SC#3 - YA Fantasy STRAW SALT GOLD

Title: STRAW SALT GOLD
Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 84,000

Pitch:

When sixteen-year-old Rumilla accidentally spins straw into gold, her friend steals the credit to impress Prince Casmir. He’ll kill for more, but the magic of spinning gold will destroy Rumilla – one skein at a time.

If your MC was an Easter Egg, what flavour would they be?:

I haven’t had sweets in so long, but sometimes I dream of chocolate and raspberry filled eggs.

First 300:

My spinning wheel gives up on me with one final crack. A strand of soft wool slips through my fingers, snapping in two, tangling in the bobbins and the spokes. The wheel tilts and I fly forward, scraping the floor. With a tremor, I relight my oil lamp. The light skitters across the room, my hand unsteady.

The crack slices through the wheel’s support beam, breaking it in two. All of its parts—crank, flyer, and treadle—list precariously. The merino wool my brother Braun traded for tangles into a mess. At best, I will need to re-card it.

The wheel must be fixable. I lay it down, and wish for a miracle. I’ve patched it before, held it together with beeswax, tar, and prayers. My fixes were crude but they worked. This time, to keep the rot from spreading, the beam will need to be replaced.

My heart sinks, and I almost hear Braun sighing. “Oh Rumilla, another expense?”

Another piece of ill-luck, in two years overflowing with ill-luck.

Wiping the grime off my skirt, I pick up a wrench from the toolbox. I’ll take in the part, instead of dwelling on my empty stomach and the five coppers lost alongside the wheel. Unhooking the bobbin, I twist what remains into a skein, the finest yarn I’ve worked in months.

With a twist the broken part detaches from the frame. I pack it in butcher paper, while wrapping the yarn in a delicate shawl; a gift from my mother. The shawl’s silken gold threads weave into geometric motifs. She lives on in the lingering scent of roses and the soft weft of the fabric. Closing myself to those memories, I bundle the wool and mother-of-all together. Snuffing the oil lamp, the room returns to darkness.