Wool is dull
Wool is old
No dull wool
Can shine like gold
I spun with raging speed. If I was fast enough, maybe the magic wouldn’t have time to work. I saw a gray strand emerge from the wheel. My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t changing! Then the dull gray lightened and shimmered, and before my very eyes it transformed into a thick, shining thread, stretched tight over the wheel. Gold.
There were rocks in my throat. I broke the thread off quickly and jumped away from the wheel, like somehow I had infected it with my curse.
I went back to bed with the gold threads wound tightly around my finger, making it numb and tingly. I thought of my mother, holding me at birth, whispering my name in my ear.
Rumpel …
Trapped. Tangled. Ensnared. But why? Why would a mother who loved her child bestow such a fate upon him? I wanted there to be more, another explanation, but the more I thought about it, the more trapped and tangled I felt, and I knew that there was nothing more. Only the cruel echo of my name.
Rumpel, Rumpel, Rumpel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Warnings from Red
In a week the world was white with the first snow. My aunts huddled in the wool room near the fire with their work. I didn’t want to be around any of that, so I took a walk to the village. Gnomes waddled around with their tongues out, trying to catch snowflakes. That reminded me painfully of Red. I scooped up a girl gnome with pigtails and a pudgy nose. “This message is for Red in The Mountain.”
“Message for Red in The Mountain!” she squealed.
I hadn’t gotten a message from Red since I came to live with my aunts. I was a little worried. Was she all right? I wanted to talk to her, but with the gnome wriggling in my arms, I found I didn’t know what to say.
Dear Red,
I’m living with my three aunts, who are witches. My real name is Rumpel, and it means I’m trapped in magic forever and no one can help me. Opal is having a baby, and I might have to take it.
I just didn’t think that message would inspire Red to respond. Mostly, I wanted to send her something so she would send a message back.
Dear Red,
I’m in Yonder now. It’s not so cold here, and guess what? I have three aunts! And guess what else? I grew! Maybe I’m taller than you now. Also they call me Robert here, so it’s probably better if you do too.
Your friend,
Robert
The gnome scurried down the road until she was just a speck in all the white.
After that I walked to the village every day, even though it would be at least a week before a gnome came back with a message.
It took sixteen days. The gnome was so frozen I had to take him home and thaw him in front of the fire before he could say anything to me. I was delighted at first, but then Red’s message wasn’t so cheerful.
Dear Robert,
Lord Greedy-Fatty-Miller-Oswald is withholding more rations because we’re finding even less gold. I think the king has found Opal out. Don’t worry, I won’t say a thing about you-know-what. Obviously, Opal can’t make gold out of straw, but the king can’t kill her because … you know …, and so the king has turned his wrath on The Mountain, demanding more gold. But there is no gold. So everyone is really hungry and grumpy.
Red
P.S. You might be taller than me, but I can still pound you.
So King Barf was punishing The Mountain through “Lord” Oswald. How he must have raged when he discovered Opal couldn’t really spin the gold! Maybe she told the king about me to spare herself. Maybe soldiers were already searching for me. No. That couldn’t be. It had been too long. Opal and the miller were probably afraid to tell the king that they had deceived him. They must have come up with an explanation for why she couldn’t spin the straw into gold anymore, like expecting a baby takes away her magic powers. Yes, I could believe that. But I wasn’t too confident that Opal would think to say it.
Poor Red! She sounded so miserable. Maybe I could cheer her up with a rhyme, but the gnome who brought Red’s message ran away as fast as he could from my message. I guess even gnomes have their limits. I found another in the village and sent Red a poem.
I know a miller
Greedy and fat
Smells like a troll
Looks like a rat
He steals all the gold
And he creeps like a cat
But one day The Mountain
Fell down on him
SPLAT!
I waited seven days and then went to the village every day to search for a gnome from Red. Sixteen days. Seventeen. Eighteen. I told myself it was because of the snow and ice. Maybe the gnomes refused to take any more messages such a long distance.
