“Is this acceptable to you?” Prudence noticed Fanny’s enthusiasm and frowned.
Briar stifled a laugh. “She has done well with the children. It is more than acceptable. Where will you go?”
Prudence raised an eyebrow in answer.
Reminded that fairy business was not her business, Briar lowered her eyes and smiled. Prudence had cared for them, more than she herself realized, and that was something to treasure. “Thank you. For taking us in when you did.”
“You are welcome, Briar Rose.”
The mill girls were made as comfortable as possible for a sleep out under the stars. Briar walked Henry to the road so he could go home. His rough hand in hers a reminder of the changes in her life.
“What a day, Miss Briarly Rose Jenny. Do you realize your courage has redeemed my family’s future?”
“Wasn’t my courage, it was instinct to protect the boys.”
“Call it instinctual courage, then, but it’s one of the things I love about you.”
She grinned, feeling the praise down to her toes. Her heart, once so torn apart, was whole again. All the people she cared about were here. They were safe. She pulled out the spindle’s silk cloth from her pocket and wiped a mark of soot on Henry’s cheek. “You missed a spot.”
He reached up and stilled her hand. “I didn’t know you had the cloth. Do you know what it is?”
“It came with the spindle. Fanny told me it would help protect me.”
“More than that, it’s a piece cut from Aurora’s baby blanket. Dad told me to always keep the spindle wrapped up inside. I suspect one of the fairies did something to it.”
“I suspect those ladies of a lot of things.” Briar folded the cloth and put it back in her pocket, impatiently waiting for Henry to show her what he brought back from the mill. Did he have bad news or good news for her?
The fireflies blinked their lights against the dark, while the chatter of the mill girls floated over from near the garden, the children’s laughter floating louder and higher.
And right in front of her was Henry Prince. Incorrigible, dependable, noble Henry Prince. So many people to love in this valley. She never wanted to leave. “About the spindle,” he said.
She stopped walking. “Yes?”
“Technically, part of it survived the fire.”
Briar’s heart sank. “No. So it’s not over?”
“It’s over. Isodora is gone. Her spindle is gone. No more curses. But this remains.” He held out the wrapped bundle she’d been waiting to see. “It won’t hurt you. It’s actually a family heirloom. Made by Aurora’s father for her mother at Aurora’s birth. I’m glad it survived. It’s a symbol of love, of hope for the future.”
Briar opened the bundle under the moonlight. It was the beautiful whorl, the disk that made the spindle spin. She ran her finger over the carved roses. There were now two darkened scorch marks that marred the wood.
“This was in my apron pocket. How did it end up in the mill?”
Henry frowned. “It’s hard to explain anything with this spindle. Maybe Isodora found it in the cottage when we weren’t looking. Maybe one of the boys had it?”
Briar handed it back, but Henry refused to take it. “It belongs in your family,” Briar said. “You should keep it.”
He shook his head. “That one hasn’t been our favorite heirloom.”
She held on to it with both hands. “Thank you.” She would keep it as a reminder of what she could have lost if she hadn’t been so blind to what was right in front of her.
Dear Reader,
This story may be over, but there is bonus content! Do you want to read a smidge more about Henry? There is a bonus Chapter 7 told from his point of view, plus a little extra about what he was up to. Go to:
ShonnaSlayton.com/Henry
Otherwise, if you’re ready for the next Fairy-Tale Inheritance book, find information about ordering here:
ShonnaSlayton.com/LittleMermaidsVoice
Author’s Note
Sleeping Beauty’s Spindle is a reissue of the book originally titled Spindle.
Part of the fun of writing a historically based novel is trying to wrap a fantastical story around reality. What parts are real in Spindle?
Conditions in the cotton mills, the boardinghouses, the games they played in the 1890s, the lectures the operatives attended, the introduction of the safety bicycle…all real (hope you liked the quote from Susan B. Anthony about women, freedom, and the bicycle!).
Cotton mills were one of the first places where women joined together and realized the power they had to help each other when they acted together. Early mills, while not ideal places to work by today’s standards, offered young women a chance to earn their own money, a novelty for many of the hardworking farm girls who flocked to the cities. But, as time went on, good intentions gave way to deteriorating conditions, and operatives went on strike to try to change their increasingly difficult lot.
In writing this novel, I wanted to get past the photos of sad and tired mill workers (mostly taken in the early 1900s by photographer Lewis Hine, whose powerful images were instrumental in shedding light on child labor) and remind us that these were real people who lived and loved, worked and played.
