Golden

by Cameron Dokey

  And I remembered, suddenly, the way Mr. Jones had made Melisande smile by patting his belly at the end of the meal and remarking mournfully that the food was so good he hated to leave any behind. She’d fixed him a plate to take out to the wagon. I had a feeling I knew now who it had really been for. But to think of the tinker keeping this lad a prisoner inside the wagon just didn’t make sense.

  “Tell me the whole truth right now,” I demanded. “Or I’ll scream very loudly. Then you’ll have even more explaining to do.”

  “They were dead,” Harry said quickly, whether to prevent me from making good on my threat or because it was the only way he could get the information out, I couldn’t quite tell. “Of the sweating sickness. No one else would take me, for fear that I had it as well. I did, in fact.”

  “So the tinker did you a great service,” I said, not bothering to hide the outrage in my voice. “He saved your life. And to repay him for this kindness, you wish to steal his horse and run off.”

  “I do not want to be a tinker’s boy!” Harry suddenly burst out. “I want to go back to the way things were! I—”

  Without warning, his face seemed to crumple, for all that he was older than I was.

  “I want a home,” he whispered. “And they make fun of me in the towns. The other boys laugh and call me names. If I stay with the tinker, I’ll never have any friends. I’d be better off on my own.”

  “You wouldn’t, you know,” I said quietly. “If you are different, it’s better to have someone who cares for you, who looks out for you. It’s better not to be alone.”

  “What would you know about it?” Harry said.

  In answer, I let the shawl fall back from my head. Absolute stillness filled the barn. Not even the animals moved, or the dust motes in the shafts of moonlight.

  “Did she do that to you?” Harry asked at last. “The sorceress?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “She loves me. I don’t know how it happened, as a matter of fact. Its just the way things are.”

  He took a step closer then, studying me as I’d studied him earlier. “How do you know?”

  “How do I know what?”

  “That she loves you,” Harry replied.

  “Because I asked her and she told me so,” I answered. “And she always tells the truth. She has to, I think. It’s related to her sorcery.”

  “Where are your parents?” Harry asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Melisande said my mother’s heart had no room in it for me, and so she did the only thing she could: She made room inside her own. Perhaps it is the same with the tinker, did you stop to think of that? Maybe he’s made room for you inside his heart. He might be sad if you went off and left him, and took his horse into the bargain.”

  “I doubt it,” Harry said with a snort. “I’m not the easiest person to get along with.”

  “No, really?” I asked. And suddenly he smiled. He sat down on the floor and put his back against the door of the stall where I’d put the tinker’s mare. She leaned over and lipped the top of his head.

  “So we are both orphans, then, after a fashion,” he said, as he reached up to stroke her long nose.

  “I suppose we are,” I acknowledged. I stood where I was for several more minutes, watching Harry with the horse, then went to sit on a bale of hay nearby.

  “Does the tinker come this way often?” he asked, when I was seated.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “I never saw him until today, but we’re hardly on the main road.”

  He kept his face angled downward, making it difficult to read his expression. “But if he did come back this way, he might stop, and you might be here?”

  “We’ve lived here for as long as I can remember,” I said. “We have no plans to leave, as far as I know.”

  “That might be all right, then,” Harry said.

  “It might be,” I acknowledged. I stood up after a moment. “There’s plenty of hay in the loft,” I said. “Though I could get you a blanket, if you like.”

  “No, but I thank you,” Harry said. “I’m sure hay will be enough.”

  “Good night, then, Harry,” I said.

  “Good night to you, Rapunzel. That means something, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s a kind of parsley,” I confessed. “To tell you the truth, it tastes pretty awful, but that’s just my opinion.”

  He waited until I was all the way across the barn before he spoke again.

  “What makes you so sure I won’t steal the horse after you’re gone?”

  “Because you love her,” I said. “And I have seen how much she loves the tinker. You can figure out the rest for yourself.”

  It wasn’t until I was all the way back to the house that I realized my head was still bare, and I hadn’t thought about it once.

  Five

  Harry stayed with the tinker, of course. In the years that followed—three of them, to be precise, until I turned sixteen and Harry a year or so older than that—as often as their ramblings permitted, the tinker and the young man stopped at our door. Mr. Jones liked to say he was calling upon his namesake, who had grown up sleek and fat and as copper as a penny and was the terror of every rodent for miles around.

  The tinker himself grew slightly less ginger and somewhat more gray, while Harry shot up like a great weed that even I would have been able to recognize for what it was. For I had often heard Melisande say that it was the weeds that grew the strongest, the fastest, and the tallest, and Harry grew up both strong and tall.

  His eyes, which I hadn’t been able to see all that well in the barn that night, turned out to be a startling green, the same color as the leaves the apple trees put out in the springtime. His hair was the color of rich river mud. I never tired of reminding him of this second fact, just as he never tired of remarking in return that surely it was better to be blessed with even mud-colored hair than to be cursed with none.

