Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  "My name is Alexandra, but I'm so sad that I have almost forgotten it."

  "Why?"

  "Because the king is coming tomorrow and I lied to him. I told him I could spin gold out of straw. When he sees that I can't, he'll kill me."

  Now Breath could do this kind of magic easily. An idea came to him. Perhaps if he spun the gold for the girl, she would fall in love with him forever.

  At the same time, he had had so many bad experiences with love that he was careful about such things.

  "What will you give me if I spin for you?"

  "My necklace," the maiden said.

  The necklace meant nothing to him, but he didn't want her to know that. He wanted her love, but love is a hard fish to catch and one must do it carefully.

  The little man took the necklace and sat down at the wheel, and whizz, whizz, whizz, three times round, the spool was full. Then he inserted another one, and whizz, whizz, whizz, the second was full. And so it went until morning, when all the straw was spun, and all the spools were filled with gold.

  The girl watched with delight, but never once in those many hours did she ask the little man his name or thank him when he was done. That made him sad, but those hours together with her alone only made his love grow until it was almost too large for his body.

  I watched the expression on his face as the story went on. There was a softening there, a sadness for oneself, a sadness for the truth of history. Dortchen spoke quietly, but besides her voice there was no other sound in the room.

  So the king had the miller's daughter brought into an even larger room filled with straw and said to her, "You must spin all this into gold tonight. If you succeed, you shall become my wife." To himself he thought: Even though she's just a miller's daughter, I'll never find a richer woman anywhere.

  Papa stiffened. "That's right! He didn't want her. He only wanted the gold. I told her that! But she didn't want love either. She wanted to be queen."

  Dortchen and Lisette looked at each other, but I gestured for Dortchen to go on. Instead, she looked at her sister and the other continued:

  Everyone knows the story. The little man spun gold for the third time on the promise of Alexandra's child. After a year she gave birth. (To me). He returned and told her to keep her promise.

  The queen was horrified and offered the little man all the treasures of the kingdom if he would let her keep the child. But the little man knew she had no love for her son because her heart was as white and cold as a star. Breath replied, "No, something living is more important to me than all the treasures in the world."

  He looked at me so sadly, nodding yes, that's all true.

  Furious that he had denied her, the queen began to rant and rave so much that her true, mean spirit showed itself. Finally, she said, "Go away, little man. I already have a court midget."

  "She hated me so much! She couldn't stand looking at me!"

  Lisette was upset by his constant interruptions. She cleared her throat loudly. Alexandra said other terrible things. When Breath had had more than enough and knew how much she despised him, he turned one of her fingers into gold to remind her of his powers. But his heart still ached for her, so he gave her one more chance. "I'll give you three days' time. If you can guess my name by the third day, you shall keep your child."

  The story continued. The true story of Breath that Dortchen and Lisette Wild had made up to tell the Brothers Grimm more than a century and a half before. The difference was that their version was exactly the same as the one Papa had told me so long ago in the woods outside Vienna. Every nuance, every detail was the same; the bed of gold, the frog on the hand that was turned into the human child for the proud queen, everything.

  Earlier that afternoon, with embarrassed looks on their faces, the sisters had told me how the Grimms had laughed and laughed at the name Rumpelstiltskin. They wanted to record the girls' story, but felt it was much too sad and wrong in its original form. Little magical men shouldn't be able to get away with stealing human children. It was simply too strange and immoral. No, their story would end with the good and virtuous queen guessing the little man's name because she was so worried about losing her child. Of course his name had to be Rumpelstiltskin because it was the craziest, funniest name either of them had ever heard. Wilhelm asked, "Which of you made that up? It's genius." Dortchen shyly said, "Me."

  So Breath ran out of the city with the child into the stormy black night and neither of them was ever seen again.

  The effect on Papa was as I'd expected. By the time they'd "finished" the story, he was leaning against the wall, crying and nodding at the same time. Someone other than himself finally knew and had told the story of his sad life.

  The sisters, on the other hand, were delighted by his reaction. Lisette asked if he was all right. He spoke in a quiet, haunted voice. "Yes."

  When they were done, I waited a moment before asking them to do my favor for me. Originally, in Kassel, when I'd asked them to do it, both were astonished. That was all? I'd brought them back only to do this one little thing?

  "Yes, ladies. You created the story. Now continue it. Please do me the favor of adding my small end, or coda, to it. For all time. Forever."

  "Do you know who they are, Papa?"

  He was so distraught he didn't seem to hear me.

  "Papa?"

  "What? No. Who are they?"

  "They created you, Papa. You're based on a man named Retzner who lived near Kassel. A poor man who once, after having done some work for a farmer's wife, wasn't paid for it. To get even he stole her child. That's correct, isn't it, ladies?"

  "Yes. We made it up together."

  He looked at me emptily. What was I saying to him?