Twenty days.
Twenty-five days.
Thirty-four days! It took thirty-four days to get a reply, and her message was even less cheerful than the last. She didn’t say anything about my poem.
Dear Robert,
The miller has been asking me about you. He asked if I knew where you were or if I’d heard from you. I wanted to punch his nosey nose, but I can’t do that, so later I punched Frederick for no good reason. Well, he’s Frederick. That’s a reason.
Don’t send a gnome back. I think the miller is starting to sniff with his oversized nose.
Your friend,
Red
P.S. As always, Granny says watch your step.
The miller was asking about me. I tried to swallow the hard lump that had risen in my throat. He couldn’t possibly find me here, could he? I was far away in Yonder, tucked in a little wood with three witches who were my aunts. I was safe. Wasn’t I?
But what if the miller could find me? I didn’t want to believe it was possible, but if he could, I feared what he would do. He could hurt my aunts, or use them just as he’d used me. Staying with them this long had been selfish on my part. I was putting them in danger, and they deserved nothing but kindness from me.
I should probably leave now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Destiny Calls
I was not safe, and neither was anyone who cared about me. I tried to brush off the feeling, especially when I sat with my aunts in the warmth of their home, eating their good food, and watching their magical spinning and knitting and weaving. But it was no use. The more I tried to tell myself not to worry, the more I worried and knew that I had to leave.
I left my aunts on a frigid morning without so much as a goodbye. I couldn’t risk them knowing where I was headed, and I didn’t think I could bear the looks on their faces, especially Ida. I would miss her most. I would miss our rhymes. I made up a farewell rhyme as I walked away.
Home is a place with three dear aunts
They cook good food and sew nice pants
They spin and knit and weave and mend
Goodbye for now, my three dear friends
I walked through the forest while it was still dark. My satchel weighed down on my shoulder, heavy with the food I had stolen from my aunts. My stomach was heavy with guilt.
The frozen snow crunched beneath my feet. I had decided I would go to the mountains beyond Beyond. It was the farthest place from The Kingdom that I knew of. I could live all alone, in a mountain cave far away from anyone, and herd goats and live off their milk and whatever the land would give me. I had considered going back to the trolls, thinking they might be able to protect me from my own magic. But I wasn’t too fond of the idea of eating sludge for the rest of my life. My stomach wriggled at the thought. Besides, they were so close to The Kingdom, and I knew they got news of weddings and babies. The risk was too great.
I emerged from the trees and was on the road before dawn. The air was bitter cold, and I wrapped myself tighter inside the thick coat my aunts had made me. Soon I’d left the village behind.
Before long I heard muffled voices in the distance. It was still dark, but I could just make out the shadowy movements of something farther up the road. I veered off
into the trees. It might just be a farmer bringing wool to the village, or a peddler coming to trade his trinkets and treasures, but I didn’t want anyone to see me. As they drew nearer, their voices became clear.
“I don’t think this is right,” said a boy’s voice. It was irritatingly familiar.
“The woman said he came this way,” said another voice, also familiar.
“But she didn’t see the gnome! We were supposed to be following the gnome! If you hadn’t lost it—”
“It’s impossible to keep up with a gnome, you idiot! And, anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re on his trail. When I find that Butt, I’m going to punch him so hard he sees pixies!”
“You punch like a girl, Frederick.”
“Quiet! If we don’t find him, Father’s going to make us go back to The Mountain and work in the mines. Do you want that?”
“No.”
A chill ran down my spine that had nothing to do with the freezing air. My heart began to thump in my chest. Frederick and Bruno were standing just feet away from me. I shifted nervously, and a dead twig snapped beneath my boot.
“Shhh! Did you hear that?”
“Probably a rabbit.”
I held very still. Frederick moved in my direction. If he came any closer, I would need to run. I stepped back, bracing myself.
