Contest Entry- Summer Writing Contest

Notes From Rumpelstiltskin
By Davina Behin Jones

You do not know me. You may know my name, noised about the countryside as it has been of late, but even so you do not know me. This places us in a rather uncomfortable position, wouldn’t you say? For myself of course it has a discomfiting effect, perhaps even a dangerous one – a name is a valuable piece of information after all (though it counts for little in the broad scheme of things when considering the question of knowing someone, on which point I will assume you agree since it is the driving purpose behind my entire statement). On your side of things, however, it is a subtler sensation. You have the advantage of me and seem to suffer no ill effect. Where’s the discomfort in being advantaged, you ask? Well, there’s curiosity, which might claw away at your mind, wondering, “Who really is this Rumpelstiltskin? Why do I know his name?” A mild affliction, granted. But there might be a more insidious worming in your conscience, a sort of guilt, which of course is none of your doing, but comes from an unbalanced sharing of information. You know a name is a powerful weapon against the named. You assume this Rumpelstiltskin doesn’t have yours since you’ve kept yours close and shut away like all sensible people, and therefore he is completely helpless against you should you decide to use the name to your uh, let us say, your more active advantage. The temptation may be slight or great, depending on your personal moral compass and life circumstance and perhaps even on your knowledge on the subject, but the struggle against temptation (won or lost) could be said to be disgruntling. And this I am sorry for. I take complete responsibility for it. Unfortunately I can offer very little aside from this apology. While I cannot take back the offending knowledge, I can add to it - give you an explanation for our current position. It might do nothing for balancing our relationship, but at least I’ll feel heard and you might gain some understanding. Maybe your curiosity will be alleviated. Maybe the struggle against temptation will be pushed one way or the other. Deal?

A few notes ere we begin: I am not a delicate man – I like to consider myself sensitive and intelligent (yes, almost too intelligent, hmm, maybe overly sensitive too) but I am not delicate, and I beg your forgiveness for my coarseness in relating these events to you, but I feel without complete candor on these occurrences our aim would not be met. Another warning to you, dear reader: I follow my own path through Time as it comes to me so if it appears my tale falls out of order and tangles thoughtlessly, have patience knowing I have written it with care and the best of my abilities for your optimal understanding. (Although I am aware that you most likely won’t understand me anyway, I wish it to be expressed as my goal all the same.)

Part I: The First Meeting (Actually the Fourth…)

When the Queen saw me nearly a year after our first encounter, the sight did not please her. Startlement swiftly followed by resentment and no little fear was quite evident upon her face. It goes without saying the value of her opinion of me was neither here nor there for me anymore given the nature of our previous interaction and (ah, Spirit!) our present circumstances, yet I still felt stung by her reaction. The Queen’s strength of character is something formidable; I do not believe there is any mortal who can withstand her.

“I’m pleased to see you recognize me,” I said, truly relieved. My dread of having to refresh her memory was at least half the cause for the wobble in my knees.

“No,” she said simply with a look of fierce determination about her.

“Your Majesty, I’m afraid the Time has come. We must conclude our bargain.”

Her eyes flashed and she threatened to summon the guards.

I began to pace the room – we were in the Royal sitting room – trying to work the wobble from my legs. “We have unfinished business that must be settled, Your Majesty. This you cannot deny. As unpleasant as it may be to own up to your side of the agreement, a contract is a contract. You gave your word and now, as agreed, I have come to collect.”

“No! You have no right to demand anything of me—“

“On the contrary, the terms were very clear and you owe me what you promised,” I stated calmly.

“Terms! Contract! None of that was real, you tricked me,” she cried in angry desperation.

“Pardon?” I interrupted, halting my pacing to turn to her. “Not real? Are you not Queen now? Did not the King wed you? Did not this wondrous destiny befall you directly as a result of my service, for which you made the promise to me?”

“The promise was extracted without full knowledge – I did not know – no one could have known it would come to pass as it did!”

I brushed aside this idiotic outburst. Frankly, I was embarrassed for her. “Have you no gratitude for what I did for you?”

“Yes, of course I am grateful…”

“I was beginning to wonder, I mean I never really got to know the King. He did seem a bit off. As a matter of fact, I did feel some concern for you, leaving you to him. I for one wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. But there’s no accounting for tastes. Oh, yes, and then there’s the kingdom and riches to consider,” I said nastily, pacing again.

“You know nothing of the King or the true circumstances of that situation,” she said imperiously, flushing.

“Oh, of that I have no doubt, ha-ha!”

She drew herself up, taking command. “Nothing would please me more than to repay you for the service you rendered me a year ago and to that affect I offer you any and all of my earthly possessions. But I refuse to be insulted. I also would fain mention of the promise I made under duress and intolerable conditions never be made again.”

“Perhaps I was rude and I apologize for that, but the rest of what you propose is simply impossible. Even if I were at all of the inclination for material indulgence, which I am not (one marked distinction between the King and myself), the terms cannot just be thrown aside. I requested what I did for a reason –“ here I stumbled, choking on my words. Oh, how stupid it all was! The wobble in my knees had spread to a tremble in my fingers. I clenched my hands together to hide it and paced furiously around the room. My composure was deteriorating badly. “Anyway,” I struggled on, “I cannot accept anything … other … than what was agreed upon a year ago.”

“I urge you to consider seriously the extent of what I am offering you in place of what was promised. I am Queen of the entire kingdom – anything you ask for I can retrieve. This I am willing, nay, eager to do.”

I made a sound of disgust. “You are far too intelligent a woman not to know such enticements will not move me. Give me what is mine!” I suddenly burst out. What had come over me? This bothersome meeting was proving much more torturous than I had even feared. Why did she have to make this more painful than it already was?

The Queen darted to an opening on the other side of the room and planted herself there as if to make of her slender form a closed door. “You shall never have him!” she cried dramatically – tragically even, the futility of her position perhaps finally catching up to her. That note of defeat struck a cord in me.

“You gave your word – the child is mine!” I raged, trembling all over. My heart had leapt to my throat the moment she began to move. I could not tear my eyes from the passage partially obscured by her person.

Was she giving up already? I thought to myself, an elation that was despair welling up in me.

Smiling, almost laughing, I approached her and whispered, “Bring him to me.”

“No! Oh, no! God! I beg you, I’ll give you anything, do anything – please!” Tears were coursing from her eyes. “Don’t take my baby from me – I won’t let you do this!”

She had grown hysterical – so had I.

It shames me even now to recall those next insane moments. Driven by the words of her promise and my own fevered visions, I sprang passed her in a flash and tore into the room she had vainly tried to shield from me – the nursery. That was when I was truly stripped of my senses.

There in the middle of the room was the cradle where the newborn child lay. In an instant I was beside the cradle, looking down at the tiny, delicious creature–

A moment, please, while I explain something. It occurs to me that you, dear reader, may have a mistaken idea of the cause for my shame in this particular episode. It was not my longing for the child that humiliated me. No, I am what I am and the promise was what it was and while disgusting (I freely admit that! You may suppose I’m just saying that, but I’m not. Well, there might be many reasons for why I say it, but I assure you one of them is because it’s true) there is no real shame in it. Why be ashamed of nature? And it wasn’t because I offended the Queen – oh, no! Think you I have any reason to respect a human title? You forget I am not a thread of the human fabric, but even if I were it would still be meaningless to me. I knew her before she was Queen, you know, when she was just a humble miller’s daughter.

