Chapter Seven: The Prophecy

Jun 12, 2023

Belle’s weeping pierced Rumpelstiltskin right to his core. He didn’t think he could stand it much longer, but he knew he had to. She needed to get it out of her system. But more than that, she was sparking a spectacular renewal in Avonlea. In his vast collection of human tears, he’d never come across any as potent. He saw that the instant they landed on her contract. Combined with the Name in her signature and the charms in the Apprentice’s Ink, he expected stellar results, but no more than a drop or two was necessary. The rest fell onto Avonlea’s soil, where they rightly belonged. If Belle knew what her tears were accomplishing, she would welcome her own sorrow. Which, of course, would defeat the purpose.

Forcing her to sleep in the dungeon was also crucial to her sacrifice. She had to believe she was living with an irredeemable monster. It was practically the truth, anyway. The Dark One had reigned for so long, he felt permanent.

Rumpelstiltskin sent his mind into her cell to listen in more closely. “Just give in to sleep,” he whispered. “You’re exhausted. Please, Belle.”

Slowly, her cries died down. She coughed a bit, and then went quiet. “Good,” he thought. “She responds to my ‘please.’” He warmed up the cell, softened the floor into a cushioned mattress, and slid a pillow under her head. It would soak up her tears while she slept. He’d squeeze it out later when she awakened.

He had begun setting up a maid’s quarters at the opposite end of the castle, but just as Belle was not yet of a mind to accept it, the room was not ready to receive her. Furnishing it with the right magic took careful consideration. So far, other than the basic bed, bath, and wardrobe, he put in the few personal belongings he had allowed her, along with the two magical items he knew to be in her possession: Madam Morraine’s book and the Mirror of Souls. There was also the crystal she was wearing around her neck, nearly overflowing with Reul Ghorm’s blessing, but he would not take it away from her, especially as the magic within it wasn’t his to trace.

The spells in Morraine’s book had unraveled to completion. The fairy-blessed writer finally found her counterpart reader. So he left the book amongst the others Belle requested. The Mirror of Souls was the real conundrum. With a flick of his wrist, he brought it to the table, tightly covered so that he could not look in it himself. He hadn’t designed it for his direct use. It was meant for the maiden - or maidens - of the fairy prophecy.

He sat at his wheel, trying to recall the original prophecy verbatim. The precise words of any prophecy always carried great weight. He sent the wheel swirling backwards. That sometimes helped when he was thinking of times far past.

The image of the careless novice in her ridiculous pink frills came right back to him. “Redemption is possible for everyone,” she proclaimed, parroting the standard line.

“Shoo, pest!” he said, knowing full well that she wouldn’t leave until her message was complete.

“Your redemption will come from a fair maid’s love,” she continued.

“I’m to receive True Love’s Kiss, am I?” he laughed. “My, but you’re a blind little bat.”

“It might be True Love, but a more incremental Cleansing will precede it.”

“Ah, a Cleansing,” he repeated. “Just what my blackened heart needs. A fair maid to dust out the cobwebs.”

“Will you let me finish?” wailed the novice, breaking protocol.

He giggled. In this realm of hopeful souls and fairy magic, no one was so cynical as to interrupt a fairy prophecy.

“A woman clear of vision, sharp of mind, and pure of heart.”

“As foretold by the fairy loose of tongue and full of rubbish.”

“Nova!” came the scolding voice of Reul Ghorm. The novice abruptly disappeared.

“Delightful prophecy,” he snickered, “but that novice of yours needs more training. Don’t you warn them not to consort with me?”

“You were meant to get that message, and you know it,” said Reul Ghorm. “Stop playing innocent.”

“If such a woman were ever born to the world, you wouldn’t waste her gifts on my wretched Darkness. You’d snap her up and recruit her to your own ranks.”

“The woman who can redeem you, Rumpelstiltskin, will be performing a service even greater than a fairy’s. She will have my blessing whether she joins us or not.”

He clapped his hand to his heart and sighed dramatically, as though shocked and insulted. Reul Ghorm knew better than to take his bait. She didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. “You’ve heard your prophecy. Now do with it what you choose.”

“Indeed I will!” he called after her as she flew away.

What he chose to do, at least at first, was nothing. He simply waited and watched. Prophecies always unfolded in their own way. There were more sides to them than anyone could predict, even immortals and Seers. Even Reul Ghorm herself.

“But did Reul Ghorm see through me?” he wondered. The question had crossed his mind many times, both then and since. Because underneath all his mockery, he was celebrating when he received that prophecy. Despite his bitter history with fairies, he harbored a deep and secret faith in them. Until the novice approached him, he believed the door to his redemption was locked shut. The romantic part was bunk, but the slow, incremental pace suited him perfectly.

