Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (24 page)

“You know,” I said, considering my words carefully. “There are other things out there besides trolls. Just beyond the gates, a little ways in The Eastern Woods, I’ve actually hidden a stash of gold.”

“Gold?” Bruno licked his lips as if I’d just said “lamb chops.”

“Gold,” I said. “I can’t carry it all on my own. But if you help me, I’ll split it with you.”

Their eyes glittered. Bruno nodded, but Frederick pulled him back. “How do we know you’re not tricking us, just so you can run away?”

I pointed to the castle. “Red’s still in there. I wouldn’t run away. And, besides, it’s dangerous in those woods. There might be wolves or witches or trolls out there. I just thought I might have a better chance if you were with me, because you’re soldiers now. I could wait until I’m done with your father, but then he might find out about it and want the gold for himself.”

Frederick whispered something in Bruno’s ear, and a greedy grin spread across his face. “We’ll help you,” they said at the same time.

“But we get most of it,” said Frederick. “There’s two of us and one of you, and what do you need with gold?”

“I don’t need much,” I said.

Frederick pushed me to start moving. “You’ll get as much as you’re worth, Butt.”

CHAPTER THIRTY
The Stiltskin

Because Frederick and Bruno were soldiers and something like nobility, they were able to get a carriage with horses from the stables.

“Better if we’re quick,” said Frederick. “I’ll send a message to Father and tell him you’re having a hard time.” Bruno snorted. Frederick found a gnome and gave him the message, and then we left.

When I had Nothing with me, the journey to the trolls’ forest had taken half a day, he was so slow, but with the carriage, we were there within half an hour. Bruno whipped the horses so they went faster and we bounced along the road.

Archie woke with the whips and the roar of the carriage and started to wail. I tried to rock him and shush him, but he was awkward in my arms and he only cried louder.

“Where is this place?” Bruno yelled over the baby’s
wails. “You said it was just beyond the gates.” Bruno looked through the trees as if a wolf might jump out from them at any moment.

“Slow down. Just a bit farther.” We came to the bend in the road that I recognized.

“Stop,” I told him, and Archie quieted as the carriage became still. We stepped down, and I walked off the road. “Through here,” I said, pointing into the blackness of the trees. Frederick and Bruno halted at the edge of the road.

“In
there
?” they asked at the same time. Frederick’s voice cracked.

“I
had
to hide the gold in a place where no one else would find it.” I walked into the trees. A few moments later, I heard their footsteps behind me. We walked slowly and quietly until we came to the apple tree. Its branches bowed, heavy with the weight of poisoned fruit. I really hoped Bork was still trying to catch a pet, even though he already had Nothing.

Gently, I sat the baby down on the ground. “Wait here,” I told them, and approached the tree. There was very little light to see by, but I searched around the tree until I saw it. The snare. Very carefully, I placed my foot into the trap.

SNAP!

Schwip!

Schlunk!

The rope yanked me off the ground, and I screamed louder than necessary, to attract the trolls. Frederick’s and Bruno’s jaws dropped. A few moments later, rustling
came from the brush behind me and the first of the trolls appeared, ugly and smelly as ever. “Trolls!” I shouted. “Help! Trolls! Trolls! Help me!”

Frederick and Bruno squealed and ran, flailing their arms. They didn’t even pause to pick up their baby nephew. They bolted through the trees toward the carriage. I barely heard the crack of the whip or the horses’ hooves above their screams. In a few moments, the noise faded.

“What’s this?” said one of the trolls. “Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”

“Hello, Bork.”

Archie began crying.

“And you brought extra,” said Bork. “Well, we can always use a side dish.”

“Oh, you don’t want that,” I said. “Far too bitter. Do you have any sludge?”

“We always have sludge.” And he cut me down.

The first part of the plan had worked—I was out of the castle, and Frederick and Bruno were gone—but that was the easy part. Now I had to find a stiltskin before it was too late. Something told me I was in the right place.

I was greeted with many snorts and snarls from the trolls. Slop now had a wolf pelt on his head, instead of his deer antlers. “How did you get that?” I asked.

“He ate the apples,” said Slop.

“Wolves don’t eat apples,” Bork corrected. “He died of starvation. Didn’t even have any meat on his bones.”

