Rumple What? Read online

  Oh, no. He begins to feel alarmed. “My dear little miller’s daughter—”

  “It’s Rumple something. Rumple-for-skin?”

  “No.” Then he repeats, shocked, “No!”

  “Rumplestockings? Wait! Rumple—Rumple-shins-skin?”

  “You are still trying to make sense out of me.” When nothing makes sense. He feels his own eyes as sharp as knives begin to drip the clear blood that is tears, for he knows what she has done, like generations of mothers before her, for the sake of her child.

  “Rumple-stilts-skin!” she cries.

  He feels weak, he feels her power over him, he has to sit down. “Almost,” he admits. “Not quite. You’re spelling it wrong.”

  “Spelling? I know nothing of spelling! But I know your name is Rumpelstiltskin!”

  “In the original German,” he hedges, “it is Rumpelstilzchen.” And in the French Grigrigredinmenufretin, in the Swedish Bulleribasius, the Finnish Tittelintuure and the Italian Praseidimio, and there are many more, in Estonian, Czechoslovakian, Hebrew, Japanese and so on, for like any self-respecting supernatural being, our oddling has many names, of which the miller’s daughter knows only one.

  “Rumpelstiltskin,” she repeats in vast and bitter triumph, for it is just as the little man says in the story; the devil has told her. She has made a pact with the devil, bargaining away her soul to save her child, trading it for the knowledge of Rumpelstiltskin’s name. So she belongs to the Prince of Darkness now. But her baby does not. Her baby, body and soul, belongs to no one but her.

  Rumpelstiltskin has been defeated. But he does not, as the devil and the tale expect, stamp off in a suicidal rage. There is no longer any need for him to rip himself in half, as it has been proven that he is not an evil being.

  He sighs in great, everlasting sadness and makes a strange request. “I would like to give the little one a name.”

  “What?” The mother is startled, for she had thought his interest in her baby was culinary. “How come?” For the first time she really looks at the little man. “What did you want with my child?”

  Such is his weary sorrow that he does not even try to explain. Yet, now that she has shaken hands with Lucifer, she sees the light.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” she whispers, “you wanted the exact same thing that I have.”

  Unspeaking, he stares back at her with spindle-sharp eyes.

  “You get out of here,” she orders. Recent events have made her a fitting mate for the king; they will be two of a kind from now on.

  Her command lifts him to his feet, but before he departs he asks again, “Allow me to gift the little girl with a name.”

  And in her shameless greed the mother agrees to let him bless with the power of a faerie name the child he cannot possess.

  He touches the babe’s rose-petal cheek and names her, “Softasilkskin.”

  Then he goes away with his head hanging, his woodcock nose directed toward the ground, and is never heard from again.

  But Softasilkskin, despite her deplorable parents and to the devil’s disappointment, grows up to be the good and beautiful Princess Silkskin, meets a Handsome Prince and Lives Happily Ever After, even though everybody else in the story is royally screwed.

  Edgar Award–winning author Nancy Springer,

  well known for her science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels,

  has written a gripping psychological thriller—smart, chilling, and unrelenting…

  DARK LIE

  available in paperback and e-book in November 2012

  from New American Library

  Dorrie and Sam White are not the ordinary Midwestern couple they seem. For plain, hard-working Sam hides a deep passion for his wife. And Dorrie is secretly following the sixteen-year-old daughter, Juliet, she gave up for adoption long ago. Then one day at the mall, Dorrie watches horror-stricken as Juliet is forced into a van that drives away. Instinctively, Dorrie sends her own car speeding after it—an act of reckless courage that puts her on a collision course with a depraved killer…and draws Sam into a desperate search to save his wife. And as mother and daughter unite in a terrifying struggle to survive, Dorrie must confront her own dark, tormented past.

  “A darkly riveting read...compelling.”

  —Wendy Corsi Staub, national bestselling author of Nightwatcher and Sleepwalker

  “A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller that will have you reading late into the night and cheering for the novel's unlikely but steadfast heroine.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden

  Learn more about all of Nancy’s titles at her website, www.nancyspringer.com.