Rumpelstiltskin

There are no windows in the tower. The stone walls are lined with flickering torches, and a tall hourglass stands upright in the corner, looming over a bed I fashioned from straw. I’ve been locked up in here for three days, pacing like an animal in a cage.   

I do not trust the creature before me. His features are waxy and sullen, and he smells of something saccharine-sweet and vile, like rotting fruit. There is a glittering ring on each of his spindly, overripe fingers, and a sickly smile is playing on his yellow lips, which are curled upwards like a bow, or a scythe – or a scorpion’s tail, poised to strike. His teeth are sharpened into fine points. 

Do you have a choice, dear? he asks me. Do you have any choice but to trust me?  

There are fine hairs of straw hanging from my hands, flat and limp; and I can only see more of it, in the corners, in the rafters, in the cracks in the stone walls. The stool next to the spinning wheel lies flat on its side, knocked over after a bout of frustration, and I watch the wheel spin gracelessly, as though blown by some unseen gust of wind.

I look the creature up and down. His eyes are not focused on my face; instead, they are trained on my throat, and the blue jewel resting in the dip between my collarbones, winking like a star under the torchlight. 

The necklace is ancient. A family heirloom.  

I breathe in, steel myself, and undo the clasp.

Well done, girl, he says.   

***

The next morning, I am brought before the king. He preens over the stacks of gold in a marble throne room, round face awash in glowing yellow light. 

How did you do it? says the king. 

There is something over-eager about him. Like a schoolboy. 

I don’t answer. I offer a small smile instead, and avert my gaze down to the marble floor. My neck and throat feel bare without the warmth and weight of the sapphire stone. I want to bolt.

I lift my head, and the king’s gaze is heavy, and hungry. Greedy. 

Marvellous, he says, unperturbed by my lack of an answer. Marvellous, marvellous.

He still has not heard me speak. He picks up the gold bars from the stacks and turns them over in his hands, and I stand stock-still and silent in the centre of the throne room for what feels like hours, until it becomes impossible to fight the urge to skitter away, like a spooked bird on the forest floor. 

May I go now, sir? I attempt, summoning a last scrap of courage.

The king waves a hand, gesturing upwards. Yes, yes, go, he says. To the tower. You have another three days.  

Guards, each wearing a feather-plumed hat, rush forward from the sidelines, grab me from under the arms to fasten me to them, and pull me across the ice-cold marble floor, my legs and feet rendered limp and useless. All my protests are strangled; they die on my lips even as they bubble up inside my chest, frothing and foaming, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue. 

Go, says the king. More. 

***

For the next two-and-a-half days, the tower remains empty. I sleep to pass the time, lying down on the straw and the flagstones, as far away from the spinning wheel as possible. I have visions of the spindle at night: of its fine point rising up into the sky like a church spire, towering over the kingdom. I dream of goblins and long-fingered devils, crowing over piles of shimmering gold as villages burn behind them, ribbons of smoke writhing in the sky. 

I long for an open window, billowing blue-silk curtains, the bite of a draft in winter. I am desperate for a hint of a world beyond this one.

The creature arrives on the third day, and this time, I am relieved. 

What do you want? I ask, but there is no bite to my words. 

He grins, all teeth and folded lines, the glint in his eyes like cold steel. He is a trickster god in his own right. I cannot stop tasting bile in the back of my throat. 

Eager, aren’t we? The thing says.

What do you want? I repeat. 

He takes my grandmother’s gold ring with pleasure, and departs an hour before the sun rises.

***

The very next morning, I am standing in the throne room, bracing for the orders to be given again.

 It does not happen in the way I expect. 

I am not taken back to the tower; instead, the king sends me to another room: a larger, sunlit one. He leads me there himself, one thick red hand perched on my waist, as though escorting me to a dance.

Here, he says. Take your time. I’ll come visit you, soon. We’ll talk.

I have the urge to peel back my lip and hiss at him, like a feral cat.

Lovely, is what I say.

***

The third time, I spend each hour in restless anticipation; pacing back and forth, wringing my hands together, pinching and pulling at the flesh between my thumb and forefinger.

I have no more jewels around my neck, no more rings on my fingers. The walls are pressing in on me from all sides, shifting and breathing and threatening to collapse.    

The creature appears again, on the eve of the third day, while I am sitting cross-legged, my back to the wall, staring at another pile of straw. I am counting the minutes in my head; dreaming of hourglasses; glass shards; card houses; thin silhouettes; stone statues of angels, their eyes dull and pupil-less.   

Look at you, says the creature. Aren’t you in a predicament? 

When the creature lays out the bargain this time, I cannot stop myself from flinching. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.  

