"Twelve-year-old Delphernia Undersea has spent her whole life in the cloister, hidden from sea and sky by a dome of stone and the laws of Blightsend. Outside, the Masters - all boys and men - play music. Inside, the turnaway girls silently, silently make that music into gold. Making shimmer, Mother Nine calls it. But Delphernia can't make shimmer. She would rather sing than stay silent. When a Master who doesn't act like a Master comes to the skydoor,...

Relates the tale of Rumpelstiltskin's childhood and youth, explaining why his name is so important, how he is able to spin straw into gold, and why a first-born child is his reward for helping the miller's daughter-turned-queen. Shurtliff does more than spin words into gold--she gets us rooting for Rumpelstiltskin, a most magical feat.

Alternate chapters narrate two interwining stories - one of a nineteenth-century teenage girl in the goldfields of Australia; the other of a present-day teenager who, in a nugget of gold, discovers a link with the past and the explanation to a mystery surrounding the earlier girl's marriage.

Tom and Elena are poor but happy until the day Tom finds that their little white goose has laid a golden egg. Every morning they find another egg, every day they grow richer - but what happens when one golden egg a day just isn't enough?