He turned to Opal, who was clutching her baby, protecting him from her father’s fury. “You, put that thing back in the basket. It doesn’t belong to you.”
Opal obeyed. I obeyed.
I spun in silence for many hours. The afternoon sun burned through the window, making the spools of gold glow red. I had a good high stack, but I didn’t think I had put a dent in all the straw. I would have to spin through the night if I was to finish in three days, and one of the days was nearly gone. I was already exhausted.
When the sun was low in the sky, Frederick and Bruno took me outside so that I could relieve myself of nature’s call. They stood right by me, their hands on the big knives at their waists, reminding me that I was trapped. At least the cold air revived me a little and I could think more clearly. I forced my brain not to think about my destiny or myself. I thought only of getting Red out of this mess. Whatever problems I had, she didn’t deserve to be tangled up in them. I would get her free, and then I’d deal with everything else.
Back in the castle, the miller tied me to the wheel again and stood over me as I spun. Whenever I filled the bobbin, he quickly removed the skein and added it to the growing pile of gold. Opal had scooted as near to Archie as she dared, looking back and forth between her father and me. She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around her shins and rocked back and forth, in rhythm to my spinning. She rocked so vigorously that the floorboards beneath her began to creak. By nightfall the boards lifted each time she rocked back and then cracked down as she came forward. Creak, snap! Creak, snap!
Red stared at me as I spun, a look of hard determination on her face. I shrugged helplessly, and she rolled her eyes and sank back into the straw. I didn’t dare talk. My face still burned from the miller’s hand. But questions tumbled around in my head. A thousand little birds pecking at my brains. Red said I hadn’t found all my name. But how did that help me? Even if it was true, I was no closer to finding out the rest. And, besides, Rumpel made sense. Trapped, trapped, trapped.
Eventually, the miller fell asleep in a pile of straw, and the moment he did, Opal crept over to me with a desperate look in her eyes. “You said you would tell me how I could keep my baby. Tell me now.”
I stared at her. I had nearly forgotten our agreement, but Opal had been waiting all this time for the miller to fall asleep so she could ask. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her face was wet with tears. Her chin trembled, and before I could say anything, she started crying again.
“Stop! Stop, Opal. I mean, Your Majesty. There is a way that you can keep your baby. Stop crying!”
She stopped crying and I sighed with relief.
“Tell me,” said Opal as she wiped her nose on her sleeve.
I racked my brain wildly. I looked at Red, but she just shook her head at me. We both knew there was no way, but I had to tell Opal something. Anything. I had to give her an impossible task.
“You must tell me my name,” I said.
“Your name?” she asked.
“Yes, my true name. All of it. If you guess my name before I’m done spinning this gold, you can keep your baby.”
“But your name is Robert,” she said. “Or, no, it’s Butt. Frederick and Bruno always called you Butt.”
“My name has never been Robert or Butt,” I said impatiently. “You have to guess my real name.”
“And if I do, you’ll give me back Archie?”
I nodded. I knew I was secure in this bargain. She would never guess my name. I didn’t even have a real name, only a curse. “I promise.”
Opal took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can speak to the king’s wise men and search all the Name Books.”
Whatever kept her busy and wail-free. She went off looking much lighter. But my burden was still heavy, and my legs and back already ached. I was in a sea of gold now, a filthy gold ocean.
Later, Opal strolled into the room with a list of names written on a long scroll. “Is your name Gaspar? Or Melchior? Balthasar? Those are very rare names. Is it one of those?”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Rump,” I said. “My name has always started with Rump.”
“But that can’t be your real name!”
“It’s only part of my name.”
She looked confused and stared down at her parchment. “Is it Nebuchadnezzar?”
I stopped my spinning and stared at her. Was she serious? My sympathy for Opal was fading with the thickening of her skull.
“That is not my name.”
“Oh” was all she said, and she turned away, sighing at all the work she had wasted.
