What Once Was Mine

Pretty flowers grew on the banks in colors her books did not adequately re-create: pink, golden eggy yellow, bright white with the shadow of its own curled petal twinning next to it.

Last to check was her namesake: a rampion or bellflower, Campanula rapunculus-- little turnip. All by itself in a beautiful Spanish clay pot with a bright blue glaze. Its blooms were pinky-purple stars, tiny but perfect and delicate. Sometimes, if she was feeling down, Rapunzel would secretly break off a leaf and chew it, the sour/bitter taste comforting her through the worst of the drab winter months when nothing else grew.

The past is over, child. Don’t dwell overmuch on its echoes,” the old woman said gently. “You will find no rest that way.

Now the three were in a tiny magical clearing in the forest: lime-green moss and tiny, sweet-scented flowers not seen elsewhere in the dark woods grew in profusion. In the middle of it a crystal-clear spring burbled whose waters were supposed to have healing properties. No one said it aloud, but it was very clear this was exactly the sort of place the king-- or queen-- of the forest would live: a golden-antlered stag, a snow-white hart, or...

Now directly above her, transiting the meridian, was the new crescent moon. No longer a chalky white, it was as silver as a piece of polished jewelry, somehow shining and sparkling despite the fact that it should have been nearly invisible that close to the sun, traveling through his bright day. "Oh, how pret---" Rapunzel started to say, but then she was distracted because her hair began to glow. Just like when she killed the chickens-- but more. Brilliantly, with the white light of the diamonds of her (Flynn's) crown, with the whiteness she imagined the foam of a midnight sea would look like. She picked up a hank of hair and let it hang from her hands; it was like holding molten silver chains or all the distant rivers seen from her tower, gathered up together by some unimaginable fairy-tale giant.

Soon Rapunzel's hair spilled out around her like a silver pond sparkling in the sunlight, or a frozen one in the moonlight. When the breeze shifted the branches above, the sun hit her tresses and its light scattered everywhere. The whole area under the tree was illuminated with shifting, dappled scintillations. Rapunzel wondered what it would look like from far away, from high above: would she look like a funny star? Were all the stars out there maidens with strange hair?

Flynn was leaning against the side of the house, legs crossed, an ironic smile on his face. He must have been up for a while; he had obviously taken pains to wash his face and neck and arms (at least; that was just all Rapunzel could see) and straighten his hair so it was parted dashingly to one side. She wondered, for a moment, whose comb he had borrowed, or if he had his own stashed away somewhere like his knives. He was stupidly, ridiculously handsome. Even with the stupid, ridiculously fake smile on his face. Not at all the worst thing to wake up to.

Books were so simple about these things, fairy tales so straightforward! There were peasants, and then there were kings and queens. Sometimes there were people who made shoes or were soldiers. Occasionally there was priest supported by the church. But that was all; all the types of professions, all the different economic classes of people. Maybe, like hair color, wealth in the outside world was more nuanced and subtly shaded than her stories suggested.

Rapunzel carefully unpinned the largest coils of hair piled on top of her head. Then she put on the crown and turned to look in the mirror. She didn't want to think it... she wasn't that kind of person... but... The crown fit her perfectly. The colors of the stones were accentuated by her own coloring, and the other way around. She looked like a princess.

Then she dove into the morning cleaning. There weren't many rooms in the tower, which made it easy, but she liked to be thorough. Sweep, mop, polish. The garderobe and her mirror got sparkly from scrubbing with a bit of vinegar (a trick she learned from Book #14: Useful Recipes for Master Servants). She transferred a day dress that was soaking in a soapy bucket to a clean water bucket, scrubbing out the bit of lingonberry juice stain from breakfast on Monday. 7:00: Personal ablutions. She washed her face and nails and applied cream to her cuticles and everywhere on her face but the T-zone, which was, despite her fairy-tale beauty, just a tad prone to breaking out. 8:00: Reading. She (re)read Book #26, Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo. More a pamphlet than a book, but it counted. 8:30: Art! Lacking a proper canvas (or piece of wall space) she chose to spend her painting time decorating the mop handle. It might not be dry enough to actually use the next day, but that was all right. Birthday weeks meant the occasional break from routine-- that was part of the fun!

