Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin (16 page)

My heart leapt. I could ask the mirror my name! It could show me where I could find a stiltskin!

“But it will enslave you more and more,” said Slop. “Until all you care about is yourself and the mirror. It makes humans twisted and evil.”

My heart sank. I did not wish to be twisted and evil. Just whole.

Carefully, I slid the boot back beneath the leaves, and for a moment I thought I caught the smell of the magic, as the trolls had said. It did smell sweet, but also slightly rotten, like spoiled fruit. My mind turned back to the apple tree. Those apples never spoiled. They
grew
from magic. More than anything in this magical hoard, it was the apple tree that sounded like a stiltskin.

I turned to Slop. “So, then, that apple tree, have you ever really seen what its magic does?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “And it’s a terrible magic.” He knocked on his helmet.

“Bork said that deer was killed by wolves.”

“Well, I never saw wolves. I found the deer dead right by the tree.”

“But you didn’t actually see the deer eat the apples. Have you ever known a
person
to eat them?”

Slop’s face curdled up like sour milk, and he pointed a fat, hairy finger down at me. “Now, listen here, you. I know there’s something strange about you. You got a funny smell, different from most humans, but those apples got a funny smell too. Trouble. We trolls know it when we smell it. Those apples aren’t meant to be eaten, so you just stay away. Understand?”

I nodded and backed away from Slop and the hoard.
I told him good night and pretended to go back to the camp, but when he was out of sight, I slipped into the darkness of the trees.

I wandered until I found the apple tree. The apples glowed in the darkness, like sparkling jewels growing on the branches. This was absolutely magic—and judging by what the witch had told me, not just any magic. A stiltskin. I could almost smell it, feel it in my bones. But according to the trolls, it was a stiltskin that grew from poison.

I walked around the tree. I took a stick and threw it against the trunk. I reached out and touched one of the branches and then quickly drew back, as though the leaves might burn me. They didn’t. Finally, I walked up close and put my hand on the trunk. The tree was so warm I almost thought I could feel it pulsing with life. I swung up and hoisted myself into the branches. Maybe if I stayed here long enough, the magic would rub off on me and make everything better. I waited for a long time, maybe an hour. I felt nothing.

Finally, I reached out and picked an apple. I brought it up to my face. So perfectly smooth. So red. I wondered what Red would say of these apples. She would probably knock the apple from my hand and tell me to leave the magic alone. It would only cause trouble, maybe even death, if the apple was really poison. I didn’t want to die. I let the apple fall to the ground, then swung down from the branches and leaned against the trunk. I listened to the deep thrum of the apple tree, which echoed my own heart. Sleep came just as the sky was growing light.

Slop poked me awake with his deer horns. “I sniffed my way right to you,” he said. “You must be more trouble than our whole hoard combined.”

Slop dragged me back to camp, where the rest of the trolls were waking. They grunted and rubbed their eyes and scratched under their hairy arms.

Mard was stirring a bubbling pot of sludge with one hand, the other hand full of wriggling worms. “You never told us your name. We should know it.”

I almost told her my name was Robert, but then I thought if trolls had names like Bork and Slop, Rump couldn’t be so bad.

“Rump,” I said.

Mard grunted her approval. “Finest human name I’ve ever heard. They always get so romantic and sentimental,” she said, as if she were talking about some other creatures and not my own kind, “giving names as if their children were something fancy to eat: Bartholomew Archibald Reginald Fish Head, or whatever—it’s all nonsense. All you need is a sound to distinguish one from the other.” She yelled out to two trolls who were just about my size, “Gorp! Grot! Out of the stream and into the mud!”

“But what about destiny?” I asked.

Mard snorted. “Less is always more.” She threw the worms into the pot and then scooped up a cup and handed it to me. I stared at my moving drink.

“Do you ever eat anything else?” I asked.

“Sludge is good for you. Simple to cook and it makes
you strong and wise. Humans, they make everything complicated. Even food.”

“Doesn’t life ever get complicated for trolls?”

Mard shook her head. “When trolls were enslaved by humans, maybe. But we don’t worry about a lot of the things humans fuss over. Simple needs make a simple life.”

Simple. They couldn’t possibly understand how complicated things already were for me, both inside and out. It’s hard to make simple out of complicated, like trying to make a straight line out of a tangled knot. You don’t even know where to start.

I drank sludge with the trolls (it wasn’t so bad the second time), and then Slop threw a mud ball and it splattered all over Bork’s face. Bork threw mud back, and then the rest joined in and mud was flying everywhere. I thought that might be a good time for me to get on my way, but I got pelted with a mud ball and I couldn’t just stand there, so I hurled one back, and then Gorp and Grot threw me into a mud puddle. I laughed as they rolled me in the mud, and I saw now why they bathed in it. The mud smelled better than they did.

Now that I was certain the trolls wouldn’t eat him, I brought Nothing into the camp (he was still on the road eating grass). The trolls snorted with delight, especially Bork, who took to him right away. Amazingly, Nothing did what Bork wanted! He walked without being pulled. Bork rode on him and Nothing moved!

“He likes my sounds,” said Bork. “It makes him feel that we are equals.”

I guessed I would have to start snorting and grunting
if I wanted to get anywhere with Nothing, but then I had a better idea.

