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that’s when I realized what kind of worry I had. The worry went from my head and sunk down to my chest and settled to a sickness in my stomach. Frederick and Bruno might be complete idiots, but any village idiot knows gold when they see it.

    The next rations day, the line at the mill was very long. Everyone was eager to stock up before winter came, and it was almost here. The air was biting now. There was always frost in the mornings. The pixies were more subdued, and they began building nests for their winter sleep. Now we were just waiting for the snow.
    When it was my turn, the miller gave me a sack of meal, bigger than usual. I looked at him, surprised. No one else got this much meal.
    “Gold means food,” the miller said gleefully.
    I looked at him, confused. I had found only a few pebbles of gold in the last week. And the miller wasn’t kind or generous.
    I opened the sack just outside the cottage and a thick, dusty powder billowed out. I choked and coughed as the dust went into my lungs. The miller had filled the bag with chalk and sawdust.
    Gold means food .
    The miller was giving me a message.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Gold Means Secrets
    I did not know what to do. We needed food. The miller had the food and he wanted gold. I had lots of gold, spun into perfect little coils with my mother’s spinning wheel. Spun with magic that Red insisted was dangerous.
    “Where are the rations?” Gran asked. I was empty-handed, having thrown away the sack full of sawdust.
    “I suppose I didn’t find enough gold,” I said, looking at my feet.
    “Well, I’ll go give that miller a piece of my mind.” Gran rose up from her chair, then staggered and fell back.
    “Gran!” I rushed to her, but she waved me away.
    “Only a little dizzy spell.” She closed her eyes and took a few breaths. Her hands shook. She needed food. I would have to take some of the gold to the miller. Maybe I could mix the coils with some dirt and other gold flecks andpebbles from the mines. He might not notice the difference. But a dark feeling rose in me. If the miller was as greedy as he seemed, he would notice. So I kept the gold hidden and hoped that the miller had only made a mistake with the sack of sawdust.
    “We will make do,” Gran said. “We have the chickens and the goat. So we won’t starve.”
    We killed one of our two hens. The meat would have to last us until the next rations day.
    Gran and I ate in silence. Eating the chicken should have been a celebration, a great luxury, but we were both melancholy. My gaze kept wandering over to the spinning wheel and to my bed, where the gold was hidden.
    Gran followed my gaze. “I hope you haven’t touched that wheel,” she said. “You don’t know how to work it properly. You could hurt yourself.”
    “Did my mother hurt herself?” I asked. The question flew out of me without warning.
    Gran froze with a bit of chicken raised to her mouth. She lowered her hands. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
    “Why didn’t you tell me she was from Yonder?”
    “Who told you that?” Gran asked.
    “Red.”
    “Red. Yes, well, her grandmother …”
    “What did my mother spin?” I asked.
    Gran stiffened. “What did she spin? What do people usually spin? Why—? Have you—?” She looked from thewheel back to me. I could see her struggling, trying to decide what to say.
    “Your mother spun trouble,” she said, “and then left it on my hands.”
    “Is that how you think of me?” I asked. “As the trouble she left?”
    “Oh, child.”
    “Rump!” I shouted. “My name is Rump!”
    Gran’s eyes were shiny with tears. “You are my grandson, Rump. I have always loved you. I have always tried to protect you, and I will do my best to protect you now. Do not concern yourself with your mother or her spinning wheel. It will only bring you sorrow.”
    I didn’t ask any more. I felt strange, like things had shifted around me when I wasn’t looking, but I didn’t know what it meant.

    The