That was not something I wanted to do, especially since King John was the evil king from Robin Hood’s story.
How could Chrissy have sent me here? I asked for the power to create gold, not to go to some fairy tale where a creepy little man spun it for me. Under my breath, I called her name, but she didn’t come.
Hours went by. I didn’t have a watch and couldn’t see the position of the sun, but my stomach told me lunchtime had come and gone a long time ago. Finally, the castle came into view. I saw it during a turn in the road—a sprawling stone castle that peered over a hefty wall. The horses jostled the carriage up to it, then we went through the gates, and stopped in front of the stables. My guard prodded me out of the carriage.
I stepped out into the sunshine, blinking. Before my eyes even adjusted to the light, the man with the bushy beard took my arm and pulled me none too gently across the courtyard.
We went inside the castle and down large drafty hallways. The castle smelled of food, smoke, and something dank and mildewed.
Straw was strewn over the floor. I hadn’t expected that, but nobody else seemed to think it was unusual. Servants and soldiers came and 124/356
went without a second glance at the straw, although everyone I passed gawked at me like I was a circus-grade oddity.
I suppose it was strange to see someone wearing jeans and a bright turquoise shirt. No one wore pants here. Even the men wore tunics and leggings. Besides the red surcoats the guards wore, everybody’s wardrobes seemed drab and colorless—shades of brown and gray. Had these people even seen the color turquoise before?
The bearded man took me up a set of uneven stone steps. They curved upward in a steep circle without any sort of railing to hang onto. After we’d gone up three floors, he towed me down a dim hallway. Torches hung on the wall, but they only emitted feeble patches of light.
A sentry was posted outside a wooden door. As we walked toward it, the bearded man said, “Inside your room, a pile of straw and a spindle await you. If the straw isn’t spun into gold by morning, the king will assume you refuse to use your talents to help him and he’ll sentence you to death for treason. Unless”—he gave me an oily smile—“you want to recant your earlier statement and proclaim that your father lied about your abilities.” What a horrible thing to do to a person—he was making me choose between my life and my father’s. I met the man’s eyes. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
“Very well.” The man gave my arm an extra squeeze. “I’ll let the executioner know.”
We reached the sentry. I couldn’t see his face clearly because his helmet rested low over his eyes, and a long metal piece covered his nose. I could tell he was young though, and his square jaw seemed familiar somehow. I didn’t dwell on it. The bearded man opened the door and gestured for me to go inside. “Perhaps the king will have 125/356
mercy on you,” he said, still managing to make the sentence sound like a threat. “Often, the fairer the maid, the more mercy he has.” I gave the man what I hoped was a brave smile and stepped inside the room. The door shut behind me with a thud, and then I heard the scrape of a bar being slid across the door to lock it.
I was a prisoner in a foreign land and time. The thought made my breath catch in my throat. I was not as brave as I wanted.
I glanced around the room. A waist-high pile of straw stood in the middle of the stone floor. Next to it, a lone stool waited. I didn’t see a spinning wheel, but something that looked like a wooden top sat on the stool—a hand spindle. Across the room, a narrow, glassless window let in light and fresh air. It was a welcome thing now, but I knew when night came, the shutters on either side of the window wouldn’t do much to keep the cold out. Perhaps that was why a couple of dirty blankets lay in the corner. An unlit torch hung on the wall by the door.
I supposed they would light that later so I could work through the night.
All in all, the room was a dismal place. I walked to the window and looked out. Down in the courtyard, soldiers came and went out of barracks. A boy drew buckets of water from the well, and a washerwo-man scrubbed something in a wooden trough. None of them could help me.
I sat down on the pile of blankets and wrapped my arms around my knees. I didn’t want to worry about my family. I had done that the entire coach ride up. But my thoughts slid there anyway. What if any of them were hurt during this fairy tale? What if one of them died?
Chrissy had said the effects of my wishes were permanent and binding.
And now my family was in danger. No wish was worth that.
I thought about Kendall and my mother. My sister and I texted or called each other nearly every day. It wouldn’t take her long to realize 126/356