Once Upon a Time: The Villains (7 page)

She searches low,

My name the maid will never know.

It’s steeped in hate,

It’s made by sin,

I’ll always be Rumpelstiltskin.”

I fall to the ground and roll back and forth. Soon all I have worked for will be mine. As the embers die, I whistle my tune and plan what new game I will play. I don’t see the shadows move or the betrayal that is about to fall.

The next night, I confidently stroll into the great hall. As with the last few nights, we are alone. The cold stone underfoot amplifies my footsteps. I am the true master of this place. I have all the power. To prove it, I walk right up to the lad and give his chin a light tickle. The princess scoops up her babe, and I allow it. This is, after all, her last night with the child. Once we are in my forest, she will never see him again. I ignore the fear circling her eyes, and I cross my arms across my chest. “You may begin.”

“If I guess your name, you promise you will leave and never return?”

“I promise…and
my
promises I keep.”

“And you’ll not take my son? Or me?”

I am feeling magnanimous tonight, so I nod. “If you guess my name correctly, which you won’t, I will leave you and your family alone. Forever.”

She sits, a graceful movement of limb and linen. Though distressed, she keeps her beauty, and I admire such poise. I barely recognize the scared peasant maiden I first met so many years ago now clothed in royal garb.

She slants a questioning eye toward me. “Is your name Percy?”

“Common.” She’s become desperate, falling back on family names.

“Herocleas?”

I laugh. “Nay.”

She bites her lip. “Is it…” a smile tips her lips, “…Rumpelstiltskin?”

I gape at her in disbelief. “Nay,” I whisper. “Nay!” I scream. “How could you know?”

I stamp my foot so hard the ground cracks. But I am in a temper. I have been wronged. My whole life has been a series of injustices. And now, to be beaten by a mere peasant in queenly garb, I grow ever angrier. The baby awakes and whimpers. I stamp and rail and awaken the whole household. The king appears, waving his sword, his loyal guards at his back.

A crowd forms to witness my defeat. I ignore them all and stamp my feet and howl at the heavens. The floor stones crack, the ground opens. All the tomorrows dissolve in an instant as the ground beneath my feet gives way and I fall in.

I refuse to see I have chosen this end, from the day I was born I have rushed down this path, blaming everyone and everything for my suffering. Nay, I have been injured. I have been wronged.

“Curse be to woman, curse be to man.

Curse be to all those who have made me who I am.”

As I tumble and fall, I feel the heat of the earth’s core racing to meet me, and I cry out. “I will always be!”

Aye, man fears the unknown and the unexplained. Though my body is destroyed, I will always be, hiding in the heart of man, waiting to be unleashed.

Candy Lane

A Tale of Selfishness

I know what it is to be alone.

To have nothing.

And I vowed having nothing would never do.

I was an only child. A surprise to my elderly parents. And not a pleasant one. They had resigned themselves decades earlier to never having children, and then one day, I appeared — a squalling baby girl. Smelling of goat’s milk and oatmeal, I disrupted their sleep and taxed their thin resources. Never wealthy, after I appeared my parents became positively destitute.

For the first year of my life, I rarely left my crib. I saw my world through the bars of my bed. I learned to ignore my hunger and accept my confined world. As soon as I could walk, I was put to work. I saw kindness as a reprieve from labor when the sun went down — my parents rarely lit a candle — and mercy as a kick instead of a wallop. Grace had nothing to do with God, but only a teaspoon more of porridge before I sought my bed, and that I had to steal from the pot. Since I knew no more than what I had experienced since I was born, I made no complaints.

Not so my parents. Whenever they looked at me, they muttered. I had become a daily reminder of the hardships they were forced to endure. And there was no end in sight.

When I was five, and it was clear I would survive into my youth, the few friends my parents had would come and stare at me as if I were the oddest of creatures. I bore these rare visits in silence, for my parents’ friends had even less kindness to give me than my parents.

“I wouldn’t call this a blessing,” one gray-haired, loose-toothed woman would say. She took scornful pleasure in poking at my ribs which stuck out from my chest like a delicate bird cage as I lay in bed. “Too weak to be of any real use.”

