The Spindle on a Spinning Wheel

The shutters were closed, the door locked. The small cottage was illuminated by the dim, flickering light of oil lanterns, and what little mid-afternoon sunlight could creep through the shutters.

A table stood to the side of the room, with neat rows of wool rolags set out across it. Beside the table, a woman by the name of Tiffany pried up the floorboards. She set these floorboards aside, revealing the entrance to a hidden cellar. Tiffany set a ladder in the opening, then took hold of the nearest lantern, and then climbed down into the cellar.

It was a small, cramped space, filled with dark shadows, dust and cobwebs. Boxes and shelves filled with jars and bottles were packed into the room. Tiffany shifted aside some boxes, revealing an empty space. She froze.

Then she yelled, “William!”

William was minding the sheep, as they grazed concerningly near to the fence bordering the vegetable garden, when he heard his sister yell. Abandoning his flock, he ran to the cottage.

William jumped the fence into the vegetable garden and ran across it, putting his foot through a young lettuce as he did so. Almost at the cottage, he stumbled on a rock, and crashed against the back door. He pushed himself back upright, then pulled at the door handle. It rattled. The door did not open. He twisted and pulled at it again. The door did not open.

“Tiffany?” he yelled, and pressed his ear against the door.

He heard the muffled sound of footsteps, a faint jingle, then the clink of the key in the lock.

William was still leaning against the door when it opened. He fell into Tiffany, who stumbled back as she caught him.

“William,” Tiffany said, as she helped him find his balance, “Where is my spinning wheel?”

Spinning had become much harder in the last fifteen years, since the shunned thirteenth fairy had cursed the princess to be wounded by a spindle, and drop down dead. Near impossible, in fact. Spindles had been outlawed; there had been great bonfires, as they were all destroyed. Spinsters lost their livelihood overnight. The kingdom’s textile industry was in shambles. To purchase new clothing became an obscene display of wealth.

Tiffany had hidden her spinning wheel away. By luck, it had avoided the bonfires, so she continued to ply her trade in secret, locking the doors and closing the shutters as she worked.

She had thought her wheel was safely hidden. She had thought she was safely hidden.

To find the spinning wheel missing was, to say the least, distressing.

Tiffany and William cleared out the cellar, but found no sign of the missing wheel. They searched through the rest of the cottage, to no avail. They subtly inquired with the local weaver, and tailor. They knew nothing.

There were no spindle-burnings, nor spinster-hunts.

The spinning wheel had vanished.

It was a month and a day since the spinning wheel had disappeared that word reached the town that the castle was cursed. Everyone within had fallen into a deep slumber, it was said. Because of the curse on the young princess, it was said. She had pricked her finger on a spindle, but because of the kindness of the twelfth fairy, she was cursed to sleep, not die, it was said.

“It… must be a coincidence, surely?” William said to Tiffany, upon hearing the news.

“Surely,” Tiffany agreed.

With the curse come to pass, and the kingdom’s rulers now deeply asleep, and no longer enforcing the ban on spindles, there was a revival of the spinning industry. Tiffany purchased a new wheel, and once again plied her trade. Now, though, she did so with the shutters open, and the door unlocked.