At the time this novel is set, the women’s suffrage movement was well under way. However, Mrs. Tuttle and Miss Nan Whitaker are invented characters, as I couldn’t find any suffrage or WCTU speakers who were in the area during my time frame. I patterned them after several other speakers, and in Mrs. Tuttle’s case, had her quote Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s famous “Solitude of Self” speech from 1892, just two years before this story takes place. Mrs. Stanton quite coincidentally mentions an example of a girl of sixteen, which was so fitting to Briar’s circumstances I had to include it.
Sunrise Valley is my invention, but located near Rutland, Vermont, a real place and the location of the first polio epidemic in the USA during the summer of 1894. Also true to Vermont history, the Queen City Cotton Company built a new cotton factory in Burlington with 26,000 spindles in 1894.
The first of the strikes in the great railroad strike of 1894 started May 10. The issue was primarily a disagreement between workers making and repairing Pullman sleeper cars and Mr. Pullman. The conflict affected passengers, mail, and freight, and lasted until mid-late July of that year.
Lastly, did you catch the Easter eggs in the story? Briar’s last name, Jenny, comes from the spinning jenny, an invention from the 1700s that utilized a row of spindles instead of a singular one as in a spinning wheel—get it? She’s a spinner girl, a spinning Jenny. Ah, history is fun! Also, when the safety bike was being introduced, I mentioned Annie Londonderry, who set out on a bicycle trip around the world after the fashion of Nellie Bly’s trip around the world in eighty days. Well, that Easter egg was a nod at my novel Liz and Nellie, which was a little side project I worked on between my fairy tale stories for Entangled TEEN.
The following resources were immensely helpful in helping me ground my characters in both the late 1800s time period, and in the life of a cotton mill operative: Out of Ireland: The Story of Irish Immigration to America, DVD narrated by Kelly McGillis and written by Paul Wagner; The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill Women (1840-1845) by Benita Eisler; The Belles of New England: The Women of the Textile Mills and the Families Whose Wealth They Wove by William Moran; Limping Through Life: A Farm Boy’s Polio Memoir by Jerry Apps; also, the novels Lyddie by Katherine Paterson and Counting on Grace by Elizabeth Winthrop.
Acknowledgments
Revised edition: Just a quick note to add a thank you to Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio for creating the lovely cover on this revised edition. You continue to surprise and delight.
First edition: The acknowledgments section always seems to sneak up on me when my brain is exhausted from all the work my editors put me through… But what amazing editors I have! Stacy Abrams and Lydia Sharp challenge me to become a better writer with each edit pass. I am so gratefu
l for their dedication. Layer by layer they pull the details of the story out of me, and when I’m stuck, they’ve got great ideas to get me going again. Thank you, ladies, for caring so much! And an extra thank you to Lydia for the spot-on poem she wrote that encapsulates the story so perfectly: In a world where fairies lurk and curses linger, love can bleed like the prick of a finger.
Along with my editors’ tireless work is a whole team working away at Entangled: Christine Chhun, Melissa Montovani, Melanie Smith, Heather Riccio, Meredith Johnson, Louisa Maggio, Toni Kerr and Lisa Knapp. Thank you all.
A quick shout-out to the booksellers, librarians, and English teachers who were so welcoming to me and my debut Cinderella duology and are kindly anticipating this book’s release. You all rock the stacks: Brandi Stewart, Faith Hochhalter, Kirsten Flint, Dallas Parke (and family!), Allyson Bullock, Jared Duran, Jessica Wells, Traci Avalos, and James Blasingame.
What is a book without good beta readers to find plot holes, lapses in logic, and the joy in the story? Thank you Kristi Doyle, Sarah Chanis, Andrea Huelsenbeck, and Rebekah Slayton.
And, as always, I have to acknowledge the support of my family. The writing life can be an odd and unpredictable one, so everyone has to stay flexible. God knew what He was doing when He put us together. I need you guys, and I’m so glad that you need me too. (Because you do, teenagers of mine! You do.)
Now, you readers: I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. If you want to stay in touch, the best way is through my newsletter. Sign up at ShonnaSlayton.com.
Also by Shonna Slayton
Which one will you read next?
Fairy-tale Inheritance Series
Cinderella’s Dress
Cinderella’s Shoes
Cinderella’s Legacy (novella)
Snow White’s Mirror
Beauty’s Rose
Little Mermaid’s Voice
* * *
Lost Fairy Tales
The Tower Princess
* * *
Historical Women
Liz and Nellie: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s Race Around the World in Eighty Days
* * *
Lessons From Grimm
Lessons From Grimm: How to Write a Fairy Tale (Writer’s Guide)
Lessons From Grimm: How to Write a Fairy Tale Workbooks Series
Writing Prompts From Grimm (Story-starter Series)
Sleeping Beauty's Spindle Page 27
