The animal quivered until Briar flipped it onto its back and then it relaxed, nestling its warm fur into Briar’s palms. “You said I could trust you. Can I trust you not to share with anyone what I tell you?”
Fanny took a deep breath and let it out. She squinted against the sun. “I don’t like to make promises like that.”
Briar waited, taking comfort from the warm bundle in her hands. She wasn’t going to go any further without a promise.
Fanny appeared to grow uncomfortable with the silence. “Fine. I won’t tell anyone your secrets. You can trust me.” Fanny twisted her lips like she wasn’t happy about the agreement.
“I did something this week that both excites and scares me. A peddler gave me a drop spindle. He said I should put the shaft in my frame at the mill and it would fix my problem and increase my production.”
Miss Fanny narrowed her eyes. “Why does a spindle from a peddler scare you?”
Briar set the bunny down. It hopped two hops and sat. “Because he said it was made from fairy wood.”
Miss Fanny raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“I thought he was selling me; you know how peddlers exaggerate. I never imagined the spindle contained real fairy magic. I didn’t put it into the frame until yesterday. I was desperate. My frame was worse than ever and they cut our pay. My new overseer threatened to fire me. I need that frame to work or I’ll lose the children for sure.”
“What happened when you put the spindle in the machine?”
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. But it grew like it was alive and it attached itself to the frame. I can’t get it off.”
Fanny didn’t look surprised. It was as if she already knew.
Briar remembered Jack telling her Fanny was magic, that she could make herself really tiny and spy on them. Could Fanny have been in the spinning room?
“Oh dearie. You have no idea what you’ve done, do you? Well thank heaven you didn’t hurt yourself. I don’t know how it happened, but you’ve found the spindle. The spindle. The one that made Aurora sleep for almost a hundred years.”
Briar paused, processing yet more unbelievable information. “But that was a fairy tale.”
Fanny took a bow. “And I’m a fairy.”
Briar leaned against a garden post, needing the support. Aurora was a real person. The spindle was real. She was talking to a fairy who knew these things. How was any of this even possible? “Is the spindle dangerous?”
“The curse on it is old, potentially weakening, but yes. The spindle is still very dangerous. Very, very dangerous.” Fanny waggled her finger with emphasis.
“What would the spindle be doing in a peddler’s cart?” Briar asked.
“Bah. Peddler. Describe the woman.”
“It wasn’t a woman. He was an old man with a beard and a cane…”
“Turquoise eyes?”
Briar nodded.
Fanny clenched her hands. “Isodora. Of course. Can’t turn your back for a minute.”
“Who?”
“The fairy who cursed the spindle in the first place. Spiteful thing she is. I didn’t know she had enough power to transform into another look.”
“I thought she was dead. At the end of the fairy tale she dies.”
“Dead? We’ve made that mistake before. No, she’s very much alive. Don’t believe everything you read. Well, that’s it, then. I’ll have to tell—” She caught Briar’s expression and stopped. “No one.”
“I don’t understand why Isodora would bring the spindle here. Sunrise Valley is the middle of nowhere. There aren’t any kings and queens in America. No princesses to…” Briar thought about her name. “Am I related to the original Sleeping Beauty? Is this about revenge because she didn’t die and now Isodora wants to kill me?”
Fanny shook her head. “For one, I don’t know how Isodora got hold of the spindle.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Two, no, you are not Aurora’s descendant. It is, however, unfortunate that your mother’s family liked flower names, because Isodora is after revenge. Revenge on me, and your name just makes that revenge taste better. Innocents often do get caught up in these trials.”
“I don’t understand. Why would killing a spinner girl satisfy her revenge?”
“It doesn’t have to be a spinner girl, specifically. She is after a young girl to fulfill her curse so she can have her full power back. Right now her power is tied up in the unfulfilled curse of the spindle.”
A slight smile played at her lips. “I’m the one who stopped her, which is why she and I are in this battle of wills and she wants out. She knows my role is to protect the girls who cross my path and killing one would be devastating to me. Death is against everything I hold dear. The original curse was that Aurora would prick her finger on a spindle and die before her seventeenth birthday. I softened it so that she would only sleep for a lifetime and then awaken with true love’s kiss—my personal touch. The others thought it excessive. They thought the sleeping was enough, but where’s the romance in that? My way, she woke to someone who loved her. I think it was necessary after all that time.”