An Acquaintance with Darkness by Ann Rinaldi Read Free Book Online Page B

four feet tall. Yet he reminded me of somebody. He bowed, a sweeping gesture. "Miss Emily, is it?"
    "Yes."
    "Guess, guess, you will never guess my name," he said. His eyes twinkled.
    Guess
? I stared at him.
    Then he sobered. "Please let me tender my condolences. Your mama was a lovely woman. Lovely. A great loss."
    "You knew my mama?"
    "I knew her indirectly. I am husband to Maude."
    Husband to Maude? He was under five feet. Maude was
enormous
in comparison.
    His eyes twinkled. "I am small of stature but big of heart," he said. "And I know your Uncle Valentine well. He could not make it today. I come as his emissary."
    "What do you do for Uncle Valentine?"
    "I am a man of all trades, Miss Emily. And because of my size I am looked upon fondly. All dwarves are these days. Ever since Tom Thumb and his wife were received by the Lincolns in the White House ... I make deliveries for your uncle. Receive shipments. Facilitate things."
    It was a vague answer. He looked like a gnome from my childhood fairy tales.
    "The nature of your uncle's work is such that certain shipments must be delivered on time or they will spoil."

    I understood then. "You bring the flowers!" I said. "The nightflowers! Like you brought them here today!"
    "Ah, you put it so nicely. Yes, I bring the nightflowers. You have spoken a lovely sentiment there. Lovely. Nightflowers. Why didn't I think of it?"
    But he had! Was the man mad? Before I could study on it, Maude came down the stairs, followed by Annie. "Merry, you aren't tiring this child with your gibberish, are you?"
    "Maudee, Maudee, are my words gibberish?"
    Merry? What kind of name was that for a man? He should change it.
    He stamped his foot. "Now you've done it. You've gone and given away my name to this child. And she was supposed to guess it."
    It was then that I knew who he reminded me of.
    Rumpelstiltskin, the gnome in the fairy tale. From the Brothers Grimm. I could still hear my father's voice reading it. And telling me the lesson of it. "Don't ever enter into difficult arrangements just to save the moment, Miss Muffet," he'd said.
    When the miller's daughter was put in the tower by the greedy king, to spin the flax into gold as her father had boasted she could do, Rumpelstiltskin had come to help, because she could not make good on her father's boast and was crying. If she did not spin the gold for the king, he would have her head cut off in the morning. Twice Rumpelstiltskin helped her, spinning the flax into gold. But she had to give him jewelry first. Then she ran out of jewelry and he demanded her firstborn child. She promised it. What did she care? She would never marry and have a child.

    But she did marry. She married the king. Why anyone would want to marry a man who had threatened to have her head cut off, I never could understand. Even if he was a king. Then they had a child. And Rumpelstiltskin came to claim her firstborn.
    But she cried so, that Rumpelstiltskin gave her three chances to guess his name. So she sent scouts throughout the kingdom. One saw Rumpelstiltskin dancing in the forest, chanting his name, and told the miller's daughter, who was now the queen. And when the little gnome came back to claim the child, she guessed his name. Then he got contentious. He stamped his foot through the floor and was killed.
    When Merry Andrews stamped his foot, I'd seen Rumpelstiltskin.
    But then, who was Maude? Some scheming matron in a Grimm fairy tale, with her calming ways and bitter tea that set my head to reeling? I saw it now. Perhaps I wouldn't have if my head had been clear. But when I looked up at them standing in front of me, she towering over him with her arm around his shoulder, him smiling, it came to me that these two were not what they seemed.

    She goes to funerals,
I thought.
He delivers shipments on time, so they won't spoil. Why do I think he is speaking of something other than flowers?
    "Come along now, Emily." Maude put her arm around me. "Don't pay mind to him. He