Another sour-faced woman would quickly take her place and hover above my squalid pallet. Remembering her visage still makes me shudder. I would burrow under my covers and pretend she wasn’t there. Her cheeks crinkled like paper when she pursed her lips. “On the night of the first snowfall, put it out in the woods as naked as the day it were born. That’s what I would do. In the morning if it’s still alive, it is the will of the gods and your penance is not yet over.”

Her face was replaced by a wrinkled old man’s. His breath smelled like cabbage and his nose constantly dripped. “You are looking at this all wrong.” He pinched my skin and made me gasp, but I did not cry. I never cried. “Healthy this one be. She has broad shoulders and straight legs. The child is a blessing. Sell her. The money you make will see you through the coming winter.”

My parents’ eyes lit at the thought of money. “Yes,” they told their friends, “that is an excellent idea.”

I never liked old people after that.

Two weeks later, I saw my first town. A man, rotund and red cheeked, bought me for six pieces of silver.

“It’s fair,” the man said, counting out the silver in front of my parents’ eager eyes. “One piece for every year of life, plus a half penny for good measure.”

My mother would have held off for more, but my father was tired and his feet hurt. “Me gout, woman,” he complained, pushing me toward the man. “Let’s be done with it and go home.”

Not a tear was shed, nor a backward glance when they handed me over to the stranger and trudged down the lane, a small silver fortune jingling in their threadbare pockets. The man stared at me, his pudgy fingers thrumping on his hip. “Poor little mite. The wife will smack me but good when I come home with you. Ah, well. Come along.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him.

Though his wife scared him, she did not me. I had lived on a steady diet of kicks, wallops and pinches. My poor boney knees poked through my skirt as I followed him, and I prayed his wife would like me enough to fatten me up as much as she had her husband. I was tired of my stomach growling from dawn till dusk.

Because I was so thin, I grew tired easily, and I couldn’t keep up. When I fell for the third time, he turned and looked at me. His face grew as pale and puckered as my hands after scrubbing the floor. Picking me up, he placed me on the edge of a wagon stacked with barrels of onions, garlic and other nasty smelling vegetables and studied me from top to toe. At length, he shook his head, his cheeks wobbling like a turkey’s wattle and scratched his head. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What have I done? A soft old fool I am. The wife will surely bean me brains if I carry you home.” He looked around, and called over a man hawking apple dumplings and presented me with one. As I sank my teeth into the hot pastry, drool running down my chin, he looked me in the eyes and commanded, “Wait here.”

I would have waited there forever if he wanted me to. If this was how I would be treated, I would not miss my home. No, never. I ate my fill and waited. I know not where he went, but when he returned another man followed.

Tall and thin with fine clothes, but dirty fingernails, the stranger stared at me. I stared back.

“Wipe your mouth, little one,” the kind man said.

I did.

“This,” he said, pushing my filthy hair behind my ears, “is her.”

“Not much to look at.”

“But promising. I have it on good word that she don’t complain much.”

I didn’t. What good would it do but cause me more pain? Though young, I’d already learned when to keep silent.

The man grabbed my hands and turned them palms up. “Rough enough, I guess.” He pressed his ear to my chest and thumped on my back. “Good and clear.”

“And tiny. She can fit anywhere.”

“Eight, you say?”

“I do.”

Eight? But I was only six years old, not eight. And why would he wish to tell this horrible man with the cold eyes how old I am?

The man dug into his pocket and counted out eight pieces of silver. “Lucky for you business is good.”

The man who’d bought me from my parents, who’d fed me the most wonderful thing I’d ever eaten, and who’d shown me more kindness than I’d ever thought possible was selling me to another. Devastated, a tear blurred my vision.

He looked away from me. “You will take good care of her? She’s such a tiny thing.”

“I’ll treat her as me own,” came the promise.

That seemed to appease the kind man. He ruffled my hair and gave my wet cheek the softest of tweaks. I loved him. I’d do anything for him. Couldn’t he see that? Why would he do this? What had I done wrong?

“Be good,” was all he said and waddled away like a well-fed goose.

The tall man with the cold blue eyes stuck his long nose in my face. “Like rats?”

I shook my head no. I’d only seen one and it had scared me so bad I’d peed right there on the floor I’d just cleaned. Mother had been furious. I’d gotten a kick and a wallop for that one.

“Good. Neither do I. It’ll be easier for you to kill them that way. No attachments. No silly baby talk. Them rats, they’re our bread and butter, they are.”

