Despite his wonders, he didn’t dare. He didn’t dare set foot back in the town of Sern, or anywhere in that entire kingdom. He’d been changed by Gothel, by being loved by someone who expected more. By betraying that love.
Sometimes, for a few weeks when he convinced himself that he could go back, that he could win her forgiveness, he worked hard at some little job he secured. He tried to be the better man. But always that image of her that night, naked, abused, broken, all because of him, came back. The evil that he had caused all came back to him. He was a wolf, and worse than devouring her himself, he had fed her to another pack.
The shame, the guilt, would lead him to drink and carouse, to find a pretty maiden and talk sweetly until her knickers were off. And then to abandon her, too, because it seemed that was all he was good for. He, like his father, the man who’d run off and left his Ma with a boy to care for and nothing else, he’d left Gothel with a bevy of pain to shoulder and nothing else.
One evening he lay in his bed, a bottle of cheap wine in his hand, wiling away what he knew would be the last night in this town. He’d worn out his welcome yet again, and no one wanted him to be still. They wanted him gone, he knew. Prone in his bed, he took swigs from the bottle and felt sorry for himself.
He closed his eyes and imagined Gothel, her shy smile, telling him that it would be alright, that everything would be okay. And that’s when he heard the knock on the door to his room.
At first he thought it was a figment of his imagination. His mind playing tricks on him, like it often did, playing for him the soothing, comforting voice of Gothel. But the knocking persisted. He yelled, “Go away,” his voice harsh and slurred.
The knocking continued. He yelled again, with the same result: continued knocking. Only now, the pounding intensified. It was a louder, steady rhythm. He crawled out of the bed, feeling like a creature emerging from some primordial ooze, and trudged to the door. He was half-dressed, just in his pants and no shirt, when he grabbed the doorknob, having made up his mind to tell off whoever dared to disturb him.
He opened the door, his mouth open to yell, but there was no one there. He turned to look down the hallway of the boarding house, and he saw the back of a red cloak as its wearer turned and rounded the corner, leaving the hallway.
He didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. He didn’t think about the fact that he was barefoot, he just ran down the hall, toward the wisp of the cape he had seen. “Gothel?” he called out as he rounded the corner, and then saw the full figure of the person in the cape, and it looked exactly like her shape. The cape wearer opened the door and ran out into the night.
He picked up speed now, knowing it was her. He had watched her trounce off in that cape so many times before. He ran down the hall, out the door, and into the night. It wasn’t terribly crowded, and he spotted her way ahead, at least fifty yards, on the other side of the square. He wasn’t sure how she’d moved so quickly, but it was definitely her. “Gothel,” he called out to the flowing red cape. She stopped, just for a second, but didn’t look back. Just long enough to let him know she heard him.
He ran toward her, but she managed to keep a good distance ahead of him, no matter how fast he ran. He followed her through town, then out into the countryside, and finally, when he was near exhaustion, she cut through the field of a home and ran toward an old barn. Even though he had a stitch in his side and his feet hurt from running through the dirt roads and scratchy fields barefoot, he got a second wind, seeing an end in sight. A proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
When he got to the barn, its huge wooden door was slightly ajar, just wide enough for a person to slip in. He slid through, his backside scraping against the door, to find candles lighting the barn. On the opposite wall, about twenty feet from him, stood the red-cloaked figure.
“Gothel?” he said, his voice just above a whisper, part of him wanting her to hear, part of him afraid she would. Afraid she had led him on this chase only to berate him now.
“Yes, Stil, it’s me,” she said without turning to him.
He took in a deep breath, half relieved, half terrified. He wasn’t sure why, but the air seemed to crackle. It seemed to be filled with some invisible electricity, something that made the room feel as if it were about to explode.
Stil slowly stepped toward her, the silent buzz in the air intensifying the closer he got to her. “Gothel,” he said, a plea in his voice. “You don’t know how sorry I am for what I caused. I think about you every day. I regret every day what happened.”
