The Rumpelstiltskin Problem Read online

  That night the servants locked Christina in the main audience hall—the largest room in the castle. But when Otto drove the wagon around the castle, he saw to his dismay that the room was built out so that it hung over the river that surrounded the castle. In fact, it was directly over the entrance to the little cove where the king's ships were anchored. There was no way Otto could get his wagon out into the deep water.

  He saw that Christina had opened the window. In the moonlight they looked at each other hopelessly. Then, because there was nothing else they could do, Christina began throwing the straw into the river. If they were lucky, Otto thought, the current would carry it away.

  But they hadn't been lucky yet, and by the earliest morning's light, they could see that Christina had thrown in so much that the straw had mounded up, forming a pile that showed through the surface of the water. As soon as anybody looked, what she had done would be discovered.

  There was no time to worry. In the new pillow Otto had brought, there were three spools of gold wire—all that was left of their mill—and Christina went to hurriedly wrap these around a spindle as Otto raced to be at the door when it was opened.

  He got there just as the king and his court arrived. Beyond them, he could see that Christina remained sitting at the spinning wheel, the filled spindle on the floor beside her, and she was sobbing loudly.

  Otto sincerely hoped she was faking. He hoped she had come up with a new plan, for all he could think was to try to get all their friends and neighbors to sign a petition asking the king to let Christina go, and somehow Otto doubted the king would put off his wedding because the townspeople asked him to.

  Seeing Christina's tears, the lord high chamberlain demanded, "What's happened?"

  "Someone came during the night," Christina gasped between sobs. "The little man who originally taught me to spin straw into gold. When I first wanted to learn, I agreed that in return I would give him my firstborn son. Now that I am to marry the king, the little man insists he shall have the royal child."

  Good plan! Otto thought. The king would never allow such a thing.

  The crowd in the doorway cried out in dismay. But Otto saw the king wave his handkerchief airily.

  "The king says," the lord high chamberlain said, "he is rich enough and powerful enough to protect against any such person. The king says: The wedding will proceed as planned."

  The crowd cheered.

  This time Otto didn't have a chance to even speak to his daughter before she was led away.

  Do you have a plan, Christina? Otto thought at her.

  But of course there was no way for her to answer.

  Otto had to come up with his own plan.

  By the time Otto got back to the castle that afternoon, the spinning wheel had been removed from the audience hall and the floor had been swept clean. Servants had dressed Christina in a gown decorated with sparkling gems. They had put a gold and ruby necklace around her neck, a gold and sapphire bracelet on one wrist, a gold and emerald bracelet on the other wrist, and a gold and diamond tiara on her head. Presents, no doubt, from the king. This finery cost much more than the gold she had supposedly spun for the king so far, but the king was counting on her to spin for him every day for the rest of her life.

  Golden sunlight poured in through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the walls. The king was sitting on his throne, looking very regal and not at all forgiving, when Otto flung the door open and strode into the room.

  "What's all this?" Otto shouted in as big a voice as he could make.

  Without Christina to provide him with a plan, Otto had decided that what he needed was a disguise. Except, of course, he had no money to buy one. So he had rolled his clothes in the fireplace of the mill that had used to be theirs, getting the soot of the previous night's fire all over them till they looked as though they were made of black cloth. He smeared more soot into his hair to make that look black, too, and drew a black moustache on his lip. He was aware that as he moved, he left little billows of blackness behind, but he felt that actually the effect was rather dramatic. No one, he thought, would ever recognize him—not in a hundred years.

  The king made a dismissive gesture with his handkerchief.

  The lord high chamberlain said, "Christina's father, what is the meaning of this?"

  "I am not Christina's father," Otto said. "I don't even know who Christina's father is." Now what? He continued, "I ... might bear a slight resemblance to the man, but in truth I am a dangerous magical creature who knows all sorts of enchantments besides the spinning of gold from straw, and I have come to take what is rightfully mine. If you don't hand over my—this girl, I will put a terrible spell on all of you."