No, what shames me is how easily I slipped into my own trap. I knew it was coming yet I flew straight into it!

Part II: The Very First Meeting

I know I am leaving you hanging at the edge of that cradle, so to speak, but I will get to that in a moment. First, I’d like to take you back a year when I met the Queen, who was just a miller’s daughter then, for the actual first time.

Something had drawn me to the King’s palace that day – ha! “Something” indeed! I know very well what it was: the self same compulsion that had brought me to the Queen’s Royal Sitting Room in the episode I just related to you. It is difficult to describe, but it’s not quite as vague as “something” – I won’t be so lazy as to let that by. Hmmm, how to explain it to you? It was, let’s say, the tugging of my path, or rather the current taking me to my next installment in time. In my private thoughts I simply refer to it as “Time,” though I know very well it is quite separate from the ordinary plodding tyrant that most folk must be yoked to their entire lives, pacing out the days one after the next at the fixed length until they’ve spent their allotment and are liberated from its rigid grasp by death. This “Time” I experience is, I believe, unique to my kind, and it rules me as thoroughly as the ordinary folks’ time rules them, pulling me this way and that as its whimsy so directs it, but has none of the measured pacing. Oh, there is purpose and reason behind it, don’t mistake it, but of a very different sort from mortal understanding. Nothing is set in this Time – my very being is subject to its capricious discretion; at points I find myself split into two halves, each in its own Time. I will describe this in more detail momentarily.

So my personal Time had taken me to the King’s palace, not a place I make a point of frequenting. A veritable anthill of human activity, the palace. Luckily, I had been deposited in one of the less trafficked areas and there was not a soul to be seen in either direction of the darkened hallway. However, I soon heard evidences of one; the faint sound of sobbing was coming from a door only a few paces from me. I took in the empty hall, the deeply shadowed corners, the many doors leading off into small locked rooms, and suppressed a shiver. Was I in the dungeons? The sobbing swelled to a wail, penetrating the door clearly, and I knew the person locked inside was a girl.

I also knew she was the reason I was here. I entered the locked room and laid my eyes on the source of the sobbing. She was a young woman, perhaps just shy of sixteen, and huddled on the floor next to a spinning wheel. The latter made me question my conclusion that this was a dungeon. The straw packing the room to the corners made me discard it completely. But the room was tiny and as unfurnished as a prison cell, aside from the wheel and straw, and located some distance from the stables, if I read the air currents aright. Very curious.

The girl naturally had not noticed my entrance and was carrying on with her weeping, arms folded atop her knees, face concealed. It was shameless, really. She was completely and disgustingly unrestrained. Her shoulders shook with every sob, her voice pealed out in ugly starts between gasps of breath, and I had no doubt her nose was runny. I stood in the corner of the room enduring it, at a loss at how to induce her to stop so we could commence our acquaintanceship (for we would be spending some while together, I felt certain). Suddenly the girl heaved a great sigh and her weeping abated to a sort of hiccupping sniffling that set me on edge. I was intensely uncomfortable. Soon she would lift her head and spot me – yes, even now her head bent as she wiped her face with her hands. I was standing in the shadowed portion of the room, but she would undoubtedly see me and there I’d be, caught skulking in the shadows like an inept burglar. Instead of suffering this petty humiliation and awkward beginning I shuffled forward (I hadn’t taken into account the difficulty of moving through piles of straw) and fumbled a greeting:

“Good morrow, what are you crying for?”

I winced as she started badly, her whole body convulsing in startlement. Her arms flew outward and her head whirled around in my direction. Upon sighting me, she leapt to her feet and demanded to know who I was.

Struck by the force of her attention suddenly centered on me, I gaped for a moment. Her piercing eyes were astoundingly intelligent and aware; I was pinned beneath that gaze like a bug under a magnifying glass.

“Who are you?” she demanded again. “How did you come here?”

Recovering myself I said, “No one of consequence, but me thinks Chance’s Fate brought me here to some purpose.”

“Who are you?” Same question but spoken in a different voice.

Smothering a smile, I performed a bow. “Time’s own minion, at your service. Now, be so kind as to answer my question in return. And please be seated so we may begin.”

“Begin? What – what question?”

Patiently I inquired again about her weeping, noting the strangeness of her current surroundings.

“But how did you - the door is locked,” she said uncooperatively.

“Quite the observant one,” I said, annoyed.

Her eyes narrowed. “Did the King send you?”

“I retract my statement; apparently your faculty of observation is severely limited. I direct you to recall that I have already informed you who sent me: Chance’s Fate, Destiny, the current, or Time itself, call it what you will. And because I prefer to believe there is some if incomprehensible meaning to existence, I assume my presence here has a reason, which I would like to know as soon as possible. To that aim, please,” I gestured for her to sit down again.

She ignored the gesture and said pitifully and yet somehow also haughtily, “If Fate has sent you, then surely no good is meant for me from it, for Fate has chosen my life for disaster.”

I stifled my irritation with difficulty. “You know what Fate chooses, now, do you? You know why Time has brought me here better than I do, hmmm?” I decided to share with her a glimmer of my wisdom. “Fate has many paths and flows in ways mortals cannot know. Men deceive themselves with the thought that Fate is an exchange of logical actions and can be controlled accordingly. Pfft! Blasphemous folly! Fate cannot be controlled, least of all by mere human beings, who cannot even see it! Even I, who travel the paths of Time itself, cannot predict where Fate will turn.”

She studied me with narrowed eyes. “The fact that Fate is unpredictable is hardly a revelation. My current situation has given me taste enough of that! But there is rhyme and reason to the flow of time, the Lord assures it.”

“Of course there is a pattern, but it is far beyond the scope of the mortal brain, girl. Just as you failed to perceive beforehand the twist that carried you here, whatever that may be, you cannot know what waits in store for you.” Her mouth tightened as she refused to see my point; I pressed forward. “You assume certain actions produce certain reactions, when in fact it may very well be those actions produce other reactions you cannot see or have no effect whatsoever and the supposed ‘reaction’ is nothing more than a previously ordained occurrence. The point is you do not know the flow of Time. All that is left to you is how you take each new turn. It is your choice: are you going to stubbornly and stupidly insist Fate has written you off and ignore the new opportunity before you or are you going to answer my question?”

She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, “You speak wisely, fey dwarf, that I think perhaps Fate has sent you personally to me for some other purpose than misery.”

Misery to whom? I thought, abruptly deeply annoyed, but smiled when she gracefully seated herself and motioned for me to do the same.

At long last she began to tell me of her troubles.

To make a long and dull story short, it seemed her father, a miller, had come to the palace on business and told the King – her face held a remarkably proud expression though a blush moved up her throat into her cheeks as she related this – his daughter could spin straw into gold.

“His daughter, meaning you?” I asked, suddenly gripped by intense interest. “And can you?”

She flared up angrily, thinking I mocked her, I imagine. I tried to assure her of the sincerity of my question and explain my genuine curiosity, for I had never met a human who could grasp the magical properties of straw. She, I think, presumed I was only jabbing at her father for making “such a ridiculous claim.” And as a matter of fact, by the time it became clear she couldn’t spin straw into gold, my thoughts were beginning to run along those lines.

