The Price of Longing: A Short Story
By Amber Marshall
Copyright © 2012 Amber Marshall
Smashwords Edition
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
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Prologue: Rapunzel’s Father Speaks
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When my wife became pregnant, my father warned me that a pregnant woman is a strange thing. My mother and wife were in the kitchen cooing over the news, and well out of earshot. “A rational, sensible wife becomes a madwoman when she’s breeding,” he told me. “She becomes a slave to her emotions, more than women usually are,” he said with a wry smile. “Best to stay out of her way and try to fulfill her requests when you can.”
My wife wants a salad. Rampion. It grows wild, in fair season, common as dirt. It is nothing special. But she says it is the most delicious thing she has ever eaten. She has gone nearly mad about it, pining and wasting, saying she is sick and cannot eat until she eats of these greens.
If it was summer, I could go out by the roadside and pick enough to stuff a bushel basket, but it is dead winter, and the only one who can grow the stuff is the witch. Her garden is lush and green even in this frozen season. No snow falls there. I can see it, over the garden wall, from our bedroom window. No doubt it is due to her magic, to her pacts with the Devil.
“She has some. Maybe we can bargain with her,” my wife suggests, eyes mad and feverish.
“Her price is too high,” I say. “Would you have me selling my soul to demons?” I fail to keep frustration out of my voice.
“Don’t yell at me!” she cries, and begins to weep loudly. I leave the room, slamming the door behind me. Who can resist his wife’s will, when she is carrying his child and threatening to kill it by starvation? I must do as she asks.
At night, then. Surely even witches sleep?
The stones of the garden wall are slick with ice. I cling to the moss covering them. Scaling the wall is tricky, but soon I make it, and land in the garden. The witch grows plenty of ordinary plants here, herbs and vegetables that the rest of the village never tastes out of season. To my right is a tangle of brambles, thick with dark, juicy blackberries, swelling as if it was the height of summer. My mouth tingles and waters, but I restrain myself from tasting them.
There are also fearsome things with thorns and huge, fleshy things that may be flowers or fruit. I cannot tell. I expect that they will come alive at any moment, like sentinels, to devour me, the trespasser.
I search until I find the plant my wife so longs to eat. It has oblong, green leaves, about two inches long, growing from a long stalk. When we harvest it, we uproot the entire thing before the blue-purple flowers bloom. But the witch will surely notice uprooted plants; perhaps she will not notice the theft of a few leaves. Perhaps (I hope, although I know no animal dares disturb this unholy place) she will think a starving animal stole into the garden, desperate for food, and made off with them.
I reach to pluck some leaves, expecting the plant to shriek like uprooted mandrake. It silently allows my plundering. I fill a small pouch; “even a mouthful” my wife said, and I dare not get too greedy here.
I do not see her there until I stand. The crone. She stands right in front of me, though I did not notice her approach. I recoil, try to run, but my feet tangle and I end up on my arse, quaking in terror. She is not bent now, though I have often seen her so in town, bent over a stick and shuffling so slowly that it takes her near an hour to move across the square. I know now that it is an act, that her body, though older than I can imagine, is still supple of joint and quick, thanks no doubt to her pacts with Satan. Her fingers are knobby, her face as wrinkled as an old apple. But her eyes are bright and vicious, her back straight, and her white brows knitted together. She is wearing dark wool, and a shawl on her head. Wispy white hairs poke from under it.
“Trespasser!” she hisses, her voice like the groaning of an old house settling, the rattle of gravel under a cart wheel. “Thief!” She points a claw-like fingernail and I begin to babble, trying to explain myself. I tell her of my wife, our child-to-be, the illness, the longing. I beg her mercy.
“I should kill you,” she says. In response, the fleshy flower-fruit I dreaded earlier spin their heads to me, like sunflowers turning their faces to the sun. Thorny vines rise up and bob in the air, waiting on her command. “But…” she continues, “perhaps we can make a deal.” The crone smiles, horribly, showing small, white, sharply-pointed teeth. “I have always wanted a child.”
“I’ll not give you a tender meal, Devil’s whore!” I spit, terrified at my insolence as I do so.
Her eyebrows twitch. “Not to eat, fool!” she snaps. “To raise as my own. To teach my ways.”
“And if I refuse?”
Her grin widens. “Then you will die. And without the rampion, your wife will die, and your child.”
I feel sick, my heart dropping into a bottomless well within my chest. There is no choice. Children do not always survive, but to lose my wife would destroy me. “You can always have another,” the witch says, echoing my thoughts.
“Very well,” I agree, dragging each word out with my teeth.
The crone nods, satisfied. “Take the rampion, then, with my compliments,” she says, sarcastic. “They go well with vinegar and oil.” Her wicked smile reappears. “Now go and tell your wife what her longing has cost her.”
I don’t remember scrambling over the wall, or anything else until I handed my wife the dish piled with my small plunder. She ate it like a starving woman, for she was, smacking her lips and groaning in unseemly pleasure with every bite.
“Thank you, my love,” she said, so sweetly that I could not imagine her the same as the snarling harpy I had been living with these last few months. “I feel so much better already.” She jumped a little. “Ooh, the baby likes it too. Feel.” She snatched my hand and pressed it against her stomach. I felt a bump against my palm. My eyes stung. “What is the matter?” my wife asked, concerned.
“I’m just happy you are well,” I lied. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth, that we would lose our child to a devil-loving crone. Perhaps I feared that the truth would destroy her, put her into another black mood of starvation and mourning from which neither she nor the child would recover. Or perhaps I wanted to savor our last few months of happiness. Perhaps I hoped the crone would forget.
But she didn’t. She was there, only minutes after the birth of our daughter, before my wife could even choose a name. She snatched the babe from my wife and held our daughter to her chest.
