“… and they lived happily ever after.”

He gently put the book down and kissed her forehead, brushed aside her glazed golden locks; he tip-toed outside, and was about to close the door when –

“Daddy, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would the miller want to lie to the king? And I thought that the ground is hard. How can you stick your foot in and get ripped in two? The story’s all wrong. I thought he was the good guy. How come he doesn’t get to live happily ever after?”

The man scratched his head sheepishly, looking like a pickpocket caught red-handed. A stream of flour cascaded from his straw-like hair. “… who?”

“Rumpled-stilts-tin. How come he doesn’t get to live happily ever after?”

“oh, him. Honey, it’s past your bedtime. We can talk about this later. Sweet dreams.” The father made his exit, taken aback – but pleased – by his daughter’s sharp mind. Was it not just last night that she had fallen asleep before Cinderella could even meet the prince? What was it that made her devour this one so quickly?

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The what was her past. And it was coming to claim her.

It watched as patches of moonlight, like eggshells made of nothing, chased each other across her bed, as the little girl slept on the shore of fluffy, whitewashed dreams. It smiled, and its breath swept through the room, yet disturbed nothing but her eyelashes – not even the tissue paper flowers on her table, or the dangling glass butterflies and silk curtains. It spoke into the sweltering stillness of the night …

won’t you come back to me, little damsel?

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The little damsel in question was far away, climbing a monstrous beanstalk, when a gale force wind knocked her off its flimsy leaf and sent her hurtling, faster and faster, into a bottomless hole. She woke up with a start. Her heart jumped into her throat.

What was it?

Her room was silent, no cars, no wind, everything was where it was supposed to be – even her stuffed piggy next to her pillow who always fell over in the night; the window was shut tight, and a million stars speckled the velvety black sky. Not a thing moved in the still night air.

What was it?

The curtains rippled. She gasped and a sweat drop collided with her eyeball. It made a sick splattering sound, and when she finally regained her vision, what she saw made her head swim.

It took the shape of a lanky young man sitting at the foot of her bed, dressed in a quiet fashion – a black jacket, black pants, black bowler hat cocked slightly over one eye, with an easy smile and laid-back posture. But she couldn’t see his eyes. And she knew he wasn’t human; when she looked again, he’d grown shorter and had a gold tooth. And when she looked again, he was darker, leaner, and when she looked a third time, he had changed yet again.

Let me tell you a story. His voice was silken, smooth and disarming, like honey. She nodded. He laid a starched hand over her eyes, and they closed.

Once upon a time, there lived a miller and his daughter. Now the miller was but an ordinary peasant – he was rough and world-weary, but cared for his child as his greatest joy. She was radiant, everyone agreed, with her piercing onyx eyes and audacious smile, and the locks and locks of gorgeous golden hair that she grew down to her buttocks.

________________________________________ ________________________________

The girl giggled. When she looked up into the eyes of this charming storyteller, though, she saw two deep voids that seemed to suck all the light out of the room. She shuddered and her laughter died.

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The villagers wondered at how a common man could give life to such beauty. “It’s like spinning straw into gold,” they would say. And the word spread. It crept into the ears of the troubadours and the sausage-makers and the tall-tale-makers, until finally, it reached the royal court of Germany. And so the king called upon his right-hand minister, styled Rumpelstilzchen (for his mischievous and meddling nature), and boomed, “bring me this lass and we’ll see if she can really spin straw into gold!”

Rumpelstilzchen complied, and, at His Excellency’s command, locked her into a room with a spinning wheel and a pile of straw. She was told that if she refused to demonstrate her abilities, then she would be drawn, quartered, hanged, pelted, drowned, tickled, and/or burned to death.

________________________________________ ________________________________

Who was this man? He was an even better storyteller than her father; when he spoke, words slid out of his mouth and washed up against her mind, gently, humorously, like the immaterial flicker of a snake’s tongue. She couldn’t help but grin at the “tickling to death” part.

________________________________________ ________________________________

Though visibly shaken by her ordeal, the cunning miller’s daughter set to work immediately. She cut off a portion of her own golden hair, spun it into yarn, braided it into an impressively shiny necklace, and was about to throw the straw out the window when the door opened and Rumpelstilzchen, curious about how she was doing, saw exactly what she had done. The miller’s daughter pleaded with him not to tell anyone, offering him her father’s lamb necklace in exchange for his silence. He accepted the gift and promised to keep quiet.

________________________________________ ________________________________

She wasn’t hearing his words anymore. It had become a lullaby, a mirage of emotion and song.

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The king was so greed-stricken by the golden necklace that he ordered her into the room for a second night, this time with a mountain of straw, three spinning wheels, and a loom. He also posted Rumpelstilzchen outside her prison as a precaution. After all, straw had reportedly fallen out the window and inflicted a severe heart attack on one of the sleeping guards.

The miller’s daughter cut off half of her remaining hair and spun it into a golden suit. She then instructed Rumpelstilzchen to remove the hay and gave him her mother’s silver bracelet as a token of her appreciation.

________________________________________ ________________________________

That was how the story was supposed to go. Her father did get it wrong: no one can spin straw into gold, and there is no such thing as a magical dwarf in the first place. The little girl’s heart went out to the miller’s daughter. So misunderstood. But so smart.

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The king was so astounded by her work that he sentenced her to a third night, this time in the dining room (which was large enough to accommodate the Mount-Everest-sized pile of straw and ten spinning wheels). His Excellency also offered her his hand in marriage if she succeeded. In the dark of the night, the miller’s daughter cut off all of her hair to spin a golden evening gown, and also a straw wig to cover her bare scalp. She promised Rumpelstilzchen her first-born child – to his reluctance, reasoning with him that the king would make a horrible, snot-nosed father who would drown the baby by accident if he ever laid his hands on it. He accepted the gift.

________________________________________ ________________________________

“I wish I was the miller’s daughter.”

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Her cunning scheme won her the title of Königin of Germany. But the queen was not ready to live happily ever after. To silence Rumpelstilzchen, she gave him her baby son and a hefty amount of gold, commanding him to flee and raise her child. The next morning, the king was outraged to find their baby’s crib empty. Soldiers were sent out to search the entire palace and all neighbouring villages, and dragged Rumpelstilzchen back as the culprit. The evidence? Gold in his saddlebags, the baby in his arms.

He was sentenced to death.

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“Serves him right. She’s just being blamed by everyone and that rumpled-stilt guy was being annoying and … and … …” The girl stopped. She felt a wave of such deathly cold wash over her that she lost her breath. When the man spoke again, his mellifluous voice had gone threadbare around the edges; it became harsher, leaner, darker.

________________________________________ ________________________________

In her later years, the queen wrote a memoir as a testimony to the great injustices she had suffered – mostly about losing her dear child for a night. It was entitled Rumpelstiltskin. And you’re right, it’s all wrong, isn’t it?

To avoid Death, she became the words of her distorted tale and took refuge in a new soul, a new body.




You, my little damsel.




Death reached out and, in one well-practiced gesture, stilled her beating heart.

He smiled.