The Rumpelstiltskin Problem (3 page)

Now the miller was very good at milling, and he was fairly good at being a father, but at planning he was no good at all.

His plan was this: They would sit by the side of the road and wait for someone who looked rich to pass by. Then the miller would announce: "My daughter can spin straw into gold. If you give us three gold pieces, she will spin a whole barnful of straw into gold for you." If the rich people were interested—and the miller pointed out that they couldn't help but be interested—he would then say that his daughter's magic only worked by moonlight. "You must leave her alone—completely undisturbed—all night long. And by dawn all of the straw will be spun into gold."

"I don't understand this plan," Della said. "I'm not very good at spinning, even wool, and I have no idea how—"

"No, no," the miller interrupted, "you don't understand."

"That's what I just said." Della sighed.

"Listen," the miller explained, "the plan, of course, is for the two of us to take our fee of three gold pieces and run away during the night."

"That's dishonest," Della pointed out.

"So it is," her father admitted. "But we will take those three gold pieces and rebuild our mill. Once the mill is working again, we will save all our money until we can repay the people we've tricked."

Della still didn't like this plan, but since she herself had no experience beyond milling and being a daughter, she agreed.

So Della and her father sat by the side of the road, and the first rich person to pass by was the richest person in the land: he was the king.

"Oh, dear," Della said, recognizing the royal crest on the door of the carriage, "maybe we should wait—"

But if the miller was not good at making plans, he was even worse at changing plans once they were made. Standing in the middle of the road, he called out, "My daughter can spin straw into gold. If you give us three gold pieces, she will spin a whole barnful of straw into gold for you."

The king motioned for the driver to stop the horses. "You," he said, leaning out of the window. "Both of you, come closer." The king had clothes of red satin and brocade, sewn with gold thread. He wore more rings than he had fingers, and he had a dark wig, which was all thick ringlets around his pale face. He put a silk handkerchief to his nose, for Della and her father still smelled of smoke from their burned-down mill. "What did you say?" he demanded.

The miller wasn't sure if this question meant the king was interested and he should now explain about the moonlight and the being left alone, or if it meant the king was slightly deaf and hadn't heard the first part. The miller decided he'd better repeat himself. He raised his voice and enunciated clearly. "My daughter can spin straw into gold. If you give us three gold pieces, she will spin a whole barnful of straw into gold for you."

"If she can spin straw into gold," the king asked, "then why are the two of you dressed in filthy rags?"

"Ah," the miller said. "Well..." Once again he had been all prepared to explain about the moonlight and the being left alone, and now that he couldn't say that, he had no idea what to say. "Why are we dressed in rags?" he repeated. "That's a very good question. That's an excellent question."

The king dabbed at his nose, then let his handkerchief drop into the mud by the road, since he only ever used a handkerchief once. He pulled out a new one.

"Our mill burned down," Della explained.

"Yes," the miller agreed. "Including the spinning wheel. And the straw."

"Hmmm," the king said. "Very well. You may follow the carriage to the castle. You will be provided with your three gold pieces, a spinning wheel, and straw." He dropped his second handkerchief without having used it at all and motioned for the driver to get the horses moving.

The miller nudged his daughter as they started down the road after the carriage. "See," he said. "I told you the plan would work."

"Yes," Della said, "so you did." But she was still worried.

And rightly so. For when they got to the castle, the plan began to fall apart.

The king insisted that Della work at her spinning in the castle itself instead of in the barn.

"But," the miller protested, "she needs to work her magic at night, by the light of the moon."

"Fine," the king said. "The rooms on the second floor have windows to let in the moonlight."

The miller gulped, since it would be harder to get Della away if she was up on the second floor. He tried again. "But if anybody interrupts Della while she's working her magic, the magic will reverse itself and all the gold she's spun will turn back into straw."

"We'll lock her in the room to make sure nobody interrupts her," the king said.

Della gave her father a warning nudge before he could say anything else to make matters even worse.

"And of course," the king said, "if she fails to spin this straw into gold, I will have her head chopped off." To the servants he said, "Lock this man away for the night so he doesn't try to escape." As two of the largest servants took the miller by the arms, the king told him, "Come back tomorrow, and I will give you your three gold pieces or your daughter's head."

"But ... but..." the miller started, but before he could think of anything to say, he was dragged out of the room.

Leaving Della, for the first time in her life, on her own.

The king had her led up to a room that was as big as the entire mill had been. Servants brought in a spinning wheel, and then load after load after load after load of straw until the whole room was filled with straw, except for the area around the spinning wheel.

How am I ever going to get out of this?
Della thought. She hoped to slip out of the room while the servants were making their deliveries, but someone was always watching her. Then, after the king's guards locked her in, she tried to get the door open with her hairpin, the way heroines in stories always do, but in the end all she had was a bent hairpin. She couldn't even climb out the window, which was too narrow to pass through and very high up. And even if she did get out—what about her father?

She kicked the spinning wheel, which made her feel a little bit better but not much.

The servants hadn't even given her anything to eat, and now as the room got darker and darker until the only light was the moonlight coming through her prison window, Della added dinner to the list of meals she'd missed that day.

Sitting on the hard floor, the last thing in the world she intended to do was to start crying, but that's exactly what she did.

After a while—after a long while—she used her sleeve to rub her eyes and nose, since she didn't have a handkerchief, silk or otherwise. From behind her came the sound of someone clearing his throat discreetly. Out of the corner of her eye, Della saw that whoever was behind her was offering her a handkerchief.

Without turning around, Della tried to work out exactly what she would say. "You see," she started, "actually crying is necessary for the magic ... Tears, tears are the lubricant for the spinning wheel ... but it only works if I'm totally alone, and since you were watching, I won't be able to do the spell again until—" At this point, she did turn around, and she stopped talking midexplanation.