Rumpelstiltskin was more aware than anybody just how badly he needed to change. The trouble was, he needed his Dark Power, too. He had to rely on it to get himself to Bae. But Bae only ever wanted his Papa. When they were finally reunited, he would need to revert to his old self, and as he had so disastrously proven, he would never do that on his own. So, shortly after receiving the prophecy, he began searching for a woman who fit the description. He did it even while laying the groundwork for the Curse. He could pursue his Dark and Light paths in tandem. He just had to take painstaking care to keep their timelines separate.

Bae’s childhood friend Morraine proved to be the first maiden, appointed by Reul Ghorm long before the prophecy had been revealed to him. She was more matron than maiden by the time she showed up in his castle, but she was indeed clear of vision, sharp of mind, and pure of heart. Those very traits were the reason he chose her as his sole witness on the battlefield when she was just a young girl.

She arrived at his castle with a proposition to redeem his legacy. His legacy, not him. A logical, just, and thoroughly unromantic unfolding.

But also, kind of funny. His wisecrack about a literal maid to clean him up was as prophetic as everything else! He could barely contain his giggles when his first potential redeemer declared her intentions. She was the maid at the village inn.

Of humble origins himself, Rumpelstiltskin favored laborers. It was why he elevated the worthy ones to positions of power. Anyone who had ever been a peasant would not demand undue sacrifices of the people. His political intrigue kept him as busy as his Light and Dark paths, but the results could go either way. Usually, one Dark monarch would defeat another in some petty power play, but every now and then, a hero emerged to lead the realm into Light. It was all a great balancing act.

He repaid Morraine by eliminating her poverty, but he never elevated her to any recognized status. That wasn’t her Destiny. And though he did not learn about her connection to the fairies until he got to read her finished account, he knew when he met her that her kindly spirit only deepened with maturity. She confirmed it the moment she said, “Please.”

Rumpelstiltskin worked out his special Magic Words with Bae when he first got his Power. “Please” made the hearer do whatever was requested. “Thank you” recognized and rewarded a favor. “I’m sorry” inclined the hearer toward forgiveness and cooperation. He also unearthed the key to tapping into a person’s essence by speaking his or her Name. That was why he collected Names, and why he always heard every desperate soul who took the risk of calling his.

Morraine’s “please” went right to Rumpelstiltskin the man, not Rumpelstiltskin the Dark One. She remembered the old spinner, and it was to him that she was making her appeal. Her plea was so effective, he knew he could trust her to use his Name in writing. She would strengthen his Light side, the side all but extinguished by Darkness.

Immaculately beautiful lace began cascading from the wheel. He’d finally reached Belle’s role. He paused his spinning to check on her in the dungeon. Her breathing had grown deep and rhythmic. A coarser person might have called it “snoring.”

“Cogsworth!” he called to the clock on the mantlepiece. “When the young lady in my dungeon has rested enough to begin work, it shall be daybreak around the castle. A half hour for the rest of us.”

“Very good, sir,” said Cogsworth, his hands winding forward and back to adjust the Time.

“And you might as well get to work yourself,” he added, waving his hand over the clock to restore Cogsworth’s human form. “Let me know if you have any breakthroughs.”

“Of course.”

Cogsworth bowed like a proper butler and headed downstairs to his designated corner of the vault.

Alone again, Rumpelstiltskin considered the lace in his basket. By rights, he ought to use it for Belle’s benefit, but it took him a moment to figure out how. Then an artistic fancy hit. He wiggled his fingers and sent the lace into Belle’s cell. It could shape itself into trim and tassels to decorate her pillow.

Chuckling at his whimsy, he threaded fresh straw into the wheel. It was time to tie past and present together.

“Belle and Morraine, Morraine and Belle,” he mused aloud. Between the two of them was a gap as wide as the Edge of Realms, but he’d tried other maids in the interim. He reasoned that if his redemption was to come incrementally, each candidate would bring him another step closer.

He chose women of all ages and from all walks of life. Some had magical potential. Others were excellent cooks. But he always tested them in exactly the same way. Where did he feel it when they said “please,” “thank you,” or “I’m sorry?” If their Light could penetrate his Darkness, even a little, he offered them a deal.

Many were damsels in distress. He’d be summoned by some pretty maiden trapped in a sorcerer’s tower or witch’s cage. “Please help me out of here,” she’d beg, only too willing to exchange one prison for another. “Oh, thank you!” she’d cry, signing her contract.

An outside observer might lump Belle into that category, but she came with far more gravitas. She was already a signatory on the Ogres’ Treaty, and it was just the beginning. The strength of her “thank you” those few times in Avonlea’s forest seemed a sure sign of great things to come.