  He had been worried that he looked so frightening, Christina might not realize she was being rescued. And, indeed, he saw that she had clapped her hand to her forehead and that she was shaking her head.

  "Of course you're Christina's father," the lord high chamberlain insisted. "You look like him, you sound like him. You're maybe a tiny bit dirtier than him ..." Impatiently, he called out, "Guards," and two soldiers started approaching. But they were afraid of him—Otto was sure of it. They were laughing, which must mean they were hysterical with fear. Still, they were between Otto and the door.

  Christina took her father by the arm and pulled him toward the window through which she had thrown the straw the previous night. This probably meant she recognized him, but—just to be sure—he whispered to her, "It's me. Your father." He could see her wince as though his words gave her a sudden headache. To the king, Otto said, "This girl's firstborn son has been pledged to me. And if that son is yours, too, then once you are dead I will rule your kingdom through him."

  Christina smacked him on the back of the head. She hissed into his ear, "There is no baby. And there's not going to be one if we get out of here."

  "Right," Otto said. "Ahmm..." To delay pursuit, he added, "But guess my name, and the bargain is forfeit." He could feel the wall against his back and Christina's tugging on his arm to get him to step up.

  The lord high chamberlain insisted, "You are Christina's father."

  "That's not a name," Otto pointed out.

  The king jumped to his feet and spoke for the first time in Otto's hearing—or Christina's hearing, Otto guessed from her expression. The king shouted, "Is the name Rumpelstiltskin?"

  Otto was pleased for the opportunity to say, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." And with that Christina leapt out the window, so that she landed on the wet heap of straw that clogged the river. Just beyond, the little rowboat Otto had traded the wagon for bobbed in the water.

  "Stop them!" the lord high chamberlain's voice cried as Otto jumped and landed with a wet plop! beside his daughter.

  Otto and Christina scrambled into the boat. Behind them, arrows hit the water as the king's archers began firing. But already Otto was rowing out of their range. And the king's navy would need hours to clear all that wet straw out of the way of their ships.

  "You came up with a plan!" Christina congratulated him.

  "It wasn't a very good one," Otto protested modestly as the soot ran off his wet skin and puddled at the bottom of the boat.

  "No," Christina said. "You were brilliant."

  "Well..." Otto said, blushing, "maybe just a little bit brilliant."

  "Extraordinarily brilliant," Christina corrected. "You just wait until we dock somewhere. I can't wait to tell people how ingenious you are."

  "Perhaps 'ingenious' is a bit much," Otto said. "Once you call someone 'ingenious,' then there's a certain type of person who will be constantly testing and teasing and ready to find fault and make fun..."

  "Oh, no, no, no," Christina insisted. "Ingenious you are, and ingenious I shall call you. Why, as soon as we land, I must start telling people how you tricked the king of our land."

  Now Otto knew that if being called ingenious was risking ridicule, being called a tricker-of-kings was risking getting one's head chopped off. Surely h
is Christina, who was so clever, was clever enough to know that.

  "Hmmm," he said. "I think I see your point."

  "Yes?" Christina asked.

  "I am very proud of you," he said.

  "And I appreciate that," she told him.

  "But I suppose I could be a little more careful about what I say."

  "A little more accurate might help, too," Christina said.

  "My Christina," Otto said, practicing, "is clever, sweet, and brave. And her spinning isn't half bad either."

  "That's a good start," Christina laughed.

  Down the river they floated, away from the castle, through the woods, and past the mill that had been theirs, heading they-didn't-know-where. With the gold and finery the king had given Christina to wear, Otto knew the two of them could start again in a different land.

  He just hoped it would be ruled by a wiser king.

  V. Ms. Rumpelstiltskin

  Once upon a time, before eyelash curlers and lip liner, there lived a very plain girl by the name of Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin was so plain, the other village children called her things like Toad Face and Hairy Beast. If only I had hut one friend, Rumpelstiltskin thought, I would be the best friend that person could ever have. But the children only wanted to torment her and play tricks on her.

