ilence immediately fell among the princes, who stared up at the young woman glaring angrily down at the crowds.

‘Will you all just please leave me alone?’ she shouted. There was a further beat of silence, and then all at once the men started caterwauling again.

‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!’ they shouted.

‘No!’ she yelled. ‘I don’t even know any of you! Why would I let you climb up my hair?’

‘So we can rescue you!’ one prince shouted.

‘And marry you!’ another called.

‘I don’t know you!’ she repeated. ‘I do not want to marry any of you! Also, I’m seventeen! I don’t want to get married at all, let alone to someone older than my dad!’

‘But princesses have to marry princes!’ one more shouted. ‘It’s how the story always goes!’

‘Well, it’s not how this story is going, I can assure you! I am making an executive decision to change my happily-ever-after. Now please go away!’

‘Fine!’ one prince said. ‘I’m leaving!’ He started walking away very slowly. ‘This is your last chance! I’m really going! I’m very rich! And I won’t be able to hear you change your mind if you leave it any longer!’ The only answer was a banana skin that came hurtling out of the window and hit an entirely different prince in the face. The one who had been trying to call her bluff stamped his feet.

‘I didn’t want to marry her anyway,’ he said loudly, so the other princes could hear. ‘I’ll get Daddy to find me a better one.’ And he turned on his heel and left.

‘One down!’ a voice echoed from the window. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world, and a lot of bananas.’

It didn’t take long for the princes to get bored once they realised Rapunzel was being entirely serious, and they started to disperse. Tilly scanned the crowd again but there was still no sign of the original Prince Charming, or Oskar. And before long, there was only one prince left, sleeping curled up on the ground, sucking his thumb, everything having got a bit too much for him.

‘Where on earth are they?’ Tilly was stuck somewhere between exasperation and panic.

‘We could ask her,’ Jack suggested, pointing upwards. Rapunzel was tentatively sticking her head back out of the window to assess the scene below, and spotted Jack and Tilly.

‘Oh, you’re still here,’ she said, sounding annoyed.

‘We’re not with them!’ Jack called up. ‘We don’t want to marry you! I swear! We’re just looking for our friend. One of the princes kidnapped him.’

‘Ugh, they really are the most entitled, useless collection of people I’ve ever encountered,’ Rapunzel said. ‘Is there just one left?’ She pointed to the sleeping prince.

‘Yes. I’ll get rid of him,’ Jack offered and poked the prince with his toe.

‘What? It wasn’t me!’ said the prince, spluttering awake. ‘Where’s everyone gone?’

‘I’m afraid it’s all over, pal,’ Jack said firmly but kindly. ‘She’s picked a prince and galloped off into the sunset with him, and everyone else has gone home. You’ll have to go and find another damsel in distress.’

‘Ugh,’ the prince repeated, standing up and brushing down his over-the-top arrangement of lace ruffles. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure my heart’s really in this catching-a-princess malarkey. I’ve always been ever so fond of Eliza who works in the bakery in the village; she makes the most delicious bread, and we do make each other giggle. I might forget this princess thing and just see if she wants to grab a glass of mead some time.’

‘I think that sounds like a really solid plan,’ Jack said, clapping him on the back. ‘Maybe lose some of the ruffles before you ask her, though?’ The prince smiled, and ambled off into the distance, talking about Eliza and her excellent cupcakes as he went.

‘Coast is clear!’ Tilly shouted up to Rapunzel and she stuck her head out again.

‘Cheers,’ she called. ‘I’ll be right down!’ All of a sudden, a great torrent of tangled blonde hair was shoved out of the window and fell to the floor in an extremely matted heap, with twigs and moss and what even looked like a bird’s nest caught in it. As Rapunzel hoicked herself out of the window and started climbing down the mess of hair, it became clear that none of it was actually attached to her head, and her real hair was cut into a sharp bob with an angular fringe. She kicked out her feet and slid down the final few metres with a confidence that showed it wasn’t the first time she’d exited that way.

‘How do you do?’ she said, smoothing down her dress. ‘I’m Rapunzel, nice to meet you. Thanks for helping clear out those princes. I owe you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Jack said, dipping into an awkward half-bow and coming over all bashful.

‘So you can come and go as you please?’ Tilly asked, gesturing at the matted pile of hair.

