Spin: A Fairy Tale Retelling (Spindlewind Trilogy Book One)

by Genevieve Raas

When I opened my eyes, I was across the room from her, and she was on the ground where I had thrown her down. I stared at her, watching her gasping and struggling to right herself, her dress, her hair. She bore the marks of my lips on her skin like bruises on silk.

  I berated myself silently, though I was oddly devoid of feeling. I searched my senses for disgust at her or revulsion at my weakness. Had the look in her eyes been anything but vulnerable confusion, I might have found the anger to taunt her. As it was, I had nothing except the flatness of my eternal purpose.

  “I…am willing,” Laila whispered. “It wouldn’t be…just…just for the price.”

  I strained to resist the call of the fraught fruit of her soul. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, clearing the smoke of lust from my lungs.

  “That is not my price,” I said. I opened my mouth to sneer at her, but I had no words, and her words did not bear considering for all the temptation they suddenly held.

  “Your first-born child,” I blurted out. I had intended to give a grandiose, teasing speech about the king’s greed, but apparently, this was the best I could manage in the moment.

  Laila’s glare turned poisonous. I braced to fight my she-lion once more.

  “My child? Are you serious?” she asked in a low tone.

  “The question isn’t if I’m serious,” I smirked, recovering my composure some. “The question is, are you? Your child is my price. Either you want your precious royal title, or you want to be the hero to an imaginary child and die a martyr.”

  I was impatient for her reply, ready now with quick rebuttals to the impassioned, “Anything but that!” or the even more melodramatic, “I’d rather die!”

  “All right. I agree,”

  “You are awfully calm about such a decision,” I snapped to cover my confusion. “I thought motherhood was the greatest gift for a woman?”

  “I don’t want the king’s brat,” she spat. “I know all too well what it is to be raised by the cruel and uninterested. No, if I do bear a child for the king, it would be a mercy to take it far away from us.”

  “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” I said, ignoring the lump of icy foreboding in the pit of my stomach.

  I flicked my wrist with a flourish. A fresh roll of parchment appeared in my hand, its words ready to bind her to me forever.

  The Third Day: Laila

  He gave me a deep, courtly bow. With a mocking smile on those same lips that had devoured me only moments earlier, he handed me a scroll.

  “What’s this?” I asked stupidly.

  He rolled his eyes and gestured for me to unfurl it.

  How I hated him!

  I hated that he could burn me down to ash and rebuild me in his image. I hated he gave me power. I hated that I now understood how deep his pain must be in order for him to be so powerful. I hated that I had offered myself in power, and that his pain had refused me.

  The edge of the scroll fell to my feet, rolling out across the floor and revealing thousands of tiny words scribbled.

  “It’s a contract,” he said blithely. “Nothing too complicated, I assure you. I like arrangements such as ours to be neat and tidy. Don’t want any misunderstandings later.”

  A black quill materialized between his fingers, the smooth fibers of the feather glistening in the torchlight. He held it out to me, laid out across his palm. Running perpendicular to it was a scar that jaggedly ran from finger to wrist.

  Without thinking, I brushed the feather to the floor and grasped his hand in mine, pulling it closer to study the fierce scar. It looked fresh, and the thin layer of new skin over seemed to seal in a chasm of turbulent, swirling black blood underneath.

  “I’ve never seen such a scar,” I said, tracing it with the tip of my finger.

  He stared down at his hand. “An accident when I was much younger. Are you quite through? There is a room full of straw to spin.”

  I paused, listening to the humming of the blood in my veins. Power. Pain.

  “It was the result of someone teaching me a lesson,” he ground out.

  “What lesson?” I asked, keeping my voice low.

  Like a snake striking, he coiled his fingers around my wrist and yanked me against him.

  “That what we want the most always has a price,” he spat, glaring into my eyes as his jaw clenched and pulsed. “Time is ticking. Make your choice. Your neck or your child?”