She turned, and Stil drew back immediately. It was … He wasn’t sure immediately. In a way, this creature resembled Gothel in height and build, but he couldn’t really see her face. It was hidden in the shadow of her hood. What he could see were two glowing eyes. Bright red, evil slits coming from the beneath the cloak and staring laser-like at him.
He wanted to run and hide, yet his body was frozen. He’d taken the initial step back, but now he couldn’t do anything.
“You think you regret what happened,” said the voice from the cloak and it was definitely Gothel’s voice. It was her, but he didn’t understand.
“What’s happened to you?” he croaked as he stared at this strange creature, clearly more than human, but also clearly Gothel.
The hood shook back and forth and a mirthless cackle emerged. “You,” she said. “You are what happened to me.” Her hands, which looked paler now as they peeked out from the sleeves of her cloak, reached up and pulled back her hood. And there she was. Gothel. Her face was almost the same. A touch whiter, as if she’d somehow lost her color, but her blonde locks had turned white as snow. They lay in a single braid plated down her back. Her eyes were still glowing, but much less brightly now.
“I don’t understand,” Stil said, deciding there was no way he could have done this to her.
“Before I met you, I was …” she paused and put a hand to her chin in thought for a moment. She looked down at the ground when she began to speak. “I suppose, the best word for it, was content. I understood my life wasn’t perfect, but I felt like it was the best that I could expect. I wasn’t pretty, like Giselle, or personable, and I didn’t much like people to begin with. So I never expected to marry or be happy. Not in the way my parents had found happiness. But I did expect not to be miserable. I expected to stay as I was, insular, to myself, going about the business of life. And I would have stayed content, but I met you.”
As she looked up at Stil, there was a bitterness in her eyes, and it seemed to make the glow brighter. “I met you, and I felt happy. I felt happy in a way I had never felt before. It was like I’d gone from that little silly caterpillar crawling along on a leaf and blossomed into a butterfly. I had wings and took flight, and it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever known.”
She sounded happy in her recollection. Stil couldn’t have described it better himself. “That’s how I felt.”
The shine of her eyes intensified and he could feel the loathing coming from her. He knew not to open his mouth again.
She stared at him a moment more, her eyes seeming to cool, and then she looked at the ground. “And then Lisle came up to me and she told me that you were a fake, a fraud, unfaithful. She said she didn’t want to hurt me, but thought I ought to know because I was a good person. I didn’t believe her.” The bitterness returned to her voice. “I thought she was a wolf trying to cause trouble. At least I was right about one thing. You weren’t going to come. You never intended to meet her, did you?”
Stil shook his head, the shame of his actions still burning within him.
“No, you didn’t plan on being there,” Gothel shot back, her voice laced with venom. “Old Gray hadn’t believed you were coming, either. When I got there, he was shocked that you’d sent him ‘something to play with.’”
Her voice had managed a perfect imitation of Old Gray’s voice. The bile rose in his throat as he thought about what had come next, about what they’d done to her. He hadn’t wanted to t
hink about it, yet somehow it was all he managed to think about.
“I tried to run, you know,” she said.
He focused on the floor, and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to picture it. He wanted her to be quiet and not make him think of the horrible things they’d done to her.
“Look at me,” she shouted, and he lifted his head to see her fiery eyes.
“I knew I’d walked into a pack of wolves, yet I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t convincing enough, and eventually, I just accepted what was coming.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he dropped to his knees. “Gothel, I beg your forgiveness. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not sorry,” she spat. “Not yet.”
He looked up at her, his heart thumping a shade quicker at her words. Not yet?
“You’re frightened,” she said, and a smile caressed her lips. “I can feel it. And you should be.”
“What happened to you?” he asked again.
“You,” she said once more. “When I left that night, I felt like nothing. I was nothing. I knew I couldn’t go home. I knew I couldn’t show my family the fool I’d been made of. I was lost, and then I saw him.”
Him. “Another man?”
