Gold Weaver | ✓

vier

VIER

Even though the King had explicitly said not to run, that's exactly what I was doing. In through the door and up to my room as soon as we'd got home, I shoved draws of clothes into a small bag.

"What are you doing?" I heard a voice by my door ask.

"What do you mean what am I doing?" I asked, not turning round to see my father's reproving face. Instead, I continued getting everything we could possibly need for days on end on the road. "We can't stay here."

"Why not?"

"Did you not hear what he said?" I said, incredulously, spinning round to face him. His brows were furrowed and his arms crossed. "He said if I couldn't do it, he'd kill me."

"It's an empty threat."

I couldn't believe him right now. "And what if it isn't? What if I don't provide and he cuts my head clean off?"

"Then provide."

"Provide?" I all but yelled. "Provide gold from straw? Are you hearing yourself?"

"You can do anything you put your mind to, sweetheart."

"Not turn fucking straw to gold!"

I never swore in front of my dad but this was ridiculous. We were losing precious time.

"Dad," I said. "Stop being crazy. We need to go. Now."

"I have a life here, Eleanor," he said, like I was the insane one for not wanting to stay here and, you know, be murdered. "I can't leave."

"So you'd let me go alone?" I asked, suddenly losing my voice. "You'd let me be killed? What happened to 'I'll always look after you?' Or 'you'll always be my little girl?'"

"You always will be my little girl," he said, staring at me like that single phrase would fix everything.

"You lost your right to call me that when you signed over my life."

I picked up the bag and slung it over my shoulder. He followed me downstairs, bypassing the fishing rod and junk decorating the hall.

I hauled the door open, oddly not needing to put my full body weight into it; the anger pumping through my veins was enough.

I stopped just as I was about to walk out of the door. "You never did love me, did you?"

"Course I do," he told me.

"No," I said. "This isn't how you treat people you love." And with that, I walked out the door. I didn't want him to see the tears streaming down my face, so I didn't look back.

The house I needed to get to before I left wasn't far from my own... my old one, anyway.

It stood, sandwiched between two other which looked as higgledy as the next.

I knocked on the door.

"Ele!" Martha greeted when she swung the door open. "I didn't know you were— why you dressed like one of the seven dwarves?"