  We stared at each other, the first time he and the tinker returned. To tell you the truth, I don’t think either of us truly expected to see the other again, for all the words that we had spoken. I’d thought of him often enough, though, and I wondered if he had thought of me. The two orphans.

  “So, you are still here, Parsley.”

  As it happened, we were standing in the garden. After the great carrot disaster, Melisande had tried a new technique. Each row was clearly labeled with a little drawing of what the plant should look like, with its name written beneath. So far it seemed to be working. I was better both at their names and at pulling out what I was supposed to rather than what I was not.

  “That was never much in doubt,” I answered as tartly as I could. For the truth was, I was pleased to see him, but I knew it would never do to let him know this right off. “You were the one who was planning to steal a horse and run away, as I recall. And my name is Rapunzel.”

  “That’s right. I remember now,” he said. And then he flashed me a smile.

  Oh ho, so that is the way of the world, I thought. For it seemed to me that, just beneath the skin of that smile, I could see the man that he would one day become. He was going to be a heartbreaker, at the rate he was going. I would have to make sure he didn’t break mine.

  “You came back,” I said. “I wasn’t all that certain that you would.”

  “Neither was I,” he answered honestly. “But I kept remembering the things you’d said. Besides, I was curious.” He shrugged.

  “About what?”

  “I thought maybe you’d grow some hair in my absence.”

  “I hate to disappoint you,” I said, as I plucked off my garden hat to reveal the head underneath. “But I did not.”

  “I’m not disappointed,” Harry said. “I brought something for you.”

  And it was only at that moment that I realized he’d been holding one hand behind his back.

  “You brought me something?” I asked, astonished. So astonished that I forgot to put the hat back on my head.

  “There’s no
need to get carried away,” Harry said quickly, as if my reaction was cause for alarm. “It’s just a piece of cloth. That’s all.”

  He held it out, and I moved forward to take it from him.

  He was right. It was, indeed, just a piece of cloth. But the cloth was the finest muslin I had ever seen, embroidered all over with gold-petaled flowers. They stood stiffly out from dark centers the exact same color as my eyes. The stitches were so fine and close, I could hardly see the muslin underneath.

  “I know what these are,” I said, and I couldn’t have kept the delight from my voice if I’d tried. “These are black-eyed Susans. They’re my favorite flowers. How did you know?”

  “What makes you think I did?” Harry asked. He began to stand first on one foot, and then the other, shifting his weight from side to side. “Maybe I just guessed and got it right, or chose it on a whim.”

  I looked up then, confused by his tone. He was sounding awfully surly and aggressive for someone offering a gift.

  “It wouldn’t matter if you had,” I answered carefully but honestly. “I don’t get gifts all that often.”

  He stood stock-still at this. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, beginning to get irritated in my turn. “It’s just—there’s only me and Melisande. She gives me a present on my birthday, of course, but until Mr. Jones gave me Mr. Jones...”

  I let my voice run out. I was pretty sure I sounded ridiculous, and feared I might sound pathetic, which would have been much worse.

  “I thought you might, you know, on your head,” Harry said. “Even from here, I can hardly see the muslin. All you see is the gold, really, like—”

  “Golden hair,” I said. My chest felt tight and funny. I had never told anyone why I loved these particular flowers so much, not even Melisande. Their petals were the exact color I’d always dreamed my hair might be, assuming my head ever decided to cooperate and actually grow some.

  “Thank you, Harry. It’s lovely,” I said.

  He opened his mouth to make a smart remark, I was all but certain. He shut it with a snap, then tried a second time.

  “You’re welcome. Parsley,” he said. “Don’t you want to put it on?”

  “Hold this,” I said, and I handed him my gardening hat, then tied the kerchief on. It was soft and smooth against my head. “How does it look?”

  He began to shift his weight again, as if his shoes were too tight in fits and starts. I gazed down at them, suddenly afraid to meet his eyes.

  “How should I know? It looks all right.”

  “There’s roast chicken and new potatoes for supper,” I said. “With peas and mint, I think.”

  “Is there a pie?”

  “A cherry pie,” I said, looking back up. “I baked it just this morning.”

  Something came into his face then, a look that made me want to smile and weep all at the same time.

  “My mother used to make cherry pies,” he said. “They were my father’s favorites.”

  “And yours?” I asked.

  He nodded. “And mine.”

  “So we’d be even then,” I said.

  “We might be,” he acknowledged. “Can I sleep in the hayloft? Mr. Jones snores.”

  “So does the cat,” I said. And had the pleasure of hearing his quick laugh ring out.

  “I can carry that,” he said, extending a hand for the basket in which I’d carefully been placing lettuce leaves. I’d forgotten that I still had it over my arm. I held it back. I didn’t need some boy carrying my things.

  “So can I.”

  “I can do it better, though. I’m bigger and stronger. And I’ve seen more of the world than you have.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Parsley.”

  “Tinker’s boy.”

  “Ah, so the two of you are making friends,” a new voice said.

  I turned to see Mr. Jones standing at the back door.

  “Actually, we’re already friends,” I said, and was rewarded by the sound of Harry sucking in his breath. “We met once before.”

