A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  She looked sullen. “So what if I have?”

  “I can’t believe you’d waste what little money you have on this rubbish. If Mam were alive—”

  I never had a chance to finish, for at that moment Rosie looked past me and turned absolutely pale. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me standing. Someone was in the room with us, casually leaning against the hex sign.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, misses.” The figure stepped into the light, not some eldritch savior from Fairyland, but a perfectly ordinary, somewhat shabby man of about my father’s age. A bit stoop-shouldered, in a coat much too large for him, he lifted brown fingers to his hat brim and nodded genially.

  Rosie still clutched my arm. “Welcome to Stirwaters!” Her voice was pitched somewhere between gaiety and hysteria.

  “Was there something we could help you with, sir?” I said.

  He took another step toward us. He had a queer sort of shambling walk, as if troubled by rheumatism. “Well, I was thinking there might be something I could help you with,” he said. “That is, you might have some work for someone like me.”

  I looked him over—just an itinerant tradesman in workaday clothes and a battered hat, with unfashionable red side-whiskers and small eyes, as if he squinted over his work. My father had sometimes worked with such people—men with a knack for some odd trade or talent. He’d put them up for a few days or weeks while they did their work, until the urge to travel struck them once again. Wanderers, my father called them, often with a hint of longing in his voice.

  “I’m afraid not.” I shook my head. “We’re nearing the end of the season, and—”

  “Give the man a chance,” Rosie muttered from behind that bright smile.

  “We can’t pay the workers we have, you know that.”

  Rosie ignored me. “What kind of work do you do?” She was flushed with excitement, her hair tumbling down into her face, bonnet hung against her back.

  “Oh, you’d say I’m a man of all trades, with a few special skills.” He stepped closer still, a gold watch-chain glinting across his plaid waistcoat. “If you’ll allow me to demonstrate, I do think I could be of some help to you here.”

  I smiled tightly. “You’d have to be able to make gold appear from thin air to be much help to us now, I’m afraid.”

  “Gold, you say?” he said, scratching his head through his hat. “Well, not out of the air, maybe, but—” He reached toward Rosie, who stood strangely still under his advance, and drew a length of straw free from her hat. I started to protest the liberty he was taking, but something stopped me. From out of a pocket in his jacket appeared an old-fashioned hand-held drop-spindle, the kind no one uses anymore, and he sent it spinning with a turn of his hand.

  Slowly, as we watched, he drew out the straw and spun it—spun it! As if it were a roving of wool! As the spindle bobbed and twirled, something—I could not quite see what—pulled out from the brown straw and through his knobby fingers, and where it should have gone onto the spindle, the finest strands of gleaming golden threads appeared. Around and around the spindle went, and the glitter of gold turned with it. I could not take my eyes away.

  “What alchemy is this?” I heard my voice say, quiet and far away. “What sleight-of-hand?” Abruptly the spindle stopped, and the spinner held it up for me to examine. It was full, spun tight with thread that indeed looked more like gold than straw.

  I pulled out the last twelve or eighteen inches and could not credit what I saw. It seemed to be truly gold thread—purely gold and nothing else, no carrier thread to tame the metal to the shape; if I held it tightly for a moment, the heat of my hand would soften it, and it took merely a pinch of my fingers to break the strand. Yet something told me that this thread would weave well and embroider even better: the sort of thread that could make a clothier weep for the perfection of it. I tugged at the bit of straw still dangling from the end, hoping to see where and how it fastened to the thread. It pulled free with only a bit of resistance.

  I could not work out how he had done it. Perhaps he had fed the spindle with thread concealed in his coat-sleeve. Perhaps—perhaps it was real.

  “Charlotte!” Rosie was babbling on excitedly; I hadn’t heard a word she’d said. I looked up and blinked at her, seeing only the glitter of gold before my dazed eyes.

  “What do you think?” she demanded.

  “I—” I faltered and worked my face to find coherent thoughts. “We’re not set up for metallic thread. It takes a machine like a winch, not a spinning jack…” But my words were senseless: There before me—in my own hands—was the proof. I forced myself to stand straight and hand the spindle back to its owner. “Sir,” I said, “I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but I don’t believe this is anything we’re interested in.”