“Give me back my baby, you witch!” my wife screamed. “Do something!” she cried to me. I stood paralyzed. The child wailed, terrified.
The crone grinned. Our daughter shrieked. “He never told you!” the witch marveled. She sniggered at me. “Didn’t you wonder where he got that rampion?”
My wife’s rage turned to me. “You traded her our daughter for salad greens?”
“Ah, but wasn’t it you who said you’d die without them?” the witch reminded her. “I caught him in my garden, and offered him this trade, or death. Be grateful he took the trade, for you both survived to bring forth more children. But this one is mine.” Then she was gone. There was no puff of smoke, no odor of brimstone, no sound. She simply disappeared, the sound of our daughter’s cries blinking off in an instant.
My wife wailed and screamed. I dared not go near her, for fear she would take her anguish out on me. Instead I went to the window, to see if I could spy the witch.
The cottage, and the garden, were gone. There was no remnant, no ruin, no foundation, nothing to show that anything had ever been there. Only a field of rampion, withering in the frost.
***
The child grew up as beautiful and vibrant as her mother who, while older than most mothers of girls that age, was still fresh enough to turn heads in the town square. The witch realized how odd it would look for an old lady to be raising a child, and did not want to make up stories about how the girl’s parents had died thereby leaving her, the grandmother, to raise her. She drank an herbal tea each day, upon waking, that kept her skin smooth, her hair golden, her voice lilting and her body lithe.
The witch called the girl Rapunzel, after the true name of rampion, Rapunculus. From the moment the girl could hold a pestle, she was learning to grow and use herbs, learning their names and uses. The witch hesitated to teach her more than a little household magic; children were often destructive enough on their own, without supernatural forces to call upon. Besides, it gave her more sway over Rapunzel to have mysterious powers that only she could wield.
She had always wanted a child of her own. She just never found the time. While other girls were dancing, picking flowers, or getting tumbled in barns, she was in the forest collecting plants, cultivating her garden, and learning ways to bend the world to her needs and her will. She consorted with fairies, with spirits of nature, and with darker spirits from beneath the earth. And her power grew.
But soon the springtime of her life passed into winter, and even if her womb was not withered, no man would look at her now. In any case, they feared her, though they did come to her when they had great need, though her price was often high. The more she saw the glares and heard the whispers, the more she drew in away from people, bitter and full of hatred.
But now, this girl… she had changed her. This was the life she could have had, had she not devoted herself to magic. But now she had both; the magic she craved, and the daughter she longed for. Where before she chafed at the proximity of people, jealously guarding her secrets, she now was teaching another. And the girl was eager to learn, and bright. She took to it naturally.
It was when Rapunzel grew into a young woman that the witch began to worry. Now Rapunzel did not want to work in the garden because she didn’t want to get her hands or her clothing dirty. She would brush her waist-long, golden hair in front of a mirror until it shone. She wanted to go into town, to hang around the town square and make eyes at the boys. The witch knew where that led.
“Do you want to end up like one of them?” she railed at Rapunzel one day, after hearing tell of a girl Rapunzel’s age who had become pregnant and was now to be married to one of the local farmers’ boys. “What if that had been you, swooning and falling for pretty words, letting him use you? And then you would be shackled to that life, toiling in the earth, baring babe after babe until it kills you, all of your knowledge and power gone to waste. You cannot be that kind of woman and this.”
Rapunzel scowled, her pretty mouth screwing up. “Maybe I don’t want to be like you! Did you ever think of that? Alone, with your plants and your magic, lonely with no man. Maybe I want a husband and children—“
“Fool wench!” the witch cursed, her voice roughening, “do you think that is glamorous? To have a brute beating you for the stew being too salty, filthy brats with runny noses climbing all over you, then the beast bends you over the bed and takes you again, to chain you down with another brat? You would choose that over power? Over the power to be forever young, to be able to have any man you wish, to cure any sickness?”
Rapunzel grimaced, trying not to cry. She clenched her fists and raised her chin in defiance. “Gideon is not like that!” she cried. “And I love him, and we’re going to run away and you can’t stop us!”
The witch locked eyes with her. Rapunzel was unable to look away. “Who,” the witch said, low and icy, “is Gideon?”
Rapunzel shrugged, but her shoulders shook. “A boy from town.”
“Did he touch you?” the witch demanded. “Did you let him touch you? Did you let him run his dirty hands all over you? DID HE?” She was screaming now. Rapunzel burst into tears. The witch did not relent. “What lies did he tell you? That he would love you, that he never felt this way about another? He will forget you in a fortnight,” she hissed viciously. Rapunzel continued to sob, cringing away under the onslaught. “You will go to find him and find him atop some other girl, her skirts up around her head, him hip-deep into her and then what will you do?” The witch pointed a finger, “What will you do, Rapunzel?”
“No!” Rapunzel shouted, covering her ears with her hands.
“You’ll be alone with a babe and no one to care for you, the shame of it on your back, the eyes and the whispers of the villagers haunting your sleep! Because he will leave you just like your father left me!” The witch’s eyes widened, surprised at how easily the lie came. Had she started to believe her own made-up life? She had bewitched herself somehow, or this girl had, into living this plain and simple existence. A mother and daughter. She shook herself. “I won’t let that happen,” she said, both to herself and her daughter. Rapunzel whimpered.
The witch closed her eyes, and nodded. There was a whoosh of air, and the sounds outside changed. No longer was there the sound of carts rattling past, of ducks quacking by the pond. There was only the susurrus of a breeze through the branches, and the chirping of birds.
Rapunzel took her hands off of her head, shocked out of her crying. She looked around, stunned, red eyes still seeping. “What did you do?” she choked out, breathless.