Opal stared blankly at the parchment a bit longer, then stretched out and fell asleep in the straw, her arms reaching toward her sleeping baby.
As soon as Opal fell asleep, the miller snorted awake, rubbed his eyes, and grinned at all the gold. He took a large sack and began filling it with gold. “That’s good,” he said looking at the gold, not me. “Plenty for all.” He stuffed the sack to the brim and then staggered out of the room with the bulging sack flung over his shoulder.
The first day was gone, and though the pile of gold grew above my head, the straw still loomed like a mountain.
A few pixies crawled through the cracks in the floorboards. All the gold and magic must have awakened them from their winter sleep. They danced and chirped around me and the spinning wheel for a minute and then nestled in the coils of gold and fell asleep. Buzzards. How I longed to join them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Guessing Games for Finding Names
“Sheepshanks, Cruikshanks, Spindleshanks?”
I allowed Opal to rattle off any ridiculous name she wanted. The fact that my name actually began with Rump still hadn’t gotten through. Either way it would all come to nothing, but at least it kept her from crying.
“Gibblyshanks, Woolyshanks, Peppershanks?”
The door opened and the miller entered. Opal crumpled up her list of silly names and jumped away from me, but the miller took no notice of her. He went right to the gold and started to refill his sack.
“I think we will exceed the king’s expectations, even if we do not give him all the gold.” He laughed wickedly as he stuffed the sack with gold. “Yes, he’ll never notice the difference.”
Opal glared at her father. “What makes you think you can keep any of it? I could tell him, you know. I am the queen.”
The miller smiled. “You could tell him, just as easily as I could tell him it was not you who spun the gold. How do you think the king would take that?”
Opal clamped her mouth shut and looked away. The miller cast his gaze on me, and I quickened my foot on the treadle. Then he left. As soon as the door had snapped shut, Opal spouted off another trio of names.
“Bindershanks, Spindershanks, Thistleshanks?” She went through a hundred “shanks” names and continued to speak to servants and messengers through the crack of the door as they handed her new lists. Some of the names made me glad I was called Rump. Who would want to name their child Peabody? I’d rather be a Rump than a Peabody.
Opal kept busy with the names, unless the miller was present, and when Archie needed feeding she seemed quite peeved to have to stop. She had become so obsessed with finding my name she forgot why she was looking for it in the first place.
In the meantime, the miller was piling the gold in little stacks and counting them. Frederick and Bruno helped him, but the miller slapped their hands if they lingered on the skeins too long. Sometimes they’d watch me spin with a kind of awe, and I almost thought they were admiring me, but their eyes were only on the gold.
Red tried to communicate with me at first, making faces and shaking her head this way and that, but after a while she gave up and sank into herself, just staring into the fire and sleeping in small stretches.
Oswald gave Red and me stale bread and moldy cheese to eat, but Red didn’t eat any, and I worried. I stuffed the food in my mouth and spun faster. Even if it was vile, I needed the energy to fin
ish my task.
Opal continued guessing names for me: “Adelbrecht, Herbercik, Zettelmeiger.”
“That is not my name,” I said, and continued to spin. With the whir, whir, whir of the wheel, I heard Rumpel, Rumpel, Rumpel. Trapped, trapped, trapped.
“Ferdinand! Ferdinando! Eginhard!”
“That is not my name.”
Opal began to despair and my guilt deepened. I had given her false hope. Maybe I had given myself false hope, as if there really could be more to me than just a tangled mess.
Whir, whir, whir
Rumpel, Rumpel, Rumpel
Trapped, trapped, trapped
As the second day drew to a close, Opal rocked back and forth on the floor again, and the boards creaked and lifted.
Creak, snap. Creak, snap. Whir, whir, whir.
A few times I actually saw people through the cracks in the floorboards, moving around in the room below. I heard the sound of chatter and recognized a familiar voice. It was Martha, the cook who had helped me when I fell out of the tower. It was sort of funny that I was right above her now. I strained my ears to catch any good gossip she might have, but I couldn’t hear well enough to make sense of it.
