Spin
Genevieve Raas
Ravenwell Press
Copyright © 2017 by Genevieve Raas
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ravenwell Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ravenwell Press Paperback ISBN: 978-1-944912-05-5
eBook ISBN: 978-1-944912-04-8
Second Edition
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
The First Day: Rumpelstiltskin
The First Day: Laila
Chapter Two
The Second Day: Laila
The Second Day: Rumpelstiltskin
Chapter Three
The Long-Dead Past: Child of Pain
Chapter Four
The Third Day: Laila
The Third Day: Rumpelstiltskin
The Third Day: Laila
The Third Day: Rumpelstiltskin
Chapter Five
The Long Dead Past: Reborn
Chapter Six
Wedding Bells: Laila
Chapter Seven
Ever After: Laila
Chapter Eight
Ever After: Rumpelstiltskin
The Long Dead Past: How it all Began
Chapter Nine
After All: Rumpelstiltskin
After All: Laila
Chapter Ten
After All: King Edward
Chapter Eleven
Unhappily: Rumpelstiltskin
Unhappily: Laila
Chapter Twelve
Unhappily: Rumpelstiltskin
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Genevieve Raas
Also by Ravenwell Press
Prologue
Or Kindly Words of Warning to the Prospective Buyer
NAMES ARE RATHER silly, aren’t they?
It’s just one word. One little word that defines us, distinguishing us from one another. If used properly they can instill fear or love in those we influence, creating a memory that lasts through the ages. Memories soon become stories that turn into fairy tales, allowing a taste of immortality.
But, I digress. Here I am rambling about names and forgetting to mention my own! I am your ever-devoted servant, Rumpelstiltskin.
I might be what they call a celebrity of sorts, my name reaching the ears of the farthest kingdoms. Need a wish? Just sign the dotted line and all your dreams will be fulfilled. It’s a hobby of mine. I thrive on the rush of the quill scribbling in earnest over the parchment, the heart’s desire overpowering the reason of the brain.
Too poor to pay? Don’t fret. I don’t discriminate—something Death and I both have in common—dealing with the lowliest of peasants to the highest of kings. I am eternally eager to bargain for what I feel is fair. There is always a price one is willing to pay past gold and jewels.
Besides, it is sometimes the simplest of possessions, possessions others see no value in, that are in fact the most valuable of all.
I have made five thousand three hundred and thirty-two deals through the centuries, watching humanity destroy itself one by one over the stupidest of reasons. I am still surprised by how far they are willing to go simply for a bit of lace or drink, something superficial that is enjoyed for a moment and gone the next, lost in their memories until the cycle begins again and they start to want once more. I am always there, feeding their desires, their addictions.
This has caused a fair amount of my patrons to call me cruel. But I ask you this…is it truly cruel to ensure I am only paid what we agreed upon?
But there I go again, bothering you with my own particular philosophies! Let’s be honest. You aren’t interested so much in what I feel as what I have accomplished.
Just like all of the deals I’ve ever made, I can tell you my journey came with a price…a lust for revenge that consumed me, and though it infested what little humanity remained in my heart, I relished every moment.
Chapter One
Spin:
verb: draw out (wool, cotton, or other material) and convert it into threads, either by hand or with machinery.
noun: a particular bias, interpretation, or point of view, intended to create a favorable (or sometimes, unfavorable) impression
The First Day: Rumpelstiltskin
Yes, she was quite intriguing. It seemed a pity that I had to break her.
The First Day: Laila
After my mother’s death, I was at the complete mercy of my father. To put it plainly, he was a drunk, spending what little money our small mill earned on liquor and women instead of food for his family. Forgetting his own pain came at the cost of his child, and I often believed my mother was lucky the plague took her when it did.
Father had another vice that caused me greater fear than being turned out on the streets. He loved to boast, and my heart was crowded with humiliation and anger because of it.
I hated the jackals he attracted to our doors from this dangerous pastime. He would tell of great adventures he never took, discoveries he never made, and of his singular daughter, who possessed talents she never had. It made me ill imagining how he drank in the impressed gazes of the crowd, as his tapestry of lies grew ever thicker.
Now I was one and twenty and working as hard as any man trying to escape the threat of ruin. All I had was the prospect of a fortuitous marriage, but who would have me in this state? Not even Ernis, the fishmonger’s son, wanted to make me an offer anymore.
I dragged a full sack of flour across the dirt floor and threw it with the others. The fire behind me snapped and spit, and I ducked just in time to miss the low beams of our sinking home. The walls leaned to the right, and when the wind blew the entire building moaned.
