Aurelm is a kingdom of fair rulers and happy subjects, of peace and prosperity. But it hasn’t always been such.

There once lived a King, cruel and unjust, greedy and spoiled. Only three things he loved – his own self, power, and gold.

He fancied his own self a prankster as well. At night, he would dress as a commoner and visit commoners’ pubs to eavesdrop on commoners’ complaints against the crown. If nobody happened to complain, he would niggle and goad until somebody did. Then the royal guards would pay a visit to that man’s house and the man would never be seen again.

On one such night, in one such pub, the King lounged in the shadows, bored. A spider in his net. People had gotten clever, clever and fearful, and dared not speak ill of the crown in public (houses).

Yet… there was a miller who was well into his cups.

“My daughter”—hiccup—“she is the fairest maiden in the land. How dare you, Thatcher, ask for her hand in marriage for your no good son. She is a beauty worthy to wed a King. Never the likes of your lot, Thatcher the shoemaker.”

Grumbling into his tankard, the miller, whose surname was Carter by the way, swayed toward the bar.

“Another!” he ordered in a self-important manner indicative of boldness increase due to alcohol infusion.

And stumbled sideways into the King.

“Sorry, mate,” Carter the miller mumbled. “And one more for my buddy here!” he hollered at the barmaid.

When he made to leave, the King spoke, “Sit and drink with me, friend. Tell me more about this daughter of yours, the one befitting a King.”

“Yes, the single blossom of this old tree.” The miller’s eyes misted affectionately.

The King’s eyes glinted cruelly. Maybe he could go for a different sport tonight. “And what is the name of this blossom?”

“Gwendolyn. Her virtue and kindness have no bounds… and her hair is like spun gold.”

“More like straw,” the barmaid scoffed, thunking two full tankards on the table.

The whole tavern erupted into laughter.

Carter the miller turned beet red. “Oh yeah?” he bellowed. “Straw it may be, but she can make it into gold.”

The tavern patrons laughed even harder.

“She can!” The miller stood on wobbly legs. “Give her any bale of hay and by morning she’d spin it into gold threads.” He staggered for the exit. “Into pure gold…”

Jeers and taunts accompanied his retreat.

The King nodded to one of his guards, also disguised as a worker, and he followed Carter, Carter the miller to his home.

“You expect me to do what?!” Gwendolyn uttered, eyes wide.

She stood before the King in her nightgown. The men who came to “invite” her to the palace hadn’t given her time to even comb her sleep-mussed hair. The throne room was full of courtiers sporting cold, sneering expressions. There would be no help from them.

Straightening her shoulders, she smoothed her long flaxen hair, raised her chin and met the King’s gaze. Met and held. “Your highness, my father likes his mead a bit too much, and his tongue is prone to exaggerations. Surely, you cannot expect me to spin straw into gold just because an inebriated man claims I’m able to.”

The King furrowed his bushy brows. “Yes I can. I’m the ruler of this land. To lie to me is an offence punishable by death. So you will either accomplish this feat by morning, or I shall hang your father.”

“I cannot!” she cried out. “It’s unfeasible. Please, your highness, forgive the fibs of an old fool. Show mercy—“

“Mercy!” the King roared. “He dared say a lowly pleb’s progeny is worthy of being my Queen. I am showing mercy,” he said calmer. “I didn’t hang him immediately. I’m giving him—giving you—a chance to prove he’s not lying. You’d rather I call for the hangman now?”

A cloaked figure grabbed Carter the miller and dragged him toward a darkened corridor.

“NO! No. I will try, let me try, my King. Maybe… maybe I can spin straw into gold. I have never tried after all,” she pleaded, slender hands clasped in front of her bosom.

The King’s gaze lingered there. “You have till dawn,” he mumbled distractedly.

Two guards ushered Gwendolyn into a windy tower. The flickering flames of four lanterns illuminated the barren décor – a pile of straw, a spinning wheel, a tiny stool.

“Get on with it, fair maiden,” one of them sneered, and the other guffawed.

As soon as they left, locking her inside, the lass set her shoulders straight, smoothed her golden hair and sashayed to the spinning wheel. Primly sat on the stool, a smile emerging on her lips.

In the morning when the King arrived in the tower, he found all the straw gone and in its place a heap of glittering, shimmering gold threads.

He gaped at the maiden, her hair shimmering, glittering in the first light of the new dawn, a crown forming around her head. “You did it. You actually did it,” he gasped.

“I sure did. Will you release my father now?”

The King’s anger stirred. And his greed. “So you lied to me yesterday. You can do it. Therefore, your father told the truth and I shall release him. And hang you instead.”

“Now, now.” Gwendolyn slinked closer. “Why would you do that, o wise King?” She brought her mouth to his ear. “Won’t you rather make me your Queen? Then I could spin straw into gold for you every night.”

“Well, not every night,” the King muttered, the tips of his ears turning scarlet.

That very same day, the miller’s daughter and the King wed.

On the wedding night, he entered his Queen’s sleeping chamber. She was sitting in front of her vanity, brushing her fair tresses.