“Because them apples ate it all up with their poison.”
Slop pushed down the wolf head so its teeth were hanging over his eyes. Then he sniffed me. “You still reek of magic.”

I wanted to tell him he reeked of troll, but I didn’t.

Mard hugged me when she saw me, which was comforting despite the smell. “What is this?” she said, pointing to Archie in the basket.

“That’s … Archie,” I said without explanation.

“He’s horribly clean, and so are you.” Mard took Archie from my arms, and Gorp and Grot tackled me to the ground and smeared mud in my clothes. As I stood up, a fat donkey came trotting toward me.

“Nothing!” He brayed and pushed me with his head right back down in the mud.

“We named him Horace,” said Grot. “He likes to eat worms.”

I laughed. Nothing’s name is Horace and he likes to eat worms. Well, he looked happy. Maybe having a real name made him a better donkey.

Mard pushed a cup of sludge into my hands. “You need fattening,” she said. “You grew.” Then she dipped her fingers in the sludge and fed some to Archie. I thought for sure he would start crying, but he didn’t. He slurped and gurgled. The young prince had a taste for worms. “This will make him a strong boy,” said Mard.

“Why have you come back?” asked Bork. “And who were those boys?”

“Those were the queen’s brothers.”

“Can they make gold from straw too?” Bork asked. “They didn’t look too smart.”

“They can’t make gold. Neither can the queen.” I took a deep breath. “I can, though.”

All the slurping and grunting and snorting stopped, and the trolls stared at me. So I told them my story. All of it. The spinning, my mother, my name, and how I had come to gain Archie.

“No wonder you reek of magic,” said Slop. “You were
born
in the stuff!

“Why can’t you give him back if you don’t want him?” Slop asked.

“Because she promised him in exchange for the gold, so I have to take him. That’s part of the magic.”

“Why would she promise her baby?” asked Gorp.

“I don’t know. Humans do a lot of things that make no sense.…”

The trolls grunted in agreement and raised their cups.

Archie started to cry, and Mard bounced and rocked him. “Too clean, poor thing.” She took handfuls of mud and slathered it on his face so he looked like a piglet in a mud puddle. I thought for sure he’d go into hysterics, but instead he stopped crying and drifted off in Mard’s arms as she rocked him. Watching this, I felt a pang in my chest. A baby should have a mother and a mother should have her baby. That is, if destiny works out the way it’s supposed to. I needed to find a way to give Archie back to Opal. That’s why I had come here.

“I have something to show you,” said Bork.

“What is it?”

“Something I discovered a little while ago. Let’s go to the tree.”

We took a torch through the trees until we came to the clearing with the apple tree, standing so still and perfect in the dark. Bork reached up and picked an apple and held it to the light of his torch.

“This tree grew from the seeds of a poisoned apple, you know, so I’ve never tried one, but a few weeks ago I saw a strange thing. A family of raccoons came out in the middle of the night and started eating those apples. I watched them, followed them to their den, and they didn’t die. They didn’t even seem sick. So I thought maybe those apples aren’t poisonous for raccoons. But I kept watching the tree and a week later I saw some squirrels gnawing at the apples, and they didn’t get sick either. So you know what else I thought? Maybe those apples aren’t really poisonous at all. Maybe poison doesn’t have to grow from poison. Not always. This tree, I think just maybe it grew the way it wanted to grow. Those seeds, they were stronger than the magic.”

Without warning, Bork took a bite of the apple.

I snatched it and threw it away. “What are you doing?”

He chewed and swallowed, and we waited. My heart pounded as I thought that any moment Bork was going to drop dead. He smacked his lips and grimaced. Surely the poison was sinking in now. “Not as good as sludge,” he said. “Well, I just thought that might be useful to you. You can think about it.”

“Think about what?”

“The things you know that you don’t know you know. You’re not so bright compared to a troll, but you’re a crumb smarter than most humans.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I’m not sure I understand.”

“You humans always talk about magic and destiny like it’s the most powerful thing in the world. Like it controls you.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does if you want it to. Maybe it does other humans, but
you
, Rump? You were
born
with
magic
. I can smell it stronger on you than on any magical object I’ve ever found, even stronger than this tree.”