But she had realized the innocence of my question and grown sorrowful again. Her sad eyes cast about on the floor as she said bitterly, “I should not be angered by your question, nay, I should thank you for your kind thought. Why else should a man make such an absurd boast if not for truth? Ah, fey one, my father boasted a lie to the King. But not out of wickedness – out of foolishness, his foolish love for me. Oh, dear loving Father!” She went on to explain her father’s garrulous and exuberant character and his tremendous love for her, and so on and so forth.

I was still unclear as to why precisely her father had made the claim in the first place, let alone to the King, but I decided not to press the point. Whether or not there was an actual reason beyond madness, it was abundantly clear his daughter loved him dearly and such devotion gave credence to her story. I know well that humans are quite capable of the most absurd behaviors, particularly when love enters the equation.

“The King did not see the silly man for what he was and in all seriousness ordered me brought before him.” Where another girl might have cringed at mention of her monarch, this miller’s daughter lifted her chin. “Though I wonder now – did he not see? Perhaps His Majesty exercises his justice in punishing an outrageous lie, but if he does so I call it ill-justice indeed, that the daughter should be slain for an unwise father’s love!”

Her eyes flashed dangerously and I felt the first shiverings of alarm creep over me.

“Slain?” Though I have little reason to be amazed at any human goings-on, I was taken aback. Perhaps Fate had resolved to visit devastation upon her.

“Yes, slain. After I was brought before His Excellency and the truth was likewise exposed – that I possess no magical power to spin straw into gold – and I begged the court’s mercy for my foolish, foolish father, the King seemed to understand. It was strange.” Her expression wavered for an instant as if she relived those crucial moments and saw the King again but through a different lens that offered new and disturbing insight. Then her brows swept back down in angry despair. “But then he ordered a room filled with straw and a spinning-wheel placed in it and he said to me, ‘All this straw must be spun into gold before morning; if it is not you will surely be put to death.’ My poor father fainted – I know not what has become of him now – and here I was locked up…”

Suddenly my consciousness was swept away on Time’s whimsy whirl and whatever else the Miller’s Daughter said was lost to me. The room slipped from my awareness and I rushed through the Realms at electric speed. From experience I knew my actual physical self remained still and safe in the straw-filled room and it was only my mental substance that flew, as it were, through Time – this was one of the splittings I mentioned earlier, unlike the space-Time pathway “tuggings” in which the whole of me travels in this unique manner.

We come to a point in my tale that is rather difficult for me to impart. But it is too critical to be omitted and so I regretfully continue:

What I saw during this particular vision was a child, a tiny human babe only recently born into the world. My soul at once alit – it was beautiful, of course, being what it was – and I was consumed with longing, completely enraptured by its charms. The moist gems of its eyes gazed up at me out of a little face swollen with life and potential and seemed to comprehend who I was. Unable to resist, I reached down and laid my hands upon the babe – what ecstasy! The pliant sponge-like flesh of the child set me aflame. I brought the small plump body to my breast and touched my lips to its smooth fragrant skin – what delight! What mindless sensuous pleasure!

Then my dream-self somehow uprooted my captured gaze and looked up to see the Miller’s Daughter and I knew the child I held in my arms was hers and what’s more – oh! I dare not utter it, yet on this point I cannot conceal the truth for either of our sakes! – the child was mine!

I know the outrage you must feel, dear reader (think of mine!) but I swore to uphold the truth in my statement and so I must, though it pains us dearly, tell all. I held that child in my vision-hands and felt that somehow the Miller’s Daughter and I had created it together. Under the delirium of infantile enchantment I believed love, great indescribable love sprang up between us and an eternal bond connected our souls.

Again you are outraged, as you have every right to be, but know it is exceedingly difficult for me to reveal all this to you. If it were at all possible to avoid this humiliating indignity, I would spare us all, believe me. The sordidness of this whole affair renders it nearly unspeakable. But I must carry on – or at least not leave off at such a turn, for you still do not know the main point, not yet! You must read a little further!

When my senses were restored to me, I found myself stretched full length upon the floor with the Miller’s Daughter kneeling above me. My heart beat unnaturally hard against my chest, almost pulsing out my throat, and I gasped. She was so close to me – she was touching my face! I leapt to the other end of the room nearly in a panic, for I was as horrified as you must be, reader!

She was saying something. Finally the blood rushing in my ears receded so I could hear her say, “…tender heart, it shocked you as hard as it shocked my father. I’m terribly sorry. Are you recovered?”

I suddenly realized, with a horrible flush of humiliation, that she had taken my Time-vision for a fainting spell such as her father had succumbed to upon hearing of the King’s terrible verdict. She had been tending to me like she would to a child – or her father. I was mortified. But my heart gave a flutter at her kindness, her sweetness. What a lovely girl she was! Little wonder we would soon be united in the most glorious and intimate way possible for two beings on earth to be!

My heart was beating rapidly, pumping the intoxicant of love through my veins. Oh, my foolishness! I was inebriated from the mere thought like a silly smitten boy. It amazes me now to think of that moment: it was as if a madness had suddenly seized me, robbed me of my wits, and flooded my heart with burning, exhilarating joy. My brain was awhirl with absurd (and vain! oh how painfully vain) imaginings of our tender, as-yet-non-existent romance and the future we would have together, and (of course!) the child, the embodiment of a dreamer’s fantasy.

But another part of me shrank within myself. Who was this woman and what did she know of me? She seemed wonderful, yes, but we had only known each other for all of ten minutes. And she had already been so bold as to touch me; she had seen my infirmity, not knowing what it was – I felt violated. Could I survive that kind of contact? The sensation was far from blissful. And yet I was the one that knew the truth of our relationship, the happy inevitability of the blossoming of love between us, of which she had no inkling!

I was bursting with the knowledge till I felt sure my skull would explode.

She was looking at me with great sympathy and seemed moved by my display of extreme sensitivity. I recoiled from that gaze but felt my heart enkindled simultaneously. Ah, the torment of love! My body would soon fall to pieces, being the battleground for the transcendent conflict of emotions!

What a marvel that I did not appear a madman to her during those moments. Perhaps she truly thought me an unnatural sensitive, a “tender heart,” moved to fainting at her story. But I now believe she thought me wonderfully strange, an oddity so beyond her world that the standard of madness was suspended or rendered meaningless altogether.

“Ah well,” she said, her gaze turning inward once again. “Though this night is the bitterest and last of my life, your compassionate company eases it muchly, friend. I wish I could take hold of this ‘turn’ the Lord has given me and make it good; I fear my temper was never one for easy acceptance.”

My infected heart broke as a single tear fell from her eye. Outrage suddenly suffused my being as her position took on new dimensions for me. How could the King be so senselessly cruel? And how worthless a man her father must be! What ailed these men? They must have lacked hearts and brains and even souls!

“No, my lady,” I said as steadily as I could, drawing myself up. “Fate has summoned me here to perform a service greater than that of an ear – I shall spin this straw into gold before sunrise!”

She was surprised, as well she might be, but as she watched me install myself at the spinning wheel and prepare the first handful of straw a smile like a beam of joy broke out on her face. My soul almost lifted from my body. I laughed, dissipating the urge to kiss her – an alien and not entirely uncomfortable sensation, I might add.