  He forced the quill into my hand and stalked away. I stared squarely at the empty space waiting for my name. Only a few drops of ink and everything I wanted would be mine.

  I stopped, the tip of the quill just above the paper. His blatant eagerness feeding a newfound fear. My heart was cold, but it wasn’t vile. What if I was damning this unborn child to a fate worse than being raised by the king? I couldn’t abandon a child to an unknown fate.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “Promise me,” I said, the quill still hovering over the page. “You will not harm this child. That you will protect it at all costs and give it a happy life. Make it an addendum to this contract or else, I won’t sign.”

  He scowled, his features hardening into a frightening mask as he came back to stand before me, looming tall and full of menace.

  “You are in no position to bargain, you neophyte. I will not be twisted into acquiescing to your whims,” he hissed.

  “I’m not a fool. You are too keen for this child. It is important to you, isn’t it?”

  A flicker of surprise shone in his eyes, but he quickly doused it in cold aloofness.

  “It is! I see now!” I exclaimed. “You hate the king just as much as I do. You want to break him, and this child allows you leverage of some sort.”

  He bared his teeth and grabbed both my arms.

  “That’s my business,” he seethed. “Mind your own.”

  “My business is the safety of myself and this child. Do you really want an innocent to suffer? To know the poisonous pain we both have thriving in our hearts? Surely not.”

  The storms in his eyes stilled, though his expression remained stony. Releasing me he paced back and forth, running his fingers over his mouth and chin. After a moment, he reached a decision and waved a hand over the parchment. Several new lines appeared.

  “The child shall encounter no harm,” he said bluntly. “Satisfied now?”

  “Yes,” I replied, my heart a fraction more at ease. I positioned the quill properly in my fingers.

  “The inkpot?” I asked, expecting him to produce it out of thin air as he had the quill and scroll.

  He just glared and pointed at the quill. I shrugged in reply. If he wasn’t concerned about ink, then I wasn’t either. Perhaps the ink was magical or invisible.

  I pulled the quill along the parchment. A burning sting crept along under the skin of my fingers. It was mild at first, but with each letter, the pain grew until I felt like my hands were full of fire. Only once I finished the final letters of my name did I realize the source of the discomfort.

  My name was written in my own blood.

  “I forgot to mention that bit. Only blood will do, I’m afraid,” he said, his lips curled with an odd satisfaction.

  Taking the quill and the contract from me he scribbled his own name below my own. I couldn’t make out a single letter of his childish-looking handwriting. His hand shook as the tip scratched across the page, letting out a small hiss as he finished with a big flourish. Evidently, he was required to sign in blood as well. Rolling up the contract, he grasped both it and the quill tightly in his hand. Without a sound, both blinked into nothingness.

  “Now that we have wasted a sufficient amount of time placating your majesty’s whims, I suggest we get started. I would hate to leave this unfinished because someone couldn’t leave well enough alone,” he sneered.

  I picked up a basket full of straw, shoving it at his chest with the sweetest, most deadly smile I could manage.

  A mountain range of golden twigs waited to be brought to his feet. I grabbed arm
fuls of straw, wincing with every sharp poke or bite, but I no longer cared. Each one served as a reminder I would never have to endure such suffering again.

  The whir of the wheel filled the silence that descended upon us.

  Back and forth I trudged. Baskets filled, and baskets emptied. All the time he sat spinning, tossing the spools behind him, a loud crack vibrating through the stone as they smacked together in their landing.

  I cursed the maid for having thought silk an appropriate fabric for such labor. Sweat broke across my forehead and between my breasts. Heat consumed me. Unable to bear it anymore, I peeled the wet fabric from my body, leaving the accursed gown in a heap on the floor. Thankfully, my linen chemise allowed a small respite from the heat, and I could keep up with the rhythm that the spinning wheel and its master demanded.

  Crack.

  I couldn’t help but sneak a few brief moments to watch him spin. There was a frightening delicacy about the way he did it. He firmly gripped the straw, twisting the twigs between his fingers and palms. He caressed the ropes of straw. Loved them. Stroked them as if they were the body of a woman.