  "They made you up, Papa! You're not real. You came out of their heads. Watch!

  "Dortchen, would you finish the story now?"

  She straightened her dress in her lap and took a deep breath:

  Now, the little man named the boy Walter because he was a human child and needed a human name. But because he loved him so, Breath also taught him all the magic he knew. The boy grew up knowing what it was to be human, as well as knowing what it was to possess great magic.

  The two of them lived together happily for many years. But even Breath, magic as he was, made one mistake. And he made it because there were many human things he could never understand. He allowed Walter to grow up! Naturally, when that happened, the boy fell in love with a pretty young maiden. He told his Papa that he wanted to marry and start a family of his own. Breath couldn't accept the thought of losing his only love. He told Walter that if he did marry, he would kill him. But Walter was young and very much in love, as his magical father had once been with Alexandra. Walter ignored his father and married the girl anyway."

  "What is this? What do you mean, they created me?"

  "Listen."

  Dortchen went on: Breath's anger was as large as an ocean and he struck his son down, killing him instantly. But living without any love at all in this world was too much for the little man. So he brought Walter back to life in another time and place. He hoped that in this new existence, his son would learn that being both human and magical doesn't work. Once mixed, they can be disastrous to everyone concerned. Breath hoped that in this new life, his son would realize that being with his father was all he should want out of life.

  Sadly, though, the same thing happened in this new life too, and again Breath's anger killed his son.

  This time I was surprised by the old man's reaction. Rather than blow up, he seemed to slump, as if the truth were sucking him more and more into himself.

  I didn't care. He wanted my life. I didn't want his. Maris was my love. I didn't belong to his.

  Dortchen sighed. Poor Papa made the same mistake again and again through time and always with the same result. This made him meaner to the only person who had ever loved him. It got so bad that, in time, he completely forgot what love meant, only thinking about his own happiness.

  "This
terrible circle continued to turn round and round until the twentieth century. There the boy's name was Walker."

  Papa looked at me and put out his hand. "Please!"

  "Go on."

  "In this life, however, Walker found perfect love with a woman who was able to show him secret, lost parts of his soul and being. In them was the answer to the dilemma that had ruined all of his past lives and happinesses.

  "He went to Kassel and resurrected the Wild Sisters who had originally created the story of Breath. Walker asked them to come to Vienna to help him fight his father. Because Lisette and Dortchen knew what true love was, they agreed.

  "They came and met the father to tell him how they had created him. But there was one thing left. Walker asked them to end the story of Breath differently. He asked them to say, When Breath heard the end of their story and discovered where he'd really come from, he was so sad that like his heart, he turned to glass and broke. When he died, his magic died with him. The magic he'd taught his son. The magic that had enabled Walker to bring the Wild Sisters back to life to help. When Breath was gone, Walker was only human again."

  There was a delicate ping, as slight as a heartbeat, and then the sound of glass breaking on the floor. I jumped out of the way, but some of it flew up and cut me. Brushing it off, I looked at the couch but they were all gone.

  4.

  It's good being "only human" again. There are times when I wish I still had some magic left. For example, the morning I told Maris the story of what really happened, and she got so angry I was afraid she was going to start bleeding again. She didn't, though. After her initial explosion, she sat up in that big white bed and said, "I couldn't have done anything anyway, could I?"

  "Maris, you did everything! Your drawing showed me how to beat him."

  "Because I wrote 'Breathing you' at the bottom? Big deal."

  "No, because you showed me into a part of myself that had been closed through all my lives. If you'd only shown me his name it wouldn't have done any good. That would have only given us equal power. Showing me the city showed me his name and what I should do with it. It was clear in an instant. You did that. You showed me how. I couldn't have found it alone."

  "It's hard finding your way across someone else's heart, isn't it?

  "Walker, promise me something. I believe all of this is over. I believe you won. But if anything ever comes up again, you must tell me. Will you promise that?"

  "It's over, Maris. Nothing else is going to happen."

  "I don't care. You have to promise me that."

  "Okay."

  "Put up your right hand and say it."

  "I promise to tell you everything."

  "It doesn't have to be only magic, either. If I'm terrible and you hate something I do, you can't hold back. You have to tell. A deal? I promise to do the same with you."

  "It's a deal."

  I kept my promise. Six months later, the day it happened, I told Maris about the girl at the door.

  The bell rang, I answered it. The instant after I knew who she was, I realized again nothing is done without regret.

  She was wearing a long red cape that covered her head as well as her body. She had blond hair, honey-colored skin, lips as red as the cape.

  "Once upon a time there was a sweet little maiden. Whoever laid eyes upon her could not help but love her." I looked up the line later.

  "Do you know who I am?"

  "Yes, I think so."

  I'm Little Red Riding Hood. We've heard about you. All of us have heard about what you did. We don't like it. You're dangerous."

  Our son . . .

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