“They are.”
Rapunzel looked down in disbelief. If that horrid thing was Witch’s rose, then it was ill. Could that mean Witch was also suffering? Her mind presented her with the awful image of Witch, arriving at the tower for Rapunzel’s birthday feast, only to find her missing. How Witch must have felt and what she must have done, Rapunzel could not imagine.
They made their way to the Centercourt, where Glyph curled in her chair on the dais. Rune stood beside her, watching them with narrow eyes as they approached.
“Good morning,” said Glyph, who was slack and sweating, looking sicker than she had yesterday. “How do you find your hair, prisoner child?”
“I did find it, thank you,” said Rapunzel, looking uneasily at Rune. She shifted her shoulders and adjusted her new straps, feeling the weight of the hair wheel shift on her back as she did so.
“I hope the wheel is comfortable,” Glyph said. “Do the straps fit?”
“Oh — yes.” Rapunzel swallowed.
“We would have made your braid lighter, but Envearia’s magic prevented it. If you wish to keep your hair, you will have to carry it. But the wheel should help, and it will last as long as you wish to journey.”
“I don’t wish to journey,” said Rapunzel, surprised. “I wish to go home.”
“No.” Rune advanced on her in one swift step, and Rapunzel stepped back. “Not while I can prevent you. And I will watch your every step. I will not rest.”
“Jack said you would let me go!” cried Rapunzel.
“You will go, but not back to Envearia,” Rune declared. “If you call for her or set foot toward the tower, I will kill you.”
“Enough.” Glyph’s voice was quiet.
Rune clenched his fists. “I believe that you are making a fatal mistake,” he said to her. “I am opposed to this plan — fully opposed.”
“I know.”
“If she makes you regret this, it will be too late.”
“I have faith.”
Rune gazed on Glyph, his face full of emotions Rapunzel had no power to name. She had never seen anyone look that way before. She was shocked when Rune laid a tender kiss on Glyph’s brow.
“Prepare the exit,” Glyph murmured. “Ready yourself to follow her. If she will not learn, then I give you leave to do as you must.”
Rune nodded. He flew into the grasses, out of sight.
Glyph fixed Rapunzel with a look that was drawn and resolute. “I have made my decision,” she said. “If you obey me, Rune will not harm you. If not …”
She left her sentence unfinished, but Rapunzel understood. “I won’t obey you if you want me to hurt Witch,” she said.
“Do as I ask, and I will not lay a hand on your witch,” said Glyph. “Nor will I strike out with magic against her. This I promise you.”
Rapunzel crossed her arms. “You might have hurt her already,” she said. “You could have attacked her while I was asleep….” She stopped, arrested by her own awful idea.
“Envearia is alive and well.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“Even so, you must do as I bid you.”
“Then you have to let me send her a message and tell her I’m not hurt!” Rapunzel said, imagining how sick and frightened Witch must already be. Just a little worry had caused her to get wrinkles and white hair — what would a lot of worry do? “I don’t want her to think I’m dead.”
“She knows you are well, prisoner child,” said Glyph quietly. “She cannot help but know. Now listen, and I will tell you where to go.”
“If I can’t go to my tower, where should I go?”
“You must journey to the center of Tyme,” said Glyph. “The Beanstalker will guide you. He has already agreed to help you in this task.”
Jack said nothing. His jaw was tense.
“The center of Tyme?” said Rapunzel. “But that’s easy. We’re already in the center.”
Jack glanced at her in disbelief. “We’re south of almost everything,” he said. “Don’t you even know where you live?”
“Of course,” said Rapunzel confidently; Witch had taught her this. “The Redlands is in the middle, and then there are the lands far, far away.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a map?”
“Enough,” said Glyph, silencing Rapunzel before she could make a retort. “You will travel north to the First Wood to find the Woodmother. It will take you some weeks, I think, to reach the place where she dwells.”
“Weeks?” repeated Rapunzel in dismay. “Where is the First Wood?”