“There will be no more dallying with boys in town,” the witch replied, a small, satisfied smile on her face. “And no fear of you running away either. Come.” She held out her hand. Against her will, Rapunzel placed her own in it. The witch led her outside, out their back door. The garden was still there, with the picket fence around it, but transplanted into a deep forest. Sunlight barely kissed the ground, filtered through the branches of the tallest trees Rapunzel had ever seen.
“Stay here,” the witch commanded, and Rapunzel felt her feet fixed. Her mother continued to walk some twenty yards away. She stopped then, and placed her palms together at her heart, gathering power.
“Spirits of the earth,” she whispered, in her old voice, the voice of gravel and ancient wood creaking in the wind, too softly for Rapunzel to hear. “Spirits of the earth, heed my call, raise up. Raise up!” She pushed her hands out to her sides. They crackled with unseen power. Then she reached down, as though grasping something, and pulled upward. There was a rumble and a crack as the earth shifted. Rapunzel watched, scared out of her mind, as a spire of stone tore up out of the earth and raced to the heavens. It stopped when it reached the height of the trees.
Without looking, the witch gestured. Rapunzel felt her feet carry her forward. She stopped next to her mother, in front of the spire. It was rough, like a glacial boulder. The witch took hold of her hand and they rose up. Rapunzel gave a little squeak of surprise and fear. The ground dropped away beneath their feet, and soon they were level with the top of the tower, with a hole in the side like a window, and a hollow room beyond. They stepped through, and the witch released her hand. Rapunzel could move under her own power… but to where? She looked out the window; the height was dizzying. She clutched the sill for support.
Behind her, her mother was calling things into being. Furniture, bedclothes, clothing, a fireplace, books. There was a chamberpot, the witch was explaining, that would magically empty itself. There was a wash basin that would magically fill itself. “I will bring you fresh food each day, and visit with you, and continue our lessons. We have been neglecting your studies, of late.” She said it all so brightly, as though it would be an exciting new adventure.
Rapunzel’s shoulders began to shake again. “Hush now, don’t cry,” the witch soothed, putting her arms around her daughter comfortingly. “It’s for your own good, you know. Someday you will thank me.” She smiled sadly and wiped the tears from Rapunzel’s face. “No more tears, now. I am sorry I was so rough with you. I just want to protect you. You are young, and this is a confusing time, and you do not know your own mind. You will hurt yourself, unless I stop you. Now you just relax. You are tired, I can tell. Lay down and take a rest; I will bring you dinner in a few hours.” The witch kissed Rapunzel on the cheek and jumped out the window. She floated gently to the ground, her skirts puffing out around her.
Rapunzel threw herself onto the huge, soft bed and wailed into her pillow. Trapped. Her mother had imprisoned her. She cried. Gideon had only ever kissed her once, on the lips, though that one kiss had made her ache for more, and other things besides. She punched her pillow. Why was her mother such an old witch? Was she ever young? Did she ever feel this way? She thought about what her mother had said about her father and wondered if it was true. She had never mentioned Rapunzel’s father before.
“Why do I have to pay for her mistakes? I’m not stupid! Besides, does she regret having me?” Rapunzel railed at no one in particular. Soon, her sobs turned to yawns and, the bed being so very soft and comfortable, she found herself falling asleep.
***
The months passed. In the mornings, Rapunzel’s mother came to eat with her and then teach her. She would bring up samples of plants from the garden and the surrounding woods and continue Rapunzel’s studies. Rapunzel spent the afternoons braiding wool for rugs that her mother took to market to sell. She bought the wool from shepherds, and dyed them with vegetable and plant dyes. Rapunzel began to detest braiding so much that she neglected her own hair; it grew still longer, and wild. Her mother urged her to run a brush through it in the morning, but Rapunzel saw no reason. There were no boys to attract. No one saw her face. No one could see her up there, except her mother. She had not left the tower, even to go to the garden or the cottage, since her mother put her there.
So she studied, or she braided, or stared out the window. The world was wide and enormous; she could see it from that far up. The trees spread out like a dark green carpet to the mountains. At times Rapunzel fancied she could step out and walk upon the treetops, to freedom.
She could watch her mother, and so she did. The witch had yanked up the picket fence. It was ridiculous, really, and the witch cursed herself for a fool, that she had tricked herself into believing in this plain little life. A picket fence with a garden and a little cottage. How quaint, she thought to herself with a sneer curling her lip. The pickets lay on the ground like broken teeth. In their place was twisted iron with spikes at the top, so any deer that thought to jump the fence to nibble the herbs would be impaled.
Rapunzel noticed that there seemed to be new plants, aside from the ordinary herbs and vegetables she had planted with her mother. Thick, choking vines climbed the iron fence, hanging with fruit that was swollen and poisonous-looking.
A pair of rabbits twitched their noses near the fence. Rapunzel imagined they were twitching their noses, anyway, for at this distance they were merely two bits of fuzz with long ears. She imagined she saw a tendril from a nearby vine uncurl, but perhaps it was just a trick of the breeze.
The rabbits disappeared into the garden. Rapunzel watched, waiting for them to emerge, her fingers braiding wool on their own. There was a rustling, not audible but visible, within the garden. Then a short, agonized cry. Rapunzel jumped. She watched for half an hour, but the rabbits did not emerge. She shuddered.
“I have a nice dinner for us here,” her mother said that night, as she stepped from the air into the window, holding a large tray. The witch had let her beauty fade, not completely away, but enough that she looked more hard, more worn. She looked like a woman who had endured much, and found joy scarce. She lifted the cover from the tray after setting it on the little table. “Rabbit stew, fresh bread, and a salad of rampion.” How foolish she was, the crone trying to be the mother. That chance passed long ago. Still she tried to salvage it, because if she didn’t try, it would fall to being the old story of the witch imprisoning a beautiful girl for no reason but jealousy.
