The Sleeper and the Spindle

“Yes,” said the queen. “They do. But not like that. That was too slow, too stretched, too meant.”

“Or perhaps you imagined it,” said a dwarf.

The rest of the sleeping heads in that place moved slowly, in a stretched way, as if they meant to move. Now each of them was facing the queen.

“You did not imagine it,” said the same dwarf. He was the one with the red-brown beard. “But they are only looking at you with their eyes closed. That is not a bad thing.”

The lips of the sleepers moved in unison. No voice, only the whisper of breath through sleeping lips.

“Did they just say what I thought they said?” asked the shortest dwarf.

“They said, ‘Mama. It is my birthday,’ ” said the queen, and she shivered.

They rode no horses. The horses they passed all slept, standing in fields, and could not be woken.

The queen walked fast. The dwarfs walked twice as fast as she did, in order to keep up.

The queen found herself yawning.

“Bend over, towards me,” said the tallest dwarf. She did so. The dwarf slapped her around the face. “Best to stay awake,” he said, cheerfully.

“I only yawned,” said the queen.

“How long, do you think, to the castle?” asked the smallest dwarf.

“If I remember my tales and my maps correctly,” said the queen, “the Forest of Acaire is about seventy miles from here. Three days’ march.” And then she said, “I will need to sleep tonight. I cannot walk for another three days.”

“Sleep, then,” said the dwarfs. “We will wake you at sunrise.”

She went to sleep that night in a hayrick, in a meadow, with the dwarfs around her, wondering if she would ever wake to see another morning.