“It cannot be fixed on a map,” said Glyph. “I have given the Beanstalker what guidance I can. Most who seek the Woodmother never find her, but once you reach her realm, I believe she will sense you and … find you worthy.”
“Worthy of what?”
Glyph’s eyes shone. “You deserve to know who you are,” she said. “You deserve to understand what Envearia is.”
“What do you mean … what she is?”
“If I told you, you would not hear me,” said Glyph. “She has made sure of that. No — you must journey. You must experience. Or you must die.”
Glyph spoke the last so quietly and with such sadness in her soft blue gaze that Rapunzel grew cold. The fairy meant what she said.
“But what if I can’t find the Woodmother?” Rapunzel demanded. “You said most people never do. Will Rune kill me if I don’t?”
“I will send word to the Woodmother that you are coming,” said Glyph. “She will seek you, I know it.” She reached for Rapunzel’s hands and took them in her weak red grip. “Look around you as you travel,” she said. “Listen and be willing to hear. Because the Redlands itself is at stake, prisoner child, and when it is threatened, so is Tyme.”
Rapunzel was so surprised that she forgot to pull her hands away. Glyph held on to them as she spoke to Jack. “Beanstalker,” she said, “remember. The prisoner child will have many questions — always tell her the truth. Do this and stay with her, and I will ask nothing further from you. I will give you the help you seek before your time runs out.”
Jack was pale. But he nodded.
“Then make your way.” Glyph released Rapunzel’s hands and brought her fingertips to her chest in salute. Her arm trembled with the effort. She slumped back against the clay bed, and two fairies with red sashes slipped out of the tall grass behind her. They surveyed Rapunzel, then turned their backs on her with decided emphasis and tended to Glyph.
Jack and Rapunzel walked out of the Centercourt and into the tunnel down which they had first come. At the end of the tunnel, Rune waited, his eyes like silver fire in the dim light.
“What Glyph desires me to give you, you do not deserve,” he said.
In his fingertips, he rolled a pebble-size ball of red clay, which he lifted to his mouth, puffing out his cheeks. His white wings flared and his red skin dulled with effort as he blew air into the little clay ball. It expanded as it filled with his breath, becoming a translucent globe, while the edges of his wings grew so bright that Rapunzel finally had to shut her eyes against the light.
When she opened them again, Rune was leaning against the clay wall, panting. In one hand, he cradled a bubble of glass no bigger than a large marble.
“A lifebreath,” he rasped.
He thrust it toward Rapunzel, who took it. It was so light, she could barely feel it in her hand. The glass was whisper-thin; she feared it would dissolve between her fingertips. A wisp of white smoke twisted and funneled inside the bubble, a tiny, shining windstorm.
“The lifebreath will restore any injured mortal creature,” said Rune. “It can even rescue one from the brink of death. If you need it, break it near the victim’s mouth. You cannot crush it by accident. But do not waste it thinking that I can give you another — we can make very few in our lifetimes, and this is my last.”
“Thank you,” said Jack, sounding awed.
“You, Beanstalker, are welcome,” said Rune. “You have stood between us and ruin.”
The platform lifted them out of the Red Glade and into the fairywood once more. Rapunzel and Jack stepped down onto the giant leaves that paved the dirt around them. Rune remained on the platform.
“Stand back,” he commanded. He took clay from the pouch at his hip and began to roll it between his palms, making it longer and thinner.
A tingling sensation started in the tips of Rapunzel’s toes. It rushed up her legs and she wobbled, unsteady on her feet. Soon her middle was tingling too, and then her arms, and finally her head. The world streaked around her like a tunnel of falling stars, and then came to a slow, rolling stop. Her vision dawned, and she blinked.
“I’m big!” she cried when she realized what had happened. “I’m myself again!”
Prince Frog had grown bigger as well, to about the size of her fist. He leapt from her shoulder to crush a spider on the ground, and croaked with evident delight at his change in size.
An instant later, Jack stood beside Rapunzel at his regular size and height. Below them on the platform, Rune fell to his knees. He raised one shaking hand to his forehead.
