Rapunzelle: an Everland Ever After Tale

by Caroline Lee

  Absolutely none of that pierced the muddle of shock surrounding Zelle’s emotions, except for one bit. “You’re leaving?” Hadn’t he said that before? “You’re going back to Russia?” She couldn’t help that she was wailing.

  “Zelle—“

  But Dmitri cut her father off when he crossed to her, and clicked—when had he become so formal, so much a stranger?—to a stop in front of her. Another bow, but he didn’t touch her. “I wish you the best things in life, Zelle Carpenter.”

  Then he turned on his heel, nodded to Mother, and collected his hat and cane from the foyer. When she heard the front door close behind him, Zelle let the events of the evening catch up with her. More than her parents’ revelation, more than the realization Papa’s nickname for her had special meaning, more than anything that had happened, she could only focus on the fact that Dmitri had left her. He was going back to Russia. He’d never planned on staying, because she was his mission, and he’d completed it.

  For the first time since the horrible meal had begun, Zelle Carpenter—Princess Wilhelmina Gertrude —burst into tears.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Has she eaten anything?”

  “Not enough. Poor thing.”

  “Well, no wonder. She’s probably… I don’t know, Meri. To have her find out that way. About me. I didn’t want her to think badly…”

  Her parents were whispering outside her door, but Zelle could still hear them. They weren’t very good at whispering. In fact, in her whole life, they’d never been very good at subterfuge, at keeping secrets from her.

  She snorted into her pillow.

  Or so she’d thought. Turned out, they’d been very good at keeping a very big secret from her, for basically her entire life.

  “She still loves you, Jack. Don’t doubt that. You’re the only father she’s ever known.”

  A pause, and then: “Maybe. But I’m worried.”

  “Me too.”

  “Have either of you tried talking to her?” A third voice. …Briar? What was she doing here?

  “Well, of course we have—“

  “Every time Meri brings her a meal—“

  “But sometimes a girl just needs her friend.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” The door latch clinked open, and Zelle heard Briar’s voice more clearly. “Zelle? Can I come in?”

  Zelle’s face was still firmly ensconced in her pillow, but she managed a muffled, “Yes.” Then, picking her head up just enough to make sure there’d be no confusion in her words, she called out, “But tell my parents to go away.”

  She could imagine Briar poking her head back into the hall. “She said go away. Sorry.”

  “We heard, we heard. Come on, Meri.”

  “Good luck, Briar.”

  Silence, but then the latch clicked, and Zelle knew that she was alone with her best friend. Her best friend, who wasn’t going to let her mope around, and wasn’t going to leave until she heard the whole darn story.

  Well, most of it.

  Zelle huffed, and sat up, not caring that she hadn’t bothered to change out of her nightgown, despite the fact that it was three o’clock in the afternoon. Judging from the way Briar’s nose wrinkled, Zelle looked like an idiot, sitting among her rumpled blankets, the forgotten lunch tray on the floor beside her. Still, Zelle did her best to pretend like she wasn’t playing the part of the witchy recluse in a traveling show. “What?”

  Her innocent gaze did nothing to fool Briar, who grinned. “You look like a witchy recluse in a—“

  “Oh, shut up!” Zelle tossed a pillow—the one she’d spent all yesterday crying into—at her friend, who batted it away with a laugh. Sometimes it was scary how much they thought alike.

  Briar leaned down and unlaced her boots, stacking them beside the desk, and then sat in Zelle’s chair. She pulled her legs up under her, propped her elbows on her knees, rested her chin in her palms, and said, “So. What’s happening?”

  With a groan, Zelle allowed herself to flop back down on the bed, legs splayed. “What hasn’t happened?” She stared at the beams over her bed, just like she’d done every day since they’d moved to this house, when she was five. “My parents, apparently, aren’t my parents.”

  She stole a peek at Briar, whose brows were raised in interest. “Go on.”

  “Well, that’s pretty major, don’t you think? It turns out that Papa found me when I was a baby, like a year and a half or two years. There wasn’t anyone left for me, so he just…made me his.”