Shaking off the layer of flour from my skin, I looked back at the orders still waiting to be filled. Eight bags, each promising the coins we so desperately needed to survive. My fingers ached, but rest was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Besides, the pain distracted me from thinking of my father’s ramblings at the pub. Last year, one of his tales nearly got us arrested. He claimed he killed a king’s deer, and that I cooked it into a stew more delicious than the crown’s own cook’s. Thankfully, I was able to prove our innocence and the gallows were averted. This time.
Moments like that made my black thoughts boil and seethe, though I hated to admit to them. My life was a never-ending series of nightmares thanks to that man. Resentment festered, and in the deepest part of my heart, I secretly wished death would take him, for my sake, but also for his. Maybe then, he would finally be free from his pain.
I was just tying the sack closed when I heard footsteps approaching outside. It was early morning by now, just in time for my father to come home from the pub and sleep off the whiskey. If I were lucky, he would be too drunk to tell me of his conquests…or his lies.
Gravel and dirt crunched beneath his feet in a nerve-wracking rhythm. But as they drew closer, the sound grew into a terrifying, muffled chorus of footsteps, jangling metal, and indistinct shouts.
I dropped the sack and opened the door to see four guards marching towards our mill, a mule following behind them. The mule dragged a small prison wagon, my father its rope-bound cargo. My cheeks flushed with anger and fear.
A rough hand pushed me out of the way as the guards filled the room, the pungent smell of beer, dirt, and horses wafting around them.
“Father! What have you
done?” I asked hotly as they dragged him inside, his face ashen as he blubbered nonsense about spinning wheels and gold.
I was stopped by the outstretched arm of a particularly grisly-looking guard with a mesh of scars stretching like a net across his face. An insignia of a lion roaring on his breastplate told me he was not just a simple guard, but their captain.
“This the girl?” the captain demanded of my father, a sneer stretching the scars into a gruesome map as he turned to me. He grabbed my hands and examined them closely.
“I told them! I told them about your spinning, Laila!” Father whimpered. “But they wouldn’t believe your gifts otherwise. I couldn’t have them thinking I produced a talentless daughter. I had no choice but to protect my honor.”
“You fool!” I cried. Horror rushed like cold water over every muscle of my body. “What have you told them this time? What lies have you spewed out of that foul mouth of yours?”
He only quivered like a common street rat and for the first time in his life was silent. I was on my own to save our lives, just as before with the deer.
“Your presence is required immediately before the king,” the captain’s voice cut in. “Your father finally revealed the secret you’ve been keeping hidden from his majesty. You’re both lucky if you don’t lose your heads for concealing such an extraordinary gift. If you can do half of what we heard, the king is in for quite the surprise.”
“I don’t have any secrets,” I seethed, standing before the captain. “Whatever he has told you is a delusion. A bit of whiskey and a great deal of madness.”
His eyes narrowed and he pointed a callused finger at me.
“That is for the king to decide,” he hissed back. “You might be playing the fool with me, but I wouldn’t try that little game with his majesty if I were you.”
“I would not dare jest about something like this,” I pleaded. “Don’t you realize my father is out of his mind? Look at him! Look around you. Count the leaks coming in through the roof! We have nothing. Can’t you see?”
“Do you really want to know what I see?” the captain snapped. “What I see are either two peasants keeping a secret and preventing the king from what he is owed, or two liars that deserve to be hanged for treason.”
His breath stank of ale. Rage ate at me that he insisted on believing my drunken father’s drunken lies. Fear made me bold.
“I demand you tell me what secret I am accused of keeping,” I stated coldly. “What treason have I committed?”
“She demands,” another guard mocked. Laughter erupted all around, its dark, full sound making me feel small—worse, weak and helpless. “For someone who can spin straw into gold, you’d expect she’d be a bit more refined in her manner of speaking.”
The sensation of fire seared my lungs and charred my hope as everything became clear.
“Is that truly what this is all about?” I wheezed, pushing the words through my tightening throat. “You think I can spin straw into gold? Surely you know that’s not possible! It’s only the ravings of a drunk! Father, tell them the truth. Tell them it was only the drink!”
My father gazed glassily at me, his lips stubbornly slack. Every second of silence that followed might as well have been a knife in my back.
The captain laughed deep from his lungs as he patted my father on the shoulder.
“Good lad. For once your father knows when to keep silent,” he said. “You, on the other hand, could learn a lesson from him. I have dogs that are trained better than you.”
I couldn’t control my temper any longer. Before I realized what foolishness I was doing my hand flew out towards his face, but his hand gripped my wrist, stilling my attack. My head snapped back as strong fingers grabbed my hair. The cold bite of a dagger pressed against my neck as the captain seethed.