“Go north,” he gasped, “and do not turn back. I will be watching every step. One movement toward the tower — one breath to call Envearia — and I will not forgive.”
Thick mist swept in, obscuring the platform on which Rune knelt and blotting out the dome of roses that marked the fairies’ glade. The mist twisted into funnels and burst. When it dissipated, the glade was gone. They were alone again in the strange silver woods.
Jack fished a circle of metal and glass out of one of his pockets. The arrow under the glass swung around in a circle, then stopped on the letter N.
“North,” said Jack. He pointed along a path that disappeared among the trees, and Rapunzel stifled a sigh. She had no choice but to do what Glyph had told her: walk for weeks to find the Woodmother so that she could learn whatever it was she was supposed to know. At least now that she was out of the Red Glade, her queasiness was gone, and even though she knew that Rune was watching her, he was out of her sight. She could try to forget him.
She scooped up Prince Frog, who hopped onto her shoulder. “It’s only for a few weeks,” she said under her breath. “Then I’ll be back, and Witch will be safe. We’ll live happily ever after, just like in all my books.” Thinking this way, her heart grew lighter, and so did her steps, until she was walking along at Jack’s pace despite the weight of her hair.
“Now,” she said, “where are we going?”
THEY were headed north toward Yellow Country, Jack told her as they walked. It was a country famous for its farms and its food, and the capital, Cornucopia, was a big, merry marketplace where all the farmers and gourmets sold their goods. There were meat pie vendors and pig-roasting pits and toasted cheese sandwiches; there were fresh chunks of honeycomb and lemon custards and chocolate-dipped cheesecakes. Farmers sold apples and strawberries and tomatoes and pumpkins, everything was cooked with the freshest herbs and dished up with the most delightful chutneys, and it all smelled sensational.
Jack had to stop several times in his description of Cornucopia to define his words. Rapunzel had never heard of Yellow Country, or a marketplace, or pig-roasting pits. Jack was patient about her questions. In some cases, he didn’t wait for her to ask but launched into long, unprompted explanations. He described the food in such detail that Rapunzel’s appetite roared up for the first time since she had vomited — another word Jack was happy to teach her.
“I’m starving,” she said.
“No you’re not,” said Jack. “You’ve never starved ten seconds in your life, I bet. Or did the witch sometimes forget to leave food up in your tower?” He looked at her with interest.
“Of course she didn’t,” Rapunzel scoffed. “Witch brings me whatever I want. I just ring my bell.”
“Must be nice,” said Jack.
“It’s very nice,” she said, ignoring the insincerity of his tone. She thought of Witch’s wonderful cooking, and the sandwiches and soups and meats that would have been her fare at home, and her stomach rumbled. “I’m hungry,” she said. “I haven’t eaten in forever, and I vomited everything up.”
Jack dug into his pocket and pulled out a toasty-brown acorn. He offered it to Rapunzel.
“I’m hungrier than that,” she said.
Jack stopped walking, and Rapunzel almost tripped right into him. “You don’t know what this is?” he demanded, shaking the acorn in her face.
“It’s an acorn,” said Rapunzel, stepping back to avoid getting smacked on the nose with it.
“It’s Ubiquitous Instant Bread,” said Jack. “Crack it on a stone.”
“You-bick-wit-us?”
“Ubiquitous,” said Jack again. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one of these.”
“Of course I have,” said Rapunzel, and she snatched the acorn to study it. “You’ve pulled them out of your pockets before and turned them into ropes.”
“Different ones turn into different things,” said Jack. “You’ve never even heard of … Wow.” He pushed his hair back and shook his head. “Everyone uses this stuff. Ubiquitous! It’s everywhere! Come on, you’ve really never heard of it?”
Rapunzel shook her head.
“Well, go on,” Jack said. “Crack it.”
She crouched beside a stone and tapped the acorn against its surface.
“No,” he said. “Crack it.”
She tapped again, harder. Still, nothing happened.
“Just give it here,” Jack said, sighing. “I’ll —”
Rapunzel gave the acorn a mighty whack against the stone. It made a loud, satisfying crack, and she squealed as the acorn in her fingers exploded into a heavy, round, crusty loaf of warm and fragrant bread.