This is where I would like to really complain about The Witch of The Woods’s advice. You see, if you’re going to give someone advice, it’s important to be specific. Watch your step is not specific at all. You take a lot of steps every day, so it would really help to know which step to be careful on! Watch your step when you’re around poop, or a trap. Watch your step when you’re near a tower window. Or a pixie nest!
I stepped on a pixie nest.
I think my aunt Hadel’s advice was also lacking. Waking one pixie from its winter sleep is foolish. Waking a nest full of pixies is a death wish.
A piercing shriek exploded from the ground and filled the air so that it must have reached every ear within a mile. Pixies shot out and pelted toward me like a thousand tiny arrows, pink and blue and red and orange sparks, their teeth bared for war. I screamed like a mountain lion and fell to the ground and rolled, throwing mud and dirt all over, but those pixies bit my nose, my cheeks, my ears, and all ten of my fingers. They bit clear through my clothes on my arms and legs. Three went up my pants and bit me right on my namesake.
Finally, the pixies flew away through the trees, either satisfied that they had punished me enough or tired of the dirt. I could feel all my body parts beginning to swell. My bottom expanded beneath me. My legs felt like fat logs floating on water, just bobbing around without any control. My face puffed up, making my skin stretch and tighten. Although my eyes were swollen nearly shut, I could see enough to know that Frederick and Bruno were standing over me. They wore soldiers’ uniforms and both pointed big hunting knives right at my face.
“Hello, Butt,” said Frederick. “Fancy a stroll?”
“No thank you, I’m rather busy” is what I meant to say, but that’s not what came out through my swollen lips. It was more like “No shaksoo, I sathoo bithy,” and drool ran down my face.
Frederick laughed. “I didn’t think you could get any uglier. Tie him up.”
Bruno knelt down and grabbed my puffy hands to tie them together. He had a time of it, though. My hands were so fat it was almost impossible to get my wrists together. Finally, he tied me at the elbows, which was probably the only place the pixies didn’t bite.
“We’ve missed you so much, Butt,” said Frederick, and he patted my swollen face. I winced.
Bruno laughed. “Father misses you too, and so does our sister, the queen.”
I was afraid they were going to tell me she’d had the baby, but they didn’t. I breathed. As long as she didn’t have a baby or I didn’t hear of it, there was a way out of this. Of course the miller wanted me to spin gold for him, but I didn’t have to. I wouldn’t. Not for anything!
They dragged me out of the trees and then marched me down the road, in the direction I had already been traveling, but definitely not where I wanted to go. I knew this was a very serious problem. Frederick and Bruno were kidnapping me at knifepoint. I should have been terrified. But I couldn’t think of any of that because I was seething mad at that swarm of pixies and at Red’s granny for her vague advice. I had sausage fingers, I could barely see, I was drooling out of fat lips, and my butt was lopsided. It’s very awkward to walk with a lopsided bottom.
As I waddled down the road, my heart swelled too—with sadness. I could say that none of it mattered, that I should just give up and let the tangles keep wrapping until they covered the top of my head and pushed me down into the earth. What did it matter that Frederick and Bruno had captured me? What did it matter that they were taking me to the miller, who wanted me to spin him gold forever? But in my heart it mattered. I didn’t want to be trapped. I wanted to grow. I wanted to break free.
When the sun set, we stopped to camp, and I was tied to a tree near the road. I was actually grateful to sit on snow and ice. It soothed my sore, sorry rump. But I was also starving, and I watched hungrily as Frederick and Bruno tore through my satchel and ate all the food I had packed. They threw me a chunk of bread, which I had to bend down and eat in the dirt like a dog.
Frederick commanded Bruno to guard me. When they were together, Bruno did whatever his brother told him, but by himself he was meaner than Frederick. Maybe he was only mean to me because other people made him feel small and he wanted to prove that he was big. I suddenly felt sorry for Bruno in a way I never had, and Frederick too, because he probably felt small around the miller and the miller probably felt small around someone else, like King Barf. But I didn’t feel too sorry. Bruno might feel smaller than me even, but I didn’t think meanness was ever in anyone’s destiny. Meanness was a choice.
