The Fairest of Them All

by Carolyn Turgeon

  “Godspeed,” I said, and I meant it.

  The next few weeks passed in a tense state of waiting. I told myself that I had waited for seven years and I could wait a few days, or weeks, or months, longer. Whatever it had to be.

  It did not take months or even many weeks, however, before word of the queen’s death came to us. The news came as all news did: first from one woman, and then from every other woman who visited us.

  The queen had taken ill one night and slipped into a violent fever. The next day she died in her bed, with her husband and daughter by her side.

  “It was terrible,” we heard. “One day she was the vision of health and the next she was gone.”

  There was talk of poison, just as there had been with Josef’s father. The maid who’d actually served the queen her tea had been executed the same day, though she’d denied any wrongdoing. I listened to the reports with horror. I couldn’t even imagine it: two lives, extinguished in a day. I moved from guilt and shame to relief, excitement, and then the feeling that none of it could be real. How could it be real? How could all these distant horrors be of our making?

  Everyone spoke of the queen’s sudden death, in the days that followed. For a while our work became harder, because the spells needed to be stronger to cut through all the pain and sadness that had spread throughout the kingdom. The queen had been beloved. She had brought peace and prosperity to the kingdom, the light of God and all His fortune. Now everyone was bereft, from the king himself down to the lowliest servant. It was a terrible omen, we heard, again and again, that she had died so suddenly, having borne only one child, and a girl at that.

  Talk started right away, of what the king would do next. Who would bear him a male heir? What would the fate of the kingdom be, now that the queen, who had aligned our kingdom with the East, our longtime enemy, was gone?

  The whole kingdom seemed to have a new energy crackling through it. We could even feel it in the forest. Whenever I could, I escaped to my tower and stared at those glittering spires in the far distance, waiting.

  If I had learned anything in the forest, from tending the garden every year, from filling the soil with crushed bones and dead things, from eating the flower that bloomed from the midst of the rapunzel, and from being raised by Mathena, who had bigger plans for me than I could have ever imagined, it was this: that out of death comes life.

  Always.

  Winter turned to spring. The air smelled of perfume, and the plants burst from the earth. I’d worked in the garden all morning, lunched with Mathena on vegetable stew, and taken a nap, and now I was standing in the tower window, looking out over the bountiful forest, the trees full of singing birds and flowering branches. I’d painted my lips with berries, and was wearing the prettiest dress I had. I knew he might appear at any moment.

  And then, before I heard the sound of the horse’s hooves, I saw him, winding his way underneath the trees, on the forest floor, the silver reins and the jewels on his clothing radiant in the sunlight. It might have been a group of fairies out exploring, the way the vision shimmered.

  He looked up at me, leaving me breathless. I wanted to turn and run down to him, but I did not want to stop watching him, afraid he might disappear.

  “Rapunzel!” he said, as he pulled those elaborate reins and his horse, black and shining, stopped.

  If he had been impressive before, now he was like something that had dropped from the sky, like a god from the stories Mathena had told me, of men who rode chariots that carried the sun. He was covered in jewels, his clothes were even more fine, and though he still had the look of a beautiful boy about him, his face suffused with a sweet impishness, he seemed to take up more space in the world. He was a king now. A widower, a father. There was a regalness to him that had not been there before.

  I breathed in.

  He dismounted the horse, the sun hitting his boots, the silver looping around them.

  “Josef,” I said. I loved the way his name felt in my mouth, like a whisper.

  “Rapunzel,” he repeated, gazing up at me. He smiled with joy, and it washed over his face, illuminating him utterly. “Let down your hair.”

  I couldn’t even think to answer him. Or let him know how easily I could have walked down to him, to the garden.

  Instead, with shaking hands, I removed the cloth that covered my head, and let my hair drop to the ground, all of it streaming out the window, catching the light. I steeled myself against the stone as the weight of it threatened to pull me down, too. It was longer than it had been before, and as it hit the ground it formed brilliant heaps. His face turned golden as the light gleamed from my hair and reflected off of him.

  He wrapped his hands around the locks in front of him, moved his face into my hair as he watched me with those gray-blue cat’s eyes, the rest of his face buried in gold.

  I felt it, that touch, those eyes, as if he’d slipped his hand down my spine, tracing the path with his fingertips. I knew, as soon as he touched me, that what Mathena had said was true: He’d never forgotten me. He’d tried to come back for me.

  All those days and months and years working in the forest, and this was my fate, right here.

  He hoisted himself up and began to climb.

  It seemed fitting, though he was king now, for him to climb my hair once again. I laughed out loud, at the absurdity of it, his face as he climbed—he was enjoying it, he liked having to climb to his lady, it was the troubadour in him.

  His thoughts and memories rushed up to me, through each strand, the way they had before. By now I’d learned to absorb the energy that came to me that way, take it into me and let it pass through me, all that love, that longing for me, the grief he felt over the death of his parents, of his wife, and his great love for his daughter, the kingdom that blazed in his mind and heart. And I could feel his grief. I could see him running to Teresa’s room when news came that she was dying. Feel his heartbreak as he took her hand in his, as he watched her writhe in the bed, as he held his daughter afterward and tried to explain to her that her mother was gone. Feel, before then, his anguish at having to marry her when he only dreamed of me, the slow giving over of his heart as he came to know her, love her, see her features in the face of his child.