Something critical happened just at that moment, however, and the blissful certainty of love was cracked: as I began the work, I saw a strange look suddenly cross her features, marring her perfect beam of joy. It was there and gone in the briefest of moments, but it sent chills straight through me. I could not expressly define the look or what about it that set me shuddering; it communicated something indescribably vague that I’m sure ordinarily I would not have given much substance (or even noticed maybe) but which rang out against my keyed-up nerves. In that sickening instant all my feelings of happiness and love drained out of my swollen heart, leaving in their wake a dreadful sense of shame and (progressively) huge affront and self-righteous thirst for vengeance. I lurched to my feet, resolved to exact my revenge there and then, when I was confronted by her – her, with her sweet deceiving eyes, innocently questioning me.

I faltered and felt to my profoundest horror tears spring from my eyes. Oh, how the Spirit tortures us all! I was broken; she looked to me as to a savior and yet – and yet – she despised me! And worse yet – I loved her!

But do I love her? I asked myself. Gird up your pride! I ordered myself. I needed to change this; I needed her to give.

She waited silent and expectant. I smiled though my eyes still shone with unshed tears.

“What will you give me,” I asked, “to spin it for you?”

She pulled away from me – not physically, mind you, but I could sense her soul cool toward me. I smiled wider as my anger mounted.

“You claim Fate itself brought you here … to help me,” she said quietly. “You know the whole of my dire circumstances, the injustice inflicted upon me by my own monarch and my total helplessness. You know what faces me if this task remains undone; you say you have the ability to perform this impossible task and now you ask for payment from me?”

I forced a worldly laugh. “Well, lass, you can’t really expect something for nothing, can you? Oh, I’ll spin the gold of course, but I need something of yours – anything, just give it to me and I’ll spin.”

“What of mine could possibly interest you? If you truly can spin gold out of straw, I fail to see…”

“You think I should just do it because Fate placed me here at the right time? That is what you think, isn’t it? Well, this might come as a shock, but while I freely admit Time is my master, I do not serve selflessly. As for gold, I care not for it and in fact there are quite a few things of yours that do interest me – precisely because gold means nothing to me. Just give me something you have with you right now.” In spite of myself, I felt a greedy eagerness rise inside me, incited by my own words; suddenly I wanted something from her very badly.

She considered for a moment. She was feeling distant from me and probably debated whether or not she should (or could allow herself to) tell me to remove myself and hope never to see me again. It hurt, but I also felt a kind of triumphant relief. I suppose I felt released from her spell, though of course she hadn’t cast the enchantment or even known of its existence and now it was she who was disenchanted with me, not the other way around. I was not exercising much sense at the time, much to my later regret.

The Miller’s Daughter decided to give me her necklace. An unhealthy thrill went through me as I took it, but I kept it a business transaction. I set to work. It is not difficult, spinning straw into gold, if you get the lighting right, achieved easily enough using the lamp, but it is a bit more taxing than spinning ordinary wool. And though the room was small, let me tell you, there was a fair amount of straw in there.

Three handfuls of straw, whir, whir, whir, three times spun and three reels of gold produced, three handfuls, whir, whir, whir…. It was tedious work!

At first the girl watched me, attentive and fascinated (you can well imagine my pleasurable discomfit at this), but her ordeal had taxed her strength a great deal and by the time I had managed to spin a third of the room, sleep claimed her. I continued through the night and finished the last third three hours before sunrise.

Part III: (End of the Fourth Meeting and) the Fifth Meeting

I held the child in my arms, enveloped in its delicate fragrance, feeling its little body move against my chest, and looked up to see the Queen—

So you now realize, gentle reader, I had crossed over to the point in Time I had glimpsed before, that terrible delusion-inducing glimpse that started all this madness. The cursed child was sweet and torturous, a succulent reminder of crushed dreams, and the bitter taste of gall in my throat at the fact the child was mine only through contract (oh my clever rebellion my own petard!) was all that kept me from gladly giving over to my desire.

I said to the Queen:

“You truly want to keep this child? You would rather have it than everything else you have gained from my service to you? Of course we cannot turn back Time and undo what has been done, no, we cannot do that, can we? But there is something else that might be done. If you have no qualms dissolving your word of honor.”

“Please,” was all she could manage. She was reduced to quite a pitiful state.

I am actually at a loss to say what precisely possessed me to utter what I did next; perhaps it was lingering feelings for her after all this time, a sort of perverse compassion. More likely it was a sudden bout of self-loathing (though of course there was some loathing for her as well). It was a move calculated for the maximum cruelty – to both of us. But I think it might have been something else altogether, something that rose above my feelings for the Queen or myself; I believe it was an act of will against Fate.

I said, “I will give you three days’ grace; if within that time you learn my name, I will let you keep the child.”

Neither relief nor anger registered on her features – not that I was anticipating either – as she took the babe from me. Somehow I let her gently pry it from my grasp and then I was at the door, my back to her, hearing her sobs. I left.

Needless to say, that night was agony for me. To think the child could have – should have been in my clutches finally, after an unbearable year’s length of waiting! My frustration knew no bounds. I cursed myself for a fool and wrung my brain in a vain attempt to understand why I had done it to myself. If I had wanted to break from this sick obsession, why did I not just give up the bargain and truly rid myself of the whole business once and for all? It was my revenge, at least; the Queen’s agony that night surly must have surpassed my own.

The next day I returned to the palace in a bitter humor. My ease (or lack thereof) at entering the palace was not as improved as I’d hoped since overcoming the hellish interview of the previous day. I thought of all the things she did not and would not know about me. Would she know my name already? More likely she’d beg and command again, which I did not feel up to suffering. But would I get to see the child? (I cursed my weakness but could not quell the leap of my pulse.) My worst dread was a chance (“chance” ha-ha!) meeting with the King – not from fear of his imperial power, mind (that would be laughable if it weren’t so idiotic) but rather the personal awkwardness that would make any interaction between us quite painful. Furthermore, I suspected his face would be abhorrent to my senses.

The Queen met me in the sitting room again. She seemed perfectly composed and in possession of the situation. I was immediately annoyed.

Thankfully she was alone. I remarked upon the fact (sourly of course) and expressed my surprise at not finding the kingdom’s entire army poised to extract my execution.

“I have no doubt military tactics would achieve nothing against you,” she said, expression stern.

I smiled. “This is true.” Sweat stood on my brow, but I was proud my eyes did not stray to the nursery door.

“I wonder that you should test my intelligence with such a comment. Do you seek to insult me or are your own faculties failing you?”

My smiled turned smirking. “It was not your intelligence I was uncertain of, my Queen, but rather your King’s. But I do not spy his Honorable Personage here.” I made a show of looking around then turned a look of disappointment on the Queen. “I was anticipating making his acquaintance. Oh,” I said, as if a thought had just occurred to me, “Could it be that he was uninformed of the grave matters concerning the future of his little heir?”

She colored and arched her neck angrily. “It is not your place to know or even entertain thoughts on what passes between my husband and myself, mannikan.”

I shook my head. “Wouldn’t dream of it, I assure you, though I have a harder time answering for my nightmares. But you know secrets ill-become any relationship, far less the one that blossoms between a man and his wife, especially in connection with the fruit of their joining. Is it too difficult for you to break the habit of secrecy, after maintaining it for a year?” I did not voice my suspicion that the King’s learning of my existence would destroy anything they had together, exercising a vast strength of character I had not known I possessed.

Her eyes flashed, as I knew they would, and she said coldly, “I do not believe you are one to know what becomes anything, especially when love and children are involved, child-eater. Now, if you would permit me, I shall proceed to break free of your villainous strings in the manner you yourself prescribed: I shall name you.”