  I hated the straw. I wanted to be the straw. I wanted him to spin me, twist me, transform me. I burned with the memory of his fingers on the skin of my breast, and I licked my lips to taste the blood from our biting kisses. He had given me power from my pain. Did he know that he had taught me that pain could also be pleasure?

  A thump at my feet startled me from my randy reverie, and I saw that I had dropped my basket.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve already worn yourself out,” he mocked from the wheel. “I thought you were used to hard work, or do you usually work best on your back?”

  That man was an arrogant, hateful bastard. There was a moment when he was in very great danger of having me chuck a golden bobbin or three at his skull. Instead, I huffed, picked up my basket, and went back to work.

  The Third Day: Rumpelstiltskin

  I relished every exquisite letter. The smoky despair in each drop of blood on the parchment promised me eternity.

  Laila was bound to me forever.

  However, my self-congratulations were overshadowed by the fact that I, too, had signed in blood. My own. No one ever dared demand such a thing with me. Perhaps they had never thought of it. But Laila was a quick study and brazen enough to turn the tables on her teacher. Oh, yes, she would be a great queen…until I brought fate crashing down upon her head.

  I swallowed a roll of regret. It was distasteful to be the agent of her destruction. I refused to dwell on it. It was easier to accept regretting that these evenings were at an end.

  Perhaps it was not such a bad thing. The way she strutted around in nothing but a thin chemise had my cock hard and angry. Every curve was on display as the fabric clung to the sweat dripping down her back and over her thighs. I wanted to peel that chemise off her. With my teeth.

  “You are going to break the spinning wheel if you keep up that speed,” she remarked.

  I started and saw the wheel was rocking, creaking and groaning. A cramp started to coil in my leg. I hadn’t realized how quickly I was peddling. Rage thundered through me at having allowed myself to be distracted and by such a thing as…as…a woman. No, worse. By such a thing as Laila.

  “I didn’t realize you were such an expert on spinning, seeing as you need me to do it,” I snapped.

  “You are odious,” she grumbled, plopping down a freshly filled basket.

  That garden of blushes blossomed over her chest again and I couldn’t help but notice her breasts rising and falling with each breath. The sweat beading atop them glistened in the torchlight. On the morrow, they would become property of the king. He would put his hands on them. He would put his mouth to them. It would be his name that she cried aloud, not mine. Never would be mine, for my name was forever forbidden. All logic was lost to me.

  “I rather be odious than the king’s whore,” I shot back.

  What was wrong with me? I saw her tremble in anger from the corner of my eye. I had done it.

  “More insults!” she shouted. “Fine. Ignore me,” she spat. “But I will not stand for it anymore, you hear?”

  “Or what?” I seethed, jumping to my feet, knocking the spinning wheel over, frothy tangles of gold spewing from the wheel.

  I walked towards her, forcing her back against the stone wall now that there was not straw to block it. I blocked her in, my hands on either side of her head, palms flat against the cold rock. She smelled of roses and salt.

  “What could you possibly do?” I continued, “You prance around thinking you are master of your own fate. You know nothing of fate, what fate really is. Fate is a wild card. It chooses favorites and you are simply damn fortunate it chose you. Well, for now, anyway. That’s the thing with fate. It changes just as quickly as luck.”

  She gave a deep, throaty laugh and said, “You’re mad.”

  I grabbed her arms. Her flesh was soft as it gave beneath my grip.

  “Of course you’d think that. Anything that is not within your pathetic realm of comprehension is automatically thought of as mad,” I hissed, pulling her closer, feeling the soft bends and arcs of her body against mine. “I’ve lived things you’ve only seen in your nightmares.”

  Our gazes burned into one another’s. Her lips parted as if to speak, but only silence came out of them. We didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.

  Her gaze grew heavy and dark. I loosened my grip, letting one hand slide around her waist, while the other dug into her hair. If it was madness she wanted from me, then madness I would give her. She lifted her chin, and I claimed her mouth.