Rapunzel’s lip trembled. “I’m not hungry,” she refused.
The witch’s eyes flashed. A vision tore through her mind, of her dashing the food to the floor and slapping the girl across the face. Anger surged and passed. She drew her lips thin. “I am. So if you don’t mind,” she said quietly, and reached for her own spoon. “If you change your mind, it is here.” She began to eat, savoring the rich stew, the fresh vegetables. Rapunzel watched her, stomach growling.
The witch tore a bite of bread with her sharp teeth. “I am going to town on the morrow, early, to sell these rugs.” She gestured to the pile of completed rugs that lay next to the window. “I will be gone all day. I’ll bring you food for the day, before I go. And I’ll bring back more wool for you.” Rapunzel nodded. “I have made some beautiful colors lately. You will enjoy working with them, I think,” the witch continued.
“Can’t I go with you?” Rapunzel pleaded. “Please, Mother. I haven’t been out of this tower in months. I miss people.” She stared down at her hands, feeling her voice start to tremble. “I feel so trapped here, in this tiny room.”
The witch shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I would have to stay at the booth. You could get into too much trouble.”
Rapunzel looked up, trying to catch her mother’s eye, pleading with her. “I’ll stay at the booth with you!”
The witch smiled coldly. “You’d be just as trapped there as here then,” she said.
Rapunzel slumped, and reached out for her spoon. The stew was lukewarm now. The meat was tender and delicious, but her stomach turned at the thought of that scream. “Very well,” she whispered.
The witch smiled, her icy façade melting. “Cheer up, my dear. I will bring you a present, hm? Maybe a nice ribbon for your hair.” She reached out and smoothed a lock of Rapunzel’s hair. “You have such beautiful hair. Here, let me braid it up for you,” she insisted. Rapunzel let her brush out the tangles and plait it into a long rope. It was soothing, actually. She began to relax and feel sleepy.
“There,” the witch said. “Much better, don’t you think?” She held up the hand mirror. Rapunzel nodded, but she did not smile. She had an oval face, with rosy cheeks, and clear blue eyes. Her nose was pert, her lips full and pink. All that beauty was wasted up here, in the tower, where only the birds could see it.
After the witch left, Rapunzel dug under her mattress for the one braid she had left unwound when she was stitching the others into rugs. It would have made a big rug, large enough to cover the floor of a small cottage. She tied one end around the leg of the heavy bed, using the most secure knot that her mother ever taught her. Then she let the coil drop out the window. It sailed down into the darkness. Rapunzel heard a thump as several feet of it hit the ground below. She smiled. It was plenty long enough.
She pulled it back up, untied it, coiled it, and stuck it back under her mattress. She would have all day tomorrow to escape. By the time her mother came back from market with her wool and ribbons, Rapunzel would be long gone.
Satisfied, she got ready for bed. Laying in the dark, she began to worry, her stomach twisting in knots. Where would she go? What would she do once she got there? She knew enough of plants and the wild to survive, she thought. And she had enough skill with herbs to set herself up at least as an apprentice to an herbalist. Besides, she needn’t worry; she thought of her reflection in the mirror and smiled. She would find a husband in no time at all. Then she could forget all of this and start a new life.
What would her mother do, she wondered, when she found her gone? Would she come after her? The thought chilled Rapunzel. After all, she had magic at her disposal that she had not even taught her daughter.
Still, it was a chance she had to take. It was either that or die alone in this tower. Her mind made up, at least for the moment, Rapunzel closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.
***
The witch left before the sun was up. She tossed the rugs out the window one by one, using her magic to waft them gently to the ground. She set three covered trays on the table: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rapunzel pretended to be asleep until her mother kissed her forehead and bade her goodbye. “I will be back by nightfall,” she whispered. Then she unfurled the last rug, flung it out the window, hopped on, and rode it down from the tower.
Rapunzel waited until the sun was up, then got out of bed, washed, dressed, and ate. Then she went to the window, braid in one hand, bundle in another. Her stomach was roiling as she peered over the edge. It was so very far to the bottom. Her mind began to race. Which direction should she go in? What if she ran into wild animals or brigands? She began to change her mind entirely about leaving. It was a stupid, dangerous idea, after all.
She sat next to the window and began to cry out of frustration, with herself and her situation. She cried until she heard the thumping of hooves on the ground, and a voice calling, “Hello?”
Rapunzel held her breath and pulled back to hide against the wall. “Is anyone there?” the voice called again. It was a young voice, clear and masculine. “Are you all right? I heard you crying… where are you?” The voice sounded amazed, “Where did this spire come from? Surely natural rock could not have… there’s a hole at the top.”
Rapunzel poked her head out and looked down. At the base of the tower stood a young man in fine clothes, with broad shoulders and dark hair. He was squinting up at the top of the tower. Beside him was a white horse, whickering softly and nibbling at the greenery around the base of the tower. “Hello, there!” he called. “Were you the one I heard a moment ago?”
“Yes,” she said, hesitantly.
“What are you doing up there? What is this thing?” he asked, reaching out a hand to touch the rough surface.
“It’s a tower. My mother made it,” Rapunzel answered. After talking to no one but her mother for so long, it was strange and wonderful to talk to another person. “She imprisoned me here.”
“Why?”
Rapunzel shrugged. “Because I started growing up, I guess. She wanted to keep me away from the boys in town. To keep me for herself.” Bitterness seeped into her voice. “She keeps thinking I’m going to get myself with child if she so much as lets me go into town with her to sell her rugs. That’s where she is today.”
“That’s terrible, keeping a person locked up like that,” the prince said. “Where did my manners go? I’m Prince Caleb of the West Kingdom.” He bowed.
“I’m Rapunzel, your highness,” Rapunzel answered.