There upon she listed an impressively lengthy number of names. Not one was mine, of course. I paced and every third step I said, “That is not my name,” until the hundredth name when I grew weary of the chant and merely said, “No.” By the time the third hundredth name was reached I had collapsed in one of the opulent chairs and was thoroughly fed up with the whole business. For once I actually wished Time would fold upon itself and carry me away.

“Are you done yet?” I burst out. “You obviously don’t know it; these names were clearly garnered from your own poor memory – and what little experience you’ve had in the world has offered it meager opportunity to exercise itself in the first place. You won’t find it out simply by guessing.” I emphasized my words by bringing my fist down on the armchair.

She was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, “That was the last one.”

Suddenly a wave of tremendous sorrow swept over me. I looked at her and I felt tears spring to my eyes. It was more than the frustration of the past half hour, more than the pressure of the knowledge that an infant lay within just a dozen yards of me, more than the defeated image of the Queen. It was as if the whole of the entire year condensed into that single moment in Time. I was suddenly devastatingly aware of how absolutely, eternally alone I was. The impression was too strong for my weak soul.

I looked away, blinking back my tears, and said unthinkingly, as if by reflex, “Well, you have two more days.”

The Queen gasped, startling me. Just as I leapt to my feet, I realized it had been a single sob, after which she regained complete control of herself and looked at me in my alarmed state with convincing puzzlement. Then she glared.

Anticipating her scathing order, I took my leave.

Part IV: The Second Meeting

I was not surprised when I found myself again at the Palace the next night. I was stationed outside a different door, but I knew it would be the same girl within.

I was trembling all over. Of course I was mortified by what had occurred the previous night, but at the same time I felt a very alien kind of exhilaration pulsing through me. I was quite eager to again enter that befuddling presence, see her sweet face, and maybe this time watch her fall in love with me. (I knew how self-consumed this little hope of mine was when first I became aware of it but naturally I considered it unavoidable.) I was excited at the prospect of seeing her, yes, but I was also feeling noble and glorious: I was coming to rescue my true love!

(On some level I must have been quite cognizant of what a pitiful and ridiculous figure I posed, rushing headlong into a romance that did not yet exist – that I was certain it would was beside the point – it did not yet exist – however, I know I imagined myself a gallant hero and even liked that I appeared otherwise.)

Just as I began to enter the room with what I’d planned as a heroic flourish, I was struck by an attack of nerves. I was about to appear before my ladylove and naturally I formed a determination to make a good impression on her the second time around. The romance would form, it was set down by Fate, but I felt apprehensive… I quickly realized nothing would be gained by contemplating it, but still I lingered outside the door fretting. One area of particular concern was my appearance. Quite stupid, I know. But I am, well, not exactly a specimen out of maidenly dreams, and I could not suppress an internal cringe at what she must think every time she catches sight of me. I had never in my life been bothered by what human girls thought of my appearance! What manner of thoughts had crossed her mind when she took in my dwarven stature and countenance? Being beautiful herself, she was bound to be vain and shallow to some degree. But her pure heart and keen intellect would speed the passage of her revulsion and soon she would begin nurturing her love for me, I felt sure.

If only she weren’t so beautiful! I lamented, beginning to grow irritated.

Deciding, I’d best go in before my agitation mounted beyond control, I entered the storeroom.

Her countenance bore signs of strain as if she had been laboring under the burden of uncertainty for some time, but she was obviously better prepared for her circumstances and had, it seemed, formed a tentative yet determined concept of hope that went a long way to preserving her presence of mind. My heart swelled – she had been waiting for me to come to her aid!

She gave out a sweet sigh of relief. “You came. I was afraid… Here, I prepared this for you,” she said and thrust her hand toward me. Her movements and speech were hasty and the severe line of her mouth had not eased at all at seeing me – if anything, it had deepened.

I glanced at what she offered me; it was a diamond ring. I frowned.

“Please take it. Is it not enough?” she pleaded with me.

Suddenly I felt my face flame red with humiliation. I looked away from her, but asked, “Have you been wearing it?”

She hesitated briefly before answering. “Yes. Is it enough?” she asked again, as if my question had been off-topic.

“Then, yes, it is sufficient,” I said almost angrily and did not reach for it though she again put it forth. I paced the length of one wall, examining the new room. It was somewhat larger than the last and nearly over-filled with straw. “You wish me to spin this roomful too?”

“Yes!” she said, exasperated by the superfluous question.
“It is important to be clear in these matters,” I informed her, sending her a sidelong glance. I considered the mound of straw. I was certain I could manage it all before sunrise with moderate ease, though it was significantly larger than the previous roomful.

I was annoyed by her manner. Truth be told, I was disappointed in her. Obviously, I needed to put her at ease and make her understand why I was here, but it was difficult, especially taking into account it was my earlier pique that was causing her to misunderstand the situation. Fundamentally, though, I wondered why she didn’t understand me; could she not see who stood before her, a powerful being whose will was bent to her aid for her sake, brought by Time itself and who looked upon her with eyes of noble intention and love? I had thought her very perceptive.

“I wish you to understand something,” I said, looking at her with the most serious and benevolent look I could sustain. “Time has brought us together. You predicament and my ability to counter it are of no consequence in as much as we are concerned – soon you shall see what I mean by that. Meanwhile, know that I will help you because I am to do so, and not only to serve Time, I assure you. I told you before, but I will tell you again since you seem not to have comprehended my meaning: these tokens you give me are only that – tokens. I will spin for you because you need me to and I will – for you as long as you need me to, forever and always – I will – for you—“ As I spoke I had worked myself into a sort of frenzy and by the end I could hardly articulate. Somewhere along the way I was forced to remove my gaze from her and I found myself staring into a corner. My impassioned speech was over – oh yes! over – but I could not bring myself to so much as peek at her to gain some idea of her response, and remained trapped in the corner waiting in terrible silence for her to say something or for Time to shift me out of there.

Presently her voice drifted to me, soft and quiet: “I apologize. I meant no disrespect for Fate and I certainly do not wish you to think me ungrateful. You have saved my life.”

I risked a glance at her and wound up looking straight into her eyes. That direct look seared me, but I could not look away; she did.

“This entire situation has been so hard for me. There are times I marvel I am still sane. It is changing me and I…” her throat closed on the sentence and she blinked rapidly. I cursed myself for the hard-hearted idiot I was. She soon recovered herself. “I just… Well, I hardly understand anything anymore. I’m still confused; do you not, after all, want the ring?”

My vision blurred and the world slipped away around me. Time struck with dizzying force, sending my consciousness reeling forward to some unknown point, but thankfully, leaving my physical self behind in the room with the Miller’s Daughter. I blinked and saw her, the Miller’s Daughter, to my profound bewilderment and for an instant I thought my sense of Time had played me a fool. Had I not actually left the room in any way? Then I saw her garments and surroundings were changed. She was gazing fixedly at something just out of my field of vision to the left – I seemed to be crouching behind a door and viewing the scene from a hidden recess – and she appeared to be in the grip of some intense emotion I could not read.

A man’s voice said, “I have told you the entirety of my thoughts; now let me tell you all my heart would say.” Someone stepped forward from the left into my view and took her hands in his. He was tallish in height, that is to say he stood about a head taller than the Miller’s Daughter, and his broad back was garbed in a rich velvet mantle of deep blue. I could not make out his features clearly because of the angle at which he was standing, but I could see he had a well-groomed beard of red-gold. I was uncertain as to his age.