I’m her mother, not her guard dog. My work is to see that she is adequately prepared for whatever she wants to do in life—that she can feed herself, patch a tear in her clothes, find the right leaf for stomach cramps. And teach her that no matter what happens I will always love her. ‘Go out for adventure, come home for love.’ That’s what I say.

Who cares what you should do? Life is short. People are cruel. Have fun while the sun shines and let everyone else sort themselves out.

Were all the stars out there maidens with strange hair?

She waved desperately, putting her hand out the window, but wasn't sure anyone would be able to see it. "What can I do? What can I do to show them that I'm alive?" she wailed. Pascal just looked at her. "Oh, right," she said. "Not thinking at all. Thanks, buddy." She gathered up as much of her hair as she could and flung it through the window. Hard. Like a thousand baby spiders parachuting into the sky, it glittered and sparkled-- completely unmagically, just because of the sunlight-- before falling down to hang along the wall of the tower, rippling in the wind.

She managed to summon her powers twice more by gazing at her mandala, and was tickled with the results: she turned her bright red coral bracelet glittering black, and a dish of pale yellow dye a bluish black. Of course she had no idea if the color was set by the phase of the moon or if it was simply the way she thought about the moon, set in a blue-black sky. But imagine if she could summon any color! She would never have to worry about getting the right paints again.

She took out a charcoal stick and began to sketch-- on the workbench itself. Of course the moon wouldn't come to her in songs or poems or crystals or whatever... she felt the most centered, the most tranquil, when she was painting or drawing. Lost in her own world or in new ones she imagined. She shouldn't have made a chart; she should have drawn a circle, with the moons going from waxing to waning all the way around... She hummed to herself a little, the way she always did when she painted. Her hair began to glow. A little shading here, a few light strokes in the middle of the full moon for the face that Rapunzel saw there... Circles and shadows and crosshatching... She worked extra hard on the profile of the fatter waxing crescent, where the moon would be now. She knew what it looked like as she felt her hand shape it. Her power surged; her hair began to sparkle. She looked around frantically for something to release her magic on. The first thing she saw was her tea, so she grabbed the red clay cup and wrapped the end of a braid around it. Just like with Pascal, sparks sprayed off her hair and over the object. When they faded they revealed... ... a heavy, crude clay cup. Rapunzel started to slump in disappointment-- and then noticed something. Where the hair had touched the sides, the cup was now shiny black, like onyx or obsidian.

Her hair glowed. It shimmered and shone and pulsed, the full length of it flowing behind Rapunzel and lighting up the undersides of the trees and throwing soft illumination on all the paler leaves and mushrooms, gleaming for a moment where it hit a drop of dew or sap. The moths who had fled returned, like a fluttering train of silken flowers on a long, magical wedding veil, following the mesmerizing river of silver light.

The truth about you is all tangled, like your braids, Rapunzel. Bound up unnaturally. It's time to let it all down, to let it out, let it go. We must free you from the chains of your past-- but first we need to free your beautiful hair.

The house was squashed like a mushroom by a thatched roof that hung far out over the walls. A pair of windows sparkled on either side of a rounded, heavy wooden door. There was nothing particularly creepy or witch-ish about it at all, except for maybe some leeks that grew on the roof around the higgledy-piggledy chimney (out of which wafted a lovely, homey-smelling smoke). Next to the cottage was a small fenced-in kitchen garden, and even in the low light Rapunzel could see it wasn't given over just to herbs and vegetables. Tall rockets of flowers and pretty, feathery foliage shot colorfully out of the corners. There was even a neat flagstone path that led up to the front door. "Witch?" Flynn asked, skeptical. "Or, like... crunchy earth mother type who drinks herbal teas and pretends the goddess speaks to her?

Moths, large and white and fluttering in a manner just a little too bat-like, came out of hiding to revel in this unexpected dismissal of day. So too did fireflies: Rapunzel squealed in delight when, like tiny candles, they twinkled in slow, unhurried loops around grass. "Is this your mother's magic?" she shrieked, clawing at Gina's arm. " ARE THOSE FAIRIES ?" "No, those are lightning bugs, Princess," Flynn said with a sigh. "In-sects. Whose butts glow." "Right. I'm an idiot," Rapunzel said, trying to get one to land on her. "Because in real life, fairies aren't real but witches are." "Touché," he said good-naturedly, with a bow. Rapunzel felt her chest flutter.