“Forgive my forwardness, but may I come up? It’s hurting my neck to stare up like this. Not that I would mind staring up at your beauty all day, my lady,” he said, and even from that distance, Rapunzel could see that his grin made him all the more handsome. “Where’s the entrance?” he asked.
“Just this window.”
His brow furrowed in confusion. “Am I supposed to climb up?”
“My mother uses her magic to raise herself. Wait, I have a braid. I was going to use it to escape. You can climb up using that.” Rapunzel turned and grabbed the loose end of the rope. She flung it out the window.
It took little time for the prince to climb up, as he was strong and athletic. Indeed he wasn’t breathing very hard when he climbed into the window.
She helped him to a chair and poured him a glass of water. “Here,” she said, giving him the glass. He gulped it down, and handed it back with thanks.
The prince smiled. “By God, you are more beautiful than I could tell from down there. I can see why she wants to keep you locked up, though I’m sure the men of this kingdom would hate her for it if they knew.”
Rapunzel blushed, her breath taken by his passionate words. “Thank you, your highness.”
“Please, call me Caleb, dear lady,” he insisted. Rapunzel dared to look into his eyes. Even when he stood at the bottom of the tower, she could tell Prince Caleb was handsome, but up close he was more so. She judged him to be a few years older than herself. His eyes were a warm brown; his hair, thick and dark, was held back by a gold circlet studded with gems. He had a strong chin, muscular arms, a ready smile. He smelled slightly of sweat from his climb, but it was pleasant.
It had been months since she had seen a man, and being so close to one now, and such a handsome one was making her heart pound and her mouth go dry. Rapunzel poured herself some water and sipped it, trying to will her cheeks to stop burning, her hands to stop trembling. “You were trying to escape?” Caleb asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “My mother will be gone all day, so I figured this was the best time to attempt it. But I lost my nerve; I didn’t know where to go, how I would get there, or what I might run into on the way. So I hesitated. That’s why I was crying, and you heard me.” She set her glass down and folded her hands in her lap. “So, what is a prince doing so far out in the country?” she asked.
“My father sent me to survey the perimeter of our lands, to learn the lay of it, to witness what will someday be mine, to go out among the people. I was raised in the castle, and I have traveled to other kingdoms, but my own is still a strange land to me. I haven’t been out in it enough, he said, and it stretched much farther than the forests around the castle where we hunt. I see now that he is right. I have been riding for days.”
“And you ride alone? I would have expected a retinue and soldiers,” Rapunzel marveled.
Caleb shook his head. “He wanted me to go alone, as a free man would. It is easy enough to pass through the country, and vagabonds have not bothered me for my riches, not after they see this seal.” He held up his fist to show his signet ring: a lion rampant between a sword and a staff of oak. “I have seen so many things, but you… a beautiful young woman, untouched by any man?”
Rapunzel nodded. Gideon’s kisses didn’t count, she knew. “Then let me be the first.” He took her hand and she almost swooned. She couldn’t believe that merely the touch of his hand could awaken such desire in her. “Rapunzel, through this entire kingdom I have not seen one woman I would wish to make my wife as much as I do you. Will you come and marry me, become a princess and one day queen?”
Rapunzel couldn’t speak. “I can’t believe this is happening. I must be asleep, waiting for my mother to come wake me,” she breathed.
“I am real, I assure you,” Caleb said, cupping her cheek in his hand, “though I also wonder if I am dreaming.” She closed her eyes and shivered. Here was her escape, her handsome prince to save her like in the stories.
“I will,” she agreed. “I will, I will!” Rapunzel thrilled to see Caleb’s smile. He leaned close to her, kissed her lips, and somehow it was a hundred times more exciting than Gideon’s sloppy fumblings behind the stable. Caleb parted her lips with his tongue. Rapunzel wanted nothing more than to peel off her dress and press her bare skin against his.
“So lovely,” the prince murmured, kissing her neck. He ran his fingers through her golden hair, teasing it out of its braid to tumble free around them, a shining curtain. He stood and drew her up against him, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. It increased her giddiness. She had the wild idea to pull him towards the bed, and he followed her, over and down, onto the soft mattress.
He made love to her until the sun reached the apex of its journey and began to fall. They lay and played and cuddled and talked so long that they lost track of time, and soon the sky began to dim. Rapunzel gazed lazily at the window, saw the deepening dark outside, and stiffened. Caleb felt her tense and asked what was wrong.
“Dusk!” Rapunzel cried, leaping from bed and gathering up clothing. “You must go! My mother will be back any minute!” She tossed the prince his fine, beautiful clothing and pulled on her own. She frantically pulled her fingers through her mussed hair. “Go down the rope,” she urged as Caleb pulled on his clothes. “I’ll gather it up after you’re gone.”
“I will come back for you,” he promised as he scrambled. “Here!” He yanked the signet ring off of his finger and thrust it at her. “Keep this, until I return.” He kissed her hurriedly.
“When will I see you again?” Rapunzel asked.
“Soon,” he assured her. “As soon as I can, I’ll return to bring you back with me. I love you, Rapunzel.”
“I love you too, Caleb,” she said. She let him go. He climbed down the rope, mounted his horse, and gave her one last, long look before galloping off.
Rapunzel gathered up the rope, untied it, coiled it, and hid it under the mattress again. She sat on the bed, holding the ring in her hand, feeling the insignia. She slid it on one finger after another; it was so big that it slid off even her thumb. She didn’t know if she felt different. She looked at herself in her hand mirror, trying to see if there was a change in her, something her mother would notice. She felt sore, between her legs, and tired, but deliriously happy. She had hope, now. She would escape. She would just have to wait a little longer, keep up the charade a little more.
