by Holly Hook
Then I faced the room and the new spinning wheel that sat in the middle.
My hands ached. I must have been running on just a couple of hours of sleep. I couldn't do this again. Lavine sure wasn't going to bring me an energy drink.
I sat down, grabbed a handful of hay, and began to work.
* * * * *
The door burst open hours later as I was cramming another large handful of straw into the wheel.
I jumped. King Henrik stood there, face red with rage.
"What's the problem?" I asked, waving to the piles of golden thread on the floor all around me. "Are you not happy with my speed?" My heart leaped into my throat, and I swallowed down the terror. I knew this would happen. He'd notice his missing staff sooner or later.
"My knights. That is the problem," he said, taking a step towards me. "Brie, do you have any idea where they have all gone?"
"Your knights are missing?" I asked, trying to screw up my face in confusion.
"Yes. Missing." He closed the distance between us a little more. The king raised one hand like he wanted to hit me, and then lowered it again. "Do you know anything about it?"
I waited for a blow. I couldn't show fear here. Henrik wanted a scared, submissive wife who did what he wanted. And even if I couldn't escape from here, I wasn't going to give him that. "Maybe you didn't offer them enough benefits? Health insurance or paid days off? Sorry. Those are things employers do in the other world."
Henrik's jaw bulged. He was furious. I grabbed the edges of my stool. What if Stilt and Sylvia or Lavine were dead already? Some of it would be my fault.
"My knights were in the dining hall," he said, "and now they are all gone, with not one of them to be found around the grounds. My wolves cannot even find them, and I've sent them searching around the forest nearby." He grunted and faced the door. I wondered if I could make a run for it, but what would he do? If Stilt, an ordinary elf, could turn into a lettuce leaf, what could Henrik do?
"I don't know," I said. "Maybe your guards are afraid of you?"
I regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth, but Henrik faced me and smiled.
But I had changed the subject, at least.
"After all, you look like you're getting pretty powerful." It didn't hurt to stroke his ego. "I thought I heard one of them muttering about how dangerous you were getting. You know, when Lavine was leading me to the spinning room yesterday. I thought it was just my imagination at the time."
"Let them run from me," Henrik said. "I'll find them. I'll show them what it means to be loyal to their leader." He still suspected me. It was there in the tone of his voice. "I want this gold spun by morning, Brie."
And then he left the room and closed the door, leaving me alone.
I waited until his footsteps had gone down the hall until I collapsed on the remaining straw and let the tears of relief leak out.
* * * * *
My fingers were cramping by the time night fell outside, and a cold, vile air crept through the barred window. I shoved another bunch of straw into the spinning wheel and watched as yet another golden thread came out, sparkling in the dim light. I was going to see golden thread behind my eyes if I slept tonight, and golden thread behind my eyes every night until I died. I felt like every fiber of my soul had filled with it, and it was closing in, choking the life out of me.
The door came open, and I jumped. The doorway framed Lavine, who carried another platter. Someone stood behind her, a big man in a white chef's uniform. Henrik was having one of his cooks escort her around. He hadn't hired new help yet.
She glanced at the cook behind her, and then at me again. "We're safe," she said. "This is the cook who planted the apples in the knights' pie today. Henrik thinks we are all loyal to him because he took us under his wing." She set the platter down on the ground and opened it.
It was a huge plate of veggies along with some meat I didn't recognize. "Rabbit," she said. "You're lucky you're getting this. Henrik only allows royals to eat rabbit here. Well, you will be his Queen in less than two days."
"No, I'm not," I said. I wouldn't touch the rabbit on that alone. "Where's Stilt?" I saw nothing moving in the tray.
"We couldn't bring him this time on the platter," Lavine said, frowning. "Henrik called Alric back from his bandit search due to his knights disappearing. Alric can detect any magic use in this castle with his crystal ball. He knows when you're spinning and when you're not. And he knows when someone changes shape. He's worse than the knights, Brie, but at least there's only one of him. You'll need to go down to Stilt's cell yourself. You make a left down this hall, turn and go back to your original cell. Stilt's is down that same hall. He's in there along with Sylvia. You'll need to take the key from me."