  No matter how much she loved Briar, she wasn’t going to tell her about why Papa had found her, or about the things he’d done before that point. Whatever his name used to be, Jack Carpenter was a good man, who’d put that all behind him. And she loved him enough to make sure everyone else continued to think highly of him.

  “He took you?”

  “Yes, but…” Zelle didn’t want to give too much away. “But some bad men…had me. I don’t know why. And Papa took me from them, and came out here to protect me from them.”

  “And your mother obviously knows, right? That’s why they’ve both been so worried about you for so long. I mean, all parents worry, but yours had it down to an art form. They don’t even let you out of the house without a respectable escort half the time.”

  Zelle snorted. “And you’re such a respectable escort.”

  “I am.” Briar, who’d been chewing on one fingernail, took that moment to spit it across the room at Zelle, who dissolved into giggles.

  It felt good to laugh. She hadn’t laughed since…gosh, since she’d loved Dmitri. When she loved Dmitri, everything about the world was bright and cheerful and now it was just…whoops, there she went again, with the tears.

  Briar saw her mood swing, and sighed. “Alright. So your parents aren’t actually your parents. Big news, but we’ll come back to that. Do you know who your real parents are?”

  She knew the answer to that. She’d known the answer to that question before Dmitri had stomped into her life with his mission, and she still knew the answer. “Yes. They’re downstairs right now, trying to decide if they want to listen at my door, like their typical, interfering selves.”

  “No, I mean your—“

  “They are my real parents.”

  Briar sighed. “I know. I meant…you know.”

  “Yeah.” Zelle sat up, tucking her feet under her nightgown, mirroring her best friend’s pose. “Promise you’re not going to…be weird about it?”

  “I make no such promises, and you know it.”

  “Apparently I’m a princess.”

  Briar rolled her eyes. “Oh, come off it. I know that your father treats you like—“

  “I mean it. I was kidnapped after my parents died, and…well, Papa saved me from those men, only he didn’t know who I really was, and…”

  “A princess?” Briar’s question was flat, one dark brow raised skeptically. “A kidnapped princess? That stuff only happens—“

  “—in fairy tales, I know. It’s ridiculous. But my parents’ story lined up with…with the other story.”

  “Who was telling this story?”

  Not liking the way Briar’s eyes had narrowed, picking up on the one part Zelle hadn’t been ready to talk about, she untangled her legs from her nightgown, and stomped across the floor to her wardrobe. She pulled the doors open and stuck her head inside, hoping it would seem like she couldn’t hear her best friend when she asked again, “Who, Zelle?”

  Briar could be very patient, as Zelle knew. So, sighing, she pretended great interest in her hanging dresses. “Who, who?” She groaned under her breath, knowing she sounded like an owl.

  “You sound like an owl. An idiot owl.” There was no hiding the exasperation in her friend’s voice. “Who was telling the princess story, Zelle?”

  Well, gosh, there was no getting around answering. So, head still among her mostly-purple gowns—she unapologetically loved purple—Zelle muttered something that could have been “Dmitri”, but sounded mo
re like “Dmm-mmm-m.”

  “Dmitri! I knew it!” And then Briar gasped. “Oh! Wasn’t he here in Everland looking for two men? Two men and a little girl?” Her voice rose to a squeak, and Zelle worried for the glass in the opened window. “Was that it, Zelle? Was that why he was here? To find you? You’re the little girl? He’s a duke! You’re a princess?”

  Sighing, Zelle backed out of the armoire, a simple gown thrown over one arm. “You promised not to get weird about it.”

  “I made no such promise.” Briar had untucked herself from the chair, and was practically bouncing now. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Tell me everything. Absolutely everything!”

  “Why are you so excited about this? This is my messed up life.”

  “Because this is your life, and nothing like this happens in real life. Least of all in Everland.”

  “Are you sure?” She was thinking about Helga, claiming to be her godmother. Godmother, ha. She had enough godmothers, between Helga and Dmitri’s moth— No. She wasn’t going to think about him. “It seems to me that Everland is exactly the sort of place where nonsense happens.”