  “Charlotte!” Rosie squealed. “Have you lost your mind? Isn’t that just what you asked him for?”

  “This is madness. And furthermore, you know we can’t afford it.”

  “My rates are reasonable,” the spinner said. “I’m sure we can work out some bargain that’s agreeable to all of us.”

  “Fine,” I said a little wildly. “What are you offering?”

  He turned and eyed the office appraisingly. “If you fill a room that size with straw, I will spin you equal measure in gold thread.”

  “In exchange for what?” The very room seemed to be spinning around me.

  His bright gaze fell on my hand. “I rather like your ring,” he said.

  I stared at my hand. The only ring I wore had been Mam’s—a cheap paste pearl in a silver plate setting. “Why?” I said. “It has no value.”

  A slow smile spread beneath the ruddy moustache. “It has to you,” he said.

  I looked at my penny-ring and then the full spindle of gold thread he still held before my eyes. Rosie grabbed my arm and pulled me into the far corner. “What’s the matter?”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “Why?”

  “Rosie, it doesn’t make any sense! He’s obviously a charlatan or—or something else I don’t even want to contemplate. Why on Earth would he come to Stirwaters to give us a room full of gold in exchange for a pearl ring that’s not even real?”

  Rosie held my arm tightly. “Charlotte,” she said, and there was not the faintest trace of desperation in her voice. I should have known then not to listen to her—she’s always at her most persuasive when her plans are at their wildest. “I agree, it’s all a bit…curious. But what are we risking, really?”

  “What are we going to do with gold thread?”

  She didn’t even falter. “Sell it, of course; or give it to the bank, or take it to the smithy to have it melted down. What does it matter? It’s gold.”

  “But—” I looked past her at the little man in his shabby coat. He had gone back to twisting his hat; the gold spindle lay harmlessly on the corner of a spinning jack. Behind him, in my office, were the mortgage from Uplands Mercantile Bank and the letter from the Cloth Exchange.

  “No more mortgage, no more Pinchfields,” Rosie said, reading my mind. I pressed my fist to my forehead for a count of ten, then turned back to the spinner.

  “Very well,” I said finally. “Come back this evening. We should have your straw by then.” I edged past him into my office. “Let me just get some paperwork drawn up for you to sign.”

  The man was shaking his head. “I’ll not sign my name to anything in this mill again,” he said. “If that’s all the same to you.”

  I paused. “Have you worked at Stirwaters before?”

  “Oh, aye,” he said. “All the Millers have known my work.”

  “Really? What’s your name, then? I’ve probably seen you in the records.”

  He looked out my office door at the work floor beyond. “Oh,” he said, as if considering the idea, “let’s say Jack Spinner.”

  Something cold spread through my breast. “That’s no kind of a name.”

  “It’s all the name I need, here.” He gave
a slight smile and tipped his hat. “Tonight, then. I’ll be back at sundown.”

  After he’d gone, I paced the office. “Straw!” I muttered. “Why not sand? Why not sows’ ears?”

  “That’s silk purses, not gold thread,” Rosie said with a grin.

  “Oh, it’s all the same. Rosie—aren’t you the faintest bit disturbed by this?”

  “Why? From what I can tell, he’s the answer to our prayers.” She shrugged. “Or something.”

  “But jackspinner?”

  “Perhaps his mother had a sense of humor.”

  “He’s lying,” I said.

  “Or he’s lying. Who cares?”

  I glanced through the office door, to where the hex sign was cast in the fading light. My father’s atlas still lay open on the floor, in a circle of cinders. I strained to hear the waterwheel, but only silence pressed in around me. No, this just wasn’t possible.

  I picked up the spindle from where it lay and fingered the thread. For all my misgivings, I knew no mechanism that could create such luxuriously fine strands of gold. If this Spinner could do it—however he did it—

  Oh, Miller pride! I wanted Stirwaters to produce things of such quality and beauty. If no one would ever see the cloth we’d made that year, I at least wanted something to show for our efforts. I wanted to pay down our debts.

