The Golden Dreidel

by Ellen Kushner

  The stars wheeled in the sky.

  “Look,” said the Fool, “this is getting boring. Tell you what: if you give up, we won’t suck your brains out through a straw. Instead, you agree to grant us one wish. How’s that?”

  “Oh, all right,” growled the Demon King. “I do have the power to grant most wishes. What is it you want?”

  The Fool looked at Sara and nodded. Sara stepped forward. “We want the Golden Dreidel!”

  “Is that all?” The Demon King laughed. “No problem! We have plenty of golden dreidels here in our fortress. Come take a look! All the dreidels are dancing together right now. If you can find your friend, you can have her.” The demons pranced about with their torches, all heading toward an enormous door in the side of the mountain. Sara and the Fool followed them in. The torches cast light and shadows up the walls, but the ceiling was so high it seemed to disappear in darkness above them. They were in a huge room carved out of the mountain’s heart.

  “How do you like it?” the Demon King’s voice boomed.

  Sara heard music, wonderful music that made her want to tap her toes to the beat. It made her want to swing and sway—it made her want to spin! The flickering torchlight made her feel a little dizzy. Maybe she should just follow the music….

  “Hey, Sara!” She felt the Fool’s hand on her wrist. “What key doesn’t open a door?”

  She looked at his pale face and realized he was sending her a message: Don’t get sucked into the demons’ world. Remember who you are, or we’ll never get out of here.

  “Get it?” the Fool said.

  “Got it.”

  “Good! So what is it?”

  Again the picture from her old riddle book was before her, silly and black-and-white, funny and sharp, not at all like the twisting demon music….

  “A piano key.” She felt her head clear a little.

  “You’re good at riddles, you know that, kid? That peacock answer—pure genius. Which is good, because I think we’ve just fallen into another kind of riddle. And I, for one, am not sure I get it this time.”

  Sara looked down, and then around the hall. She knew exactly what he meant. The place was full of dreidels, dozens and dozens of them. And all of them were golden, just like her special gift.

  “That does it,” said the Fool. “We’ll never find the right one.”

  “Silence!” roared the Demon King. “The girl asked. The girl must choose.”

  All the dreidels were spinning round and round the floor in crazy patterns, bumping into each other and spinning away, but never falling down.

  “Pretty, aren’t they?” Ashmedai gloated. “We could watch them for hours. They never change. They never fall over. I think they’re just perfect, don’t you?”

  Sara just gazed at the dreidels, feeling a little sick.

  “Only one is the dreidel you seek,” Ashmedai taunted. “You have to pick right the first time. You don’t get a second chance in this game. If you choose the wrong one, you’ll have to join them in their little dance—like the rest of the poor fools who tried to defeat us. We’ll have two nice, new, shiny dreidels to play with—and you’ll be spinning with them—forever!”

  Where had all these poor people come from? Suddenly, Sara was afraid she knew. The Queen of Sheba and her caravan had been hurrying to rescue the dreidel princess. But the demons must have gotten them first. Now here they were, all spinning away with enchantment…and all exactly the same.

  “Don’t give up,” the Fool said nervously. “There must be a way!”

  “Let me see.” Sara stared into the crowd. “My dreidel had a scratch on her arm—we just have to find one with the scratch on it.”

  “How can you tell? They’re all going so fast.”

  “Hold still,” Sara begged the dizzying dancers. “Oh, please hold still, just for a second.”

  But the dreidels never stopped. If one had a scratch, it blurred into the spinning dance. Round and round their four sides went, round and round went the magical Hebrew letters….

  “Give up,” Ashmedai gloated. The other demons laughed. “Why don’t you just give up and join them? Isn’t the music pretty? All they have to do is spin and be admired.”

  “Sara—” warned the Fool, but Sara wasn’t even listening to the demons anymore. She was staring hard at the dreidels, willing her eyes to see through the blur of movement.

  “Hold it,” said Sara. “The letters—they’re all backward!”