  It was surprising, overwhelming, being in his mind and heart, feeling them roil over me. My own guilt and angst and happiness, all mixed together, were buried in the onslaught of his feelings.

  He climbed my hair easily. And then there he was, pulling himself into the tower, standing before me, and once again we were grabbing my hair in bundles through the window as if we were weaving it on a loom.

  I wondered if I should curtsy, as Mathena had the day I met him. I was sure it was mandatory to curtsy in front of the king, or at the very least to kiss his ring. He had several rings now, one circling each finger, studded with gems. Instead, I just stood and stared at him.

  He was nearly in tears as he gazed at me.

  “You have come,” I said, and I smiled to reassure him.

  He continued to stare at me, stricken. “I can’t believe you’re in front of me. I searched for you, and I could never find you. The tower, it disappeared.” He reached out and touched my face, cupping my cheek in his warm palm.

  “I was right here,” I said.

  I could feel his awe, his awareness of all the time that had passed. For me it was different—it was as if the last seven years had never happened, as if time had gone backward for us and given us this moment again. Another chance.

  “You have not been locked in this tower all this time, have you?”

  I laughed. “No.”

  “Well, now that I’ve finally found you, I will have to make sure you cannot disappear again.”

  “How will you do that?”

  He smiled, put his hand on his heart, and dropped down to one knee. “I thought I would ask you to marry me,” he said.

  I looked down at his handsome face, his eyes, which slanted up slightly on the sides like almonds. I
glanced up, saw my own face staring back at me in the mirror.

  For a moment, the past weighed on me, and I had a terrible urge to tell him that it had been a mistake, to have married someone else at all. I wanted to tell him about his son in the ground. That the result of the time he’d spent with me was a dead, buried child with limbs as twisted as the plant that grew above it.

  But I couldn’t say any of that. It was not his fault he had been forced to marry another, not his fault she’d been fated to die, not his fault Mathena had hidden me from him until this day.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked again.

  I did not hesitate. “Yes,” I said.

  Of course I said yes.

  Yes.

  We ran down the steps together, to Mathena. We did not act like a king and soon-to-be queen, that day and all those first days to follow. We ran down the steps like children, and he pulled me into his arms and swung me around, my dress flying, my hair swirling around us, gathering grass and flowers, and even bits of horsehair as it swiped the waiting animal.

  “Mathena!” I called out, and she appeared instantly, from the back of the house, her dark dress stained with mud and earth.

  “We are to be married!” I said.

  She looked at me and smiled. “What wonderful news.” She bowed down in front of us. “It is a great, great day for all of us.”

  I unlatched myself from him, and rushed over to her, wrapping my arms around her. Brune flew out just then, landing on Mathena’s shoulder, and I somehow managed to kiss the bird, too, who looked at me with disgust as she let out a horrified squawk.

  It hit me in that moment that I would really be leaving—leaving the forest and Mathena and starting a brand-new life without them.

  “Let me have a few days,” I said, turning to the king. “I need a few days to prepare myself.”

  “I will have your chambers prepared for you, ladies ready to serve you. Are you sure you will not disappear again?”

  “I promise I will not,” I said.

  “I’ll send my men to get you, and then we’ll be married.”

  “Yes,” I said again. “Yes.”

  He slipped his arms around me, nuzzled my neck.

  “We will be so happy,” he said. “We will have many children. Among them, a king.”

  A sliver of pain moved through my happiness, but I did not let him see. I vowed, right then, that he never would.

  Mathena and I watched him leave, disappearing into the trees, and then we were alone, as if a storm had passed through the forest, leaving an entirely new world in its wake.

  We walked silently into the house, and sat on the couch, before the low fire. She put on a pot of stew to cook and sat next to me. Brune took her place on the mantel, tucking in her head.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I can’t believe you knew this would happen!”

  “And now you will be queen. This is what I’ve always wanted for you.”

  I shook my head. “Madness,” I said. “Pure madness to think I could marry a king, and now it is happening.”

  “Your life will be very different from now on.”

  “I should think so!” I said, laughing from pure giddiness.

  “Just remember that you will not be surrounded by friends there. Even though you will have a husband who loves you, and as his queen you will have great power. You must be careful.”

  “Be careful of what?”

  “Of what happened to me before, when I was at court.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Things changed when I was there, Rapunzel. I’ve told you how King Louis changed, how people’s hearts changed and it seemed no one believed in magic anymore. At least, not openly. And they began calling me a witch. I’ve always told you, it’s a dangerous word. Especially to priests and those who take the church and its teachings too much to heart. They believe that witches worship the devil. If they get it in their minds and hearts, they can blame everything bad on you.”

  “But,” I said, “we are witches.”