“But I am getting ahead of myself,” he thought, pushing the wheel backwards again.

The maids who’d come from commonfolk typically sold themselves into his service. Sometimes their parents sealed the deal. “Spin us some gold, sir, and my daughter will work off the debt.”

That was how he got Candace, his youngest maid ever. She was a tiny child when she came. Her “pleases” and “thank yous” were completely ineffectual, but she aroused his pity anyway. Any parents who were willing to abandon such a little girl to the Dark One didn’t deserve to keep her. It was worse than the way his father fobbed him off. And Candace turned out to be both magical and a good cook. Such was the lasting effect of early life in a family with too many mouths to feed.

Candace darkened as she got older. She was thoroughly useless as a redeemer. He’d really misread the signs with her, crediting the sympathy she awakened in him to a quality within her, instead of the obvious similarity between her life and his own. He created the Mirror of Souls after that. He would never let himself make such a mistake again. Only a woman who fit the fairy’s description could use it. The Mirror could be objective, whereas he was not.

But the Dark One could always recoup from Rumpelstiltskin’s losses. If Candace couldn’t help on his Light path, he’d use her for the Dark. He taught her potion brewing, and her knack for cooking served her well there. Her magic never extended beyond the culinary, but he didn’t need much from her. These days she was living in the woods in her gingerbread house, occasionally stirring up minor nuisances for Regina.

Whenever Light failed to conquer Darkness, which was most of the time, Darkness had to be kept in check with opposing Darkness. That was why he’d been forced to become the Dark One himself.

“I am getting way off track,” he thought, noticing that he was now spinning licorice instead of lace. “This is not about Candace. It’s about the Mirror. Did anyone before Belle ever use it?”

He’d never seen evidence of it, not even from Regina, who had a hidden Light side that could have allowed her access. She fit the description herself once, back before he used her resentment of her mother to turn her Dark. And she was a master at Mirror Magic. If she ever got hold of that Mirror, she could easily thwart it to her own evil ends. But he’d done a thorough search of her palace and never found it.

The wheel continued producing strings upon strings of licorice. “Candace was hanging onto it all along,” he concluded. “A trophy of her one and only triumph over me.”

Candace stole the Mirror when she ran away. He always left his maids an easy exit when he tired of them. When their “pleases” and “thank yous” hardened into hatred, it was time to let them go. As long as they didn’t steal anything, they got out without a scratch. But Candace had stolen, and since she was impure of heart and not especially sharp of mind, the Mirror took her vision.

“Yet the theft was her contribution,” he thought, glad to have finally resolved it. Candace’s hoarding tendencies protected the Mirror from Regina’s corrupting grasp. Then, when Belle was ready for it, the Mirror found its way to her. Darkness served the Light, as it was supposed to.

“Another step uncovered, but what am I to do with all this licorice?” He clapped his hands twice. “Mrs. Potts!”

The first clap transformed the teapot on the table into his housekeeper. The second brought her son out of the teacup. The boy began eyeing the licorice right away.

“Hold yourself back, young man. That’s what you’re here to learn.”

The boy obediently put his hands behind his back.

“Get breakfast ready,” he told Mrs. Potts. “You won’t have to serve, though. I’ve got someone new for that. Her Name is Belle. You’ll be training her in.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, bobbing a curtsy. She headed off to the kitchen with her son in tow.

“Experience does have its advantages,” he thought as she walked away.

Mrs. Potts had been one of his wiser additions. Neither she nor her son had an ounce of magic, but their arrival was portentous.

He found them when the boy was trespassing on his property. The mother chased after him, as any sensible parent would. No child was safe on the Dark One’s grounds. But whatever danger she herself might face, Mrs. Potts was determined to get her son out of harm’s way.

He watched the boy dash ahead of his mother and take aim at a squirrel with his slingshot. Rumpelstiltskin readied himself for the pounce. Just as the boy was about to let the stone fly, Rumpelstiltskin went visible and grabbed him by the collar. There was no chance for him to make a run for it.

“Aha!” shouted Rumpelstiltskin. “A budding huntsman is taking advantage of my grounds! Well, I’m a skilled huntsman myself. And you, laddie, have just been trapped!”

“NOOOO!” screamed the boy, as his mother came running up, out of breath.

“NO!” she echoed, falling to her knees. “Please, sir! I beg of you! Spare him!”

“Spare him?” he repeated in surprise. “I’m not going to kill him, dearie. I am merely taking him prisoner. I can think of many uses for an able-bodied young boy.”

“Take me instead!” she begged. “I’ll cook and clean for you! I’ll do anything you ask. Just let him go. Please.”

