by Holly Hook
"Listen," Alric said. "You have already acted out the first half of the story letter by letter. Now that Rae is older, the second half is about to begin. He is coming to take your daughter away." Alric waved in the direction I had come, towards the tower. "A king's son, and it will be soon. I do not know which king's son will seek her. When that happens, you can no longer use her light magic to hold your darkness back."
Mother sucked in a breath. "I will not let Rae go. No one can take her away into that world. Please, let me take this rampion and be on my way."
"You only wish to keep her for yourself," Alric said, "and I understand. You must keep the king's son away from your tower, or you will become like the rest of this." Alric gestured to the dark spot around us. I ducked as he faced my direction, but he couldn't see me out here in the dark. "You remember what you were like before you got her. All feared you. Hated you. That will return if you are not careful."
Mother grabbed her basket and drew closer to the magical plant. "I won't let that happen. Now, this is a very rare plant. I only need to take some with me and I will be fine." She trembled.
"Use whatever magic you need to," Alric told her. "And speaking of magic, I would like to discover who is sending these falling stars to the dark spots. Someone is trying to undermine me."
Alric advanced on the rampion.
"No!" Mother shouted.
And raised his foot. I glimpsed a black, shiny boot right before he brought it down on the plant, extinguishing its light.
Darkness crushed everything. Mother gasped.
"How could you?" she asked. "I took years to find it again!"
"Now," Alric said. "Rae is your only lifeline. I suggest you hold onto her."
Mother whispered something, full of hurt. "You are trying to control me."
"I am trying to free Fable from its endless cycle of story after story," the wizard said. I could no longer make out his form and panic coiled around me. He could draw closer right now. Every sound popped out at me. The world was filled with frogs and bugs.
"That rampion would have freed me," Mother said. "And Rae."
"We magic users must stick together," Alric said. "Things are changing in Fable. We have enemies. Many of the same enemies and they will come for us."
Mother shifted. The ground made a squishing noise as she did. No light dared return.
"If the story ends the way it should, say hello to the dark again, Gothel."
"But what if it ends differently?" Mother asked. "I'll make another ending."
The man chuckled. "Then this part of Fable will fall under my rule. Now be on your way."
I had to go.
Mother would return home any minute and I wouldn't be there. I didn't like this man. I didn't want to know what he'd do if they found out I was here.
I held the lantern close, not daring to turn it on. My eyes re-adjusted to the dark and the crescent moon floated overhead, illuminating the split between the trees where the trail was. I tiptoed away, keeping under the stars and not daring to walk under the shadows of the leaves. Tears blurred my vision, but I found the trail and started to walk. Mother and the man continued to argue behind me. I waited until their voices faded before I broke into a run.
Chapter Three
I didn't dare turn the lantern back on all the way back to the tower. There was no need. A spire of darkness stood out against the stars and the crumbling shingles shone in the pale light. It gave me a signpost to follow.
I scooped up my hair and held it as I ran. It no doubt had filled with leaves and sticks on my trip through the forest. I'd forgotten to hold it during my run back. My neck ached with the effort of letting it drag behind me. I would never explain the sticks and brambles to Mother. They would take hours to pull out.
I burst into the clearing. Which side was what? The dark made it all confusing. I turned on the lantern and held it up, glimpsing the empty corner of Mother's garden.
She might have kept it empty to reserve a space for the magical rampion.
She might have been waiting all these years and now that man had taken it away from her.
I ran around the tower to where the loose bricks and my window were. The stairs would offer no way up. I had no key to the trapdoor and even Mother didn't even use them anymore.
I turned the lantern off and put the handle around my arm it while put my foot on the first brick. Little time remained before Mother got back. I let my hair fall and the weight returned to my head. It dragged on the ground as I scrambled up the tower. I couldn't let Mother know I'd been spying on her, that I had ventured out. It would hurt her.
I made it up the first brick, and then the next. It was hard work, but fear drove me forward. There was no stopping. I curled my fingers into every crack I could find, not daring to look down. The ground was much scarier from out here. A twig snapped somewhere and at last, I slapped my palm down on the windowsill and hoisted myself up. My hair continued to dangle off the edge, and I pulled that in, too, and set the lantern on the floor. I fell back in the dark, panting.
I had done it.
But Mother must be coming. The snapping twig came back to mind. I had to get up and straighten out before she learned the truth.
I set the lantern on the table, turned it back on, and pulled my hair together in a pile of braid on my lap. My fears were right. Brambles and twigs clung to the golden strands. I looked as if I had wandered through the woods. I went to work picking them out, and there were so many. Mother had braided my hair yesterday, and braided it tight, so at least it was a blessing that they hadn't embedded themselves too far into my hair. My heart raced as I pulled away twig after twig, burr after burr, and tossed them out the window. I felt the top of my head, but that seemed fine. Only the lower half of my braid had taken on passengers.
I had just finished when I heard Mother shout, "Rae, I'm here. Let down your hair."
