The Madness of Cadmea; or, The Lunatic Couturier
THREE
The man who lived on the remotest outskirts of Cadmea's large home village was a near-elderly woodcutter, but he also held great knowledge of the Enchanted Forest and it's inhabitants. It took some effort to convince him to share it, to tell her of its dangers and to draw her a rough map of the path to the home of the dwarf she sought.
The kind older man was not keen on sending so young a girl off on what could quickly become a perilous experience, but when Cadmea assured him she would be taking a hired carriage most of the three day walking journey, thereby significantly shortening the trip to a day, he relented. He did not ask why she wanted to see the dwarf, but Cadmea suspected he assumed she was burdened by an unwanted pregnancy, and the hermit dwarf was a specialist in the herbs of the forest, and their properties. She probably wasn't the first woman he'd been approached by, looking for information.
The woodcutter refused payment, but Cadmea shared a meal of the food she'd brought, with him, and at the door, pressed several gold coins upon him gratefully. When she left his home, she set off down the wooded path that would return her to the village - but at the crossroads, well out of sight of the woodcutter's home, she took a different direction, one that led the next village several hills over. If she hurried, she would make the place by nightfall.
The next day, after a fitful rest and an impatient wait sitting up in the wee tavern of a coaching inn, Cadmea was finally able to buy a seat in a crowded carriage in the direction of the forest she needed to go. She made polite responses to the other travelers if she was spoken to, but was too distracted by anxiety and fear to fully participate in meaningless chatter. She attempted to excuse her rudeness by sharing the bountiful contents of her satchel, and anyone who felt slighted quickly forgave her. One harried, down-on-her-luck mother was especially thankful for the food, and fed her ravenous, whining boy child until he was content and heavily napping. The carriage, though still close in the late spring sun, was at least comfortably quiet after that, and Cadmea was pleased to have less weight to carry later on her journey.
When the mother and child disembarked later, Cadmea gave the woman and child with the tattered clothes the remainder of her coins - she told the protesting woman that she still carried her jewels with her, and not to worry over it - she had enough wealth to get where she was going while still being able to help another woman in need.
The poor woman had burst into tears and hugged Cadmea tightly, vowing to pray for her safe arrival to her destination.
Later, during the long trip, Cadmea noted that there were only two brief stops; one to rest and water the horses, and to change and rest the people, and the other to change the horses and to rest and water the people.
Cadmea amused herself with the inane observation, looking forward to end of the ride - she had come further than most people that day, and now she was alone in the cab, but still uncomfortable - the carriage springs definitely needed changing.
She was alarmed and confused, when at dusk, the carriage made an unscheduled stop. After a long minute, the door was open and a lithe stranger in a dark green hooded cloak climbed in. The man, his face well-hidden, took a seat opposite her, and leaned back into the padded seat, propping one booted foot atop his knee.
Cadmea tried not to stare, but the mysterious figure was compelling - his very presence seemed unnatural.
"Good evening," she greeted him, and received a slow nod in return.
"And to you, dearie," he added in a somewhat high-pitched voice, sounding as if he were speaking through a smile.
Disturbed, Cadmea looked out the window, wondering why the man was there. She suddenly wished she had her father's shears in hand, just in case - she would have to see about fashioning a sheathe for them, perhaps, a forearm one, or a garter might be ideal -
"You are far from home, aren't you, child?" the stranger suddenly commented.
Cadmea nodded. "That I am."
"And where is it you go, may I ask?"
"I - my grandmother's house," Cadmea blurted, having given the excuse several times that day.
The stranger threw his head back and cackled mirthfully. "Oh, your grandmother's house, indeed!" he exclaimed loudly, making her jump and horses outside neigh in protest.
"Well, my little wayward seamstress, I suppose that would make you red-riding hood and I...the wolf," he announced dramatically, and in that moment, his hood fell back.
Cadmea was at once elated and petrified. The stranger before her was no man, but the glaring image of the very being she sought, the Dark One himself!
Unnatural yellow eyes pierced her, and her grinned widely, exposing his sharp, yellowed teeth.
"You have come seeking the Dark One, yes?" he goaded her, and she nodded dumbly, confused.
"How did you - "
"Oh, I know a great many things, dearie! I listen closely, therfore I hear everything!" He flicked clawed fingers near his ear, still staring at her through the greasy strands of his hair. He studied her closely, and she knew what he saw - a passably pretty young girl, with long, too-thick brown hair that never fully curled, nor lay straight, pale skin, and troubled light gray eyes.