The “please” hit him right on target. “A mother’s love,” he thought. It was a tack he’d never tried before. His Inner Seer looked them over. Her Name was Beatrice Potts, a mother of twelve with only three left at home. The boy was her youngest, named Richard and nicknamed Chip. She might indeed do the trick. Especially with the boy nearby.

“No deal,” he said, glowering. “I will not release him. If you want to stay with him, here’s what I propose. You can be my housekeeper, and he will be a boy-of-all-work. He’ll help you a little, and sometimes he’ll assist the stable hand. He won’t have his freedom, but at least he’ll have you.”

He cackled to scare them, but scared or not, she couldn’t refuse. Her son would not be lost to her. Who would dare ask the Dark One for more?

A condition of their contract was that they had to remain inanimate objects when they weren’t working. He couldn’t allow that rambunctious young boy to run free in his castle. There was no end to the trouble he could kick up. It also effectively blocked every avenue for them to escape.

Escape. The very thought of it made his anger surge. The flames in the fireplace jumped and crackled. Before Mrs. Potts, he’d attempted to capture Anna of Arendelle. He would never let a fiasco like her happen again. Not only had she slipped past him, she took the Sorcerer’s Hat with her. He was lucky he still had his dagger.

His ears pricked up. Belle was tossing and turning in her sleep. Had the roar of the fire disturbed her, or was it something more? Could Belle and Anna have some connection? He couldn’t see how. Anna was from the north, and Belle the south, and both were sheltered princesses who seldom left their homes.

The lace he was spinning was now coming out frayed. “My anger at Anna is spoiling it,” he observed. “I must calm down.”

Well, really, there was no sense in raging over Anna anymore. The Hat was worth it, but she was not. Why should he care about the loss of a pearl now that he’d found a sapphire to take her place?

“Mrs. Potts?” he called.

The maid came out of the kitchen. “Yes, sir?”

“There’s a magical mirror wrapped up on the table. Bring it down to Cogsworth to store in the vault.”

“Yes, sir.”

Though unmagical, Mrs. Potts showed proper reverence for the Mirror. Or good, old-fashioned fear. Either way, it didn’t matter what she felt. What mattered was what she would see. As she cautiously picked up the Mirror, Rumpelstiltskin lifted his pinky finger ever so slightly until the wrap came loose. Then, while averting his eyes away from the Mirror, he angled his face so that it would frame his reflection.

“Oh, my!” gasped Mrs. Potts, hastily putting the cover back on and tucking it around the edges.

Rumpelstiltskin grinned. He was itching with curiosity, especially when Mrs. Potts stole a sharp, studying glance at his face on her way out, but when she returned, he said nothing more about it. He gave her his next order. “The new maid will need breakfast. Have Chip leave some tea and biscuits outside the dungeon door at sunrise.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, curtsying and withdrawing to the kitchen.

He resumed his spinning. The lace filled his basket once more. He grew so absorbed watching it, he was actually startled when Cogsworth entered. “Oh, is it half an hour already?” he asked. It was easy to lose track of Time when he was jumping back and forth between past and present.

“Twenty-nine minutes,” said Cogsworth, steadfast in his practice of leaving open a small window for any eleventh-hour commands.

The two men regarded each other in silence. Rumpelstiltskin often wondered if Cogsworth could be counted among his maids. He was enslaved to Zelena when they first met, so though he was not a damsel, he was certainly distressed. And while his duties involved no cleaning, he was strikingly sharp of mind and had an advanced, if not clear, vision of the future. As to his heart, it was a closed book. Cogsworth was a secretive, scholarly loner, much like himself. But Rumpelstiltskin trusted him to share his success, if he ever had any. His contract required it, and his release depended on it.

“No progress, I take it?”

“No, sir.”

With slumped shoulders, Cogsworth bowed and allowed himself to be turned into a clock again. “Freeze time in the Northern Kingdom of Arendelle,” Rumpelstiltskin told him. “It should not restart until I reach Princess Anna.”

Cogsworth gave a single tick as he stopped the Time. After that, he went motionless.

“There,” murmured Rumpelstiltskin, levitating the clock back to the mantlepiece. “I will reclaim that Hat when the Time is right.”

That Time was not now, not while his newest and most promising maid lay within the castle walls. He noted the sky outside slowly growing lighter. She would awaken soon.

The aroma of Mrs. Potts’ cooking wafted through the Great Hall. Rumpelstiltskin listened to Chip’s footsteps go from the kitchen to the dungeon and back again. With Belle’s breakfast delivered, he snapped his fingers and changed the boy and his mother back into a teacup and teapot. Belle would find them in the kitchen when she began her morning’s work.

“And then she’ll be out to serve my tea,” he thought, snapping her breakfast to her side of the iron door. Almost giddy with anticipation, he set the wheel in motion again and began to sing: