Free Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin by Liesl Shurtliff Page B

what he would give me. Give me the gold and I will spare your life . And I had given it to him.
    “So … they can offer me anything ? What if they offer me dirt, or a slug, or … or … something really awful?”
    “Well, I suppose it could be awful. But so long as what they promise has some value and they are able to give it, then the bargain stands.”
    “What if I don’t want what they offer?”
    “Ah. That’s what makes this a dangerous business. Your mother never would have come to me had she been able to refuse a bargain. That is the reason she came to me. When an offer was made, she was bound. She had to give them the gold, and she had to take what they offered, even if she didn’t want it.”
    My will. My control. That was the price, the consequence, of this magic.
    I thought of all those times I had brought gold to the miller. “What will you give me?” I had asked, so desperately, as if I were offering rubbish instead of gold. I had never made demands or requests. I had never refused his offer, and I hadn’t even had the sense to question or wonder.
    The magic had been working on me all this time, wrapping me up in tight tangles, robbing me of my control. I thought of my mother, drowning in all that gold.
    “Couldn’t you have helped my mother at all?”
    “Well, I believe I did help her, though not in the way she expected.”
    “But she’s dead!” Anger flared inside me like a hot spark. “If you really helped her, she wouldn’t be dead!”
    “Her fate was sealed long before she came to me,” said the witch. “But while she was still alive, I told her of the one thing that could free her from her bindings.”
    “What?” I asked, feeling a speck of hope.
    “Have you ever heard of a stiltskin?”
    Stiltskin . It had a familiar sound, but I didn’t know what it meant or where I might have heard it.
    “A stiltskin is magic at its greatest. Pure magic, un-meddled-with and more powerful than any enchantment or spell.”
    “Where can I get one? What do they look like?”
    “Well … they could be anywhere, I suppose, and they can look like anything. It could be a tree or a rock or a mountain. A stiltskin’s magic grows with the object, becomes part of it. It’s a real deep-in-the-bones kind of magic. It can’t be taken away or undone or even abused. It’s stronger than even the strongest curse. I told your mother that was the only way to untangle her mess. But she never did find one. At least not until it was too late.”
    “Then she did find one? Where is it? Do you have it?”
    The witch looked startled, but then she smiled. “It is a good question, but the better question is, do you have one?”
    “How could I? I’ve never heard of a stiltskin until now.”
    “Well, then, a stiltskin is something that must be found on one’s own. It can’t be borrowed or stolen. It has to be yours.”
    “How do I get one that’s mine?”
    “Well …” The witch paused, and I waited, certain she was about to tell me some great mystery, a secret that would make everything clear. But all she said was, “You have to look.”
    Witches are absolutely no help at all.
    “What about her family? Did my mother tell you about her family in Yonder? Do they spin too?”
    “Likely they do. She mentioned some sisters but never went into any great detail, not even whether they knew of her troubles. She may have run away before they found out.”
    “But they could know,” I said. If I found my mother’s family, they might be able to help me.
    Help. I suddenly remembered the real reason I had come.
    “Opal,” I said. “The miller’s daughter. I have to help her.”
    Red snorted. “Help her? You mean spin all the straw into gold for her?”
    “Shouldn’t I?”
    “Rump, don’t you understand what Granny was just explaining about the spinning and the bargains? What if Opal promises something really foolish?”
    “How bad can it be? She wouldn’t offer something too