Mesmerized, he approached, placed his hands on her alabaster shoulders. “Tell me your secret, my love, how did you turn straw into gold?”

She stood, faced her husband and tickled his chin with the ends of her hair. “No human can achieve it. I am no human, however. I am not Gwendolyn, the daughter of Carter the miller. You defiled and killed her a year ago, remember? And when her betrothed, the son of Thatcher the shoemaker, dared seek justice, you ordered him killed as well.”

The King stumbled back, made to speak.

“Shh,” the Queen whispered.

A tendril of her hair floated up and wrapped around the King’s head, covering his mouth and nose. Other strands flew out and bound his body like spider silk a fly.

“Yet that was just the last drop,” she continued calmly. “Thousands of your people work in your goldmines for meager wages, under atrocious conditions. Work and die. Their orphaned children and widowed wives cry in hunger.

“Your oppressed subjects gathered in my forest at my feet, lit fires and danced around them for three days and three nights, seeking deliverance from the evil that plagues their kingdom, calling out for justice. Calling out for me:

Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin

Spirit of this great mountain

Cold as marble, pure as gold

Give our King what he is owed.

“And even I, my body made of stone, metal running through my veins, could not refuse their plea.”

She drew nearer to the suffocating King, the ropes of her hair keeping him upright. And inches off the floor.

“But you see, since I am not human, I cannot keep my current form unless a sacrifice is made. So I take your life, and your crown, and your kingdom. The gold that you obsess over, the noble metal that rules you, ought to be a better ruler than you. And after my mortal shell returns to the earth, my firstborn, Rumpelstiltskin’s daughter, will inherit the throne, not a child of yours. Never a child of your lot.”

Her now flaxen tresses released their victim and the King’s mortal shell crumpled to the ground.

And thus the golden age for the Queendom of Aurelm began.

The steady taka-taka of a train has always put me in a contemplative mood. I look through the window to the whizzing by forests and fields and try to tune out my brother and sister. They are fighting… okay, having a spirited discussion. We do that a lot, my siblings and I. I’ve heard that as blood relations we are allowed.

“Look, look!” yells my brother (lets, call him Dylan). “Deer!”

I scratch my head because I don’t see them. Well, not just because, but more on that later… Too many trees, too deep in thought. I finally do spot them. They are jumping and running along the tracks, trying to outrun this giant iron monster that huffs and puffs and cuts through their forest.

My sister (let’s call her Sis) watches in awe and scratches her head. A rare and short-lived occurrence occurs with our lot. Total blissful silence in our train compartment—one of those eight-seat cubicles with faux leather couches.

The deer disappear, unable to outrun the speeding behemoth. My brother plasters his face to the glass, trying to glimpse some more.

“Lost them,” he huffs as he slumps back in his seat. And scratches his head.

Backtrack a little.

My siblings and I are on that train, going to my grandparents. Summer break. Ah, the mischief we plan to have. Our two favorite cousins are already there. At the village, a one-horse community of about 300 residents. Mostly senior citizens. And their visiting grandchildren.

It’s quite the tradition in my country to send children to their grandparents for the summer.

My siblings and I are on that train scratching our heads due to lice. Yes, that shameful infestation has reached us too. Actually, it was courtesy of our two favorite cousins. You see, their parents are amid a divorce. Their mother has run off with a gypsy.

I kid you not.

Gypsies in my country aren’t your romantic Irish Travelers from Snatch (Brad Pitt, I’m right?) or sexy Johnny Depp from Chocolate. No. Ours are Romani. Uneducated, shifty, thieving…lice-ridden.

Therefore, via their mother, the girls—our two favorite cousins—have acquired some “hair pets”. And via them, we—my siblings and I—have acquired them as well.

Imagine the magnitude – four girls from the age of eight to twelve, with hair from blonde to black, from stick-straight to corkscrew curls. And a boy who at the age of ten, albeit with short hair, is too pretty to tell apart from us girls (observe photo proof above).

It was a summer of games, a summer of mischief, a summer of…nitpicking.

Happy days, sunny days. Pour gasoline on your hair days… If you weren’t aware, gasoline is a home remedy for getting rid of lice. Just don’t do it while smoking. Or near a fire-juggler.

We use old toothbrushes to apply the “remedy” and I see the little critters try to crawl their way out of the hairline of whomever I assist at that task. I can almost imagine them squeaking, “Run, Buster, RUN! There is the end of the forest. We almost outrun the giant bristly monster!”

Alas, they haven’t. I brush them back inside the “gas chamber”.

My hair always felt a pound lighter after. Or at least less crawly.

But the nits, the stubborn nits. They stay attached. You need to disengage them manually. One-by-one. Or try to convince four tween divas to lose their hair to the shears.

Not happening.

My siblings and I, and our two favorite cousins, sit on the stone steps in front of Granma’s house—those are in the walled inner yard, not in view of the village—and fine-comb out ebony, brunette, tawny and blond tresses, searching for those pesky pests and pop- pop- popping them between our fingernails.

There are five stone steps. And five children. A chimpanzee chain of grooming.