  The older Rumpelstiltskin got, the plainer she became, till—by the time she was a young lady—she was no longer plain, she was homely.

  If only I had a child, Rumpelstiltskin thought, a baby boy or girl, I would love that child, and that child would love me, and neither of us would care how the other looked. But Rumpelstiltskin was so homely, the young women of her village all laughed at her; and the young men would not court her or let her court them.

  As Rumpelstiltskin got older and older, she became homelier and homelier—till by the time she was a middle-aged lady she was no longer homely, she was ugly.

  Rumpelstiltskin was so ugly, the villagers delighted in saying things like: "Is that Rumpelstiltskin looking out the window, or is one of the melons from her garden reflected in the glass?"

  And still Rumpelstiltskin dreamed of a baby to love who would love her in return. But in the meantime she kept to herself, and in the darkness of night she read ancient books of magic, and she learned to do things normal village folk could not do.

  And all the while she grew uglier and uglier—but by then people no longer called her names or played tricks on her, for everyone was convinced she was a witch.

  One day as Rumpelstiltskin worked in her garden, she could hear the sound of a commotion next door. She pulled a stone out from the wall that separated the two yards and saw that a rich carriage had pulled up to her neighbors' house. This was not unusual, for a miller and his daughter lived next door, and rich households as well as poor needed to have their wheat ground to flour before they could bake. But the miller's daughter was weeping and clutching at the front door of the house, while two men dressed in very fine clothes pulled and tugged at her and finally lifted her into the carriage. And all this while nobody moved to help the poor girl, and in fact her own father stood in the yard as the carriage began to drive away.

  "I'm sorry!" the father called out after the carriage. "I'm sorry, Luella! I'll do what I can."

  Rumpelstiltskin was very curious about what was going on, but she was no longer on speaking terms with any of the villagers. The only way she could learn what this was all about, she decided, was to follow the carriage.

  So she did.

  Beyond the fields the carriage went, through the woods, over hills and streams, beyond a whole new set of fields, to a magnificent castle.

  Well! Rumpelstiltskin thought, recognizing the winged lion emblem on the banners. The king.

  But what, she wondered, would the king want with a miller's daughter? Surely the king had his own miller to grind flour.

  Hiding behind a tree, Rumpelstiltskin watched as the unfortunate Luella was dragged from the coach and carried over the shoulder of one of the king's men into the castle. What had she done, Rumpelstiltskin wondered, to be arrested by the king and imprisoned in his dungeon?

  But Luella wasn't brought to the dungeon. Rumpelstiltskin could hear her continuing to wail and cry as she was brought into the castle. And the cries finally came to rest in a tower on the west end of the castle.

  Rumpelstiltskin saw the shutters of that room fly open, and the miller's daughter stood framed in the window as she looked up, down, and around—but the window was much, much too high up for the girl to escape that way.

  Rumpelstiltskin waited for the evening dark. Then, using one of her witch's tricks, she scaled up the side of the castle wall and into the tower room.

  For some reason, the room was full of straw, bale after bale of it, piled up against the walls and each other. The only free space was in the middle of the room, where someone had set up a spinning wheel. Lying on the floor beside the spinning wheel, all cried out, was the miller's daughter.

  Rumpelstiltskin called in through the window, "Luella. What's happened? What's going on?" Her voice was dry and creaky from not having spoken to anyone in at least three or four years.

  Luella had been lying on the floor, her face buried in her arms. Now she hastily sat up. "Who are you, little man?" she demanded. "How do you know my name?"

  Little man?

  Rumpelstiltskin could easily have answered, "I heard your father call out after you," but she was annoyed that this young snip of a girl mistook her for a man. So she answered, "I know things." She was even more annoyed now that she had a closer look at Luella. Despite the red and puffy eyes, the poor clothes, and the straw in her hair, Luella was a very pretty young woman. Exactly the kind of pretty young woman the men were always attracted to. Exactly the kind of pretty young woman who had been the cruelest to Rumpelstiltskin.