“Amazing!” she said.
“Ubiquitous,” said Jack. “Split it with me.”
Rapunzel tore the loaf in two and kept the bigger half.
“I should’ve given you some the other night, instead of letting you eat fairy stuff,” said Jack, looking a bit sorry as he took his share. “I just didn’t think of it.”
Too hungry to care, Rapunzel followed him deeper into the woods, munching the bread until it was gone. She offered a handful of crusty crumbs to Prince Frog, who wasn’t interested. She licked them off her hand.
“Still hungry,” she said.
“We have to ration the supplies,” said Jack. “It’ll take almost a week to reach Cornucopia.”
“Ration?”
“Just eat a little at a time.”
Rapunzel didn’t like this definition. She decided to ask another question instead. “Is it hard to learn to swim?”
“Why, can’t you do it? Course you can’t,” Jack said. “Hmm. That could be a problem. We’ll be crossing a river soon — rivers are like lakes, except they’re really long, and the water moves fast,” he explained before Rapunzel could tell him that she’d already read about rivers in her books. “There are bridges, but it’s better if we don’t have to use official crossing points.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t have papers proving who we are or what our business is.”
“Do you need papers to cross rivers?”
“Sometimes. It depends.”
Rapunzel remembered the sensation of slipping underwater and being unable to breathe. Would she have to walk through the rivers? Would they be too deep for her? If the water moved fast, would it suck her in? She thought of the lifebreath Rune had given them and was glad that at least she had that much protection — though she hated to be grateful to Rune, who would have killed her already if Glyph hadn’t stopped him.
Rapunzel wondered why Rune listened to Glyph, anyway. He could have ignored her if he’d wanted to. Glyph had been sick, after all, and with a broken wing too.
“What’s the feeling I get when I see Glyph’s wing?” she asked suddenly, troubled by the memory of the dull gray thing hanging limp and broken from Glyph’s body.
“What feeling?”
asked Jack. “Describe it.”
“I feel …” Rapunzel searched for words. “Like it’s all my fault,” she finished, thinking of Witch’s wrinkles and her streaks of white hair. Those had been all her fault too, and they’d probably only gotten worse.
“Bad feeling?” Jack asked, his eyes ahead on the path. “Heavy? Kind of sits right here?” He rested one of his fists under his rib cage and closed his other hand over the back of his neck.
“That’s it!” Rapunzel said. She touched her stomach and neck in echo. “That’s the feeling.”
“That’s guilt,” said Jack. He dropped his hands and kept walking. “You’ve never felt that before?” He laughed, but the sound was short. “That’s some tower.”
“It’s an awful feeling. I hope there’s not a worse one.”
“There’s grief.”
On Rapunzel’s shoulder, Prince Frog concurred with a silent, sober hop.
“Grief?”
“It’s mostly how you feel if someone you love dies. Or leaves.”
“What does it feel like?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You have to,” said Rapunzel, marching alongside him. “Glyph said you have to tell me the truth, no matter what I ask.”
“And the truth is, I can’t tell you,” said Jack. He shrugged. “You either know how it feels or you don’t.”
They soon emerged from the silent silver fairywood and reentered the noisy forests of the Redlands, which Rapunzel had never seen by day — not from the ground, anyway. She was surprised to find that the dense woods weren’t riddled with scuttling poisonous things at all. The delicate webs that had caught at her in the darkness were easy to avoid now; they shimmered by daylight, outlined in dew. Clusters of tiny yellow flowers bloomed in patches of sunlight. Birdsong filled the branches overhead. She looked up into the great, dark-green needles of the shockingly tall trees and decided that they were very pretty. It was lovely to see how the rays of sunlight split apart as they came through the treetops and filtered down in long, sparkling beams.
Jack brightened with every step northward, as though walking in the woods was the sort of thing that suited him exactly. Rapunzel could not feel the same way; the wheel that held her braid was beginning to press on her.
Grounded: The Adventures of Rapunzel Page 8