After hiding the ring away, Rapunzel undressed and washed herself. She smelled like him still, and she was sure her mother would be able to smell it too. Clean and in her nightgown, she went to the table to eat the food her mother had set out. Her stomach growled as she devoured the meal.
It was another hour before her mother returned. The sky was black. The witch came through the window, bundles of wool following her up. She smiled at her daughter. Rapunzel smiled back, shaking inside in fear of her mother discovering what had happened. “I’m sorry I’m late,” her mother said. “The shepherd was trying to cheat me, selling for almost twice the price this was worth. I haggled with him for what seemed like an hour.” She sat down at the table where Rapunzel sat. “I didn’t forget you, my dear,” she said, reaching into her pocket. She brought out a ribbon of shiny red satin. “Isn’t it lovely? Here, I’ll do up your hair for you.”
Rapunzel’s stomach knotted up guiltily. Her mother brushed her hair, crooning to her as though she was a child. Yet she was a girl no longer. Soon, she would run away and be a prince’s wife. She ached to confess, to tell her mother everything, to try and explain why she had to leave. She wanted to say goodbye. But she knew that if she said a word, her mother would lock her up so tightly that Caleb would not be able to get to her even with an army of men.
“There,” the witch said, tying the ribbon into a bow on the end of Rapunzel’s braid. She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that funny smell?” she asked.
Rapunzel froze. “I don’t smell anything, mother,” she lied.
The witch shrugged. “Your bedclothes could probably use a wash, that’s all. Tomorrow, then.” She kissed Rapunzel on the cheek. “Goodnight, my sweet. Pleasant dreams.”
“Goodnight,” Rapunzel replied. The witch leapt out of the window and floated down.
The witch knew what she smelled. Though she had never had a husband or a child, the witch had taken lovers, and the smell of sex was unmistakable. The little whore… she didn’t know how Rapunzel had done it, or how she could prove it, but a man had been up in the tower, and he—
The witch clenched her jaw and slammed the door shut behind her as she went into the cottage. “No matter how I try,” she muttered to herself. Part of her argued that it was nature, that trying to hold it back was like trying to change the seasons backwards. Nature would win in the end.
But what are a witch’s powers for if not for bending nature to her whim?
The witch leafed through her books, looking for a recipe for a potion, the one she used on the desperate women who used to come to her when she lived in the village. She found it, marked the page, and put the book back on the shelf. If she needed it, she would be ready.
***
Months passed, and Rapunzel’s prince didn’t come. Neither did her monthly bleeding. What did come was nausea, every morning. She knew what that meant; it was the same with her friend, who married the farmer’s boy, who wanted Rapunzel to be her maid of honor before Rapunzel’s mother spirited them away into the middle of the forest. Soon her gowns would be tight around her belly and there would be no hiding what had happened. Rapunzel hoped that Caleb would return before then. She waited at the window every day for him, her braiding in her hands, moving automatically as she fixed her gaze outward.
She found it hard to keep food down, and her preoccupation with the prince’s return and fear of her mother discovering her secret left her with a hollow, haunted look. She found herself awakening in the night and rushing to the window thinking she heard hooves beating outside. But the forest was always empty.
One day, the witch came up to find Rapunzel still in bed, her hair stringy and unwashed, her face gaunt and pale. “Momma,” she breathed, “I feel awful.”
“I know, child,” the witch said, hiding her anger behind a gentle smile. “I brought you some tea; it should help you feel better.” She held up a little wooden container. The witch set about heating the water in the kettle and filling the teapot with the herbs. Rapunzel lay in bed, watching her.
The witch poured the brewed tea into a cup. The scent was herbal and fresh; it smelled like mint and lavender with a hint of lemon verbena. These were purely aromatic, to mask the smell; she had drilled Rapunzel in herbs and their uses, and the girl could identify them by appearance, taste, and smell. The witch couldn’t risk her daughter identifying one of the herbs and realizing what the tea really was for.
The witch knew what was happening. She had helped a child or two into the world, before moving herself and her daughter here, and she saw the signs in Rapunzel. The sickness. The fact that she hadn’t bled for two months, though the crafty girl soaked her rags and pretended they had been soiled. The witch could smell that no blood had flowed. Her suspicions were realized.
No matter; this would take care of that little problem. Angelica and blue cohosh to stimulate the uterus. Black cohosh to open the cervix. And just a bit of pennyroyal and tansy. It was the brew the witch used to drink herself every month at the time of her bleeding, to ensure its coming. She never thought Rapunzel would have to use it so early, especially with her living in the tower and inaccessible.
She needn’t have worried; Rapunzel was so unfocused that she barely noticed what was in the cup. She drank the cup dry, gulping against her rebellious stomach, aching with dry heaves and despair and worry. She lay back in bed. Her mother soothed her brow with a gentle hand, satisfied and yet ashamed of what she was about to put her daughter through. But she brought it on herself, Rapunzel did. Spread her legs for the first man wily enough to breach the tower. The witch clung to her anger, stoked it until it was hot, to steel herself against the pain she would feel watching her child suffer at her hand.
Rapunzel cried out as massive cramps gripped her. It was as though a fist was squeezing her. Her body was wracked with pain. She was certain her mother had poisoned her until she felt the warm, slow seep of blood between her legs. She reached down and touched herself; her hand came up bloody, shaking. She cried out again and again, sobbing, snot running down her face, stomach heaving. She cried until she choked. “Why?” she cried, tearing the word out of her throat. She couldn’t see her mother except as a blur through her tears, couldn’t see the hard expression, the thin set of her mouth.
“Whore! Slattern!” the witch spat. “Lifted your tail like a cat in heat for the first man who would pet you. What did he promise you? Riches, power? Did he say he’d marry you?” she asked, her voice mocking. “Was it worth it?”