“You can keep him,” I said. “I know he’s not a goat, but he’ll be happy here, and I can travel faster without him.”

Bork rubbed Nothing on the neck and smiled, showing yellow pointy teeth. “It is a big trade for a cup of sludge.”

“Well … and saving me from eating poison apples.”

Bork grunted and I took that as a yes. I untied my satchel from Nothing, then patted his rump and told him goodbye. He hee-hawed and I guessed he was saying, “Good riddance!”

I made my goodbyes. Some of the trolls tried to convince me to stay one more night, but I didn’t think I could eat any more sludge, and I was so tired I couldn’t put up with their snores and smells for another night.

“Take some sludge for your journey,” said Mard, handing me a small jug. “Maybe it will help make things a little simpler for you.”

“Oh … thank you.” I swallowed a gag. “Thank you for not eating me.” They all grunted and snorted, and even though I knew they were laughing, it still sounded horrible.

With my satchel slung over one arm and the sludge in my other hand, I headed down the road toward Yonder. I felt a little envious of the trolls and their simple life. My destiny didn’t allow for simple. What was behind me and what was ahead of me felt like nothing but snarled knots of complicated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Yonder

Dear Rump,

The miller has been lorded now. I refuse to call him Lord Oswald. He will always be the fat, greedy miller, and his sons are still ugly trolls.

Your friend,
Red            

I had to laugh. If Red could meet real trolls, she’d see that they were much nicer than Frederick and Bruno—and less ugly besides.

The gnome found me after dark when I stopped by the side of the road to rest. I sent a return message explaining where I was going. I told Red if she contacted me again (which of course she didn’t have to as it might
not get to me, anyway),
not
to tell me anything about Opal and babies.
Ever
.

After a hard day’s travel and nothing to eat but sludge, I thought I definitely deserved to eat Martha’s meat pie. It was only slightly stale, and I slept better than I had in ages.

The next day I found a stream not far from the road, but nothing to eat, so I drank some of Mard’s sludge. It wriggled all the way down, but it was food.

For three days I traveled and didn’t meet a soul, but on the fourth morning the road split in two directions. One sign pointed to “Yonder” and another pointed to “Beyond.” My heart skipped a few beats. Yonder! It seemed as good as finding a mother or a stiltskin—and maybe Yonder had them both!

By afternoon I started to hear the bleating of goats and the mooing of cows. But before long the baaing of sheep drowned them all out. Sheep were everywhere, grazing in green fields, lazing beneath trees, or drinking at the stream.

My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t eaten since I finished off the trolls’ sludge yesterday morning. I wondered if I could slip into the pasture and milk one of the cows. Probably not without getting kicked.

I walked through a small village where chickens and gnomes were scattered among little houses with thatched roofs and smoking chimneys. Women were hanging laundry out to dry while children danced around, chasing pixies.

I approached an older woman shaking out a rug. I
told her I was looking for someone who might know my mother. “She’s dead, but she lived in Yonder and I want to find her family.”

The woman took stock of my tattered clothes and overall filthiness. She recoiled slightly. I must have smelled like trolls. “What was her name?” the woman asked.

“Anna,” I said.

“I don’t know her,” she said. “But there’s another village about five miles yonder that has a fair amount of merchants and peddlers. When you come to a fork in the road, take the left.”

“Thank you,” I said, and started to leave, but then my stomach reminded me to ask, “Do you have any food you could spare? I’ve been traveling a long time.”

The woman hesitated but then nodded. “Wait a moment.” When she came back, she handed me a slice of bread and a slab of goat’s cheese.

I wished there was something I could offer in return. But all I had was Opal’s jewels, which might raise the woman’s suspicion and would definitely require far too much explanation—or a load of lies. So I simply gave her my thanks, and went on my way.

As soon as I was out of the woman’s sight, I walked down by the stream and shoved the bread and cheese in my mouth. The way I looked, I doubted anyone would be very helpful, so I washed as much dirt and grime and troll smell off me as I could. But the downside of being clean was that the pixies instantly flew to me, and I had to walk with them fluttering all over my head and around my body. Their shrill voices rang in my ears.

I reached the other village in late afternoon. It reminded me of my village on The Mountain. Little lopsided houses were scattered willy-nilly, and the only big building was the mill, which stood on the edge of a forest. People were outside milking cows and shearing sheep, and planting seeds in their gardens. They were lucky they could grow their own food.

I stopped a man on the street and asked him if he knew of a woman who lived there years ago named Anna. He said no. I asked more people and they all said no. Finally in frustration I slumped against a rickety fence. All my hope was slowly seeping out of me. I brushed some pixies from my face and arms. But they just came back, giggling.

“You must be full of luck,” said a voice behind me.

I turned and stared through the fence. There was an old man sitting in front of a wooden shack, spinning. Seeing someone spinning renewed my hope. Maybe I shouldn’t ask just about my mother, but about the kind of work she did.

“Luck?” I asked the man, brushing a pixie from my nose.

“The pixies, they bring luck,” said the man.

I snorted. “I’m the most unlucky person I know.”

“Luck can change.”

I watched him spin, rhythmically twisting the wool. “Are there many here who spin?”

“A fair few. We have a lot of wool.”

Yes, of course. All those sheep. I opened the gate and stepped closer to the man and his spinning wheel. Just ordinary wool.