The distress was there in her voice—distress she was trying to hide.
"Hurry. I am late tonight and there may be bandits out."
I rushed over and did one final check on my hair, then let it down and prepared for the worst.
Mother grabbed on and I held the windowsill to keep my head from jerking down. I bit in my cries as she pulled on my braids and huffed her way up the side of the tower. For the first time, I was lucky that this was exerting for both of us. My red face wouldn't look any different from usual when she got up here.
At last, Mother crested the tower and climbed in through the window. Her auburn hair was graying now as if she had aged ten more years on the trip back home. Her eyes seemed different somehow. There was something dark and wild in them. I hadn't seen it since that day Mother had taken me down the trail.
"Rae," she managed. "I'm sorry that I am late." She went to work setting the basket down next to the dying lantern. Mother kept her face turned away from me as if trying to hide her eyes.
"What happened?" I asked. "Did you run into trouble?"
Mother faced me. She didn't bother to turn the lantern up.
"I got held up," she said at last, "by a falling star. You might have seen it."
"I did." Maybe she would tell me the truth. I faced the red rug on the floor. I felt as if it would go out from under me and make me fall. The entire world was ready to do that. "It looks like it landed in the direction you came from."
"I found where it landed," she said. "There was a beautiful flower growing there. But before I could dig it up to transplant to the garden, it died."
She was telling me the truth—but only part of it. Mother's eyes darkened, and she eyed me with some kind of hunger. "Rae. Let me braid your hair."
"But you braided it yesterday." I backed away. I didn't like the darkness in her eyes. It was scaring me.
"Please. I've had a long, stressful day, and I would like to calm myself by braiding your hair."
I thought of her confrontation with the man and I moved over the chair.
The man had said something about me bein
g full of light magic.
Like the rampion growing in the dark spot—and healing it.
I moved to the chair and sat. Mother pulled up the one behind me and went to work undoing my hair. Had I gotten all the twigs out? She would notice. I tensed and waited for the questions to come, but they never did.
Mother breathed out, and she sounded calmer. My scalp tingled with warmth and my hair seemed to fizzle with it. This always happened when she braided my hair, but tonight, it seemed different. Mother's movements were desperate as she worked. Frantic. It was almost as if she didn't braid my hair, she would die.
Did I hold darkness back in her? Did she need me to avoid turning as horrible as that man?
I should have asked her, but I couldn't get up the courage.
Perhaps there was a lot about the world Mother had never opened about.
And perhaps, about me.
The lantern burned down lower and cast flickers on the wall, but Mother kept working. She had never braided my hair this late before and my stomach growled with hunger.
"Did you see any bandits?" I asked.
"No," she said. "I thought I saw a man out there, but he was far away. All the more reason for you to stay here and stay safe, dear."
My scalp warmed as Mother worked and the sensation got more intense the closer her hands got to the back of my head. She was working slow tonight, taking her time.
Letting my light magic drive away the darkness inside of her?
I wanted to ask if someone was coming to take me away. The thought sent shudders down my spine.
"Can anyone climb our tower besides you?" I asked. I stopped myself from saying us.
"No, dear," Mother said.
But she didn't sound sure.
* * * * *
Mother stayed close to home over the next week, and the next.
She would gather her basket like she did every morning and set off, but she never strayed far from the tower, even as our bread got low and the vegetables in her garden grew thin from her picking. My stomach growled from the lack of meat and eggs as the veggies were doing little to fill me up every day and the bread vanished altogether. I would hang by the window every day, watching Mother mill around the trees with her basket. She would pick berries off the thorny bushes, using a stick to lift the branches and keep herself from getting cut. Mother would weed the garden twice a day, scrutinizing it for every stray blade of grass. She would pace around the castle over and over as if trying to hold something back. Mother never left the area of the tower except to go draw water from the well she said was a few minutes' walk away and once part of the old castle that once stood here.
And she braided my hair every night.
The encounter with the strange man in black had changed something. Made her more afraid. In one way, I was glad she didn't leave. I didn't want someone to take me out into that world. I didn't want something horrible to happen to Mother.
But I was getting hungry, even hungrier than the time I'd gone without food for a full day and Mother came back late. It wasn't the gnawing hunger that had driven me down from the tower. This was a slow, creeping one that was sucking the life from me.
Mother believed the man in black. He had her trapped.
I couldn't be part of some story. None of it made sense. The more I thought about their conversation, the scarier everything sounded. I might hold back darkness inside of Mother, and if I left her, she would turn as bad as the man.
Restlessness crept into my body.
I needed food. Eggs. Meat. Something that would give me the energy to keep going. I sat at the window each morning and felt my ribs. They seemed to poke out a little more each day. I wanted to sleep all the time and often drifted off with my head down on the windowsill. I had to conserve my energy.
On the fourteenth morning I opened the drawers to check for bread, hoping Mother had gone to the market and back while I was napping. I was getting so hungry that a headache had exploded between my temples and I couldn't get any rest. My limbs trembled, and I felt cold all over as if my body no longer had the energy to keep itself warm. I rarely felt cold. It was almost always warm up in the tower.