Sometimes we divide our locks into manageable sectors and divide those sectors into small pigtails (?). IDK. The final result is a cross-breed between a punk singer and a jester’s hat. Fortunate— Unfortunately, that’s before the age of selfies and digital cameras, so there is limited footage. And none from that particular days.

As far as summer breaks go, this one was very bonding—akin to a nit stuck to a hair—same as two years prior when we got the scabies…

“Hello?” I yell.

Hello, hello, hello… mockingly bounces off the white walls of the empty room I’m in. No windows, no door.

And weirdly enough, no ceiling. Just endless nothingness up there.

“Hello!!!” I give in to my rising anger, liberally laced with dread.

Crimson on the white, an elegant cursive starts appearing on a wall.

No Shouting, is the end result. How can two little words exude such supreme arrogance?

“What the fuck?! Who do you think you are to tell me what to do?”

No Cursing, leisurely announces another script.

My hackles rise, icy fingers skittering up my spine.

How did I get in here? And while on the subject, where is here? How does one get out of a room with no exit?

Make one. Duh.

I go to a wall—one free of freaky writing of course—and give it a solid kick. Nothing. Not even a crumble of plaster. Nothing except the pain in my toes.

Why am I shoeless?

No matter. I keep at it, adding my fists to the endeavour.

No Fighting, emerges under my blows, and I stumble backward.

Now I’m spitting mad. Mad, not terrified. Not at all!

“No spitting,” whispers a mocking voice just behind me.

I whirl around. And there is he.

“I’d love to trust, but my paranoia just won’t let me! Or maybe I just read too many Agatha Christie novels growing up…”

I’ve actually read them all, but I don’t share that with him.

“Anyhow,” I clear my throat, “yesterday for example this guy friends me on Facebook, but there is something hinky about the profile he has… don’t feel right… and I go full internet stalker – google his name, do an image search, whatever… Cause in the back of my mind I’m sure it’s some ex trolling me.”

“Why do you think that?” he asks in neutral tone and adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses.

I feel like a bug on display and desperately try not to fidget. “Um, seems too perfect, tailor-made for my tastes. And I know there are no such men. Those exist only in my imagination. It’s one thing to write fantasy, but to believe in fairy tales is an entirely different kind of crazy, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, yes,” doctor Levi, my psychiatrist, not psychologist mind you, nods his head, busily writing in his little notepad.

“What are you scribbling there, Doc?” I ask suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,” he says with a mild smile. You know the one – part benevolence, part condescension.

I’d love to believe him, but I just cannot. My paranoia won’t let me.

Dispassionately observes Doctor while his shaky hand tries to stop the flow from his severed carotid.

The girl slumps down next to him, their shoulders touching. She can wait. That feeble attempt won’t save him, she knows. Nobody’s coming to the rescue anytime soon. She knows that too… made it reality after all – barricading the doors.

It will take eleven more minutes to break in.

Doctor has enough blood left for four minutes and forty-two seconds of life.

“Tell you what,” she utters softly. “If you too return from the Nether, I promise not to kill you again. But you have to go there first.”

Doctor looks at her, gaze animalistic with terror when she presses the scalpel to the inside of his wrist, cuts deep. More blood seeps out, but that isn’t the goal. The severed tendons are. And soon enough Doctor’s fingers go lax, the slash on his throat losing its dampener.

She peers into his eyes as they turn glassy, stares into them until that needless rescue comes and wrestles her to the floor, stares into them while they cuff her and drag her away.

He never returns from the Nether…

She doesn’t resist the soldiers, haven’t done anything to her or her own to warrant a trip to the Nether. Besides, it’s pointless. Where is she to go? The girl knows nothing but the Labs she’s created in. Her whole world exists behind those walls.

And she cannot abandon the rest to save only herself.

“Please!” Doctor whines anew, spit collecting at the corner of his mouth, the stench of fear wafting from his pores.

Head tilted to the side, “Please?!” she repeats hoarsely. “I pleaded to the Powers that be.” Crouches next to Doctor, whispers close to his face, “Turned out they wouldn’t be…” Digs her fingers into his leg where a bone protrudes from the compound fracture.

He cries out and she savors the sound, eyes closed to experience every nuance.

Almost brushes her lips to Doctor’s earlobe. “The only one who answered my pleas was me. And this”— slits Doctor’s throat with a scalpel, hands steady and precise, the way his were when he used it on her and her brethren —“is what answered. You like, Doctor?” A wolfish smile. “It’s your creation, no? Now I send you to the Nether. It’s where I go when you kill me. I always return.”

Smoke. Crackle of exposed wires. Scattered like broken toys bodies. Blood on the walls; on the floor.

A man in medical attire crawls backward, eyes riveted on a shadow… following him… slowly approaching – skinny blonde teen, shoulder length dreads hanging in front of her face, green eyes trail her pray. She was in no hurry. All others were dead. Would hurt no one now, would laugh about it never, ever, ever…

No help comes. None would for Doctor either.

“Please, please!” Doctor begs. Pitiful.

Pity. She has none. He killed it. “I pleaded too. You ignored. I ignore too…”