Chapter 3

 

Everything was still. Even the birds had quieted. Hiding below the window, my knees pulled to my chest, I could hardly feel my fingers, much less my bottom on the hard stone floor.

Yet I did not dare move. He could still be out there.

My heart thundered in my chest, yet every other part of me remained frozen. 

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so I may ascend thy golden stair,” echoed from the garden.

I yelped until I realized I knew the voice.

Mother had returned.

I leaped to my feet and threw the bundle of hair out the window, though I immediately looked to the wall for the boy. I felt a swell of relief. Mother was back and he was gone. I was safe.

Bracing myself against the window, I twisted my head back and forth to keep a small bit of slack in the braids. I tried not to wince at the pain, for every time she ascended it hurt. I continued to scan the ground for signs of the boy–a broken branch or rustling bush–but he had disappeared with no evidence.

Mother emerged at the window and I helped her inside. Although her dark hair was still pulled into its customary tight knot atop her head, the lines in her face looked deeper than usual and her back was hunched. She looked gaunt and depleted, but then she always looked most weary after she had been away on one of her missions.

She paused, raising an eyebrow just as she regained her footing. “Child, what is it? You look frightened.”

I shook my head. “No. I…”

“What?” Mother crossed the room and lifted my chin to look into my eyes.

Her fingernails scratched my skin but I kept my face still, not showing any sign of pain. “I thought…for a moment, I thought I saw someone outside.”

Mother spun, heading back to the window. “Where?”

I gestured to the wall, unable to lie. Mother always knew and punishment was swift if I tried such a thing.

“I see no one.” She turned back to me. “Are you certain?” Her tone suggested that I was mistaken, that I had merely imagined a person.

Maybe I had.

“I thought… Maybe…”

“You thought you saw someone, or you did?” She snagged part of my hair, jerking it. “Be certain.” Her fists tangled around one of the braids.

“I surely imagined it.” I winced. “Forgive me, Mother.”

For good measure, she jerked on the braid again, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out in pain. “Outsiders are dangerous, Rapunzel. You must be very careful.” She glanced out the window again. “Perhaps it is time, after all,” she murmured. She took a few steps away from me, hands clenched as she whispered to herself, before facing me again and pulling a small dagger from the folds of her dress.

I stepped back, though I knew it did no good.

Mother grabbed a plait of hair off the floor and, as she paced the room, let it slide through her fingers. “There are many who would wish you harm, Rapunzel. It is time, I believe, to be sure you are ready.” She found the very end of the braid, held it as though about to wield a paintbrush. The dagger glistened in the light from the window.

“Yes, Mother.” I gritted my teeth against what was coming.

The dagger was sharp, but it did not lessen the pain of Mother slicing off the bottom of my braid, though today she only took a hand’s width of hair.

Tears stung my eyes as the hair was severed but I forced myself to remain still.

Mother held the chunk of hair in her palm, examining the strands as she did every time. Then she turned her attention to me. “You must learn to defend yourself against intruders, my dear.” She dropped the rest of the hair. The braids landed with a thud on the floor. 

My body sagged. It was over.

Then Mother did the most extraordinary thing.

She handed me the dagger.

“Mother?”

She waved off the question. “You need something to defend yourself with, if by chance someone did manage to get into the tower. You are almost eighteen. It is time you learned to protect yourself.”

“Of course, Mother. You are right.” The flicker of the blue cloak and the boy I saw were enough encouragement. I held the dagger, twisting it this way and that, watching the way the light shone on the blade. I imagined striking out with it, shoving the gleaming metal into the flesh of another human being, and I wanted to be sick. But Mother was right. I needed to know how to care for myself. Defend myself. Mother would not always be here–her journeys were taking longer and longer.

This last mission she was gone almost an entire moon cycle, and if she had not come back when she did I did not know what I would have done.

There was no other way to enter except by the window through which Mother came and went–and only then with the use of my hair. It was hard to fathom someone being able to scale the wall, let alone the tower, and I had always taken comfort in that.

Had he been there?

I thought he was.

But I could be wrong. I could have imagined him.

Yet if I had not… It sent a shiver through me, for if scaling the wall was possible, what else was?

I would have to learn what to do.

“I do not know how to use it,” I said.

Mother’s expression was dark she stared at the dagger in my hand. “I shall teach you.”