All That Glitters

Her soft footfalls were the only sound in the eerie quiet of the forest. The trees that were still blessed with leaves stood stone still. Unaccustomed to the navigating the terrain, her breath rattled around her chest and escaped in irregular rhythms. She drew her dark blue cloak tightly around her, determined to stay upright.

At long last, she arrived at the clearing. She knew this was the place, so unnaturally charged with energy deep in a wood that slept and dreamed. The trees formed a perfect circle around the perimeter. She sat on a stump that seemed purposefully placed for weary travelers. Then she gathered her courage and broke the silence with a song known by very few:

"Today, I bake, tomorrow, brew; the queen will never win my game! O glad am I that no one knew..."

"Oh, shut up!" croaked a small, gruff voice.

The little man stomped into view as if descending invisible stairs from thin air. "I said if I never heard that song again it would be too soon. Now I've heard it again, and I say again, it is too soon." He placed his bony hands on his hips and bent forward so that his long beard brushed the ground. "What do you want?" he spat.

"I hear you perform miracles," she replied hesitantly.

"I can." He turned on his heel and took a defiant step away from her. "But I don't. Filthy humans, you aren't worth the trouble."

She smiled sadly. "It's hard to argue with that, but I'm asking all the same." After all, if he didn't care he wouldn't have appeared.

The little man looked over his shoulder at her. "What sort of miracle?"

She locked eyes with him. "We need food."

"So grow some food."

"It won't grow."

"So put your arse on a cart and go buy some food. Your country must be rich. I should know, I made it rich." He turned to face her again with his arms crossed. "Go on, go ask your queen for some of my gold. Buy food. Problem solved."

Frustrated, but determined to keep her composure, the young woman began to knock on the stump with her fist. "There's nowhere to go. The blight has reached the far corners of the continent. Our merchants come back empty-handed, if they come back at all."

She paused for a reaction. He gave none.

"Rooms full of gold mean nothing to hungry mouths," she continued. "I come to ask you turn it to grain."

"Wasting my time," he grumbled. "Your queen made it clear, humans won't pay what my service is worth."

"My mother," her voice became sharp, "made a choice. To her, my life was worth the risk of breaking a deal with the fae." The princess stood. "But I don't have the luxury of choice. My people are starving, and I come to bargain in good faith."

She unfastened her cloak with her free hand and let it fall. A baby, hardly more than a newborn, slept quietly in the crook of her arm.

The man regarded her with a stern expression. What he could be thinking, she could not guess.

In the blink of an eye, the man was gone, and so was the child. The princess sat down again and waited, uncertain. Nothing happened. When the silence became to much to bear, she began the long trek home.

As she walked, her mind waged war against itself. She had swallowed her feelings for a year. From the very beginning the child was meant for the fae. After the blight, this world was no place to raise a child. The quality of life in the kingdom was dismal, even for those who had been "royal". No one knows what the fae do with human children; perhaps a happy life awaited her little girl.

It was the first time she allowed herself to think of the child as "her" little girl. As hard as she tried to remain detached, some small splinters of love pressed their way through the cracks in her will. But it was okay to feel it now; the deed was done, and the princess had the rest of her life to battle her emotions.

She had intended to walk through the night, but her tumultuous thoughts wore her down. At a certain fork in the road she turned toward a small town.

The cottage, and the mill, that belonged to her grandfather stood empty. When the miller's daughter became queen she moved her father to the castle. The queen had been so proud to provide a lavish retirement for the miller. The property had been kept by her family and they would visit in the summer when the weather was fair. That seemed like a lifetime ago, before the blight. These days the princess would be proud to see her people make it through the winter.

She made her way to the back room where Rumpelstiltskin first appeared all those years ago. There were happy memories in this place. She had played among the piles of silky gold thread while her mother watched over her own treasure with a warm smile. As the princess approached the door now, she was surprised to see light spilling from under the door. Tired and confused, she opened the room.

A lamp, with a new candle recently lit, cast a strong glow across the room. She had expected to see the light reflected in gold all around. Instead, against the back wall were high piles of fresh grain. The delicious scent filled her nostrils as tears filled her eyes. In the center of the room was a cradle made of gold, and grinning in the cradle was her daughter.