  “Is that so?” the tinker asked. His face stayed perfectly straight, but I could see the twinkle in the back of his eyes. He’s known all along about that first meeting, I thought. And the only wonder was that Harry hadn’t realized this long ago.

  “Melisande says if you’re quite finished, she would be pleased to have the lettuce you’re supposed to be fetching in for supper.”

  “Here it is,” Harry said. And, before I could prevent him, he snatched the basket right off my arm, then made a dash for the back door. With a laugh, Mr. Jones scooted over quickly to avoid being flattened. That was when I saw it. Perhaps Melisande was right, and I had a gift for sorcery after all. For I’m sure that what I saw then was a quick and sudden glimpse into the tinker’s heart.

  I could see Harry, green eyes alight with mischief. And I thought I saw a girl as well. But she seemed far away, as if her place in Mr. Jones’s heart was older than Harry’s was. No less present, just not in front. For some reason I could neither see nor understand, she had been relegated to the background. I could not see her features clearly, but around her face, I thought I caught a glimpse of summer gold.

  Not me, then, I thought.

  And at the unexpected pang my own heart felt, my vision faltered, and Mr. Jones was just a man with graying ginger whiskers standing in an open door.

  “Come in to dinner, Rapunzel,” he said.

  And so I did, and did not speak of what I had seen. For he had not asked me to look, and that which lies in another’s heart, even if glimpsed out of turn, should never be told out of turn, if it can be helped.

  Six

  I thought about it, though, from time to time. Who was the girl Mr. Jones kept at the back of his heart? Just as I wondered about the identity of the person Melisande kept hidden inside hers but never spoke of. I made room for you inside my heart, she’d told me on the day we first met Mr Jones. But who had she asked to scoot over so that I might have a place?

  I did not ask either of these questions, though.

  There are some subjects that, no matter how much your brain may tell you it would like an explanation, your heart and tongue refuse to touch. And so the question of who shared the sorceress’s heart with me remained unanswered, because I could not bring myself to ask it.

  And then it was forgotten, at least for a while.

  For something changed the year I turned sixteen. A thing that at first seemed to have nothing to do with either Melisande or me, though it turned out to have a great deal to do with both of us.

  It started out simply, with the weather. That summer was the hottest I could remember, the hottest I had ever known. For many weeks, too many, in fact, there had been no rain at all. Each day, early in the morning before the sun rose too high, Melisande and I labored together in the garden, carrying water from the stream that ran at the base of the apple orchard. Even then, our plants drooped and languished, as if they couldn’t quite make up their minds to expend the energy required to stay alive.

  It was the only time I ever saw the garden look anything other than rich and abundant. And if even Melisande’s garden struggled as it did, I didn’t want to think too long and hard about what might be happening to the gardens, and the people, in the town.

  Some mornings, after our work was finished, I climbed to the top of the tallest apple tree, the one that grew at the very crest of the hill and so provided the best view of the surrounding countryside. This had been a favorite place for as long as I could remember. A place to sit and dream, to imagine where the roads I saw might go, or whether or not I might grow hair, and to watch for the arrival of Harry and Mr. Jones.

  And so I was the first to notice the exodus from the city. One day the land was mostly empty, the next there were people, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups, moving in weary fits and starts down the thin brown snake of dusty road. Some toward the mountains, but most in the oppo
site direction, as if they wanted to put as great a distance between themselves and their misery as they could, in as short a time as possible.

  Every once in a while, a single traveler would cut across country and end up outside our back door. From them we heard tales of sickness in the city. Of a stillness of the air that was stifling the simplest breath and begetting a fever like none experienced before. Fear had come to live in the city, the travelers said, taking up more than its fair share of space and driving people from their homes. There were murmurs of some great evil magic at work in the land, the need to find its source and drive it out. Only then did I realize that most of those who came to us had known the way because they had been here before.

  And so I came to understand their words for what they truly were: a warning.

  The hot weather went on.

  Several times I caught Melisande looking at me with that considering expression on her face, or standing perfectly still with her head cocked to one side, as if gauging the approach of something. The first time I saw this I felt my blood run as cold as our stream did all winter. She is listening for the mob, I thought.

  But gradually I came to realize that it was some-thing else. Which was not quite the same as saying we did not fear the mob would come. As the days passed and we still remained in our small house in the valley, I came to understand that Melisande was listening for the approach of Mr. Jones. It had to do with that very first conversation between them, I think, and of all that had not been spoken when the sorceress had told the tinker he would be welcome wherever we might dwell. We would wait for him now, or so it seemed, even with the risk of danger growing closer by the minute while, as far as I could hear, Mr. Jones did not.

  One day, the day the radishes, the beans, and the spinach all expired at the exact same instant, I came to a decision of my own. I waited until the sorceress was busy in the house at the hottest part of the day, then I put my favorite kerchief on my head, the one that Harry had given me, with the black-eyed Susans embroidered upon it, and set off for the apple orchard. Not to climb my favorite tree, but to go beyond the orchard itself to the nearest farm.