  Briar waved away her objections. “Fine. Real-life princesses and heroic princes happen all the time around here. You misunderstood. I’m not excited about that. I’m ecstatic that you’re finally getting dressed.” She wrinkled her nose again theatrically. “Have you been wearing that nightgown for a week?”

  “Almost.” Zelle’s voice was muffled when she pulled the gown off over her head, but then gratefully stepped into the fresh chemise Briar held.

  “Annnnd? Princess story. Now, Zelle.”

  So Zelle told her best friend everything that Dmitri had told them, while Briar helped her dress and feel a little normal again. She managed not to choke on his name—more than twice, anyhow—and Briar managed to only interrupt when it was really warranted. Her best friend liked a good story as much as Zelle, and this was probably the best gossip to hit Everland in…well, ever. At least, that’s what Briar declared, until Zelle made her promise not to make too big a deal over it.

  “What? No. You’re a princess, Zelle.” Zelle sat down at her desk, and looked at herself in the little mirror hanging from the wallpaper. She made a face at herself, not liking how wan and depressed she looked. “But I’ll bet you’d rather be a duchess, huh?”

  Shocked, Zelle met Briar’s eyes in the mirror, and then looked away guiltily. Was it that obvious?

  “It’s obvious.”

  Zelle groaned, sometimes hating how her friend could understand her. “I don’t want…”

  “You love him, Zelle. Or at least…” Briar picked up the long braid that trailed to the floor. “You loved him last week. Last time we talked.”

  “He left.”

  “Well, Max told Hank, who told Rojita, who told Micah, who told me that the two of them were thinking about some sort of partnership. Did you know that?” Zelle hadn’t known about it, but it hardly mattered. “He said that Dmitri had to go back to Russia to organize some details about the whole—“

  “No.” Zelle met her friend’s eyes. “He left. For good.” Briar began to scoff, but Zelle was firm. “He was in Everland to find the lost princess, to satisfy his stupid honor, and now that he has, he left. He told me so.”

  There wasn’t anything for Briar to say, except: “I don’t think his honor is stupid.”

  Neither spoke, until Zelle let out the breath she’d been holding. “It isn’t. He isn’t. It’s just that…”

  Briar lifted the braid, untied the end, and began to unweave the plait. “Tell me.”

  “I was so sure that I loved him. And I thought that there was a good chance he loved me, or maybe could love me.”

  “And?”

  “And then it turned out that he was just in town for…for this. For his honor, for fulfilling his father’s quest.”

  “Yeah, but you knew that.” Briar had reached the top of the braid now, and shook all of the heavy blonde strands out to lay down Zelle’s back and pool on the floor. “From the beginning, I mean. You knew that’s why he was in town.”

  “But it didn’t have anything to do with me!” When Briar picked up the pearl-handled brush Mother had given Zelle as a twelfth birthday gift, the blond girl closed her eyes on a sigh and tilted her head forward, to allow her friend better access. “He was just in town, and I was just…just a girl.”

  “Who fell in love with him.”

  “I’m not sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t be.” Briar’s strokes were long and even, and as soothing as Mother’s. “But my point is that he didn’t lie to you. You knew why he was here.”

  “And I fell in love with him, not realizing that he’d be gone when he finished his mission.”

  “I don’t think he realized it either, honey. I’m sure he didn’t think he’d finish it this way. Do you? Do you think he knew all along that you were this princess, and that’s why he…he courted you?”

  It was more like she’d courted him, but Briar knew that. So instead of bickering, Zelle bit her lip and considered. Had Dmitri used her? Had he spent time with her, just to get close to her? Had he been false in any way?

  “No.” She sighed, accepting the truth. “No. He was honorable and wonderful and…”

  “And all of the things that made you fall in love, yes, yes.”

  She had been in love with him. And the really stupid part was that—she had to be honest with herself—she still was. “And now he’s gone!” She’d all but wailed it, and Briar put down the brush to wrap her arms around Zelle. The seated girl leaned into her friend’s embrace, desperate for the comfort.

