A Curse Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  Stirwaters had one last surprise for us. In the commotion, my father’s desk had slid a foot or more off its accustomed spot, and as Randall went to push it back into place, he found a thick envelope stuck between the floorboards. It was addressed to Barr & Courtland, Solicitors, Harrowgate. I knew the untidy script immediately, and my hand shook as I opened it.

  Inside were pages cut from Father’s atlas—schemata, diagrams, and a patent application for a new sort of loom, powered—oh, mercy!—by steam. They have a loom here that runs by itself—they say it’s a wonder!

  “Father made something that worked?” Rosie said, prying the pages from my hand. “But what—”

  “He was suing them,” I said, reading the letter that accompanied it all. It was dated the day before he died. “Pinchfields—for stealing his invention. That must have been what he needed the money for—your money, Randall, from the bank. These diagrams are dated—it says here that they can prove he had the idea a year before Pinchfields built their looms—no, before they built the factory. Mercy—do you know what this means? That whole factory is built up around Father’s machines.”

  Randall was studying the papers over my shoulder. “I should say it means a great deal more than that,” he said. “If it’s true—and it looks to be; this looks like pretty clear proof of their theft—you Millers would be entitled to share in Pinchfields’ profits for all this time, and they’d have to pay you for the use of those looms. And that, I daresay, could be quite a tidy sum indeed.”

  “Now what,” Rosie said, a grin overtaking her face, “would we ever do with that kind of money?”

  “I can think of one thing.” I thought I heard the mill’s voice sigh, ever so slightly, followed by the churning of the waterwheel. A bigger wheel, a deeper pit…we could make Stirwaters competitive again. And perhaps, just perhaps, right one more wrong in the process, return something that had been taken, so long ago.

  There was one last thing to be done. Everyone else wanted to wait ‘til spring, but I insisted, and before the week was out we had assembled in the cross-ways—Randall, me and Rosie, Harte on his crutches (he’d let us down the first time, he said; he’d not miss again), Biddy Tom, and William; as well as Shearing’s vicar and two strong Haymarket lads. We did not make it more public than that, although Randall had to put it before the magistrates in Haymarket. They were quick enough to agree once he showed them the broadside. A haunted crossroads is all very entertaining—until you find an actual body buried there.

  It took hours, and to their credit, they had only my word to go on. Eventually the spades in the cold earth struck something unyielding—and then again, and again. As the vicar read Scripture over the diggers, and Biddy Tom traced a great chalk circle round us all, the men gingerly lifted the bones from the earth and laid them in their new coffin. Some shreds of clothing were found, too—remains of a shirt, what may once have been leather bracers. I clutched William tight and fought back tears.

  We laid John Simple to rest in the Shearing churchyard, a few plots down from my father, under a cold November drizzle. A dark cloud hung overhead, and I held fast to my sister with one arm, my husband and son with the other, as a flash of sunlight fought to break free. A warm wind rolled off the river, like a soft voice bidding us farewell, and I knew that the end had come at last.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fantasy, and Charlotte’s village is not based on any real place. Her world, however, is strongly influenced by the real woolen industries of Britain and America during the early years of the Industrial Revolution (for our purposes, the late 1700s). While serving my own need for a completely imaginary setting, I have tried to be true to the history and society in as many ways as possible, and hope that a real woolworker of the era would not find it too unfamiliar.

  That said, I have departed from history where it was necessary for the story I wished to tell—most notably in my use of a machine called the “spinning jack.” This is a real machine, and the men who operated them really were called jackspinners. But they were not in common use until the 1820s, and I have no proof that any were ever water-powered. There certainly were water-powered spinning machines during Charlotte’s day, but no other had a name so delightfully apt. I was fortunate enough to get a firsthand glimpse of the processes of wool production—including the spinning jacks—at Watkins Woolen Mill State Park in Lawson, Missouri, a later-period, steam-run operation that has been beautifully preserved and is open to the public.

  Another major departure was making Stirwaters’s weavers female. In truth, weaving was one of the most important careers available to men of the era, and many period weavers made quite a good living at it. However, this fact of reality broke faith with a longtime association of women with textile work that stretches back to the Fates of Greek mythology and gives the story of “Rumpelstiltskin” its backbone. Women would return to dominate the profession with the advent of cheap cotton production in the 1800s, when operating a power loom became unskilled labor.

  The folklore and folk magic illustrated here are also based in tradition. Corn dollies, hex signs, and other charms all existed, though they were not necessarily used quite as I have presented them. I am deeply indebted to Katherine Briggs, Christina Hole, and Jacqueline Simpson and Stephen Roud for their work in English folk tradition, and urge anyone interested in pursuing the subject to look them up. I have only scratched the surface here, and the depths are astoundingly rich.

  The story of Rumpelstiltskin is what folklorists call a “Name of the Helper” tale, in which a character must defeat a mysterious helper by discovering his True Name (or Secret Name or Hidden Name). Germany’s “Rumpelstiltskin” is certainly the most familiar of these, having been collected by the Grimm brothers in the nineteenth century, but the motif occurs in at least fifteen versions worldwide, including the English “Tom-Tit-Tot” and the Scottish “Whuppity Stoorie,” in which, like Rumpelstiltskin, the title characters assist the heroines with their spinning. My work with the fairy tale elements of this novel has been greatly informed by the discussion and scholarship at Heidi Anne Heiner’s marvelous Web site, the SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages (www.surlalunefairytales.com), which should be a frequent stop for any fairy tale enthusiast.

  I have always found “Rumpelstiltskin” to be a troubling tale, probably because it violates my sense of justice. The greedy father and merciless king go unpunished, and the miller’s daughter betrays the only character who tried to help her. The anti-Semitic overtones of the Grimm version are also deeply disturbing to me—and should be to any modern audience—and I have tried to steer well clear of them.

  Other readers disagree with a sympathetic view of Rumpelstiltskin. Folklorist Veronica Schanoes writes, “Some deals can’t and shouldn’t be enforced, and those deals include ones made under duress and those that involve taking a mother’s child away from her.” In other words, Rumpelstiltskin gets what he deserves.

  I’ve also found it fascinating that in “Rumpelstiltskin,” the heroine is known only as “the miller’s daughter” or “the queen,” while Rumpelstiltskin’s name becomes a magical talisman—an object of power in and of itself. In a story about the potency of names, the heroine is anonymous.

  Charlotte Miller’s story began there.

  Other Books By

  Look for Elizabeth C. Bunce’s next novel,

  STARCROSSED

  Available Fall 2010

  Acknowledgments

  Weaving this tale was by no means a solitary endeavor. For their help and support along the way, I must thank my own Friendly Society: Barb Stuber, Christine Taylor-Butler, Diane Bailey, Judith Hyde, C. R. Cook, and the other amazing women of Juvenile Writers of Kansas City. Thanks to my parents, for never once uttering the phrase “fallback career,” and to my first critique partner, my brother, Scott. Special thanks to Cheryl Klein and the team at Scholastic (especially for bearing with my affected period spelling). Extra-special thanks to Erin Murphy. And lastly, to my husband, Christ
opher, for always being there. If I wrote you into a story, no one would believe you were real.

  Copyright

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  Text copyright © 2008 by Stephanie Elizabeth Bunce. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, the LANTERN LOGO, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First Scholastic paperback printing, September 2009

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  e-ISBN 978-0-545-28156-0

  Cover art © 2008 by Michael Frost

  Cover design by Alison Klapthor