“Yes!” Rapunzel screamed, face red, teeth clenched. The witch pulled her hand back and gave her daughter a crack across the face. Rapunzel’s screaming sobs began fresh; the witch paid them no heed. “How did he get up here? How?” She shook Rapunzel by the shoulders so hard that Rapunzel’s head jerked back and forth. She couldn’t speak, but wailed.
The witch began to tear the room apart, overturning tables, pulling out dresser drawers. Then she spied the mattress, and thrust her hand beneath it, coming out with the braided rope clenched in her fist. “Oh woe betide a woman with a crafty child! I should have known the Devil was in you! With all my powers I couldn’t foresee this, and with all my magic I couldn’t keep you from working against me, to your own ruin! And now I’ve saved you and you weep?” The witch was frothing now, in a frenzy. Rapunzel wailed and choked. The witch whipped the rope into the fire; it caught quickly, the natural oils in the wool fueling the flames.
“I bet he said you were the most beautiful woman he ever saw, and that he had to have you. I bet he told you that you have such beautiful hair,” the witch growled, her voice again becoming cold, hollow, creaking like old wood, rasping like gravel. Rapunzel saw a flash, just for an instant, of a face older than she could imagine, lined and cracked like a boulder. Then it was just her mother again, her rage twisting her and making her fearsome and ugly.
The witch pulled out a sharp knife. Rapunzel squealed and recoiled, thinking that she was dead at last. But her mother seized her braid instead, and in one swipe cut it off at the nape. She cast that into the fire too. The room stank of burning hair; smoke billowed out of the fireplace. “See how beautiful you look now,” the witch spat, holding up the hand mirror.
Rapunzel beheld herself. Her face was greasy, unwashed, puffy and red with crying. Her eyes were pink and runny, her nose streaming. Her beautiful hair, which used to fall in shining golden waves, stuck out from her head like the straws of a broom, ragged and split. It was dull and stringy. She hiccupped. The witch dashed the mirror to the floor, where it shattered.
She raised her hands and sent the bundles of wool, one by one, out the window and floating toward the cottage. “I can’t have you making any more ladders, can I?” she explained. “And just to make it more difficult.” She began to murmur again, tracing symbols in the air with her hands. “Spirits of leaf and thorn,” she whispered. “Shoot up… uncurl and feel the wind through your tendrils.” Outside, on the ground below, green shoots were pushing out of the dirt at the base of the tower. The witch continued, “Climb, wrap yourselves around this rock, take hold, so that none can shake you down, no wind unwrap you, no blade hack through you.” The vines grew upward, all the way up the tower, digging tendrils into the furrows in the stone, holding fast. They thickened, becoming stronger. “Now protect yourselves, grow sharp needles and blades.” Thorns burst from the vines, slicing into the air, wicked hooks and barbs dripping with the sap of the vine.
When she was finished, the entire tower was strangled in thorny vines. There was no place free from them. “Let’s see him get up that,” the witch hissed. She went to the window, reached out, and waved her hand over the vines that wreathed it. Tendrils pushed up, budded, and bloomed. “For your comfort, my dear,” she said to her daughter, her voice still icy around the tender words. “Roses.”
Rapunzel said nothing. “Pull yourself together,” her mother snapped. “Clean yourself up, and this place as well. And stop crying. He’s not coming back. He never intended to.” She stepped out the window and was gone.
***
Weeks passed, and Rapunzel began to fear that her mother was right. Prince Caleb never meant to come back. If he had, wouldn’t he have returned already? Still she continued to get out the signet ring when she was alone, to caress and admire it, and to allow herself to hope, just a little.
It was one such day when she heard a call beneath her window. “Rapunzel, my love, let down your braid!”
Her heart leapt. Was it a trick? Had she gone mad? But no, he was there, outside the window, below. She thrust her head out. There he was, with two horses hitched to a covered carriage.
“You’ve done some gardening since I left. No?” He looked up, and jerked. “What happened to you?” he gasped, stricken.
“I can’t let down my braid,” she replied, tears coming again. “She took it away, she—“ Rapunzel’s voice cracked. “She found out,” she finished in a whimper. “She killed the baby—“
“Baby?” the prince said.
“Yes. I was with child, and she gave me a potion to kill it. Then she burned the rope, and cut off my hair.” She let her tears fall. They landed on the prince’s face, like rain.
“She killed our child?” he growled, unsheathing his sword. “I will slay her for that.”
“No! Wait!” Rapunzel protested, flinging out a hand. “You cannot hope to stand against her, even with your sword. She has powers you cannot comprehend. She would crush you! Just go, before she finds you here!”
“I won’t leave you here,” Caleb said, determined.
“I can’t get down!”
“Then I will climb up to you!”
Rapunzel gaped. “Climb? How?”
The prince sheathed his sword. “These vines look sturdy.”
“They’re covered in thorns! Even if you made it up here, there’s no way you could get me down.”
The prince readied himself to climb. “I’ll figure that out when I get up there,” he said, gritting his teeth. He grasped a vine and grunted as a thorn speared his palm. Ignoring the pain, he grabbed for another handhold. Slowly, painfully, he hauled himself up, thorns tearing at his clothes and flesh. Blood made his grip slippery. He continued up. Rapunzel twisted her fingers together and watched.
He was halfway up when the vines began to writhe. Peeling off from the tower, they whipped at him, lashing his face and arms, leaving crimson streaks with their thorns. Rapunzel cried out. Caleb grunted and continued up.
When he got to the top, his hands were cut to ribbons. He left bloody handprints on the windowsill as he climbed in, wincing at the pain. His eyelids were shut, blood weeping from them. “My lady?” he said. He opened his eyes. They were scratched; they turned sightlessly, searching for her. “Everything’s fuzzy and gray. I can’t see you.”