I got up, heart pounding.
It was my turn to go out there.
And possibly face Henrik's number two man. Had I made things worse by getting rid of the knights? "Can Alric see us now?"
"Only when you're using magic and only if he's using his crystal ball. He expects you to be eating right now, so he can't watch."
"Then we need to destroy it," I said. "And get out of here."
"But," Lavine said, holding up one hand. "You have to make it look like we didn't just let you go." She gulped. "You need to hit us with that platter. Hurt us enough to leave bruises. If you knock us out, that's even better."
"I...what?"
The man behind her nodded. "You'll need to be tougher on me, Brie."
"Do it," Lavine ordered.
I knew that I needed to. If I didn't, these two would lose their heads.
Literally.
I picked up the platter and swallowed, dumping the food off. My palms sweat and I forgot all about the cramping. Lavine closed her eyes. "Do it fast," she begged.
I let out a breath.
I swung.
The piece of metal made a horrible, metallic thud against Lavine's head. She cried out, reached up for her head, and went down. Her skin turned red just under her hairline. I'd hit her hard. She curled up in a ball, and a key fell out of her skirt pocket. I grabbed it just as the cook ran in.
"Now me," he said. He was a young guy who looked like he might fit at working in some fast food joint. "I have to make it look like I tried to stop you. Hit me now."
I took the platter and swung it at him. It struck him in his chest, and he grabbed at his ribs. The guy doubled over. Before I could think, I brought the platter down on top of his head. He grunted and went down, reaching for a stray piece of straw.
Key in hand, I bolted out of the room.
Alric wouldn't detect this--would he? I hadn't used any magic, but I had also stopped spinning gold. Alric might just think I was eating because it was dinner time. That gave me about ten precious minutes, maybe a little more.
I bolted down the dark hall and came to the doorway that led to the one with the stained glass windows. I turned and ran past the cell I'd been in the day before. It was open, and Henrik had already had every single golden thread taken out. Where did Henrik keep his gold, anyway? There had to be a store of it somewhere.
I hoped that this key could open all the dungeon doors.
The ravens and the wolves in the stained glass windows stared down at me with their red eyes. The apple tree turned to a blur behind the window. Its branches looked like bloody arms trying to reach out to me. I made another turn and down the spiral staircase into the dungeon area. Stilt had been near me the entire time down here, right along with Sylvia. I had to try all the doors.
No knights. Nothing. Only a mouse scurried into the dark. I passed my original door and stopped.
"Stilt," I said, quiet. "Where are you?"
"Brie?"
A hand stuck out of a barred door window up ahead. Stilt was in the cell at the very end.
"Here," he said. "I can't use magic. Alric will know. Lavine told me so. Get us out. Then we need to think of a way out of here."
I knew I couldn't go back to the cell. "I know." I to
ok the big brass key and turned it in the lock, heart pounding. I didn't remember Stilt being in this cell. They must have moved him. The lock clicked, and I pulled the door open. "Come on," I said.
Stilt stood there, eyes even darker tonight, and Sylvia hung behind him, her hood down and her brown curls showing. And she still had her eyes.
Outside, the wolves began to howl.
We'd never get past them without using some magic. We had to find a way to keep Alric from finding out. "The two of you have been at this castle before," I said. "Where's Alric's office or whatever? And where is the magic mirror that you got through last time? You know, when you were taking me to the other world." I faced Stilt.
"I've never been there," Sylvia told me. "And when I was here last, I was blind."
"The mirror was in Alric's office before," Stilt said. The struggle crept across his face. It was worse tonight. "What...what will you give me in exchange for showing the way?"