Her eyes lasered in on him, and she shook her head. “Never a man, Stil. Never. A horse, a beautiful black stallion whose eyes were knowing and whose voice was soft. I climbed on, and he took me away. He took me to a community of women who can bathe your wounds and harden your soul so no men dare trample it again. They are kind protectors. They are true guard dogs, and I have joined their ranks. As one of the FaeRisen, I can protect the world and get my revenge on you all at the same time.”
The FaeRisen. Lisle’s talk had felt like nonsense. Magical vengeance witches sounded like wild stories of con men. The kind of thing maidens made up to scare cads away. But as he looked at her eyes and felt the sizzle of the air, he could think of no explanation except for magic. “What did you do?”
“What I had to do,” she said. “What I had to do to become powerful, what I had to do to seek my vengeance. I swore my allegiance and my chastity to the Fae.”
He frowned. “But that means you can’t ever be happy again, Gothel. You can’t have that family you wanted, even with someone else.”
She took in a little breath, and seemed wistful. “Sometimes that image of a sweet babe does haunt me, but I do not regret my choice not to have a wicked husband like yourself. And there are babes that I might help in other ways. But that’s none of your business, Stil. None at all. Right now, it is time for you to face your reckoning.”
He stood up. For once, he would stop running. For once in his life, he would be still. He would take his punishment like a man. He supposed she planned to kill him, and it was probably what he deserved. But his life had been miserable without her, so what would it matter if it were over? “You do what you need to do, Gothel,” he said, looking into those red eyes and trying to remember the beautiful violet ones that he used to love to watch. “I am sorry for what I did. Kill me.”
She cackled. “You think it’s over?” she said. “You think I will strike you down? You think you’ll get what Old Gray promised you all those nights ago?”
He squinted at her. “Old Gray? You know his name?”
She nodded. “I know who he is. Or, I suppose I should say, who he was. I came for you last. Old Gray and his pack have already been dispatched. They’ll harm no more women.” Her voice trailed off and then she added. “No more men or children, either. Their justice has been meted out.”
Stil swallowed, a new batch of fear coursing through his veins now. “What did you do to them?”
She smiled. “Not what I’m going to do to you. Some people deserve death, while others deserve worse. I saved you for last, because you deserve it. Save the worst for last, right?”
He wanted to say he was sorry again, that he hadn’t meant for this to happen to her. But she didn’t care, and the truth was, none of his sorrow mattered. As sorry as he was, it wouldn’t change what she’d endured.
“For you, Stil, I take away your life the way you took away mine. For so long, you traded on your handsome appearance to charm and seduce the innocent. I take that from you. From now on, you shall be a goblin — a manikin, impish and ugly.”
Stil stared at her, wondering if she’d gone mad. A goblin?
She smiled at him. “Like all goblins, you will have the ability to make gold and jewels. Isn’t that the thing you’ve enjoyed so much? Riches. You gambled and swindled to enrich yourself and left others behind to clean up your mess. Others like Lisle and me.”
Stil kept silent. She was right, he’d left a mess in his wake.
“So, you can make your riches, but you can never use your power for yourself. You may only use your magic to help others. That way, you can’t ever leave behind destruction in your wake, only the good of riches you bestow on others.”
“Gothel,” he said, his voice pleading. He still wasn’t convinced of her power entirely, but he was reminded of the truth. “I love you, still. I am sorry. Let me make this up to you. I can be the guard dog you saw in me. Even now, in your supposed curse, you believe I can help people. I can. I swear to you, I can. I can be the man you believed me to be.”
Gothel laughed as she pulled the cloak over her head. “But you are no man,” she said. “Not anymore.” With that, she started to walk away.
Stil turned to go after her, but he noticed now there was something different about his body. There was something different about his perspective. Somehow, he was shorter. He had shrunk, and Gothel looked huge as she headed from the barn.
He looked down at himself and realized he was tiny. His hands, his feet, his torso, everything about him was small, and his left hand had sprouted an unsightly wart. Sort of like the goblins of children’s books.