Nothing came or went out of the tower that Gothel didn't bring herself-- or that Rapunzel did not create out of the things she had brought. And usually the things she created took days or weeks and were obvious in their coming into existence. Gothel always complained about the sawdust, the paint flecks, the experimental cheese curds...

She opened the satchel. And honestly, fate couldn't have provided a better prize at the end of a scavenger hunt. She pulled out a beautiful, sparkling crown. Her large green eyes grew even larger. Despite the hour and lack of sunlight, its jewels still managed to shimmer and twinkle in a magical, expensive way. Rapunzel might not have had much experience with royal gems or any kind of precious stone, but it was very clear that these were those. The thing was straight out of a fairy tale, what a princess would be wearing when she was turned back from a swan. The giant diamonds were even shaped like swans' eggs. Under each was a round pink ruby, and threading between them was a strand of perfectly round pearls. She turned it over in her hands, tracing the tiny, intricately wound gold wire that held it all together. And there, in a small flat patch of smooth metal, was the artist's mark-- and a multi-rayed sun symbol. The same one on her bracelet clasp. The same one that she constantly painted and dreamed of. The one that meant life and happiness and energy in the personal vocabulary of Rapunzel's soul.

Happy birthday, darling." She reached into her cloak and pulled out something so surprising Rapunzel's jaw actually dropped. It was a bright red bracelet, one of the most cheerful things she had ever seen. It didn't match any of her clothes or other accessories, and that was wonderful. It looked like fire, and the tongue of a cat in one of her books (or maybe it was a dog), and a really good sunset in autumn; happiness in a color. There was even a cheery, many-rayed sun on the clasp. It was one of Rapunzel's favorite symbols, one she painted again and again everywhere in the tower. In her favorite color, too!

Rapunzel knew exactly when her adopted birthday was coming because of her careful tracking and observation of the heavens. What had started out as a child's interest in the longer days of summer and shorter days of winter had progressed into a study that would have been the praise of any university professor. She knew all the constellations, of course; which ones came and went with the seasons (Orion), which ones stayed wandering the heavens forever (the Big Bear). She could predict when Jupiter would rise. She could predict some lunar eclipses. She had astrolabes and pendulums and squares and straightedges and compasses for measuring the precise height of an astral object above her window ledge.

She sprang out of bed, the ornaments in her hair tinkling and jingling, making tiny versions of the noises of the chimes above her. And that was Rapunzel's most striking beauty: her hair. Bound in plaits and whorls and buns and knots and twists as tightly as she could manage. Some of the braids were so long they hung in loops that she put her arms through; they hung at her sides like giant sleeves or tippets from an ancient dress. Decorating all of this were dozens of charms-- also silver, like her hair, but some with exotic stones like lapis and turquoise. Bells, tiny moons, hands, suns, six-pointed stars, eyes, and anything else Mother Gothel could lay her hands on at her daughter's request. By these amulets Rapunzel definitely tried to control her hair, bind her hair, disempower her hair, and unenchant her magic hair.

Rapunzel woke up to the dazzling, sparkling, gently chiming display with more cheer than anyone really should who had spent the last six thousand and approximately nine hundred days in a lonely tower. "This birthday is going to be great. I just know it!" She only really knew about birthdays because she had read about them in one of the thirty-seven books she owned: Book #3: Stories from Rome and Other Great Empires. Marc Antony apparently had splendid birthdays, and Cleopatra gave him the most cunning gifts. Anyway, they seemed like a marvelous idea, and she had adopted this time of year as her own. Had there been anyone around, they would have been amazed at the hermit's beauty. For one thing, her cheeks were surprisingly rosy for a girl who had been indoors her whole life. (This was because on sunny Wednesday and Saturday afternoons she carefully followed the window-shaped spot of sun around her room, lying down and soaking in the warm rays.) Her eyes were large and green because of parents she had never known. Her lips were usually set in an expectant smile because she was Rapunzel; good-natured, lighthearted, with a quick mind that constantly refused to be crushed by her circumstances.

Legends from the Time of Knights.

But where was Gothel when she wasn’t with her daughter?

You couldn’t compare the two things Rapunzel has been lonely her whole life but had more than enough food while The children play with each other every day have the infinite freedom of the woods and roads but went starving every year. Why did it have to be a choice?