“Such violence is not becoming of a woman, although it is hard to tell if you even are a woman under such a layer of filth.” His men roared with laughter. “I’ve had enough of your theater. If you say one more word, I swear I will cut out your tongue! You don’t need to talk to spin gold for the king. Follow your father’s example. I told him if he remained quiet he might stand a chance of survival, and so far he is thriving.”
I knew it was useless, even treasonous to fight. Yet, I couldn’t help struggling against his grip as he bound my hands with rope. My legs flailed and jerked as I kicked out. I spit in their faces as I tried to pull away again, but their grips only tightened.
I struck one’s face with my foot with a resounding, satisfying crack, and his nose spurted blood.
“Make her still!” he exclaimed, wiping the crimson away with his dirty hand.
Pain sliced through my skull like lightning as something hard hit the back of my head. Everything blurred into smears of colors. My legs gave way and I fell to the ground limp and defeated.
“Merick, take her to the prison wagon,” a voice ordered as they dragged me outdoors.
My father’s voice echoed somewhere in the distance begging for forgiveness. I saw the lightening sky through black bars and hard wood pressed into my back.
Everything spun, and darkness ate up my incoherent world.
The mercy of the darkness didn’t last long. The wagon rocked and shifted, each time sending a bolt of pain up my neck and into my head, rousing me and refusing to let me drift back into the refuge of unconsciousness.
I saw my village roll by. Men and women dressed in rags and mud pointed at me. Children catcalled. I wanted to hide my face, but what was the point? They all knew who I was. They all knew their worried-yet-salacious gossip of the miller’s daughter’s misfortunes had finally come true. My father had cost me my life.
A gauntlet rattled the bars, sounding out jarring, grating notes. I covered my ears, trying to lessen the pain throbbing at the base of my skull. Laughter quickly followed, and I saw it was the guard with dried blood crusted around his broken nose.
“Sleeping beauty finally wakes,” he mocked. “Hope you’re a lyin’ one, ‘cus I want to watch you burn for what you did to me.”
“Shut up, Simon,” the captain’s stern voice ordered.
“Just havin’ a bit of fun, that’s all,” Simon replied.
“Don’t be such a little girl. It’s just a broken nose. In fact, I think it improved your appearance,” Merick added with a smirk.
Simon only scowled, throwing me one last murderous glare before walking farther up next to the mule.
Dirt roads turned into cobblestone streets. Hovels became houses with pretty thatched roofs that pointed towards the sky. The people were cleaner and more fashionable. But all of it—the grit and the gilt—fell under the shadow of the tall castle that greedily kept all the sun’s rays to itself.
Terrifying towers surged into the heavens. A stagnant moat of black, oily water circled the thick stone and mortar walls. Soldiers looked down below from their posts, guard and menace all in one. Passing through the spiked castle gate was like being eaten by a monster, its yawning mouth growling open and its fangs clanging shut behind us.
People of all kinds scurried about the inner courtyard. Maids carried large wash baskets, while several men dressed in expensive doublets and colorful hose chatted as they strolled by, paying no attention to the new prisoner.
“Any educated man surely knows a war is about to be waged,” a man opined, stroking his black mustache.
“If the educated man is a simpleton, then I would agree with your statement,” his companion rebutted.
Their conversation melted into the background as we rolled past them.
I was jolted off balance at the wagon’s abrupt stop. Through my prison bars I saw several ladies gliding before us, carefully lifting their skirts as they navigated through a maze of straw and dung. The guards were bewitched watching them float by. The women giggled, enjoying the admiration, the scent of citrus and flowers lingering behind them as they disappeared into the garden.
Looking down at my own dress of fraying homespun, I wondered ho
w my life would have been different if I had been born a lady. I would have dresses of silk, pots of rouge, and exotic perfumes just like them. But what I envied most was their lack of hardship. They never had to work through the night to ensure their bellies would be full. They never had to fear being turned out from their homes. They never had to worry at all.
“Get up!” Simon snarled, roughly pulling me from the cart.
I barely missed landing in a large pile of manure, the sour smell burning the insides of my nose.
“Afraid of a bit of muck, are we?” he laughed watching me clumsily tiptoe around the steaming pile. “Best get used to it, missy, ‘cus you’ll be shoveling the castle’s supply if the king decides to deny you the mercy of death.”
“Simon! Don’t presume to know the king’s judgments, or he’ll have you scrubbing the cesspits with your wife’s hair brush!” the captain snapped, coming up behind me and gripping my arm. “Return to the armory. I will bring the prisoner to his majesty.”
I had to sprint to keep up with his long strides across the cobblestones. Grip still tight, he pushed me through a small door and up a narrow spiral staircase.
Spin: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Spindlewind Trilogy Book One) Page 1