He spoke again with a voice filled almost to breaking with sincere feeling. “I love you. I have always loved you, but I have only just begun to learn how to go about it. All that I have explained to you is difficult to hear (I know I do not deserve the patient listening you have granted me) and I am also aware that it is not enough. I wish I could give you more, give you everything. All I can offer you is the depth of my profoundest feeling: I love you.”

Her face blossomed in a beatific display of perfect love as she moved into his tender embrace. The man enveloped her in his arms and as he bent his head candlelight glinted off something on his brow.

Abruptly I was back in the straw-filled room. I was badly shaken, but I had remained standing through this one – thank the Spirit! – and did not have to endure her ministering over my prone body. She was staring at me, however. I was unable to manage anything at the moment; I put my head in my hands.

“What happened? Are you ill?”

A strange sensation was spreading from where my heart used to be – I say “used” because the organ in question was no longer performing its proper function, no longer worthy of the name, and from what I could tell was pumping ice in place of blood. Each beat pushed my mind closer to a freezing darkness that I almost welcomed.

What, precisely, had I just witnessed?

I could not believe it, yet what alternative was there? That I was truly mad? If so, what was I to do – just forget the vision? I could not. Every inch of my body remembered it with awful clarity and I had a dread certainty that it would continue to do so for the remainder of my life – which might not be that much longer. How could I live like this, with that diabolically blissful image branded on the back of my eyelids and this morbid weight in my breast?

“What has happened to you?” she had risen and was approaching me.

I lifted a hand, putting her off. To my surprise, after a brief moment, the unbearable feeling receded, leaving a sickly tremble in my limbs and voice.

“Tell me what transpired this day that you should again spend a night in a room filled with straw,” I said, even though I was fairly certain I knew.

She gave me a considering look. Evidently judging my rapid recovery trustworthy, she retreated to a more comfortable distance. “I shall answer you, though there is not much to tell about it, while your own mysteries seem only to multiply.” Her concern had transmuted rather quickly into annoyance. I was beyond caring. She began relating events to me grudgingly with a trace of contempt but gained momentum for her tale as she progressed, perhaps forgetting my presence, and added commentary of her own thoughts.

“This morning the King came to my room. Belying his decree last night, it was well on midmorning at that time, so you need not have rushed for sunrise. He was greatly surprised when he saw what you had done, indeed he did not believe it at first and walked and talked as if in a dream. He questioned me and closely inspected the gold (he eventually called his blacksmith in to have an expert examination) and when he found he could not refute the fantastical feat, he became a little afraid of me. Needless to say, I refused to answer his questions, which was not difficult seeing as how I did not know the answers to most myself, and made no mention of you thinking I could awe him into letting me go. He grew frustrated and his frustration burned away his fear until he was angry. Well, the King is a hard man to read; one moment he seemed furious and the next he was thoughtful, almost pensive. At one point he even smiled. I would have concluded he was mad – even last night I had the thought – but for the bright spark of rational intelligence in his eyes. He has absolute control over his actions. Well, soon he saw I was as helpless against him as I was last night and apparently considered my only power to be spinning straw into gold: he ordered this room filled with straw and myself imprisoned within and if I did not spin the straw into gold by sunrise I would be put to death. He said he wished to see if my power was a sure thing, repeatable on demand, a kind of experiment, but I do not think his words are important.” She paused and was silent for a pace. Then she said thoughtfully, as if to herself though she looked at me, “You know, I do not believe he came to my room this morning expecting to execute me. I think he came alone so he could free me.” She blinked. Smiling unpleasantly she added, “Now, having seen your work, the King will, I have a feeling, want to see gold tomorrow morning. If he does not find it, no doubt he will keep to his word this time.”

I was confused. Not by her account, no, that was as I had expected for the most part. What confused me was the incomprehensible thought that this mad King (in spite of her words, I personally felt the description amply earned) could, even in the distant future, pour out his heart-felt love so sincerely and be received with such welcome in her arms! I shuddered deeply – in fact, I don’t think I had stopped shuddering since I first suffered the vision. I do not know why I asked her to tell me the events of the day; I felt no more enlightened having heard it than before.

Suddenly rage broke through the ice in my heart. Curse the King! May the Spirit shred his soul! Would that an evil sprite stole away his breath this very night! As to the Miller’s Daughter’s part in it – I refused to consider it. But if betrayal lurked in her pure heart, latent until the day regal perfidy awaken it, then – then curse her too!

There was no question as to what I would do.

“Give me the ring,” I said and took it when she handed it over. “I shall begin now so as to be sure it will be finished an hour before sunrise in case he checks early.”

So it was that I spent a second night spinning straw into gold in the company of my soul mate with my heart half broken.

Part V: The Second to Last Meeting (that is to say, Sixth)

I felt in much better spirits for some reason the next day. I was still anxious – there was a real chance she had my name by now – but something had released inside me. A light, airy feeling buoyed me up, making life a distant less painful thing. I contemplated every outcome; that the Queen would have my name and take the child forever beyond my reach; that she would not have my name and we would spend another painful session going over other people’s names and I would again have to endure a night of agony anticipating the morrow; that I would see the King and lose control of myself, never even meeting with the Queen; that the child itself would call out to me and I of course would be powerless to resist it; etc. etc. But with each scenario where I should have been writhing with dread I felt only a sort of mental shrug. Perhaps I was finally learning to accept Fate?

I was nearly cheerful when I entered the Queen’s presence. We exchanged pleasantries; she looked askance at me, reacting to my strange mood or the hoarseness of my voice, I could not say. She set about listing again so I installed myself in one of the chairs for the duration. I did not answer orally to every name as I had nearly done the day before, sparing my aching throat the discomfort, and kept up a steady headshake.

Within the first three seconds I knew she did not have it. Out of good humor I politely sat through the considerably improved collection of names – she had done some research it seemed – but soon my mind began to wander. At first I was subject to rather unpleasant musings, such as how she was managing to keep the King out of the business (or was she? I had no real evidence that he hadn’t been informed by now. It was possible he simply left the problem to her to solve on her own. But somehow I felt she kept me to herself still) and what manner of heroic yet tragically foolish act she was planning for the morrow in the eventuality that she remained ignorant of my name. Then I lingered over the thought that a year ago she had had merely to ask and I would have (the afflicted fool I was!) gladly given it. Suddenly I thought, How could she not know? More importantly, why? Did she in fact in her deepest heart of hearts want me to have the child? I almost laughed.

The amusing thought demolished my good humor. I was abruptly so filled with disgust I could hardly keep my seat.

I interrupted to rasp, in venomous outrage, “Have you given up?”

“Are you afraid?” she countered.

Baffled I only looked at her.

“You are afraid; I surely have your name,” she said with a small smile.

“No, you do not.”

“No? Why not let me continue, if you are so certain?”

“It is a waste of time – you aren’t even trying! You will never find it out!” I was on my feet and shouting now.

“Do you truly know that? Has Fate already given you my child?” Her voice was low and menacing. “Why invent this game, which apparently fails to amuse, if you know? I do not believe you know. I believe you are the one wasting time, stalling, for what I do not know, but to some cruel aim no doubt. Let me tell you: I will prevail against you. Perhaps even now I have your name and I will say it and vanquish you once and for all and you will never touch my child again.”

