed hard. “But now that you have a child, borne of your body, I worry for you and Fae. I worry that my curse will somehow become yours. And I want nothing else less for you than that. I hoped it was over, but with all these questions… I know now that it’s not. It can’t be.” She rose to her feet and extended a hand, pulling me to mine as well so she could look deeply into my eyes. “So now I’ve told you everything I know, and it’s time for you to tell me: What brings this talk of Rumpelstiltskin to me?”
I took a deep breath and told her everything I knew of Rumpelstiltskin’s involvement in the unicorns’ disappearance. All the while, through the whole of my story, she grew visibly paler and groped behind her for a chair, sagging into it anew when she found it.
But she gathered herself, that spine of steel I’d always seen in her reasserting itself.
“If Rumpelstiltskin is at large, let’s not waste our time here.” She pulled a long rope near the credenza, and Hardy instantly entered the room, weapons drawn.
When he didn’t see any danger, he lowered his sword, brow furrowed, and expression confused. “Your Majesty, have you a need of me?”
“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I want you to go into the city and villages and root out Rumpelstiltskin.”
Hardy shuddered. That alone would have made me worry. He was my mother’s most trusted guard. If he knew enough of Rumpelstiltskin to be concerned, we all should be.
“He’s back?” he asked.
My mother sighed. “I’m afraid so. Take whomever you need for the investigation and keep me informed. I want a status report at the end of each day. Whether progress has been made or not, I want to know each place you’ve checked, who you spoke to, and what they said.”
Hardy bowed deeply and stood, thumping his fist against his heart. “It will be done, Your Majesty.”
“Wait.” I grabbed Hardy’s arm as he moved past me. “Find Jay and bring him with you. He’s begun some initial research already and knows a man, John Little, who bargained with Rumpelstiltskin years ago. If you hear his story yourself, you may be able to glean a clue that we wouldn’t. Or maybe he’ll mention something he hasn’t already.”
He nodded. “Yes, Your Highness. Thank you. We’ll follow any lead we are lucky enough to find with a creature as elusive as Rumpelstiltskin.”
I tried to fight back the growing lump in my throat. I had a feeling that I had not yet begun to understand what we were dealing with when it came to Rumpelstiltskin.
And I hoped that we could catch him before I had the chance to truly grasp it.
2
6th May
I had distracted myself the rest of the day yesterday with motherly duties. Without using the nursemaid at my disposal in the palace, there was certainly plenty to do with a newborn to keep me occupied, even if they weren’t the most thrilling of tasks.
During Fae’s nap, I used the free time to organize the gifts that had been sent from friends and other kingdoms in celebration of her birth. I shoved a drawer shut, and the sleeve of a onesie peeked out as if it was waving at me. I was running out of places to put things. I could only imagine what I was going to do when I had to organize the gifts from the party my mother was throwing for Fae.
I put a hand to my head. That was coming up soon. Gods, I hadn’t thought about that in days. Was there still stuff left to do for it? I felt as though the list was never-ending. I wondered if party planning was how my mother was occupying her time in between reports from her guards. After all, she didn’t have a new baby to distract her. And she had many years’ worth of worries about Rumpelstiltskin to obsess over. I was sure that the memories of her days with him were running through her mind over and over again like a play in which you couldn’t leave the theatre and the actors just repeated their scenes over and over again.
Maybe I’d check on her. I couldn’t take the lack of knowledge about what was going on anyway. When Fae went down for her next nap, I rang for Judith and let Avery follow me to my mother’s rooms while Williamson stayed behind to stand guard over Fae.
Hardy’s presence at the door had been replaced by another guard, which made sense, of course. Mother wanted her most trusted man leading the expedition to find Rumpelstiltskin.
The new guard gave me a little nod of respect when he realized who I was and allowed me access to the door to knock. This time, the knock returned to my usual: a few cheery little taps.
The door swung open—and my mother greeted me with what I could only describe as a sympathetic smile. My hopes plummeted before she even spoke and confirmed my suspicions. “They haven’t come back yet, sweet.”
Damn.
I made a disappointed little sound, and my mother tutted, stepping forward to envelope me in a warm embrace. “This is another reason I never told you about him,” she murmured. “Better that you should be angry with me for the methods I used protecting you than having worries prey upon your mind like this. That’s a mother’s job, not yours.”
She might have been right. I gave her a quick squeeze and stepped back, giving her a close-lipped smile of regret. “Be that as it may, I am a mother now too. And you’re right. It’s my job to worry.”
She smiled sadly and swept her arm around the room, indicating the large, empty chambers. “Do you want to come
in? Misery loves company. We could waste our hours worrying together.”
“Thank you, but no.” I shook my head. “I’ll only feel worse that way.”
“I understand. I’ll see you for dinner?” she asked.
I nodded. “You can count on it.”
I headed back to my rooms. Fae was probably still sleeping, so I took the long way around and tried to treat the brisk walk around the castle as exercise. Getting my heart pumping would surely take my mind off things. But that was to no avail. I couldn’t stop thinking about Rumpelstiltskin, even after I returned to my rooms and relieved Judith and was back on mom duty.
When I went to dinner, Mother still had nothing new to report. I tried one last time that day, but when I went by her rooms around ten o’clock at night, it was the same message. The guards hadn’t returned yet.
I clenched my fists, trying to hide my frustration. I was sure they were combing every nook, cranny, and hidey-hole that Rumpelstiltskin could be inside. Their lateness was likely only due to their thoroughness; so, doubtless, their status report would be arriving late. But I felt like a petulant child. I wanted it now, gods damn it.
Gently, my mother took my hands and led me back to the door. “Why don’t you go to bed?” she suggested. “If there is anything to know, we’ll know it in the morning.”
So, without any other action left to take (gods, I felt useless), I took her suggestion and put both Fae and myself to bed. Between Fae’s cries in the middle of the night and my own thoughts swirling about my head, I didn’t sleep well, but I did at least sleep a little bit, even if it was fitfully. When I woke, I didn’t feel rested, but at least the time had seemed to have gone by a bit faster. That was a small blessing, but one I was thankful for, given how the previous day had seemed to just drag on and on and on.
In the morning, I fed Fae and dressed her in a hurry, bringing her with me and my guards to my mother’s rooms. My mother had said she wanted daily reports. The guards had to have returned to deliver their first one by now. It was the next day, for goodness’ sake.
Eliana: Remembering Rumpelstiltskin (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 5) Page 16