If I agree, I say, it needs to be a permanent solution. You need to stop the king doing this forever, or else you don’t have a deal.

The creature laughs, a shrill, reedy sound. I can’t do that, he says, teeth flashing in the slow-turning light, in the reflection off the silver mirrors. You can, though.

How?

The creature shrugs, a contorted sort of movement, collapsing in on himself. You are a prize to him, as much as the gold. Let him win you. 

I bite my tongue hard, until my mouth is flooded with the taste of copper and salt — and I strike the bargain, hastily signing my name along the dotted line. I do not give myself time to talk myself out of it. 

I accept the creature’s proposal, and the next morning, I accept the king’s.

***

After my acceptance, everything begins to happen very quickly. I send letters home to my sisters, though not to my father; I accept gifts and congratulations with gratitude; I play at grace and elegance; I learn the right movements as you would learn to play the violin. I become the picture of composure.

I forget how to speak for myself, but it is not an issue. 

The wedding is a grand thing. Merchants and foreign officials attend, bringing with them gifts from leagues over land and sea. I am gifted silver candlesticks; porcelain vases; hand-woven tapestries; gilt-edged hand mirrors; jade and opals in thick, round stones. I am presented with tiaras and earrings, recipes and poems, statues and watercolour paints. 

Hidden in the collection, there is a children’s rattle. I turn my bargain over and over again in my head. 

My sisters visit me often, whenever their husbands allow them, and they gossip to me about their own lives, and those of the people in my old village. The king keeps his distance. I am free to come and go as I like, mostly, and he demands no more miracles of me. I have time during the day to paint, embroider, read. 

I am not naïve enough to believe it will last. 

I need an heir, says the king. 

I do not protest, not with the strength I once thought I would. 

My deal remains, living in the back of my mind, an ever-present threat. I repeat it back to myself sometimes during the day, while I am alone; I read it out like a contract, like a declaration of war. I am always struck by its final clause.

A name, a name, a name. 

We both get our wish, eventually. She is born on a December night, two days before Christmas. When the king first hears she is a girl, he is not pleased – although I am, immensely. A cruel twist of fate, he says, and I think, You don’t know the half of it. 

The creature will arrive, soon. He always does.

 I lie awake at night, combing back through my memories of him, of every interaction we have had, every word exchanged. He never let slip a name. I would have remembered it. Wouldn’t I?

He comes on the third day after she is born. He stretches one hand out towards her, laid flat, like he is collecting notes and coins instead of a child. 

No, I say, flatly.

He is amused by this, of course. His expression is haughty, arrogant, and I sneer right back at him. He steps towards me, the scent of something rotten rolling off of him in thick waves, and says,

Fine. You have three more days.

Three more? 

I try not to let my surprise show. 

Yes, the creature says. I’ll come visit you on the third.

 I can sense his smugness already. It is written all over his face. 

Before the creature goes, he says to me, I hope she’s well.

I yank the satin slipper off my foot and hurl it at the closing door. 

***

I am running out of time, again. I sit among stacks of thick, leather-bound books in the castle library, pouring over the pages. Several are spread out before me, their pages lying open, and at least two sit on my lap, between my dress and the wood of the desk, lying flat like a shield. 

They are children’s name books.

The pages are smooth beneath my fingertips, time-worn, and the leather binding is scuffed and well-loved. The last time I did this, I was slow, steady, thorough. I had the luxury of time. 

I sit there for hours, until the sun begins to slip from the sky, and a woman comes to light candles and sconces mounted on the walls. I have not made nearly enough progress, but I cannot stay. I pack up my things and slip away, headed for the nursery. I bring some of the books with me, clutched to the front of my dress. I feel like a naïve, hopeful child.

I slip down corridors, through wide, carpeted halls that are lined with arching windows and flanked by the woodlands outside. I catch my reflection in the blue glass: a snippet of the tip of my nose, the trailing sleeve of my dress, a few stray wisps of hair. I look pale in that light; spindly, like an apparition. 

I round a corner, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a bright flash of light. I stop dead in my tracks. There are flickers of yellow and orange from beyond the glass, in the woods outside. I think I hear singing. 

I step towards the window, and cup my hands against the cool surface, like a moth drawn to a light, and peer closer. There is thick, black smoke in the air, and one lone figure, dancing by a fire. 

Quietly, I investigate.

***

She is asleep, and I am in the nursery, my hands folded in my lap. It is the eve of the third and final day. When the creature appears, he wears his familiar scythe-like smile.  

You’re not taking her, I say to him.

Oh? And why is that? he asks, amused.  

You were careless, Rumpelstiltskin.