I was ready for this. I slid off Hannah's friendship ring and gave it to him. "This," I said, hating the way my hand felt without it. Hannah was my only friend who didn't care that I could spin gold. I wondered if she still would today.
Stilt took the ring. "That will work," he said, pocketing it. His eyes darkened. Maybe it was with sadness at what his nature was making him do to me. Maybe it was with his growing evil. "I'll show you where his office is."
"Let's go," I said, aware that I had nothing left to trade. If I stayed another night, he would demand something that I could never give. "We need to look for this while we have no knights." Stilt and Sylvia were risking their lives. If Henrik caught them, they might get killed. And worse, he might make me watch. But this might be our one chance before Henrik hired some other men to be his guards. He wouldn't let his wolves and ravens in, would he?
"It's this way," Stilt said, leading the way. "If Alric is there right now, I will not take you all the way to it."
"Fair enough," I said.
He got in the front and led us back up the stairway. We emerged into the hallway with the stained glass and ran through. Stilt took me past the first door, then through the next corridor where the cook and Lavine still lay on the floor, knocked out, or pretending to be. Stilt nodded at them as we passed and he drew close to me. I could feel the air around him crackling with electricity. A chill settled. His scars poked out from his sleeves as he ran. He could never hide them. Not really.
We came to a split in the hall, where a single torch hung. Flickering candles cast an eerie yellow glow on everything. Sylvia checked up and down the area. "My hearing isn't as good as it was," she said. "But I hear footsteps to the left. I think it might be Alric. It sounds like he's headed to the throne room. We have to go a long way around."
My heart pounded, and my limbs tightened, ready to run. The man had shrunk us and restored us again. I didn't want to know what else he could do. Sylvia headed right, and we walked as quietly as we could. If he checked on the cell and found us gone, he might invite the animals in here.
"Got it." Stilt took us through the dining hall, where the knights must eat. There were no plates left on the tables, and no one sitting in here. The servants must dine in their room or something. But this was where the knights had sunk into the ground, never to be seen again. I wondered how the evil things down there were treating them.
He faced me. His eyes still held traces of that blue I liked. "We have to hurry. I won't like what I'll have to demand from you next."
I didn't want to ask what that was.
Stilt took us through the dining hall, up another two flights of stairs, and down another hallway, this one more open to the outside with huge, glass windows. I could see a large, green courtyard with dark trees surrounding us. The sun hung close to the horizon, but it was hazy. The sky remained its ugly gray color and the forest as ominous as ever. I could see no road that led away from here, no trails. King Henrik must not like visitors, ever.
And I did spot a small pack of wolves hanging out in the courtyard. They were eating something that might be another deer. These had to be Henrik's wolves. I caught a glimpse of a reddish pair of eyes from up here as one glanced up at us, then went back to its meal.
"We're here," Stilt said.
We came to a door that had been left open. I peered past the wooden door and into a room that looked like a wizard's library.
Books lined all the shelves, and an actual crystal ball sat on the desk, ready for use. That was how he was spying on the magic here. Compasses and rolled-up maps rested everywhere, and a stool sat before the desk. It was a small room, and it had the air of an office. Stilt and I dared to step into the room, and I sensed a flash of sharp power in here, a tingle running up and down my limbs.
"Where's the mirror?" I asked.
"I don't see it," Stilt said. "It was in here before. Henrik must have moved it to his throne room or something."
I cursed. The mirror would have been our gateway out of here. Stilt and I had escaped through it before. "We have to check. Maybe we can use the crystal ball. What is it supposed to do?"
"Anything useful in there?" Sylvia asked.
"I don't know," I told her. I searched around, but it was all books and maps. I didn't have time to sit and read and if we were going to get out of here without the mirror, we needed to find a way around the wolves and ravens. Something we could use as a weapon. But there was nothing here except for the books and I didn't know how to cast any spells. The tingling magic feeling got stronger the closer I got to Alric's desk. There was something about that crystal ball.
Maybe it could show us a way out of here?