  “You’re right! When the demons copied the real dreidel, they put the letters on the wrong way! So instead of nun, gimel, hey and shin, they’re…”

  “Don’t even say it; it’s making me dizzy!”

  “You’ll be dizzier before we’re through, if you don’t pick the right one. Look for the one with the letters going the right way! Concentrate!”

  “Give up?” came the Demon King’s mocking laughter.

  At the sound, one of the dreidels wobbled, just a little. In that tiny moment, Sara saw the scratch on its side—and then she read the letters: nun, gimel, hey, shin.

  “That one!” she shouted, pointing.

  “Nooooo!!” wailed the demons—but it was too late. All around them, the enchanted dreidels were changing back to people—tall and short, skinny and fat, young and old. (Sara was relieved not to see the Queen of Sheba there. But of course she realized the queen had powerful magic. She’d probably gotten away in time.) And there among them was Sara’s own golden-haired friend, her hair even wilder and frizzier than ever.

  “You did it, Sara!” cried the dreidel girl. “You rescued us all!” She gave Sara a big hug, and Sara hugged her back. “I am soooo glad to see you! I love to spin, but spinning forever with no chance to fall down…” The girl shuddered. “It’s like nothing could ever change.”

  “Boring,” said Sara.

  “Scary,” said the girl.

  The Fool bowed to her. “Greetings, Daughter of Solomon.”

  “Oh, hi there,” she grinned at him. “How’ve you been? And how’s your flying lox box?”

  “Flying lox box?!!?” screamed the Demon King. “That was the answer?!”

  The Fool shrugged. “It always was, it always has been, and it always will be.”

  Ashmedai’s face was turning as red as his nails. Flames shot out of his nose. “That’s the stupidest riddle I ever heard.”

  “Cheer up,” said the Fool. “Next time someone asks you, you’ll know the answer.”

  “I hate that riddle,” the King hissed.

  “Me, too,” growled Ornias.

  “Yeahhhh,” whispered Autothith.

  “This,” said the Fool, “may be the worst audience I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a few. I haven’t had so much trouble with a crowd since I tummled the wedding of Jacob and Leah. Now, that was a disaster!”

  The demons were getting ugly. Sara was twisting her fingers with worry. “Out,” she said. “Now.”

  The Fool looked up from his memories. “You think? But things are just getting interesting.”

  She was about to ask what his idea of interesting was when she found out. There was a brilliant flash of light, green as new leaves, and light filled the cavern, soft and bright as the morning after a storm. She heard a voice, coming from nowhere and everywhere, speaking words she couldn’t understand…but she felt a thrill run through her, as if she’d been asleep and had just woken up. Everything looked sharp and clear. The people who had been enchanted were clustered together, blinking and smiling and touching each other as if they couldn’t believe it. The demons were gnashing their teeth and waving their arms about and trying to run backward and running into walls. As soon as each demon touched a wall, he seemed to stick to it—and slowly to become part of it. It was as if the rock were water and each demon was sinking down, down, down—or maybe becoming part of the rock itself.

  King Ashmedai spread his huge wings and tried to spr
ing at Sara and her friends. But a voice rang out in the clear air: “Be thou bound, Ashmedai and all thy minions of mischief and mayhem, now and forever!” And the Demon King was sucked backward through the air into the rock, where he hung high up like a particularly large and ugly sculpture.

  “I’ll be baaaaaaaaaaaack!” she heard Ashmedai wail.

  “I doubt that,” said the Fool.

  Sara and her friends watched as the last of the demons disappeared into the wall of the huge cavern.

  “Solomon has spoken the Word of Binding. And this time it will not be undone. For the four letters have returned to us here.

  “Now, come,” the Fool continued, beckoning to the princess, “spin your letters for us, Daughter of Solomon, and bring us to the Tree of Life.”

  “Do I really have to?” the dreidel princess asked. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little sick of spinning right now.”

  “This is different,” said the Fool. “The demons tied up your power; this releases it—and gets us there faster, too. Get it?”

  The dreidel princess nodded. “Got it.”

  “Good.”

  She raised her hands above her head and began to turn. “But spin with me, will you?”