“I’m here,” Rapunzel assured him, rushing forward. She took his face in her hands and examined his eyes.
“Am I blind?” the prince asked, panic in his voice.
“I can heal you. I just need the right herbs. Sit, and keep your eyes shut.” She helped him to a chair.
Rapunzel brought him the washbasin to soak his hands in. He hissed at the stinging as the water hit his wounds. “I have ointment,” Rapunzel told him, and went to fetch it. She hadn’t been grinding herbs for nothing. She spread the ointment on his hands. The wounds stopped bleeding. She tore a spare pillowcase into strips and began to bind his hands. “You came back for me,” she said in a small voice.
“Of course I came back,” Caleb said. “I am sorry I took so long. When I returned, there were diplomats my father wanted me to entertain, and he wouldn’t let me leave again until they were gone. He didn’t believe me about you. ‘A girl in a tower? Probably a wench in a tavern. She’ll have herself another man by the time you return to her,’ he said.” He let his hands rest in Rapunzel’s.
Rapunzel let his hand go. “I have your ring hidden,” she said, and went to retrieve it. She turned back and cried out. Looming behind Caleb, framed in the window, was her mother, her eyes wild with rage. “Caleb, look out!” Rapunzel screamed.
Caleb got to his feet and unsheathed his sword, grunting at the pain in his hands. The witch kicked it out of his hands; it went skidding along the floor and stopped at Rapunzel’s feet.
“Ravisher!” the witch growled, her voice gravelly again. “I didn’t think you’d be foolish enough to return here, and more foolish to scale the wall of the tower.”
“Stand aside! I will not let you hold this girl prisoner any longer!” he yelled, eyes still rolling in his head, trying to follow the witch’s voice.
The witch threw out a hand and Caleb froze. She stepped aside from the window, and swept her hand back. Caleb was thrown out the window by an invisible force. He hung there a moment, suspended, his sightless eyes locked with Rapunzel’s.
Then he fell. He didn’t scream, didn’t make a sound, all the way down. Rapunzel heard a sickening thud when he hit.
Her mother chuckled, then turned to face her. The chuckling stopped. “You,” she said to Rapunzel. “I should have left you with your mother, the trouble you’ve been.”
Rapunzel fell back to sit on the bed. “What?” she whispered, the ground dropping from beneath her feet. “But you—“
“You’re just like her, with your selfish longings, never willing to accept the price,” the witch snapped. Her youthful visage was fading slowly, as she aged before Rapunzel’s eyes. Her voice roughened. “Your father stole rampion from my garden, to feed your mother’s craving, and I caught him. In exchange for his life, I demanded you, so I could raise you as my own child.”
Rapunzel shook her head, disbelieving. “It isn’t true,” she whispered, madly.
“It is true. But I raised you, and loved you, as my own. And this is how you repay me.”
Rapunzel squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her jaw. “You,” she said, her voice suddenly stony and dangerous. “You killed my child. You killed my lover. You’re not even my real mother. You’re… you’re a monster.” She reached down and took up Caleb’s sword. She charged forward and thrust the blade through the witch’s chest. The witch cried out. Rapunzel let go of the hilt.
The witch sank to her knees; her magic failed completely, revealing her true face. Rapunzel recoiled. All the hatred was gone from the crone’s eyes, replaced by fear and sadness. “My daughter,” she moaned, breathing hard against the pain. “I just wanted to keep you safe.”
Rapunzel almost faltered then, almost dropped and took her mother’s face in her hands and begged for forgiveness, but she made herself hard. “Not your daughter,” she spat.
She went to the window. Caleb lay in a crumpled heap at the base of the tower. “If he could do it,” she said to herself. She kilted up her skirt and swung a leg over the sill. The vines were strong, and if she placed her hands carefully, she could avoid many of the thorns. The witch being dead, they did not lash at her but stayed sedate as normal vines. The thorns still tore at her though, at her clothes and her skin, as she lowered herself slowly down.
Caleb’s body lay at the base of the tower, his neck twisted at an awkward angle, broken. Rapunzel threw herself down atop him and wept into his chest. She wanted to scream out, but she didn’t have the energy for more than mewling little sobs. His ring was still around her finger, her hand clenched around it.
After a time, Rapunzel rose and closed his eyelids over his ruined eyes. She gave his cold cheek a kiss. Standing, she looked back to the cottage.
What would she do now?
Her mother was gone. The only man she loved was dead. All she had was this little cottage. She walked toward it, through the garden full of sinister but now strangely meek looking plants.
She continued on into the cottage. She packed food enough for a week, and her mother’s most powerful books, full of all the magic she never taught her. Rapunzel would have to teach herself now.
Then she went back out and loaded these things into the carriage. The horses were nudging the prince’s body gently with their noses. Rapunzel hauled him up and half carried, half dragged him to the coach and laid him out on one of the seats.
She turned to the horses and reached out to them with her mind, gazing into their calm, dark eyes. They knew the way back to the castle. She stroked their faces and talked to them softly. They seemed to nod.
Rapunzel climbed up into the driver’s seat and took up the reins. Clicking her tongue, she urged the horses into a trot. The least she could do was bring him back to his father. After that, she would figure something out.
She halted the horses several yards away and turned back to the tower. She raised a hand toward it, and clenched a fist. The tower shook and began to crumble, falling in upon itself. Soon it was nothing but a pile of boulders, a fitting cairn for the witch who masqueraded as Rapunzel’s mother.
Perhaps her real parents were still alive.
Rapunzel turned away. Without looking back, she urged the horses on their way.
About the Author
Amber Marshall is the author (with Kristopher Lewis) of The Trident of Merrow. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and a flash drive full of fictional bad boys with big hearts.
She can be found online at http://ambermarshall.wordpress.com.