The gold was now stacked higher than the straw, far above my head, but heaps and heaps of straw still remained. I couldn’t see the end of it. And once I finished, I knew the miller would find new ways to manipulate me.
There had to be a way out. Red had said there was a way. Her granny had said so too. There was something I was missing, I just knew it, but I couldn’t see what. I couldn’t think in this small space filled with straw and gold. I needed air. I needed rest. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the wheel. I would only rest for a minute.
Creak, snap. Creak, snap.
My head jerked up at the sound. Opal was rocking back and forth again, lifting the floorboards. I looked around, dazed. Gold and straw were everywhere, and out the window I could see it was dark. I had fallen asleep. The second day was gone. How late was it?
I lifted my arms to stretch. I hadn’t moved all day from the spinning wheel, not even to answer the calls of nature. Nature was screaming at me, and so was my brain. I had the strange feeling that I’d just awoken from a dream, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I was thinking of destiny and names. The Witch of The Woods and stiltskins. My aunts and the rumpels. The trolls and their magical hoard. The apple tree. My mother. There were ideas flying inside my head, answers, but they couldn’t get out in this room. My brain needed open space.
“I have to go outside,” I announced. “Nature calls.”
“Can’t it wait?” said Oswald.
“I’ve been holding it in for a long time. I might have an accident and get it all over the straw, and I’m not sure I can make gold out of pee-straw.”
The miller’s eyes flashed, but he waved me away. “Frederick, Bruno. Take our friend outside. Make sure he’s well protected.”
The brothers sat up and smiled malevolently. They had done very little the past two days besides watch me spin gold or run mindless errands for the miller. They were restless and bored, and that was a dangerous state for Frederick and Bruno. “Yes,” said Frederick. “It will be our pleasure.”
“And take the baby with you,” said the miller. “I would hate for him to get lonely.” He laughed heartily and Opal whimpered. I gritted my teeth. This would not be helpful. Bruno untied me and I hoisted the baby’s basket in my arms.
When we were outside, Frederick and Bruno hovered next to me as I relieved myself by a tree. “I don’t need your help!”
“It’s for your safety,” said Frederick. “We wouldn’t want you to get eaten by trolls.”
Trolls. A little egg cracked in my brain. I knew some trolls. Trolls that could smell magic and hoarded it and guarded a poison apple tree, a stiltskin.
“No,” I said. “That would be awful.”
The egg cracked all the way open, and suddenly my idea emerged. It was a little crazy, and dangerous perhaps, but I had to do something.
“You know,” I said, considering my words carefully. “There are other things out there besides trolls. Just beyond the gates, a little ways in The Eastern Woods, I’ve actually hidden a stash of gold.”
“Gold?” Bruno licked his lips as if I’d just said “lamb chops.”
“Gold,” I said. “I can’t carry it all on my own. But if you help me, I’ll split it with you.”
Their eyes glittered. Bruno nodded, but Frederick pulled him back. “How do we know you’re not tricking us, just so you can run away?”
I pointed to the castle. “Red’s still in there. I wouldn’t run away. And, besides, it’s dangerous in those woods. There might be wolves or witches or trolls out there. I just thought I might have a better chance if you were with me, because you’re soldiers now. I could wait until I’m done with your father, but then he might find out about it and want the gold for himself.”
Frederick whispered something in Bruno’s ear, and a greedy grin spread across his face. “We’ll help you,” they said at the same time.
“But we get most of it,” said Frederick. “There’s two of us and one of you, and what do you need with gold?”
“I don’t need much,” I said.
Frederick pushed me to start moving. “You’ll get as much as you’re worth, Butt.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Stiltskin
Because Frederick and Bruno were soldiers and something like nobility, they were able to get a carriage with horses from the stables.
“Better if we’re quick,” said Frederick. “I’ll send a message to Father and tell him you’re having a hard time.” Bruno snorted. Frederick found a gnome and gave him the message, and then we left.