“But that’s the problem!” I said. “It’s the magic that’s caused all this trouble, just like all those things in your hoard cause trouble. I can’t do anything about it!”

“It’s the
people
who cause the trouble, Rump. Not the magic itself. If you’re so full of magic, why should you be helpless?”

“I don’t know.” I felt dizzy with confusion.

Bork handed me the torch. “Think about it. It’s not so hard.” He walked back into the trees.

Everything was cold and quiet now, except for the crackle of the torch. I stared at the apple tree. I still couldn’t believe Bork ate one. Maybe that poison didn’t work on trolls. Maybe it only worked on princesses. Or maybe Bork was right.
Those seeds really were stronger than the magic
.

I am not a tree. I was born with a name and that name is my destiny. Rumpel has me wrapped and trapped. It controls me. My destiny controls me.

But then a new question entered my mind.

What is destiny?

I knew that everyone had one, just as they had a name. And they were one and the same. Just as no person
chooses their own name, no person chooses their own destiny. It isn’t up to them. But what if that wasn’t so? If Red’s granny said that I must
find
my destiny, doesn’t that mean I have some say in where to look?

Maybe destiny isn’t something that just happens. Maybe destiny is something you
do
. Maybe destiny is like a seed and it
grows
. I wasn’t powerless. Even with my name, even with all the snares and tangles, I could do things, like spin straw into gold, and make terrible mistakes that ended up with girls being carried to their doom and promising me their firstborn child. That was all part of my destiny.

My name is Rumpel.

My name means I am bound, but I can grow more powerful than those bindings.

I am more than the name I have always known.

Deep inside I have a power that no one can take away from me. A deep magic more powerful than any magic placed upon me. A magic that I was born with, that grew inside me, deep in my bones.

A stiltskin.

I am Rumpel. I am a stiltskin.

Rumpel.

Stiltskin.

I pictured my mother, holding me in her arms, dying, ready to give me a name, a name that would overpower all the magic that had trapped her. She whispered it to me. It was a name that would make me everything I am. No one else had ever heard it but me. My name is my destiny. My name is my power.

Rumpel. Stiltskin.

I heard Mother’s whisper reaching across years and mountains and valleys.

Rumpel. Stiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin.

The name,
my
name, shook in my chest. It traveled through my brain and down my arms and fingertips to my legs and toes. The sound of it echoed so loud inside of me I felt I would burst.

I made a rhyme then and there. A rhyme full of powerful words to release into the black night.

                
Tomorrow I’m free

                
Today I’m alive

                
The curses and tangles no longer survive

                
From deep within, the wisdom came

                
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name!

I
was a stiltskin. And that power was greater than the rumpel. I felt it now, all inside of me, as if just saying my name out loud had unleashed a force and it was wrapping around the tangles, ready to rip them apart.

I picked an apple from the tree and took a bite, sweet juice filling my mouth. “I am more powerful than a tree!” I shouted into the night air, and I laughed and danced.

A flickering shadow caught my eye and I froze mid-laugh. Frederick stepped from behind a tree into the clearing, his arms trembling as he held up a bow and arrow.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Come out, Bruno.” He kicked at his brother, who squealed and slid out from behind
another tree holding a spear tight to his chest. He was white as the moon and shaking so hard it was as if some outside force were throttling him.

“Don’t move,” Frederick said again, pointing his bow and arrow at me. “You have to come back with us. You still have to spin all that gold, or your friend is going to get hurt.
You’re
going to get hurt.” Frederick took a step forward. Bruno took a step back and whimpered, mumbling, “Trolls, filthy trolls, cursed trolls.”

I dropped my apple. I wasn’t afraid of Frederick or Bruno anymore. They looked pathetic and small, quivering with their weapons. I was amazed that I had ever been afraid of them, had ever allowed them to bully me. But I also realized I wasn’t free yet. I had found my name. I still felt it inside me. The magic of my stiltskin was still rushing through my arms and legs and my brain, making me big and powerful. But the rumpel had yet to be untangled. Red was still trapped in the castle. There was still the miller to face. I still had Archie with me. And no one could untangle it all but me.