She'd been expecting to see the king or one of his servants. Instead, crouched beside her was a young man who was obviously not even human. In fact, he was an elf. Tall and slender, with pointy ears, he'd been listening very attentively, if somewhat quizzically.

"Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense," he told her, but then he smiled, and she saw that he was handsome in a strange, otherworldly way. He added, "But I do admire your quick thinking."

"Who are you?" Della gasped in surprise. "What do you want? How did you get in here?"

The young elf paused a moment to consider, then answered in the order she'd asked: "Rumpelstiltskin. I heard you crying and came to see what was the matter. Sideways between the particles."

"What?" Della asked.

The elf raised his voice slightly. "Rumpelstiltskin. I heard you crying and—"

"No," Della said, "I mean...
sideways?
"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "The world of humans and the world of magic exist side by side." He illustrated by holding his hands out, his long, slender fingers spread, then he put his hands together, intertwining his fingers. "So that we're taking up the space that you're not"—he was watching her skeptically as if suspecting that she wasn't getting this, which she wasn't—"and vice versa."

"Oh," she said. "And you heard me crying from your world?"

"Well," the young elf said gently, "you were crying quite loudly."

Della finally took the handkerchief he was offering and wiped her nose. Blowing would have been more effective, she knew, but too noisy and undignified. "I don't usually cry. I know it's stupid and it doesn't help anything and it's unattractive and—"

"And I heard it," Rumpelstiltskin said. "And I came to see what was the matter. So sometimes it
does
help." He stood and looked around the room. "Castle," he said as though he hadn't noticed before where he was. "Despite the straw." He looked more closely at Della. "You don't look like a castle person."

"I'm not," she admitted. "I'm a mill person. Except that our mill burned down. And my father told the king I could spin straw into gold so that we could get a little bit of gold from the king so that we could rebuild the mill and then we would have paid the gold back except that the king locked my father in the dungeon and me in here and I have to spin all this straw into gold tonight or he's going to cut off my head."

Rumpelstiltskin was obviously impressed. "You can spin straw into gold?"

"No," Della said.

"Then," Rumpelstiltskin said, "I think your plan has a flaw."

"That's why I was crying." Della rested her face in her hands.

"You're not going to start crying again, are you?" Rumpelstiltskin asked, sounding worried.

"No," Della said. "You can go back where you came from. I won't bother you again."

But the young elf stayed where he was.

After a while he said, "You weren't
bothering
me. I just wish I could help you."

The sad thing was that, even without raising her head and looking at him, Della could tell he was sincere. Helpless, but sincere.

"I think it's really sweet," he continued, "that you were planning to return the money even before the king gave it to you. But I've never heard of spinning straw into gold. I wouldn't know where to begin."

"That's all right," Della said. "Probably getting one's head chopped off is less unpleasant than starving to death."

After another while Rumpelstiltskin said, "But I do have another idea."

Della finally looked up.

"We could throw the straw out the window, then I could replace it with gold from my world, so long as it doesn't have to be spun out."

"I'm sure the king wouldn't complain no matter what form the gold was in, but would you really be willing to do that?"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "In exchange."

"In exchange for what?" Della asked.

"What do you have?"

Della considered. The mill had burned down. All she had was what she'd been wearing when the fire had started: her second-best dress with her mother's wedding ring pinned to the collar for decoration. "I have this gold ring, which belonged to my mother before she died," Della said, unpinning the ring and holding it out.

Rumpelstiltskin looked from her to the ring and back to her again. "You want me to substitute this straw for a roomful of gold, and you're offering me one gold ring in exchange?"

Della felt her face go red in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't thinking—"

"No, no," Rumpelstiltskin said. "I didn't mean..." She could tell he was genuinely distressed he'd embarrassed her. "The ring will be fine."

She handed it over, for even if he meant to take it and run and never come back with gold for the straw, she wouldn't be any worse off than she was now.

But he didn't run off. He kept disappearing (sideways, he insisted, between the particles), but he kept returning with gold cups and gold coins and gold jewelry, assuring her that everything would be fine, that the king couldn't possibly chop off her head. And Della kept throwing straw out the window, till the next thing she knew, she heard the king's voice on the other side of the door saying, "It's dawn. Unlock the door." She threw the last armful of straw out the window, and when she turned back, Rumpelstiltskin was gone and the king was standing in the doorway, blinking in amazement.

"Well done," the king said, taking a bit of snuff. "I must say: well done."

"Thank you sir," Della said, curtsying. "Now if you don't mind, sir..."

Before she could finish, the king gestured to one of the pages, who reached into a bag hanging from his belt. He picked out three gold coins and dropped them, one by one, into Della's hand.

"Thank you, sir," Della said, curtsying again. "I—"

"In fact," the king said, "this is so well done, I think we'll hire you again for tonight."

"Oh," Della said, "but—"

The king gestured to another page. "Clean her up," he ordered. "Feed her. Keep her amused till tonight." He looked around the room appreciatively again. "Well done," he repeated.

Which didn't make Della feel any better at all.

The servants dressed Della in a gown richer than any she'd ever had. And they laid out a banquet for her, the most delicious food she'd ever tasted, on silver dishes. And all day long different ones played the lute and sang songs for her, and they brushed her hair till it shone like silk, and they manicured her nails and were friendly in every way. But when evening came, they locked her in a room even bigger than the first and filled, except for the area around the spinning wheel, with straw.

Della sat down on the floor.
Well,
she told herself,
except for the threat of getting your head chopped off, you've never had a more wonderful day.
Then she tried to tell herself that she was lucky to have had the day, but she didn't feel lucky. All that gold Rumpelstiltskin had brought, and here she was back where she had started. It was kind of him to have tried to help, but it was all for nothing. She put her face in her hands and sighed.