  And I had nothing to lose.

  Chapter Eight

  Finding the straw was another matter entirely. Shearing, for all its small size, is too much town and not nearly enough country to have bales of straw lying about for the taking; certainly the amount we needed would raise more than a few eyebrows. Rosie advocated substituting river rushes for the straw, on the grounds that powerful magic ought to overcome any such small obstacle. I argued a stricter interpretation, even if she could gather enough from the edge of our pond (of which I was by no means convinced).

  As usual, Harte came to our rescue. Rosie spun him some outrageous story about baskets or bonnets and rich city folks, and he amiably agreed to borrow a wain from some upcountry kin and collect the straw from the farms of his neighbors. “Anything for Stirwaters,” he’d said with a grin. “You folks are family now.”

  “He thinks he’s helping save Stirwaters,” I said to Rosie late that afternoon as Harte and Pilot set off. “Won’t he expect to see these bonnets?”

  Rosie glanced back at him. “Don’t be silly—you know Harte takes no notice of such things. Besides, he is helping save Stirwaters.”

  I stared at her, but couldn’t figure out what to say.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon clearing out a storeroom in the garret above my office, making a space for Mr. Spinner to perform his…labors in. It was hard going; most of the jumble was odd bits of machinery parts, gears and old handles and spare belts gathering dust and mold in our attic. I swept out a colony of moths that had made a lovely home in an old cast-off length of baize (now hopelessly ruined), and Rosie dusted an ancient hand spinning wheel to gleaming perfection. The wheel spun freely; our machinery, at least, would cause no problems for this enterprise.

  We adjourned at teatime. Rosie decamped back to the Millhouse to assess the situation at home and fetch us some nourishment. I brushed down my clothes, fixed my hair, and took a dip from the water-butt. Fixing my hat more snugly on my head, I ventured out of the millyard onto the solid, sure footing of the roadway, and followed the path downstream to where Nathan Smith kept his forge.

  We had no jeweller in the village, nor any bank. Uncle Wheeler would be able to tell me in a heartbeat, I was sure; but I could hardly consult him on such a matter. No, our village blacksmith seemed the only person I could turn to for what I needed to know. The traditional reputation smiths had for being tight-lipped wouldn’t go amiss, either.

  When I came upon him in the smithy yard, the last slanting rays of daylight made his oddly slight frame seem strange and ethereal. I clutched the small skein of thread in my apron pocket. He saw me lingering there, holding fast with one hand to his gatepost, and called out to me.

  “Mistress Miller, what can I do for you?”

  I found my voice, telling myself it had been too long a day with too much work in too much heat, with too little air and not nearly enough food. “Mr. Smith,” I replied, forcing my feet to carry me closer to him. I pulled the skein out and held it toward him. “I was wondering if you could tell me what this is.”

  He stared at it for a long moment before laying aside his tools and wiping his sooty fingers on his apron. He took the thread from my hand. “You mean, can I tell you that it’s what you think it is?” He handed the skein back as though he wished to be rid of it quickly. “It’s gold.” He said it simply, with a little shrug of his thin shoulders.

  “Are—are you sure?”

  Mr. Smith gave a curt nod. “Gold’s not something you mistake easy. You can be sure of it, Mistress. Good or ill, however you came by it, that’s gold you’ve got there.”

  I blinked at him. He seemed to be disappearing into the shadows more than ever now, and it was nearly impossible to make him out, all soot-covered, in the darkness.

  “Mistress Miller.” He held out his hand, something dark and heavy in his grip. “Here. You take this.” He took my hand and pressed a heavy iron ingot into my palm. “That’s cold iron. You don’t mistake that one, either.”

  With a swallow, I nodded, not sure at all what was going on. “Yes,” I said anyway. “Thank you, Mr. Smith.”

  “Right,” he said. “Hold on to that, Mistress. You don’t know when you might need it.”

  He turned back to the forge and walked away, leaving me standing in the yard, the ingot in my hand.