  She shook her head. “We are healers. We are daughters of Artemis.”

  “Mathena. You changed a man into a stag.”

  Her face flared. “You must never speak of such things. Not there. Take the spell book, Rapunzel, but hide it! And do not ever say that word around them, and do not practice where they can see. Josef is young like you, and he does not remember. Others will. Even if you are their queen.”

  “Even if he could remember, he would not care,” I said. “I am sure of it.”

  “He is young and spoiled,” she said. “And you may be right. But others have much influence, around him.”

  I nodded. “I will be careful.”

  She reached up and brushed the hair out of my face, then traced the length of it as far as she could. “This hair of yours,” she said. “Look at it. What a gift you have. It gives you great beauty, and insight into everyone around you. Your beauty is your power, you know. You must watch over it carefully.”

  I smiled. My hair stretched from the couch and through the open door, where it shone from the grass. Loup was curled up and sleeping in it, faint images of mice and birds streaming up to me from her warm body.

  “I will miss it here,” I said. “I will miss you.”

  “This is what you’ve always wanted,” she said, “to marry Josef. And what I’ve always wanted for you, to be queen. Use your power well, Rapunzel. Protect it.”

  An emotion passed over her face that I couldn’t quite understand. I knew there was more, maybe much more that she was not telling. But I was used to her being full of secrets.

  “I will,” I said.

  “And remember, he has a daughter now, and she is his heir.”

  I flinched. “I will give him more children,” I said, ignoring the familiar ache inside me. “I had a son before. I will have one again.”

  The next day, we performed a ceremony at dusk, in the river, cleansing me of all my past sorrows. We were naked, the trees all around us. My hair streamed down the river like a golden raft. Mathena raised her arms and called to the four winds to ask for their protection and their power, sprinkled water onto my face and shoulders. We held hands, facing each other, and gave thanks for the earth’s bounty.

  After, once we’d dried ourselves and dressed, we had our supper outside by the garden, in the warm evening. The moon was rising. Earlier Mathena had prepared a whole roast pheasant that Brune had killed just for the occasion, and we ate it alongside cakes filled with figs and mint.

  The food was delicious, and I savored each bite. Brune stood on my shoulder and I fed her whole hunks of pheasant, while Mathena fed Loup, who sat on the grass next to her, her little body rumbling with pleasure. My hair blanketed the ground. We drank wine Mathena had made herself. This was all the family I had ever known, this woman, these creatures.

  “I have something for you,” Mathena said. “For your new life.”

  I did not know what to say. I was not used to gifts.

  She went into the house for a moment. Brune, as usual, followed after her. I reached out to pet Loup, and the moon bathed us in light.

  I looked up at the tower, the stones sparkling in the moonlight. From the ground, it looked endless, as if you could climb it straight to the heavens. The sky was filled with thousands of stars, and trees swayed overhead, filled with sleeping beasts.

  She reappeared from the house, with a long, flat package in her arms.

  Stepping back in the circle, she sat down, cross-legged, and handed it to me.

  “This will help you,” she said. “It’s my wedding gift to you.”

  “You will not come to my wedding and give it to me then?”

  “No, Rapunzel. You know I cannot leave the garden, but my heart will be with you.”

  I nodded, trying to conceal my disappointment, and took the package. I pushed back the cloth. Inside was the mirror that had been hanging from the wall in my tower. I looked up at her, confused.

  “It
’s a gift to protect your power and beauty, to ensure the king’s love,” she said. “It will show you things. You can ask it any question you like.”

  Was she mocking me? Awkwardly, I held it up with both hands, saw my own face staring back.

  “Help me how?”

  “Ask it something.”

  I looked into it again, and, very faintly, my own face rippled back at me. The glass was heavy in my arms. I set it flat on the earth and it swirled under us like a river.

  “Like what?”

  “Here,” she said. “Try this.” She seemed to think carefully about what she was about to ask, and then leaned in to it. “Mirror, mirror,” she said. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

  We stared down into the surface, both our faces reflected back to us.

  It rippled then, more strongly than before, as if I’d thrown a pebble into water. And then a voice seemed to come out of it, like smoke. “Rapunzel is fairest of all,” it said, low and deep.

  I gasped. My head snapped up and I looked at Mathena. “Did you do that?” I asked.

  She shook her head, smiling. “There’s always been magic in this glass. It’s enchanted. Haven’t you felt it before?”

  I shook my head but, as I did so, realized that there had always been something odd about the glass, that I’d always felt it was watching over me.

  “You just need to ask it a question, and it will answer and show you the thing you’ve been seeking.”

  “You enchanted it?” I asked.

  “No. There was already magic in this ancient castle when we came here. This glass is very old, from a time when this kingdom was filled with magic. Do you remember how it was waiting in the tower for you?”

  I had a memory then, of the glass propped up on the floor, the laughing girl with bright yellow hair dancing about the room, imitating everything I did.

  I nodded.

  “I knew right away what it could do. That’s why I brought us to this place.”

  “You brought us here? You said we walked and walked and came upon the castle ruins by chance.”