"You know, it did not take long for me to sense your pain, it stood out far above the rest of the selfish, warbling babble of this place. Your pain has been screaming in the ether, child, your heart glows like a warm beacon in the blackest night. You have suffered a great loss, and in this magical world, things like that get noticed."
Cadmea's heart began to thud painfully. The Dark One hissed lightly, and she shivered.
"Your great generosity has been noticed, too," he continued, smirking, tapping his fingers atop his raised leg. "I had thought to allow you the time to make your great journey, time to come to regret this foolish quest and run home to the safety of your parents - but there are two of your earlier travelling companions rushing to get to your next destination ahead of you. They plan to attack you and relieve you of your worldly goods - among other prized things." He looked her up and down lazily, making her cheeks burn. "I do confess I was much too intrigued by why you came seeking me out to allow them to get their filthy hands on you."
"B-but don't you already know why?"
"I haven't the time or patience to explain the intricacies of dark magic to you, dearie - suffice it to say, you now have my - wholly - undivided attention." The Dark One dropped his leg and leaned forward, freezing her in place with his reptilian eyes.
Cadmea found herself shrinking back slightly. They stared at one another for an eternity, her gaze awed and unsettled, his alien and hypnotizing - until the carriage wheels suddenly hit a large hole and the painful jostling made them both groan in protest.
"Let us go somewhere less active to speak," the Dark One snapped, and suddenly, with a blink, Cadmea was sitting at a long table, swallowed by the size of a tall, heavy wooden chair she sat it. Bewildered, she looked down - her cloak and shawl were gone, and her bags were missing too. Alarmed she looked around to find them, but found herself alone in a cavernous room with magnificent woodwork and marble floors, but it was much too dark to see beyond a certain point. A large golden candelabra sat shining in the light of its candles in the middle of the table, but that was the extent of the illumination.
"Comfortable, now, dearie?" came the Dark One's voice from somewhere above, and she looked up to see the creature standing on a large balcony some twenty feet up the wall. A torch on the wall beside him outlined his figure, and she noticed he had shed his concealing cloak. He was indeed dressed in the leathered skin of a crocodile, and his skin held a sickly golden shimmer in the warm light.
Cadame pushed away from the table, and stood, walking to stand beneath the balcony and look up at him.
"I want to make a deal," she uttered without preamble, her voice echoing.
"I'm listening," the creature said, leaning a hip casually against the heavy railing.
Cadmea licked her lips and pushed her tousled brown hair behind her ears.
"I-I need to make an exchange - my fiance - my former fiance - is dying. I would trade myself for him."
"Oh," commented the Dark One distastefully, "a victim of True Love, indeed, are we? One must be careful with that particular disease, it has been known to bite."
Cadmea wordlessly pushed the long sleeves of her green gown up and held her forearms out to show him the healing red scars that slashed horizontally up the white skin.
"It does more than just bite," she told him bitterly.
The Dark One only blinked at her, seeming nonplussed, and then a wide, wicked smile grew, his rotting yellow teeth biting at her. He cackled wildly.
"My, my, if you aren't an interesting diversion, little seamstress. What exactly are you in search of today? A potion to woo your wayward lover back? A precious, hypnotizing bauble to catch his eye? Perhaps you wish to offer me your firstborn in return for - "
"You can have anything," Cadmea interrupted, "my heart, my mind, my soul - only if you will just save him."
"Ah, a rare love indeed, a lass so unselfish, so self-sacrificing - don't you want anything for yourself, dearie? Supreme beauty? Power over your enemies? Treasures beyond measure? Or, my personal favorite - good, old-fashioned, bloody vengeance?"
Cadmea shook her head. "His name is Jefferson - he has been gone for over six months on a journey, but his parents received word from a priest near the far sea that he has been ill with fever for some time - he contracted something on a short voyage up the coast, and he is not expected to recover. It may already be...too late."
"Well, well, just let us, see, seamstress, let us see…' the Dark One snapped his fingers and a fuzzy vision appeared, images flickering before them, a cliff beyond the sea, a small stone monastery, a tiny but clean cell-like room, a torch blazing on the wall - and then Jefferson, sprawled out across a straw mattress. His dark hair was too long, and it was greasy, his fever-damp skin stretched thinly across the fine bones of his face. His skin was pale and sallow, and he was moving restlessly, weakly, his once animated lips cracked and colorless. He was obviously not far from Death's reach.