But as I stared, images started to move inside of it. It was going on its own. "Whoa," I said. "Look at this."
I squinted at the movie playing inside, unable to look away.
Sunshine. A small cottage came into focus, with a young couple standing outside. The image zoomed in, and I could see that it was a man with dark hair and a woman with blond hair--blond hair just like mine. I tensed, and Stilt did next to me. He backed away a little.
Were these my birth parents?
The woman looked so much like me that I couldn't deny it. They wore ordinary peasant clothes, and the woman was pregnant. The scene moved away from the cottage and into the forest nearby. These woods were much lighter than the one around us, but it still held onto some darkness. This place was close to the border of the darker region. These people lived way too close to Henrik for my comfort.
"What is this?" I asked.
Stilt took my arm. "We should go."
"No. What is this?"
Then I saw Stilt. Inside the crystal ball.
He was wandering through the forest nearby, a ragged shirt hugging him. He turned, and I could see his scars. They were fresh now, red and angry, and there weren't as many of them. It had been his first time getting whipped. Stilt had that dark look in his eyes, even worse than the one he had now. He had just left the dark region and hadn't had time to turn light yet. And he looked the age he appeared as now. Elves must grow up more quickly than humans. Of course. Stilt would have been reborn before I was.
He had a knife in one hand and a wild look, like he was searching for something. Food. That had to be it. Then he spotted a brownish, partridge-looking bird sitting on the ground nearby. Stilt snuck up on it, seized it, and it squawked, trying to get away. I tensed, waiting for him to slit the bird's throat, but instead, he took the knife and cut his palm. Blood bubbled up from his perfect flesh, and he stared at it. A glow appeared around his wound, a golden one, and he pressed his wound to the bird's mouth.
The bird lapped it up. The glow transferred to the bird and its feathers shone. I realized the bird was changing color.
Turning completely gold.
Stilt let the bird go, and it flew up into the trees. It perched there, singing a song. Meanwhile, Stilt walked away, his shoulders sagging with relief.
"We need to go," the real Stilt said next to me.
"What did y
ou do to the bird?" I asked.
"Nothing. We need to go."
It sure didn't look like nothing. The nerves in Stilt's voice made me want to watch this even more. Stilt's energy tensed. It raced up my arm, a mixture of warm and cold. The darkness was creeping up on the elf again, and Stilt only had a matter of time before he went back to the real Rumpelstiltskin.
Another person entered the vision in the crystal ball. A man--the one from the cottage.
My father.
And he held a rifle.
He spotted the bird and Stilt ducked into the bushes, hiding. He raised the gun and fired, and the bird dropped to the ground, dead and golden as ever. My father picked it up and studied it, then carried it back to the cottage. The vision shifted, showing my father plucking out the feathers while my mother butchered the bird and cooked the meat. The house was almost in shambles. A crooked chair leaned up against the table.
"Brie, come on!" Stilt's terror grew.
My parents ate the meat of the golden bird for dinner, savoring it. My father counted the gold feathers. The vision shifted, and my mother sat in the chair, bouncing a small child in a bonnet on her lap.
Me.
It had to be. The child had my blond hair. She played with two pieces of straw, twisting them together. A golden flash erupted, and a gold chain hung from my fingers. My mother's mouth fell open as she gasped.
I whirled around so fast that I knocked the crystal ball on the floor, shattering it. Stilt let go of my arm and waited.
"You gave me this curse," I said, gripping the table as hard as I could.
"It was an accident!" Stilt said. "I only meant to give it to the bird, go off, and avoid Henrik. I didn't know your parents would kill it and eat it. It was a selfish thing for me to do. I was still dark at the time. But after I spent some time in the lighter region, I came to feel for the horror you experienced every time King Henrik kidnapped you, and I knew I couldn't let that happen to you again. So I took you to the other world. That time, it was for you, Brie. Not myself. After that, Henrik captured me again, and I took far more whippings than I should have because I could no longer spin gold for him."