‘Of course,’ Rapunzel said. ‘I like to put word around that there’s a wicked witch keeping me trapped to try and put all the princes off. I obviously misjudged, though – it actually seems to be yanking all the particularly annoying ones out of the woodwork. I need to come up with a better story. Or acquire an actual witch …’ she said thoughtfully. ‘That’d put them off, thin out the crowd, you know. Anyway – you said you’d lost a friend? I get a pretty good view from up there. What do they look like?’

‘Well, he’s called Oskar and he’s about the same height as me with brown skin and black curly hair,’ Tilly said. ‘And he’d be with a prince who looked a lot like all of the rest of them, but without the horse. The prince stole Oskar and took him to come and find you … which is why we’re here. But they obviously didn’t make it.’

‘Which direction did they come from?’ Rapunzel asked.

‘That way,’ Jack gestured. ‘Through the crack in the sky.’

‘The crack in the sky?’ Rapunzel repeated, sounding confused. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s kind of hard to miss,’ Jack said. ‘It’s a big old … well, crack in the sky, down at the bottom of the hill. You must be able to see it from the top of your tower. In fact, I’m kind of surprised we can’t see it from here …’ He tailed off as he looked down the hill, where there was no sign at all of anything unusual.

‘Will you show me?’ Rapunzel asked, curious.

‘Of course,’ Jack said eagerly.

‘What about Oskar?’ Tilly reminded him.

‘We’re looking for clues!’ Jack said. ‘Something obviously went wrong between the crack and the tower, because we saw Prince Charming’s horse left there.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘But we have to find him before that blackness swallows anything else up.’

‘Sorry, what is swallowing what?’ Rapunzel said. ‘I’ve obviously been in my tower for too long, I’m very out of date.’

‘I’ll fill you in as we walk,’ Jack said as they set off, and began chatting animatedly to Rapunzel, with Tilly following a few paces behind. As they walked back down the hill, Rapunzel called nonchalantly to Tilly.

‘Do watch out for the puddles,’ she said.

‘What puddles?’ Tilly said, confused both by the lack of any surface water, or indeed the danger of puddles, should any exist. Rapunzel gestured to her left and Tilly looked and saw that there was indeed a puddle, not of water, but of … nothing. The same nothing that was behind the Three Bears’ door, and in the Seven Dwarves’ house in the tree. It was more of the same negative substance, like a black hole: just a gap in the grass that was sucking light into itself and not giving anything back. You couldn’t see the bottom of it, or any perceivable edges either. It was just blank space.

‘Do you know what that is?’ Tilly said.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Rapunzel said cheerfully. ‘It just appeared. A prince fell into it the other week and vanished. I was watching him leave from my window and he wasn’t looking where he was going and then, zap, he was gone! So, I’d avoid touching it if I were you.’

‘Are there more of them?’ Tilly asked.

‘Not that I’ve seen,’ Rapunzel said. ‘Although I think that one is getting bigger.’

‘Totally normal thing to happen,’ Tilly said under her breath, moving away from the edge of the non-puddle. ‘Just a huge puddle of nothingness in the middle of a field, sucking princes into it.’

The further they got down the hill, the clearer it became that the crack in the sky was not where they had left it. There were just fields, trees and sun, nothing out of the ordinary and nothing covered in sticky black liquid. Rapunzel eyed them as if she were beginning to regret following them.

‘I swear it was just here,’ Jack said, looking around in a panic. ‘How am I going to get home?’

‘Maybe it’s just got smaller?’ Tilly suggested, feeling a little sick again. ‘Let’s walk a bit further in case we’re in the wrong place?’

‘No, it was definitely here,’ Jack said, pointing at the fence. ‘Look.’ They followed where he was gesturing and there, flapping in the breeze, was a scrap of grey fluff caught on the fencepost. It exactly matched the colour of Tilly’s jumper.

‘I promise there was something here,’ Tilly said to Rapunzel. ‘It looked like a rip in the fabric of the world. Maybe it’s sealed itself over or something?’

‘I’m not saying you’re making things up,’ Rapunzel said, backing up the hill again. ‘I’m just saying—’ But before she could finish her sentence she was interrupted by a hoarse scream from somewhere nearby.