“Let me tell you, my Queen: You will have to do much better than this if you are to succeed. And of this I am certain: your chances of success would improve drastically if you made proper use of your resources – namely, your King. I realize you would only think me a cheat if I left now and gave you an opportunity to actually find my name, so I will hear the rest of your pathetic list.”

She stared at me for a long moment then recommenced naming names. I resumed my seat and thoughts, though the latter were quite changed, having gone from reasonless cheer to loathsome brooding.

Why should I take offense at her misperception of me? She did not know me; a year ago it was made plain she did not wish to know me. And did I not, in fact, enjoy her condemnation? Every grimace, every recoil, every time she poisoned herself with repulsive thoughts of my odiousness – weren’t these my vengeances against her and the true reasons behind “this game?” Besides, there should not have been any living nerve left to feel in my heart for her since the truth was discovered – namely, that I am a total imbecile and hers is a false heart. (When my thoughts strayed to her side of it, in spite of myself I yet felt a piercing pain in a place I thought long dead.)

At long last the final name fell from her lips and left us in silence. She was watching me, looking me straight in the eyes. Suddenly I could not bear to meet that gaze but I dared not look away. Her face was drained of color, of life, and the muscles in her neck stood out from her flesh like cords. She was grieving without tears but somehow her eyes, so full of hurt, were empty of reproach.

“What do you mean, ‘make use of my resource the King?’” she queried in a voice devoid of emotion.

“I mean just as I said: make use of him. It is possible to find it – if you look in the right places.” I rose as I spoke. “Please try. For both our sakes.”

I was gone before she could make a reply.

Part VI: The Third Meeting

The third night found her in a yet larger room filled with yet more straw. The King’s greed was indeed incited, it appeared, and would rob me of another night’s sleep. But I was not firmly decided I would surrender to it this time.

I had had a day to ponder and my mind was in an unpleasant way after doing this work. My heart was no longer breaking but I felt it pertinent to take precautions to ensure it did not break again – the next shattering was certain to be more thorough and complete. So I had resolved to end the romance before it started, thereby avoiding her inevitable betrayal. Such resolutions are simple to make but quite another thing to do. I already loved her and I was not entirely sure Fate could be so easily foiled. What would become of our child? When I remembered that fresh fragrance, that plump face, I felt my resolve falter. Was it really best to deny that existence (even if that were possible) only to guard against my own hurt? Besides, human beings are weak creatures; did she not need some allowances? It did not necessarily follow that one misstep resulted in an irreparable and everlasting rift. Perhaps her heart would stray and, yes, skewer my soul, but mayhap after its wanderings it would return to me.

I was ill with indecision when I entered her new prison. I thought maybe I would wait to see another informative vision (I am not a complete idiot – I could detect a pattern when I saw one) to make my decision, if indeed I had any choice in the matter. My heart gave a lurch, as if in confirmation of Fate’s control of it.

The Miller’s Daughter had been waiting for me again but in a changed state. Her face was not lined with worry and her pacing had a queer spring to it – if I didn’t know better I would have thought she was, well, happy. Nervous and taut with tension but happy. She turned to me with bright eyes when I stepped in and I had to take firm command of myself to keep from cringing away.

“I am glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “Without you I would die! Though this time I don’t know – I am almost certain he would not – I mean, he is, in his heart, not a killer! He has changed, or my perception of him has, but most certainly his plan has – I think! – Well, it is a fact his statement is different this time. There was no mention of death, that’s an undeniable fact. I still need your services, of course. Why take chances?” Here she laughed unnervingly for a moment then resumed pacing – for she had begun pacing immediately after greeting me – and exclaiming her various and confusing thoughts, gesticulating wildly. Clearly she was riled up by something. She spoke as if she had been indulging this disturbing monologue for some time before my arrival. “But if we go strictly by his words, then there’s the question, the ultimate question, which not only is the question of my life, but in a way, in a very serious way, the question of all humanity. Because everyone needs forgiveness and a new life and … and …” she could not quite make herself utter the final word and as she struggled she suddenly became aware of me again. “You must think me mad and maybe I am. I will ask for your aid once more because I must, for life, for my loving father, but for myself? My soul is skewered on this decisive point, but what real choice do I have?” I shuddered at how closely her words echoed my thoughts. She had ceased pacing and now the energy drained from her body in one horrible sigh of desolation. Profound sorrow crept into her voice as she said, “My rage means nothing, avails nothing, because there is something else inside me conquering it, countering it strength for strength, something that makes me think reason has abandoned me, yet… Yet my soul soars with a certainty I have never felt before. It’s as if I have known all my life this was in store for me, that I was born for this. Yes, everything has fallen into place for this and no other reason. My father, you, the King… Oh, God, help me! Am I embracing Fate, accepting Thy command, or am I lost in delusion? Can I rise to this challenge? Am I even meant to?”

There was such yearning in her face that my breath caught in my throat.

“But again,” she said, turning an odd smile on me, “again, there is nothing to consider because there is only one choice, that of life. All this agony, confusion, anger, even the joy, is nothing. Fate has seized me in its iron grasp and there is no escape.”

“What has he done to you?” I hissed, completely horrified.

“What has he done? What has he done?” she laughed overly loud and long. “He has hardly anything to do with it – it is Fate! It is all just Fate! Is that not what you tried to tell me before?”

“Has the mad King infected you with his disease? You’ve lost your mind!”

“Oh, assuredly!” she replied merrily.

“The demonic fiend!” I cried, beside myself. “How could I have let it come to this? I have failed to protect my dear one! Let us away! I should have freed you that first night! Let us be free of him at last, even if too late!” I leapt towards her and took hold of her hand.

“Away?” she asked uncomprehendingly then came to herself. “No, I must stay for the morrow – You do not understand. You have not failed. You have led me to my destiny, to the aim of my entire life. Please, spin the straw into gold for me one last time; send me into my new life – my real life – with him. Do your magic, please, and cause me to be reborn fresh and more alive than ever – Turn me into a Queen!”

I froze in place. “Queen?”

She laughed giddily. “There was no mistaking it. His exact words, when he left me here, were: ‘If all this is spun tonight you shall be my Queen.’”

My heart shattered within me.

For a moment I thought I had lost consciousness or simply exited the realm of reality, but soon I realized my mind had whipped through Time yet again. Images assaulted me and I helplessly took their pummeling for my mind had no eyes to close against them. I saw the Miller’s Daughter clothed in a most beautiful and ornate gown, head held high, face glowing with an intensity not quite joy. Next to her stood a man – the same man from my previous vision, who could only be the King – royal head adorned with his crown and countenance impassive. The sunlight caught in the red of his hair and close-shorn beard and danced along the sharp edges of the crown. The couple was surrounded on three sides by a gaily dressed crowd, gathered as if for a festival in the open courtyard. The Miller’s Daughter murmured something to which the King replied equally softly and their faces turned to each other, eyes meeting in a look so intimate and deep the kiss that followed was superfluous. Then the King turned to reach for something and, smiling for the first time, he placed on her temple a circlet of rulership. King and Queen hand-in-hand faced the crowd.

I cried out and discovered my body returned to me. I cannot describe my emotions at this juncture. I had to see it all before I could understand and the understanding in full nearly annihilated me. You must think me abominably stupid, dear reader, that I should only at this point have realized my mistake – but maybe you abandoned this tale long ago and are not here to enjoy my humiliation, or you may never have even begun this wretched thing in the first place and there is no reader. There is only me to suffer this, to humiliate and mock, to sympathize and pity, reader or no makes little difference. I have seen my own idiotic hopes, dreams, and mistaken beliefs and watched what came of them.

Of course at the time I could not think on it with the coolness of humility. The mere realization, let alone the full consequences, of the fact that she never loved me nor would she ever sent me reeling. My body ached as if from physical injury. I felt my being try to expunge this poison, expel the realization and feeling from my mind, body and soul, but it could not. Thoughts jumbled in painful clumps without constructing sensible meanings. Out of the chaos of my mind one thought cycled continually to my attention: the child was not mine. Would not be mine, would never be mine.

I slowly became aware of the Miller’s Daughter pushing at my limp and recumbent form and saying something, but I could not discern her words over the sound of – sobbing? A small remote part of me somehow managed to feel a dull surprise to find myself whimpering and keening with abandon. I attempted to control myself but could not muster the motivation. What did composure matter when my heart was broken?

Presently her gentle coaxing turned rough until she was shaking me. I tensed in startlement then went limp; so what if she throttled me? Life was already extinguished as far as I was concerned.

She slapped me across the face. I was shocked into silence.

“What is ailing you? Please! Come back to me!” she cried. When she saw my gaze focused on her, she took my face between her hands quite tenderly and asked, “Are you all right?”

Overcome I warbled, “It’s not mine.”

“You poor, poor thing,” she crooned, stroking my hair. “It will be better in a moment.”

“It’s not mine!” I said more forcefully.

“You will be better soon, it will pass. This happened before, I recall; you always recover.” She rocked me back and forth in her arms.

“No, no, I will not recover – it’s not mine!” I shoved away from her, despair giving way to anger.

“Shush, calm yourself,” she scolded. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

A strangled sound emitted from my throat. I doubted in the extreme my ability to inflict any further damage to myself.

“You must recover!”

“Must I? Why must I? Oh! Yes! Of course!” I laughed hysterically, bitterly. “You need me to spin the straw for you so you can become Queen! His Queen! Ha-ha-ha-ha!” I lurched to my feet when she reached as if to hold me again. “No! No, no, no! I won’t do it! Nothing in the world could make me do it! Nothing! Not even Fate itself!”

“What are you saying? Pull yourself together!” Her eyes were wide with amazed horror.

“You heard me, my lady – I will not spin it! Not for you, not for Fate, and definitely not for myself, no!” In my agitation I was tearing through the room, stirring the straw up into uneven lumps here and there.

The significance of my outbursts was beginning to come to her. “Won’t spin it? But why? What is wrong with you? What happened?”

She again moved to touch me and I violently jerked away.

“I won’t!” I shouted.

She studied me for an agonizing moment as I stood trembling with only a tenuous grasp on sanity. Finally she said reasonably, convincingly, “Did not Fate bring you here to me? Fate sent you not once or twice, but thrice in my hour of need – is that all for naught? I believe you came to help me, to save me, to show me my destiny, my place in this universe when all was dark and gloom – you gave me my life and my true self. You gave it to me. And now, when I am on the cusp of realizing my true destiny, you abandon me?”

I stared at her blindly. I thought on her words and went over in mind all that had led to this moment, every spoken word, every action, every vision, and the paralytic epiphany hit me: I had no choice. I could not not spin the straw. I had to spin the straw into gold for her, for him, and make her Queen. Just as she had observed: there was only Fate. Nothing else mattered or even existed.

“No! my soul screamed. Hopeless defiance gripped me. A sudden resolve, as sharp and cold as an icicle, formed within me. Alas, my rebellion only closed the trap around me!

I thought, If Fate isn’t going to give it to me, I will simply take it myself.

I turned to her and asked with a wicked smile, “What will you give me to spin the gold for you this third time?”

She looked at me steadily, with fortitude but resignedly, as if she too knew the inevitable. “I have nothing left to give.”

“Then promise me,” I said, “your first little child when you are Queen.”

Part VII: The Seventh and Final Meeting

It was the final day, the moment of truth, as they say. I did not know which outcome I hoped for; either way I would win, child or freedom. Of course, looking at it a different way, I’d lose either way too. That’s the trouble with betting on both sides.

The shock of finding the King in the sitting room was harder than I’d expected. I walked in and there he stood, arms crossed, back straight, his infernal height enhanced by the blue velvet mantle draping from his shoulders. He was looking directly at me, having obviously anticipated my arrival.

“I suppose we can dispense with introductions,” I said, grinding my teeth. The Queen was seated in her customary chair and was watching me impassively. I glared at her resentfully.

“Oh, yes, I think we might as well,” the King said, a note of sarcasm unmistakable in his voice.

The Queen shot him a sharp look. She turned to me and spoke coolly, as if she were untouched by the circumstance. “As this is equally his concern as mine, I took the liberty of requesting his presence for this meeting.”

“And before it wasn’t his concern? Only now does it concern him?”

She flinched. A spot you cannot turn to ice, my Queen?

“She need not justify anything to you,” the King said.

“Of course not, Your Majesty, but if we are to converse, might I be allowed to ask questions? Or perhaps I should request leave to speak at all.”

“What insolence! Need I remind you of your current position, dwarf? You are in the Royal Palace–“

“Yes, I’ve visited once or twice before. No wait, now that I think of it, I recall coming here, hmm, eight times already. This shall be my ninth.”

“Eight–! What?” the Queen gasped. “Wouldn’t it be only six?”

“That reminds me – I forgot to congratulate you on the wedding, didn’t I? I would have given you my blessings on the day, but,” I shrugged, “you seemed busy.”

That put some color into their cheeks. It was rather gratifying to watch.

“You have been spying on us? What other time–“

“It is of no consequence, my love. Banish this fiend before he poisons us further with any more degrading utterances!”

“’Poison’ you? ‘Fiend?’ As I recall, it was I who saved her from you!” My wrath exceeded my control and I shouted at him with hatred.

The Queen stood. Though consumed with rage, I still fell back from the force of her presence. I think the King must also have quailed for his arms dropped to his sides and he turned away from me to face her.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she said, the word reverberating painfully through my skull. I felt to my knees. “You did save me. You performed the task I asked of you in spite of your reluctance and for that I owed you my gratitude. But what you delivered me from neither of us know or can know – the King, like Fate, was not what he seemed. Oh, that third night! Madness had taken us all! I told you I thought I would die but in truth I feared I would lose him. We have all sinned and I will carry my regret to the grave, though thanks to you I have been granted a second chance. And you have also.”

I knelt, trembling with shock. At last I grated flippantly, “I see I am not the only spy here.”

The Queen smiled.

Then I began to laugh. Once started I could not stop. I laughed and laughed till tears ran down my face. I was moving around the room, somehow having pulled myself up off the floor, and I danced. There was no music, of course, but soon I found myself singing:

Today I wait, tomorrow take,
The flames of my evil Fate fanned,
The Queen’s child, by Time’s own closed hand.
Joyously I sing my fame,
Rumpelstiltskin is my name!

On one haphazard turn about the room, I tripped, damaging my toe considerably. The pain did not halt my dancing, but I had to stop singing to laugh again.

“I won!” I said, though I had lost more than I’d thought I would. “I won, ha-ha!”

The Queen and King only stared at me.

“Well, I would say our business is definitely concluded, wouldn’t you? I must bid you adieu!” I took my leave and never saw them again.

Now I bid the same to you, dear reader.