Rumplestiltskin Read Free Page A

little rumpled boy.
    What would he have done without her?
    What in the world will he do now that she is gone?
    Rumple crawled over to the wall nearest him and swung his crooked legs around, so that his sore back was leaning against the elegant gold and maroon wallpaper. He dipped his head into his arms, the dirty polishing rag still dangling from his fingers, and wept.
    He did not cry when she passed on nearly a year ago. He had remained brave and true as she had requested.
    Yet now, now he was not so brave anymore. Now her love that had sustained him had grown cold and as bitter as the ground she was buried in. He needed his Tilly. This grown man wept for the only true mother he had ever known as if he were just the boy of five she had found all those years ago and not three and twenty.
    Rumple’s shoulders shook as he wept, his tears plopping to the ground in great smacks onto the lustrous marble.
    It was sometime before he could recall himself to where he was and even sometime much later before he could shake the feeling of helplessness and extreme sorrow from his thoughts. Eventually the forgotten prince worked his way down the steps into the kitchen, past the scurrying servants and into his room below. He tossed the old coat off his shoulders and slumped onto the straw-matted bed. His fingers wove themselves into the silken blanket Tilly had commissioned for him and slowly, pulling the soft fabric up over himself, he curled his jagged legs as tight as he could and wondered if he would ever know such warmth and laughter again.
    He had long ago given up the thought of any woman falling in love with him. He knew he would never have a family, children, or true life of his own, but then it had all seemed fine with Tilly around to cheer him. Now, his future was so unsettled, so completely unsure, and undoubtedly full of intense loneliness forevermore.
    His eyes roamed the ramshackle room, lovingly taking in every bit of Tilly that she had left for him. The old pictures she had purloined from the attics, the mock windowsill and draperies she had fastened out of several pieces of fabric and arranged over the large landscape paintings to create his own outside world. The ornaments and bejeweled cases she had found and fixed for him. The old clock, the battered toys, the candlesticks, the piles of papers and ink quills and the books she had managed to collect for him. They were all there. All upon old forgotten furniture and crates she had amassed over the years.
    Oh, how she loved him! How she tried so very hard to make his life as happy as possible. And she truly did. She was a saint; an angel sent to lift his burdens and help carry him through everything.
    Another tear crept down Rumple’s cheek as he sniffed his final sniff and accepted once and for all he would never be as wholly and perfectly loved again.
    He was a curse. A nuisance. A crippled man.
    He did not deserve the love of others.
    He was Rumplestiltskin.

CHAPTER THREE
    ON THE DAY OF the commencement of Prince Frederico’s death, Aubrynn Sloat hustled and bustled to prepare the small cottage for the trip up to the castle grounds. It was imperative every villager must attend or the king’s men would be sure to toss them in the dungeons. It was used as a day of reckoning—of final tax collecting and an accounting of all the villagers still under the kingdom’s reign.
    Aubrynn groaned for the third time as she placed hers and her father’s lunches into the knapsack. Two apples, bread, and a chunk of cheese, yet no father.
    Where was he? Did he not know the time? He should have returned hours ago—last night even, and yet, here it was morning and still no sign of him.
    Many of their neighbors had already begun the trek up to the top of the mountain. She would have to leave soon, or she would be late.
    Aubrynn collected the few coins she had managed to hide from her father for the taxes and tucked them safely into the pocket of her petticoat. She gathered up the