  True darkness hadn’t fallen after all, and I walked home in a sun-dazzled haze, keeping firmly to the center of the road and well clear of any shadows. With the weight of iron in one pocket and the skein of gold in the other, I felt a bit silly over the odd spell that had befallen me in the smithyard, and for the moment, at least, I convinced myself that all was well.

  Harte finally pulled in at dusk, driving a hay wain, looking harried but just as cheerful as ever. Behind him, the wain was loaded high with a tumbling yellow heap of straw, enough and more to fill the garret room. Rosie beamed at me triumphantly, and Harte dismounted, passing me the little purse—still fairly weighty.

  “Got the lot for two shillings, Mistress—quite a bargain, if I do say so. My old uncle was more than willing to help you Millers out, when I explained things.”

  I stared desperately at Rosie. “You got Farmer Colly involved?”

  He grinned. “Aye, and my mam wants to know, are you starting a cottage industry making corn dollies, then?”

  I snatched the purse back. “Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Thank you, Harte. And tell your mother and uncle how grateful we are when you see them next.”

  I regarded the straw in the cart. We should have to carry it all, armload by armload, up three flights of stairs through the mill. At least the mill was empty; we could work in relative secrecy, without the eyes of Shearing gossip watching us. Finally, after dozens of trips up and down that left my legs rubbery, and another half hour of sweeping up the straw we’d dropped along the way, the garret room was full. Harte showed remarkably good spirits, never asking us once why we were carrying it so far from anywhere sensible, and out of gratitude I invited him for supper. He cast a brief glance toward Rosie, who was washing up in the water-butt.

  “Ah, I think not, Miss Charlotte. I mean to go down to the river and wash up myself, then I’d like to hie to my own bed, I should think. That farm labor? Hard work for a city feller like me.” He laughed and flexed a strong arm that had been doing heavy labor all his life. “Good night, ma’ams. Miss Charlotte…Rosie.”

  Sundown came all too soon that evening, and despite all our preparations, before we were quite ready, our tradesman, our new “Jack Spinner,” returned. He was waiting in the office as Rosie and I trudged our way back upstairs, sitting on the edge of my desk and f
lipping through the pages of my father’s atlas.

  “Mr. Spinner,” I said wearily. “You’ve returned.”

  He eyed me levelly. “We had an arrangement,” he said, and the clipped edge to his voice grated like the scrape of iron when it sparks. “A bargain is a bargain, in my book. Don’t you agree, Mistress Miller?”

  I swallowed, my throat dry. “Indeed,” I said. I twisted my mother’s pearl ring from my finger and held it tightly in one hot fist. Rosie fidgeted beside me. Whatever my doubts, this was the only solution that had yet presented itself, and the thought of Uplands Mercantile foreclosing—or of the man from Pinchfields sniffing his pointy-nosed way through my mill, his stroking fingers on my machines…

  I breathed deeply, walked to my desk, and withdrew my keys. I pulled off the one to the garret room and handed it to Mr. Spinner. He looked at the key in his open palm a moment, then looked at me expectantly. I passed him the ring, which he slipped onto his rough, stained little finger.

  “Your straw is waiting for you. Rosie will show you where.” I lowered myself steadily into my chair and opened my ledger book. “Oh, and Mr. Spinner,” I called as they were leaving, and I was proud of how steady my voice sounded, “when can we expect the work to be completed?”

  He stopped in the threshold and looked at me. There was something appraising and thoughtful in that gaze, and it made my skin crawl, but I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I should think I’ll be done by morning,” he said easily.

  “By morning?” Surprise squeaked the words out of me, and I was sorry I’d asked, for all at once the nature of the work we’d ordered sprang right back to my fullest attention. Rosie must have seen something in my face, for she shut the door behind them quickly and carried him away to the garret room, just a few feet and ancient floorboards above my head.

  Rosie finally left as well, after considerable argument. We had already missed both tea and dinner; someone would have to deflect Uncle Wheeler’s questions, and both Miller girls’ absence from the Millhouse overnight was utterly untenable.