Mother was up from her bed, reaching for her basket. She watched me rummage through the empty drawers and frowned. But the darkness in her eyes had vanished. I hadn't seen it return since she had redone my braids on that scary night.
"Rae," she said. "Let me pick some cucumbers from the garden and we can have those for breakfast."
I couldn't take it any more. "No more cucumbers," I said. "I need food. Energy rich food. I'll pass out and I swear I've lost ten pounds in the last week." I pulled my dress out to show her how loose the fabric had gotten. "You can go to the market. You haven't left in a long time." I was so hungry that I had forgotten about the threat of the man.
Mother furrowed her brows at me. "Don't question me, Rae."
"We're starving!" I yelled. "We can't eat only vegetables. You need to go to the market." My heart pounded. The lack of food had done terrible things to my mood. "Or send me to the market if you're too afraid to go. Give me the money and I'll buy what we need. I'm almost an adult. I think I can handle going out there."
I couldn't believe what I was saying. I was proposing going out into danger. I remembered the tears Mother had shed when I'd been bitten by the rat. How could I dare try that again? To go to the market, I'd have to follow the trail past that tree.
And into whatever horrors waited out there.
"Absolutely not," Mother said. "Do you need reminding of what kind of world this is?"
I felt like I was withering inside. If I left and didn't come back, Mother would go dark inside. I couldn't let that happen. I had to stay here for her sake.
"You've survived the trip every day for years. You can do it again. We need food."
Mother picked up her basket. She calmed down now I suggested she go. "I will go to the market," she said. Her eyes went from sky blue to storm gray. That thing I didn't like was coming back. "But not before I have your word you will let no one besides me into the tower. Do you understand?"
"Yes. Is someone out there?"
"I don't know. I've gotten word that a man might be out in these woods. Stay hidden, Rae. If anything were to happen to you, I would be beside myself." And then Mother swept me up in a hug. "Promise me."
"I promise," I said.
"Let no one besides me in," she said. "No one."
And then she gathered her basket and headed to the window. Mother checked the surrounding woods for a moment and then motioned for me to let down my hair.
* * * * *
The day crawled past like so many others.
I lay on my back for a long time, eyeing the ceiling above me and the way it made a curling pattern. My stomach's growling evolved into a roar and I wished the village wasn't a three hour walk from here. Mother would need to gather and pay for a lot of food, which would slow her down even more.
I kept thinking about the man in black. He'd threatened Mother. I hated him and we hadn't even met. I kept thinking about the other man he said would take me away. Mother feared everything and my heart ached for her. She only wanted us to stay together, and I'd yelled at her this morning. She was caught between me and him. I shouldn't have done that to her.
But we needed food. I felt my ribs again. I was losing weight, and I'd get sick soon if she didn't bring something back.
But the man in black wanted me to stay here. He wanted this part of Fable and I had something to do with that, but I couldn't think of what. I felt terrible either way and I had no one to talk to about it.
Sitting up, I grabbed my hair. I set the braids on my lap and coiled them. I turned, so I was in the narrow beam of sun that came into my window and studied them. My strands sparkled, bright and full of warmth.
I'd never seen magic until the rampion in the dark spot. Or maybe I had all along and I never suspected it.
Didn't everyone's scalp tingle and get warm when someone braide
d their hair?
"Rae, let down your hair."
The voice echoed up at me and my heart leapt. Mother was back. She spoke as if she'd strained her voice. She must have worn out from bringing back a lot of food. My stomach growled again. I was looking forward to sitting down and eating.
I rushed over to the window, trying to fight down dizziness, I leaned over, grabbed my braids, and let them fall over the edge.
Mother hesitated, then grabbed on and climbed.
How much food had she brought back? She was heavy today. I grabbed the windowsill to keep my head from tilting too much and my neck protested. She wasn't being as careful as usual.
I waited as she climbed back up. My hair pulled over and over as if she were struggling with the weight.
A sinking feeling filled me as she took her time. She wasn't climbing like Mother. Not moving like Mother. Over the years I'd gotten used to every pull and release of pressure and could even count how many seconds it took between each one. The count was off.
I hadn't looked before letting her in. I had grown so used to her calling my name I never listened to it twice.
When I tried to stand and pull my hair back, I realized it was too late. My heart raced, and I searched around for something I could use as a weapon, but there was no way I could move. All I could do was wait.
Someone grunted close by.
And it wasn't Mother.
This voice was deep—not as deep as Alric's, but not like any other voice I'd heard.
"Sorry," the person said. "What are you doing up here?"
They let go, and I stood, gathering my braid. I had to let my eyes adjust to the sunlight, and I blinked several times, unable to believe the sight.
The person stood on the windowsill for a moment and the pain in my scalp eased. I rubbed my head and took a breath.
It was a man.
The man.
Chapter Four
I shuffled away from him as far as I could.