Cadmea could not stop herself from staggering forward, her hands clenched into her stained skirts. "Jefferson...oh, my sweet boy, what has happened to you?" she breathed.
"Hm, the monks have been caring for him for some time," the Dark One noted. "He's strong - a fighter, isn't he? Though, not for much longer..."
Cadmea could only stare helplessly at the vision before her. Tears were hotly streaking her face as she greedily drank it in.
The Dark One giggled and the vision suddenly disappeared.
Cadmea fell to her knees as if it had been the only thing holding her up.
"So, what, exactly, is it you wish of me, little seamstress?"
"A deal, a trade, my life for his."
"If you value your life so little that you attempted to throw it away, why ever would you think I would find worth in it?" the devil drawled.
"Make him well again, permanently, give him the adventure he longs for, and you can have the things that are most precious to me," she told him.
"And what is most precious to you, dearie?" he asked sneeringly.
"Who I am, my essence, my heart, my memories...my name," she added desperately.
"Names do have power," he allowed, stroking his scaly chin thoughtfully, "and despite your willingness to die, your heart is uncommonly good and strong. However," he paused, grinning sharply, one clawed finger in the air, "a question."
"It occurs to me to ask, dearie, why you should suffer for eternity when even now, on his deathbed, he gives no thought to you?"
"You cannot do or say anything to make the pain I feel worse," Cadmea informed him stonily.
He winked. "If you only knew."
Cadmea shivered.
"Well," he continued, pacing, "'tis a simple question. Why does he deserve your sacrifice? You do know that he has always been selfish? He thinks only of himself. His father's arrogance, his father's youthful sins marked him with a dark streak upon his creation. Don't you recall those times during your childhood when he took more than his share, perhaps chose the easier tasks and left you with more work, all the times he broke promises to you? He isn't perfect, this love of yours. It's why he left you. He broke you. Why shouldn't you avenge yourself on him, instead? I could allow him to live, but let the fever steal his virility, hee. Take his sight, yesss, never allow those cherished eyes to look upon another woman? Cripple his beautiful, skilled hands, break his strong back, mar his perfect looks, banish his sanity - ! "
"NO!"
"Even if I tell you that in four years time he will give up his quest for adventure - something he would not do for you - to settle down? That he will call another woman wife, and father her child with embarrassing haste?" he snapped all this rapidly, his yellow eyes dancing with vindictive glee.
Cadmea's entire being curled in upon itself in utter devastation. The blow was a mortal one. She wrapped her arms tightly around her ribcage, willing it not to break open and spill everything inside out onto the impeccable marble floor.
Jefferson's child…a wife? But he had protested marriage so adamantly, why - ?
But then, he'd only really protested marriage to her.
"This pain," she whispered, "how can my heart continue to beat?"
Her sweet boy, Jefferson. How she had once cherished the thought of carrying the spark of his life within her, of having that unimaginable, intimate closeness with him - it was so unfair -
"Yes, the child that rightfully should have been yours," the Dark One pressed. "Would you still destroy yourself for him, because that is what will happen to you, little seamstress, once your name and memories have gone, once I have reached in and dug out your heart, you will be hollow. I can tell you with utmost certainty that you will never see your parents again. They won't be able to help you."
Cadmea slumped further, pressing her hands to her throat.
"Surround yourself with companions, marry and have children with another man, it doesn't matter, you will never again be whole. You won't know who you are, your mind will wither, your sanity begin to wane, and you will be entirely alone in it. The pain you feel now will be nearly infinitesimal in comparison the constant confusion you will wander in. You will exist as an outcast, rejected and isolated, and eventually you will go completely, irrevocably mad."
The Dark One jumped down from his balcony, and landed deftly before her. He stood beside her and stared down at her without pity until she dropped her mournful eyes. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed brokenly.
The Dark One huffed impatiently after a long moment. "You really want this?"
He almost sounded like a normal, human man.
Cadmea took a breath, stifling her sobs, and nodded resolutely, if unsteadily.
The Dark One suddenly held his hand out to her, palm up, fingers wriggling as if daring her to take it.