  The curves of her lips pulsed with blood and desire. Unable to stop, I grazed my teeth over their supple flesh, delicate and hot, and knew she was my salvation.

  I stilled.

  Salvation? I didn’t want salvation.

  I pulled away, leaving her looking confused. For the first time I saw her for what she was. She was a siren leading me towards my own defeat, and I was the fool willingly sailing towards her.

  Her spell on me was broken. I tugged my shirt straight, ignoring her as she tucked a lock of her disheveled hair behind her ear.

  “There are still baskets left needing to be spun,” I said.

  Any expression she wore before melted away into a blank mask.

  “I’ll go get them,” she replied. Picking up a basket, she moved quicker than ever, staying as far away from me as she could.

  Running hot fingers through my hair, I sat down at the wheel, grinding my teeth at the pulsing discomfort between my legs. My body was fighting me, and my mind was proving to be a weaker warrior than I expected. Picking up a handful of dry twigs, I shook the lingering heat away and started to spin.

  It was only a passing fancy. A moment of madness. Laila was a means to an end and that was all.

  I spun in silence, and we spoke no more.

  Chapter Five

  Needle:

  noun: a very fine slender piece of metal with a point at one end and a hole or eye for thread at the other, used in sewing.

  verb: provoke or annoy (someone), especially by continual criticism or questioning.

  The Long Dead Past: Reborn

  After the Pythin Sisters’ betrayal, I became again an endless wanderer, nothing but a silhouette against the night sky carrying a heart heavy with vengeance.

  As much as I wanted to kill the king, it was easier said than done. He was untouchable within his castle walls and guards always at his side. Without proper planning, vengeance would be nothing short of suicide. I couldn’t and wouldn’t give him the pleasure of my blood, not when he had already taken my name.

  Needless to say, I was at a loss how to exact my revenge.

  Frustrated but still cautious, I had to keep to the outskirts of the cities I visited. I lived with the other outcasts beyond the walls that wanted to forget our existence. Drifters, actors, and prostitutes all became my unwilling family, and together we preyed upon those good
citizens who dared to travel beyond the wall’s safety and into our no-man’s land.

  I watched in fascination as my fellow frauds manipulated the crowd with unbelievable skill. Slickly spun superstition sold their snake oils and magical elixirs for them, devoted customers fervently purchasing their empty promises. At first, I felt sorry for the poor fools, but night after night as I watched them pay for a bit of rainwater in a shiny bottle, I realized I shouldn’t pity fools because they were born never to know better. Besides, I was out of money, and my empty stomach grumbled with hunger. If their minds were too weak to see the truth in what I sold, why should I care?

  I had never received so many gold coins in all my life, selling nothing but twigs, twine, and stones as protective runes against evil. Who knew the gullible afforded such wealth? I enjoyed the bewildered looks I inspired as I muttered incantations over the trinkets.

  However, with the arrival of the gypsies one spring morning, fate indicated it had other plans than letting me fritter away my time fooling the foolish.

  I marveled at how quickly their tents blossomed across the muddy field in a web of color. Once night fell, the real magic awoke when the tents glowed like colored paper lanterns in a carnival. Wild, wailing music rose from the campsite, a crazed mixture of drums and violins locked in a savage dance.

  I had never seen anything quite like it before. A bearded woman spewed fire out of her mouth. A young man covered in tattoos created a stir by swallowing a curved sword—couldn’t have been comfortable. Onlookers cheered at these oddities, throwing coins and hooting in amazed disbelief.

  I milled at the back of a large crowd gathered around a small stage. They crammed themselves as tight as they could, standing on toes and peering over hats. The anticipation was palpable. Glancing up at the banner, I immediately understood the reason.

  Red letters announced: The Living Corpse

  Applause exploded around me. A hooded figure walked onto the wooden planks of the stage. Perhaps, not so much walked as glided.