  And maybe they sat like that for a minute, maybe ten. Zelle had thought that she was all cried out, but Briar’s comforting hug brought the tears back. And when her friend slipped to her knees beside the chair, and Zelle rested her head against the other girl’s shoulder, she knew that it was alright to cry.

  She was crying for…for what? For her lost dream, she supposed. For the man that she’d loved, but turned out not to be the real man. Or rather, the man she’d loved was only here for a short time, until he had to go back home; he was a duke after all. She was crying for his parents, and his parents’ friends, her natural parents. She was crying for the pain and the violence and the hurt that had led to her wonderful life here in Everland. She was crying for the fact that she really did have a wonderful life, no matter how much her heart was breaking over Dmitri’s leaving.

  Oh, at this point she didn’t even know why she was crying.

  She just knew that it felt nice, to be held and rocked and her hair stroked. Briar was whispering comfortingly. “I know, I know, sweetie. He’s a dolt. A big, fat, stupid dolt.”

  “No, no he’s not.” Zelle hiccoughed. “He’s noble and good and he didn’t even know that I loved him!”

  “Fine, fine.” Briar’s strokes moved to the top of her head. “He’s a prince among men.”

  “He is a prince!”

  “And you loved him.”

  “And I loved him!” Her nose certainly was running a lot, wasn’t it? Zelle groped for a handkerchief.

  “And now you’ll just have to get used to the idea that he’s gone, and he’s broken your heart, and you’ll have to move on and leave your room eventually.”

  “And now I’ll have to—what?”

  Briar took a deep breath to repeat it, but Zelle sat up, pulling out of her friend’s hold. “You think I should just get over it?”

  “It’s just a little heartbreak, sweetie. Everyone has to deal with a broken heart sometime.”

  Just a little heartbreak. It was. That’s exactly what it was. Zelle stared at her friend, the handkerchief pressed to her nose and her eyes wide. Her heart felt like it was broken, and she couldn’t even be mad at Dmitri for it. She only had herself to be mad at, for falling in love with him. And now she had a broken heart to show for it.

  Who would’ve thought that a little
something like a heart could hurt so much? But Briar was wrong. This wasn’t something that she could just brush off. This wasn’t something that someone “got over.” Not her, at least. Her heart was broken, and it would always carry the scar.

  But how to explain that to Briar, who’d never been in love, never had a broken heart?

  Zelle didn’t have time to figure that out, because just as she’d opened her mouth, there was a knock. From her window.

  Something like hope flared in her chest a moment before she saw the top of the ladder, peaking over her windowsill. What had she expected? Her duke to return, triumphantly declaring his love? But it was just Helga. Helga and her ladder.

  Briar sat back on her heels, staring at the ladder. But when it began to rock—Zelle was sure from the weight of a little round lady climbing it—she scrambled backwards and looked frantically towards Zelle. “What in the—?”

  Still swinging her head between the ladder and the blonde girl, Briar rolled to her feet and shuffled nearer to the window. She reached the window seat and poked her head out, just in time to meet the cheery face of Helga, climbing in. Surprised, Briar shrank back, her eyes wide.

  “Zelle?” She was obviously asking what this woman was doing in Zelle’s room, and why wasn’t Zelle reacting?

  And maybe Zelle would’ve explained, if she hadn’t been emotionally and physically exhausted. Instead, she watched Helga swing herself—in the same old-fashioned hoop dress—over the sill and onto the seat. Then Zelle sighed, and waved her hand between the two of them. “Helga, this is my best friend Briar. Briar, this is Helga, my godmother, who I absolutely do not believe in.”

  Helga smiled hugely, comfortingly. “Hello, dearie. Call me ‘Happy’.”

  “Godmother.” Briar’s dry tone made it clear that she wasn’t asking, because she didn’t believe either.

  “Oh yes. Yes indeed, dearie. Sent by the guild, you know. Our headquarters are here in Everland.”