  “Is it part of the magic?” Sara asked.

  “No.” Her voice came from the center of spinning gold that was her hair. “But it’s fun!”

  Sara started spinning, too. She closed her eyes and went round and round and round. She didn’t feel dizzy. She just felt free.

  “OOf!” The dreidel princess fell down on the grass, and Sara fell all tangled up with her, still laughing. It was daylight, and they were someplace else, someplace different, green and beautiful and new.

  The Fool looked on anxiously. “What is the letter you landed on, Princess?” he asked. “What is our fate?”

  She looked down, and drew a deep breath. “Gimel,” said the dreidel girl. “We win!”

  Sara heard cheering. She looked up to see a crowd of happy faces: all the people they’d rescued from the demons, yes—but also the Queen of Sheba, with all her camels. At the queen’s side stood a tall man with a flowing black beard and curls, robed in purple and crowned in gold: King Solomon in all his glory.

  The royal couple stood together under a tall, spreading cedar tree. When the dreidel girl saw them, she gave a joyful cry and ran to her parents’ arms.

  The Queen of Sheba kissed her over and over. “Welcome back, my child. Goodness, how you’ve grown! What’s this scratch on your arm? Look at your hair, what a mess…. Oh, sweetness!”

  King Solomon held her close. “My daughter,” he said. “You have returned to us, and just in time. For see, above us, how the Tree of Life grows faint. Its branches droop, its needles fade, and the sap runs weak in it.”

  The princess nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to stay away so long. I didn’t mean to get captured by the demons, either. Things just kept happening to me.”

  Solomon nodded. “That is the way of the world. But you are here now, and it is time for you to fulfill your destiny.” He lifted his hands over her head. “Now I call on the four powerful letters I invested in you to rise and manifest their power: the power of Knowledge, the power of Strength of Heart, the power of Mercy, the power of Lovingkindness! With these letters, dance now, my daughter, dance around the Tree, and give it life for us and all the world!”

  The princess tilted back her golden head, looking up at the branches above her and the sky above them. She put up first one arm, and then the other, and her feet took one step and then another. Sometimes with her back to the tree, sometimes facing it, she turned about the majestic cedar’s trunk. She seemed to be weaving a golden rope. Her hair whipped out behind her as she danced faster and faster…and her dance became the spinning of a top, too big for a child to hold, a tiny sun whirling through space.

  Around and around the tree she went, and Sara imagined she saw her leaving a trail of burning letters in her wake: Nun, gimel, hey, shin…Nes Gadol Haya Sham: A Great Miracle Was There.

  As the princess danced, the tree seemed to breathe. Its boughs grew stronger and straighter, and the green of its canopy nearly filled the sky. At last the golden-haired girl fell, breathless and glowing, back against the tree’s enormous trunk. For a moment, the tree seemed to bend and embrace her. Then a great stillness filled the land.

  King Solomon placed his hand on his daughter’s brow, and then on her temples, and then on her heart. “It is finished,” he said. “The binding of the magic is complete. My daughter is restored to us, and the Tree of Life is safe.”

  The Fool winked at Sara. “Let’s do handstands,” said the Fool. But Sara shook her head, no. It wasn’t the time for being foolish for her.

  “What’s the matter?” the Fool asked. “You’re the heroine, you should be happy.”

  “That doesn’t count,” Sara said sadly. “It’s over, I know it. In all the stories, that’s how it goes. I finished my quest: I rescued the dreidel princess with the help of some magical friends, and now I just have to go home. Those are the rules, it’s how it works.”

  “What’s wrong with going home?”

  She tried to knuckle a tear back into her eye. “You don’t understand. I’m in so much trouble there. I fought with my brother and all the cousins at a family party, and we broke—I broke the TV…. Everyone hates me. It’s so bad I don’t even know what my punishment will be. And it’s not like I can tell anyone what really happened! Nobody will ever know about the d-dreidel, because I can’t tell them about this or they’d think I was crazy, not anyone at all, ever….”

