He shrugged. “Does that matter? Now you can have all the gold you want.”

I tried to pull it off. Rumpelstiltskin had said I’d be able to take it off. I pried at its edges but it only dug deeper into my skin. “What does gold matter if I can’t breathe?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I looked up and found I was alone in the room.

The pain was worse now. I sank to the ground, still keeping my hand over my heart. I felt something wet, and when I looked down, I saw blood dotting my hand.

I needed help, magical help. Clover had said he would come when I had gold for him, but I was chained to the beam and couldn’t even reach the straw, let alone turn any of it to gold. I pulled at my chain in frustration. It rattled angrily, as though I had woken it from a deep sleep. How could I reach the straw to change it?

But then again, maybe it was better that I couldn’t. I grasped hold of the chain. “Chain and shackle, gold, gold, gold!” The words brought an extra jolt to my heart, and I flinched so hard I nearly missed the transformation. Like an artist painting a bold color across a canvas, a golden color swept across the dull gray of the chains. The chain was denser now and so heavy it weighed my hand down.

I didn’t take time to examine it. “Clover!” I called. “I have gold for you!”

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The leprechaun appeared near the candle, still wearing his new outfit. He gazed at the mountains of straw surrounding us. “Do you?

Where? It looks like you’ve been slacking off to me.”

“Over here.” I tried to sit as still as possible. If I didn’t move, my heart hurt less.

Clover walked toward me and saw the chain. “Well,” he said. “I guess that’s what you call being tied to your money, isn’t it?”

“The enchantment is squeezing my heart,” I told him. “How do I make it stop?”

He grunted and picked up one link of the chain to examine it.

“That enchantment was never meant for human folk. Of course it’s not going to fit right. But don’t worry, the pain will subside in a bit.” He glanced over at me, and his attention zeroed in on the bloodstains dotting my dress. “You’re too tenderhearted,” he said. “It’s making you bleed. Try not to feel things so much.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” I said.

Clover let out a sigh. “Women. This is why no one ever puts you in charge of wars, butchering animals, or assembling hockey teams.” He held up a link of the chain. “Here, look at this for a bit and it will help.

See how it gleams and shimmers? See how smooth it is? Like a sun-beam, it is. Like a sturdy friend. Now doesn’t your heart feel better?” It didn’t. But focusing on my objectives did lessen the pain. And my objective now was to get The Change Enchantment from Clover and get out of here. I only hoped the book wasn’t painful too.

“You can have this entire golden chain and shackle if you’ll give me The Change Enchantment,” I said.

Clover momentarily stopped stroking the chain. “We agreed to trade for two spools of gold.”

I lifted my hand, showing him the shackle. “I can’t reach the straw. I won’t be able to change it until morning when Haverton 190/356

comes to free me and then they’ll probably watch me all day. Who knows how long it will take until I can get some spools for you, and your creditors are waiting.”

Clover plucked at his beard, looked back at the mountains of straw, then stroked the chain again. “Very well.” He leaned toward me.

“But you mustn’t tell Chrissy. As far as she knows, I was never here and this story is going exactly as planned.” He reached into his jacket and took out the tiny book I’d seen earlier. He placed it in my palm and it grew until it was the size of a picture book. The spinning wheel on the front not only shone like embossed gold, but the wheel turned slowly. A quill pen was attached to the inside cover in a flap. Instead of black ink, I saw a drop of liquid gold at its point.

Clover lowered his voice to a whisper. “Complete the story your own way and write the moral in the back of the book. Once you do that, your fairy tale is done, and Chrissy will have to take the lot of you home.” He cast a nervous glance around the room. “And if she doesn’t know you changed things, all the better.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Aye,” he said, but he wasn’t paying attention to me any longer.

He took the gold chain in his hands and kissed it. At once the links broke apart. They flew in the air, suspended, and spun into small disks—coins. A black pot appeared below them, and they rained down into it, clinking noisily as they landed.

Clover tipped his hat at me. “I’m off to pay me debts, then see the lads for a bit of poker.” And with that, the leprechaun and his pot vanished.

Chapter 14

I rubbed my hand where the handcuff had been. I was free from that at least. I walked over to the candle, wincing. The pain in my chest had subsided but moving made it worse. I eased myself down to sitting position and opened the book. On the first page, written in elaborate script, was a paragraph telling how the miller’s daughter had been taken from her home. On the opposite page was a finely painted picture of the events. And I was the girl in the picture.

Time stopped as I stared at the illustration. There I was, captured in an artist’s brush strokes, being led to the carriage. My hair flowed around my shoulders in luxurious blond waves that I was sure hadn’t been there in the real event, and I wore a brown dress instead of the jeans I’d really had on. Apparently illustrators took liberties with stories too.

In the picture, I was looking over my shoulder at my family. My eyes were wide, frightened, apologetic.

I ran my finger along the page as though I might be able to rub away the expression. Clover was right. I did feel things too much.

I turned the page. It showed me in the tower room next to the stack of straw, staring at it and weeping. I didn’t like seeing myself that way, vulnerable, where any passing reader could see my pain. I flipped to the next page. It was my first meeting with Rumpelstiltskin.

I was handing him my necklace as he looked at me hungrily. Who had painted these pictures? How had they known these details? Did the book just magically record them?

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I flipped ahead until I reached a picture where I wore a maroon and gold dress and was shaking hands with Rumpelstiltskin—that had happened only moments ago.

I turned the page, holding my breath to see what it would reveal.

A picture of me in a wedding dress, a crown upon my head, was fading. For a moment I saw my own eyes staring up at me and then they disappeared, leaving the page blank. I flipped through the rest of the book. It was a series of empty pages. Lines on one side, a framed picture of nothing on the other.

I wanted to hug the book in relief. Instead, I picked up the quill and scribbled down words as fast as they came to me.

The miller’s daughter changed the straw into gold, took some with her, and was able to walk out the unlocked door and flee the castle yard altogether. She met up with her family outside the castle walls where they had been safely waiting for her. The king was so happy to have so much gold that he spent the next week counting and admiring it and didn’t come after the miller’s daughter or her family.

I glanced back at what I’d written. To my horror, it was fading off the page.

“No!” I brought the book closer to my face hoping the words would still exist if I looked at them close up.

But they were gone. What did that mean?

Maybe the words hadn’t remained in the book because I hadn’t actually done the things I’d written. Maybe I couldn’t finish the story by dictating the events. But then, how did I finish it? Was there some sort of formula for knowing when a story ended?