  Oh, Rumpelstiltskin thought to herself. That's it. Somehow the king had heard of the miller's daughter. News of beautiful women always seems to travel far and wide. No doubt he had convinced himself that he had to have her and...

  But no. The straw and the spinning wheel didn't fit.

  Rumpelstiltskin repeated, "What's happened? Why have you been brought"—she gestured around the room—"here?"

  "My father," Luella said in a tone of hopelessness.

  Rumpelstiltskin remembered him calling after her that he was sorry.

  Luella continued, "He told the king I could spin straw into gold."

  "Why?" Rumpelstiltskin asked. "Why would your father say such a thing?"

  "Obviously he wanted to impress the king," Luella said in a what-kind-of-fool-are-you? tone.

  "Obviously it worked," Rumpelstiltskin snapped right back at her. "Well, all right, I was just wondering. Best of luck to you." She nodded and started to back out the window.

  "Wait!" Luella cried. "Little man!"

  "Don't call me that," Rumpelstiltskin said. "I'm not a little man." But she waited.

  "Oh!" Luella said. "I'm sorry. Truly." She scrambled to her feet and rushed to Rumpelstiltskin's side. "Can you help me? Can you get me out of here?"

  "Can you climb?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

  Luella looked out the window and swayed dizzily. "Ooooh, it's even worse in the dark." Luella sank to her knees, and Rumpelstiltskin did feel sorry for her. A bit. "He's going to chop my head off," Luella said softly. "The king. He said if I didn't spin this straw into gold by morning, he'd have my head."

  "Nonsense," Rumpelstiltskin said. "That wouldn't get him any gold. Surely it was just a threat."

  "Still..." Luella's sigh indicated that she fully expected to die.

  Rumpelstiltskin sighed, too. This girl was just the kind of beauty who always got everything her way, and it was about time she learned a lesson.

  But then Rumpelstiltskin sighed again. Getting one's head chopped off was a pretty drastic lesson.

  "All right, all right," she said. "I'll spin the straw into gold for you."

  "Oh, can you? Will you?" Luella said, jumpin
g to her feet.

  Beautiful girls, Rumpelstiltskin thought, ALWAYS get their own way. So she said, "If you pay me."

  "Oh, certainly," Luella said. She pulled a ring off her finger, a golden ring of the type that boys sometimes give girls to show their friendship. She probably had a dozen more in a drawer at home.

  "Oh, a ring!" Rumpelstiltskin muttered. "How useful." But she guessed the king would not be satisfied with one night's gold. It apparently hadn't occurred to Luella to wonder why he should settle for one room of gold if he could have one every night. Maybe, Rumpelstiltskin thought, maybe this can develop into something that would finally benefit ME. She pulled up the stool with which Luella had been provided and began spinning.

  By dawn, she had spun all the straw into gold.

  "Thank you, thank you, lit—" Luella caught herself before she finished saying "little man." Instead she finished, more calmly, "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," Rumpelstiltskin said, and she bowed and she left, climbing out the window and down the wall. She scurried across the courtyard before the servants were up and about, and she hid in the woods until nightfall.

  Once it was dark, she saw that there was no light in the tower room where Luella had been the night before. The king, Rumpelstiltskin would have been willing to bet, was getting greedy.

  Traveling from shadow to shadow, Rumpelstiltskin made her way around the outside of the castle, paying special attention to the high-up windows. Sure enough, she found one, in the south tower, that had a light and from which came the sound of someone crying softly.

  Rumpelstiltskin scaled the wall and looked in through the crack in the shutters. There was Luella, in a bigger room filled with more straw than before. If Luella had been watching the night before, she might have picked up some of Rumpelstiltskin's techniques. But that's just like a beautiful woman, Rumpelstiltskin thought, waiting for someone else to do it for her.

  Rumpelstiltskin tapped on the shutter, and—to give her credit—Luella seemed to realize immediately who it had to be. She came over and threw open the shutters. "Oh, it's you, lit—It's you. Thank goodness!" She gave the charming smile which no doubt had melted the hearts of all the village youths.