When I had Nothing with me, the journey to the trolls’ forest had taken half a day, he was so slow, but with the carriage, we were there within half an hour. Bruno whipped the horses so they went faster and we bounced along the road.
Archie woke with the whips and the roar of the carriage and started to wail. I tried to rock him and shush him, but he was awkward in my arms and he only cried louder.
“Where is this place?” Bruno yelled over the baby’s wails. “You said it was just beyond the gates.” Bruno looked through the trees as if a wolf might jump out from them at any moment.
“Slow down. Just a bit farther.” We came to the bend in the road that I recognized.
“Stop,” I told him, and Archie quieted as the carriage became still. We stepped down, and I walked off the road. “Through here,” I said, pointing into the blackness of the trees. Frederick and Bruno halted at the edge of the road.
“In there?” they asked at the same time. Frederick’s voice cracked.
“I had to hide the gold in a place where no one else would find it.” I walked into the trees. A few moments later, I heard their footsteps behind me. We walked slowly and quietly until we came to the apple tree. Its branches bowed, heavy with the weight of poisoned fruit. I really hoped Bork was still trying to catch a pet, even though he already had Nothing.
Gently, I sat the baby down on the ground. “Wait here,” I told them, and approached the tree. There was very little light to see by, but I searched around the tree until I saw it. The snare. Very carefully, I placed my foot into the trap.
SNAP!
Schwip!
Schlunk!
The rope yanked me off the ground, and I screamed louder than necessary, to attract the trolls. Frederick’s and Bruno’s jaws dropped. A few moments later, rustling came from the brush behind me and the first of the trolls appeared, ugly and smelly as ever. “Trolls!” I shouted. “Help! Trolls! Trolls! Help me!”
Frederick and Bruno squealed and ran, flailing their arms. They didn’t even pause to pick up their baby nephew. They bolted through the trees toward the carriage. I barely heard the crack of the whip or the horses’ hooves above their screams. In a few moments, the noise faded.
“What’s this?” said one of the trol
ls. “Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”
“Hello, Bork.”
Archie began crying.
“And you brought extra,” said Bork. “Well, we can always use a side dish.”
“Oh, you don’t want that,” I said. “Far too bitter. Do you have any sludge?”
“We always have sludge.” And he cut me down.
The first part of the plan had worked—I was out of the castle, and Frederick and Bruno were gone—but that was the easy part. Now I had to find a stiltskin before it was too late. Something told me I was in the right place.
I was greeted with many snorts and snarls from the trolls. Slop now had a wolf pelt on his head, instead of his deer antlers. “How did you get that?” I asked.
“He ate the apples,” said Slop.
“Wolves don’t eat apples,” Bork corrected. “He died of starvation. Didn’t even have any meat on his bones.”
“Because them apples ate it all up with their poison.” Slop pushed down the wolf head so its teeth were hanging over his eyes. Then he sniffed me. “You still reek of magic.”
I wanted to tell him he reeked of troll, but I didn’t.
Mard hugged me when she saw me, which was comforting despite the smell. “What is this?” she said, pointing to Archie in the basket.
“That’s … Archie,” I said without explanation.
“He’s horribly clean, and so are you.” Mard took Archie from my arms, and Gorp and Grot tackled me to the ground and smeared mud in my clothes. As I stood up, a fat donkey came trotting toward me.
“Nothing!” He brayed and pushed me with his head right back down in the mud.
“We named him Horace,” said Grot. “He likes to eat worms.”
I laughed. Nothing’s name is Horace and he likes to eat worms. Well, he looked happy. Maybe having a real name made him a better donkey.
Mard pushed a cup of sludge into my hands. “You need fattening,” she said. “You grew.” Then she dipped her fingers in the sludge and fed some to Archie. I thought for sure he would start crying, but he didn’t. He slurped and gurgled. The young prince had a taste for worms. “This will make him a strong boy,” said Mard.