No, he thought. No, it can’t be. But as he looked at his hands, his mind couldn’t help but think it was true. He looked up toward the door, where Gothel had been heading. And there, propped against the barn wall beside the door, was a looking glass.
With trepidation he crept toward the long, thin mirror. As he approached, the reflection staring back at him came into view. A tiny little man with a wart on his nose, bulging eyes, puffy cheeks, and a tiny little mouth. The hair on his head was receding.
It couldn’t be him, he told himself. It was a trick of the mind. He closed his eyes, and then opened them, but the same image stared back at him. He screamed.
Epilogue
We all know the Grimm brothers’ tale of ole Rumpelstiltskin. By then, old Stil had been living his life as a little creature for ten years. He’d figured out a slight work-around for Gothel’s punishment. Yes, he could only make gold and jewels for others, but he found that he could barter with them beforehand to earn somewhat of a living. Sure, he was getting the short end of the stick on the deals, but he was getting something, which meant he didn’t always have to put in a hard day’s work to get himself fed and clothed.
He still wandered, never settling in one place for more than a couple of months. One summer, he happened upon a little village that was the center of a Kingdom. He heard a father talk of his beautiful daughter who could spin hay into gold. Even at the time, Stil thought it was a bad idea to boast of such things. He kept an eye out for the girl. Her father was putting her in danger from bandits with all this talk.
He also watched her because she reminded him of Gothel. The Gothel he first met: lovely, kind, innocent. A swath of golden hair on her head, though prettier than Gothel was at first glance. Gothel had a face you learned to love, and that might be why she stayed in your thoughts. She became lovely by her acts and deeds, not just through a lustful glance.
But this girl had natural beauty that you saw immediately. When the king sentenced the girl to the first night of spinning, he decided to help her. Of course, he took his fee. Bartering was one of the few ways he could earn anything. When people looked at him, they
usually turned away. They didn’t trust people so small and so ugly. Therefore, Stil wasn’t offended if someone was initially hesitant at accepting his help.
On the second night of her imprisonment, even though he’d helped her the first night, the girl still seemed repulsed by Stil’s looks, but he helped her anyway because it wasn’t her fault. It had been the fault of a man like himself — someone who’d been careless at the expense of someone he loved. He couldn’t make it up to Gothel, but at least he could help this girl.
And on that third night, as she still looked at him with a hint of contempt even as she asked for his help, Stil had an idea. An idea that seemed far-fetched, but possible. This girl was going to get her prince, her happily ever after. Maybe she could procure his, too. Maybe, if she gave him her first born babe, he could take it to Gothel. It would be the ultimate show of his love, a sweet blond babe that the two of them could raise together. Surely, he’d been punished enough. Surely, she’d forgive him, and this horrible life she’d cursed him to would finally be over. He could go back to himself. So he asked for the princess-to-be’s babe and she’d agreed ... And he knew everything would be perfect. Once he had the babe, he could find Gothel and she’d fix him.
Alas, we all know what happened in the end. Old Stil didn’t get the babe. But at least we know why he asked.
Also By Rosetta Bloom
The Princess, the Pea and the Night of Passion. If you love royal romances, and princesses in distress, you’ll love this story!
In this grown-up version of the famous fairy tale, Princess Adara is running from her old life and a forced betrothal. Adara wants love and passion, but knows she can’t get them back home. When a raging storm halts her escape, Adara seeks refuge in the first dwelling she sees.
Prince Richard is tired of the trite, vain, frigid princesses his mother introduces him to in hopes he’ll marry. On this stormy night, he’s in the mood to love a woman, but he’s all alone. Then, Adara arrives on the castle doorstep, saying she’s a princess in need of help. The queen is doubtful and decides to lock Adara in a room with a pea to determine if the girl is a real princess. Richard believes the beautiful, charming stranger, but he wants her locked in a bedroom for other reasons.
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