At first we only sat in silence, but then Bruno grew bored. He laughed and poked my swollen face.
“They made a good breakfast of you, didn’t they?” He laughed and laughed until he fell in the snow and sputtered at the cold shock.
As darkness fell, it grew very cold. I sat shivering against the tree, while Frederick wrapped himself in a thick woolen blanket. Bruno tried to do the same, but Frederick yanked his blanket away. “Keep watching Butt,” he commanded.
“He’s tied up tight enough,” whined Bruno.
“I said watch him!”
Bruno faced me and glowered, but as soon as Frederick was asleep, he wrapped himself in his blanket and curled up by the fire.
“Good night, Butt!” Bruno whispered loudly, and then joined his brother in snoring slumber.
I waited and shivered. Everything was quiet. The fire was dead, and there was only a sliver of moonlight to see by. It was impossible to sleep because I was so cold and swollen with pixie bites. So I stayed awake thinking about my destiny, and when I got tired of that, I cursed pixies and gnomes, but mostly pixies.
But then a miracle happened. During the night, my swelling started to go down, helped by the cold air, I guess, and as it went down, my bindings loosened. I wriggled but it wasn’t quite enough to get me free.
I deflated a little more every hour, and I wriggled and wriggled as Frederick and Bruno snored on. Just as the sky was fading from black to purple, my hands and arms were almost back to normal and they slipped out of the ropes.
I praised the pixies. I wished they had bitten me a hundred more times and made me as fat as the miller. Beautiful, lovely pixies! It’s funny how some things you think are so terrible can turn out to be really wonderful. I loved my swollen arms and fingers and my lopsided butt!
Something rustled in the bushes. Probably just a squirrel or a rabbit, but it made Bruno stop snoring. He smacked his lips and pulled his covers tighter around him.
I moved as fast and as quietly as I could. With my arms free, I was able to wriggle myself out of the rest of the ropes. Just as I pulled the last rope over my head, the rustling noise came again
, and from the shrubs appeared a gnome. He was hopping with great excitement.
“Greetings from The Kingdom! King Barfy-hew Archy-baldy Regy-naldy Fife and Queen Opal both happily announce the birth of their new son, heir to the throne of The Kingdom. His name is—”
I clamped my hand over the gnome’s mouth, but it was too late. I had heard exactly what I didn’t want to hear, and Frederick and Bruno were awake now, staring bleary-eyed between the gnome and me.
I dropped the gnome, scrambled to my feet, and ran. Except I ran in exactly the opposite direction from where I wished to go. I had freed myself from Frederick and Bruno’s ropes, but the ropes that had been tangled and knotted inside of me were now tugging at me—pulling me like a stubborn donkey in the direction of The Kingdom.
It was time to collect on my worst bargain ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Miller and the Merchant
It is a very strange feeling to have your brain doing one thing and your body doing something else. It was like my mind was attached to some bizarre creature and it was carrying me away captive.
Soon Frederick and Bruno caught up with me, and for the rest of our journey they led me by a rope like a cow, but I hardly noticed. Rumpel is tighter than any real rope. It can’t be cut or loosened. My legs would have carried me over the bridge and up the hill and to the walls of the castle. They probably would have carried me right through walls and through fire and spears to get to Opal, so powerless was I against this magic, but with Frederick and Bruno, it was all too easy. When we reached the castle, the guards saluted them and opened the gates.
We crossed the grounds, entered the castle doors, now gilded gold, marched up a grand golden staircase, and down a long corridor to a large golden door with gold handles. Frederick knocked and we went in.
The room was smaller than I expected. In the center stood a cradle, covered in white satin and embroidered with gold thread. Opal hovered over the cradle. She looked very different from the last time I saw her. Her eyes were no longer blank, but sunken with exhaustion. She was pale and thin, and her golden hair was loose and disheveled. I guess being a queen and a mother makes you worried and tired—not to mention the added worry of your baby being taken away.