  “Not anyone?” Sara heard a friendly voice. Turning around, she saw a woman dressed in royal robes of silk. Her long, white hair fell curling down her proud shoulders like a waterfall, and her face shone with light. But there was something familiar about her….

  “Tante Miriam?!”

  “You were expecting maybe Barbie? Of course it’s me.” Tante Miriam held out her arms, and Sara ran to them. Tante Miriam might look like a queen, but it was definitely the same old lady who had appeared, all raggedy and travel-worn, at the family party. She was family, too, and she was here.

  “Oh, my Sara…” Tante Miriam hugged her close, and her voice was as warm as her arms, saying, “Sara, my darling. Such a girl, such a daughter of Israel, such a treasure, such a jewel…”

  For some reason, it was her warmth that made Sara cry, deep sobs that melted into her auntie’s gown as she held her.

  “It’s all right,” Tante Miriam murmured into her hair. “Really, really it is. I chose you for the Golden Dreidel and the Golden Dreidel for you because of who you are, not in spite of it. I chose you for your stubbornness and your good sense and your curiosity and your kindness. And I chose well.”

  Sara sniffled.

  Tante Miriam handed her a silk handkerchief. “Oh, and listen, don’t worry—I used to fight with my brother, too.”

  “You did?” Sara raised her face.

  “Of course I did. And he was a lot bigger than yours, and very important. We had some pretty great fights, my brother and I. But even Moses sometimes listened to me.”

  “My lady.” It was the Fool addressing Tante Miriam. Her aunt nodded to him, wiped Sara’s face, and led her forward to where the king stood under the tree.

  “Welcome, Sara, our great friend, our rock, and our helper,” said King Solomon.

  Her dreidel friend put her arm around her. “Isn’t she the greatest?”

  The king smiled. “Without you, none of this would have been possible. Without you, our daughter could not have crossed back between the worlds.”

  Did he mean it was good that she’d broken the TV screen? Oh, boy, Sara sighed. She wondered if Tante Miriam was going to show up there again to explain it all to the family. Somehow, she doubted it.

  “Without you,” the king went on, “our child would have had
no friend to help her. Without you, she could never have been set free.” Was he done now? This was getting embarrassing. Everyone was standing there in a big circle admiring her, and she found she just wanted to hide. She should do something, she knew, but she didn’t know what. She didn’t know how to curtsy, or make speeches, or do magic. A handstand was starting to seem like a good idea. Did King Solomon like jokes? She looked at the crowd. The Fool made an unbelievably goofy face at her, and Tante Miriam gave her the thumbs-up sign, and she found the nerve to answer, “I didn’t do much, great king.”

  “Your help was timely and good. Accept our thanks, and those of all who dwell here.”

  The people started cheering. This wasn’t so bad. Sara found herself grinning.

  “Sa-ra! Sa-ra!” her dreidel friend shouted. The Fool was doing cartwheels, and Tante Miriam was waving her scarf like a flag. Sara waved back. Finally, things quieted down.

  “I know you must return to your own home now,” said the king, “but before you go, name your reward. If it is within my power, you shall have it.”

  The thought of home brought her quickly back to earth. It was going to be awful. Unless—“Can you fix it so the TV’s not broken any more?”

  “Of course,” the king said with a smile. “But let me give you something else, as well: a blessing on your courage and your wisdom, for both have served us well this day, and we are grateful.”

  King Solomon raised his hands high over his head, his fingers spread out over her. “As you read the letters right, and knew truth from falsehood, so you will always be able to distinguish between them. You will live and grow, and the letters will dance for you!”

  The letters seemed to be dancing right now: Sara saw them all going around the tree in a golden blur—not just the letters of the dreidel, but every letter of the alphabet, combining to make word after word as they danced, as if the world itself were being created in letters—or maybe it was the people she had rescued, dancing in their joy, dancing because they could choose to dance as they would wish, instead of being forced to spin for no reason. Sara found herself caught up in the dance, with the Fool on one side, and a small warm hand that could only be the Golden Dreidel’s. Sara seemed to be melting into the golden light like butter…light was in her eyes, warmth on her face….