He wanted me to kill rats? I shivered and immediately threw up what I had just eaten. I couldn’t do what he asked. I’d die of fright.

A rush of laughter erupted from him. “Made you sick, eh? No worries. You’ll get used to it in no time.”

His long arm snaked out and grabbed me from my perch on the cart. Tucked under his sweaty pits like a bale of rotten straw, he strode through the streets, my bare, calloused feet bobbing behind us.

He took me to a rundown house down a dark alley and deposited me in the middle of the room. The smell of unwashed bodies permeated the air. I pushed my hair from my face and saw more than ten children sitting along the walls, knees tucked under their chins, eyes large as saucers. It was not a happy place. But seeing as I’ve never been truly happy except for that one precious moment on the back of an onion cart, it didn’t bother me over much.

The tall man put his big hand on top of my head and crowed, “Lookie here what I brought us.”

My gaze stalled on a boy with dark circles ringing his eyes. A sneer parted his lips. “We just got rid of Simon. I thought we were good?”

“Come four years, most of you will be gone, too. Look at you all. You’re growing like weeds. No use to me then.” The tall man picked up my hand and placed it against his massive one. “Look here, lad. Have you ever seen anything so tiny?”

“She’s no bigger than a rat if you ask me,” a sullen girl with dirty blond hair said.

The man’s face darkened. “You keep your teeth off this one, hear?”

Grumbles swept the group, but in the end, all the children agreed and he pushed me toward an empty, ragged pallet in the corner. Rubbing his hands together, he asked jovially, “Let’s see what you’ve caught today.”

One-by-one, the children got up and showed him what was in their bags. He pulled out rats, one after the other, and something more. A silver spoon here. A ring there.

In one boy’s bag, he pulled out a gold coin. The man frowned. “Here now, what’s this?” He smacked the boy on the head. “Didn’t I tell you not to get greedy?”

“Please, Korb,” he pleaded. “He had plenty.” The boy ducked another blow. I had to admire his quickness. I rarely was able to dodge a punch at home.

Korb pushed the boy away. “Take only what they won’t miss. That’s our motto.” He pocketed the coin and scowled, pointing in my direction. “Split your catch with the little one.”

“What?” the boy cried. “But I only gots three!”

“Do it!” the man yelled.

The boy lumbered over to me, and to my disgust, he threw a rat in my lap. I screamed and skittered back, kicking the ugly thing off my pallet. Everyone laughed and Korb stooped in front of me.

He picked up the rat by the tail and swung it in front of my face. “Didn’t I tell you them rats are our bread and butter? You eat what we catch, or you don’t eat at all.” He flashed me a rotting smile and shouted over his shoulder, “Dig in!”

The children instantly plundered their bags.

Horrified, I watched them tear into the little bodies with their teeth, ripping off mouthfuls of fur and spitting it out. Soon their lips turned red with blood and raw flesh hung from their teeth.

“Go on,” Korb urged. “’Taint bad, or so I hear.”

My refusal made him laugh. “Fine with me.” He let the rat drop near my feet and walked away. When he got to the door, he looked back at me. “You’ll be eaten it by the end of the week. They all do.” With that, he left.

The boy next to me nodded. “All do.” His eyes slid from me to the door and back. His arm darted out and he snatched his rat back and began tearing into it. I crawled further back on my pallet, no softer than the one at home, and huddled under the thin blanket. I closed my eyes and wished fervently to waken from this grotesque nightmare. No such wish was granted me. Though I had closed my eyes, I could still hear them ripping into the rats. My stomach knotted and rolled. I was sure to be sick if they didn’t stop soon.

I closed my eyes tighter and pretended I was with the kind man. His equally fat wife liked me, and they both showed me a table groaning with food. “Eat,” she’d say.

“Tuck in,” he’d encourage. And they would both laugh good-naturedly as I ate my fill. Soon, I fell asleep.

It is surprising how long a person can live without sustenance. Deprivation of food leads to the oddest behavior. I became sullen and spiteful. Barely two days into my training, and I refused to walk. I screamed for my mother, that most heartless of women. Even she was better than this hell I had descended into. After only a week, I became sick. Very sick. I began to hallucinate. Old people chased me. The other children pinched me. Everyone walloped me. I’d hit back. I’d scratch and cry.