"Victory is yours, Cadmea Metaxas, though the cost is your own ruin. You certainly are living up to your name, aren't you, dearie, ha-ha! But then, you are a fighter, aren't you, where it counts? A fighter from the cradle to the grave," he cooed.
"Though it's still not too late to change your mind - I could replace that grave with a throne if you wish, that selfish boy with a king," he added temptingly.
Cadmea shook her head. "N-no. You must save him. Y-you'll do it?" she asked breathlessly, eyes glinting with hope and unshed tears.
He rolled his eyes, and then nodded. "Yes, yes, Jefferson will never be physically ill again, he will live until old age merrily shuffles him off this mortal coil, or at least until capricious fate takes him. You'll have to be satisfied with that, because if he is fatally injured, even I cannot bring him back from the dead. Your 'sweet boy' shall recover with all haste, and find himself in possession of a very unusual hat. A hat that will open portals to new worlds, and give him all the adventure he could ever handle - though for your sake(and I do not easily give my respect, so indeed, do be flattered), I hope that he chokes upon it. He doesn't deserve the gift you are giving him."
Cadmea looked back up at him, and then to his hand.
"I have your word?" she asked uncertainly.
"I always honor my agreements," he told her sternly, and then suddenly grinned widely.
"Do we have a deal?" he asked cheerily.
Cadmea did not hesitate. She grasped the repugnant creature's icy hand tightly, and stood, eager to forget, ready to face her new fate.
The Dark One snapped the fingers of his other hand and instantly - she was gone.
Rumplestiltskin stood back as the girl and her belongings disappeared, crossing his arms and settling his booted feet apart to seriously regard the precious heart in his hand. It had been, unarguably, a good deal. Truth be told, he had gained more from it than she ever would.
The heart still held the undeniable power of true love - indeed, it was practically on fire with it, it's golden-red glow so pure and hot it nearly made it too difficult for even him to handle comfortably. If this was any indication of how the girl had felt, he almost pitied her. She must have been roasting alive with the fierceness of her love - and to have to live with the knowledge that something so great, so meant to be, had been so foolishly brushed aside…?
A lapse in sanity from overexposure to the girls purity would be how he explained his next actions to himself in the future.
Rumple relocated the lost girl from the dark forest beyond his lands to the depths of the one in Wonderland. It was a small kindness, sending her there, but at least she would not end her days abused and neglected in a filthy asylum, which was where she'd been headed once her mental condition worsened. At least she would fit in and not be so horribly judged in that mad land.
Speaking of madness…
He smiled widely, and snapped his fingers, instantly arriving in the space before Jefferson's sick bed. He listened to the boy's labored breaths and then shrugged, and snapped his fingers again. All at once, the horrible racket stopped, and some color returned to his lean cheeks.
Jefferson stopped fidgeting, and breathed deeply, unimpaired. He fell into a deep, healing sleep, and when he awoke from it, he would be a damned sight improved, but it would still take a few weeks for him to fully recover his strength.
Curling his lip in disgust at the handsome youth's strong, shadowed jaw and dimpled chin, Rumple turned away and bent, rifling through the lad's belongings until he found what he was after - the hat.
The power he expended to make the hat magical was a mere drop in the bucket to what he had gained from Cadmea Metaxas ever-true heart.
Replacing the hat with a displeased snarl, he turned back to the young man upon the straw. Sneering at him in dislike, he meddled ever-so-slightly with certain events in Jefferson's future. The effect of an unexpected, extended stay in Wonderland on the man's psyche would be miniscule compared to the suffering of the creature Cadmea would eventually become.
After all, he had agreed to keep the lad from physical illness only...
Rumple cackled in delight at his own cleverness, and pointed a finger at the sleeping youth.
"Enjoy your freedom and peace of mind whilst you have it, boy! Be seeing you!" he waved his fingers at him, and disappeared.
Meanwhile Jefferson slept on, blissfully unaware of the day's tragic events, and woke, rested and refreshed three days later to the monks of the monastery proclaiming his recovery to be a miracle. He would reside at the place for another two weeks before discovering, quite by accident that his top hat had inexplicably become quite the astonishing piece of haberdashery...
A/N: There, Jefferson finally got what he wanted. Cadmea did too, though in a roundabout, unfair way. I hope my version of Rumplestiltskin is convincing and not completely out-of-character. I'll keep writing, and I hope you'll keep reading, interesting stuff ahead! Comments always welcome! :)