“Cheer up,” said Jack, happening to glance at her when she was wincing. “It’s not so bad. Everywhere’s got to be interesting to you — you’ve spent your whole life in one room.”
“I have a room and a balcony.”
“Guess you’ve seen it all then,” said Jack. “Come on, ask some more questions. Anything you want. There’s plenty I can tell you, if you want to know.”
Rapunzel considered. She did have questions.
“What’s a mother?” she asked.
“Crop rot,” said Jack in a low voice. “What a question. You really don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I knew!”
“All right, all right, it’s just …” Jack shrugged. “A mother is … a woman,” he said, scratching his head. “And a father is a man. They’re parents. They have children. You’re supposed to grow up with your parents, unless they die or something bad happens.”
“Oh. So … Witch is my mother?”
Jack looked offended. “No!”
“Why not? I grew up with her.”
“But she’s not your real mother.”
It was Rapunzel’s turn to take offense. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “Of course she’s real.”
“No, she’s …” Jack seemed to be fighting for words. “Skies,” he finally said. “This is harder to explain than I thought. See, your real parents are the ones who … who had you.”
“Had me?”
“Yeah. Parents …” The lump in his throat bobbed. “They make children together.”
“Make them how?” asked Rapunzel.
“I’m …” He turned his face away from her. “I’m not the right person to ask.”
“But you know all about it, don’t you?”
Jack’s neck flushed pink. “Not all about it.”
“Well, tell me what you know, then.”
He said nothing.
“You have to,” said Rapunzel. “Glyph said.”
Finally Jack broke down and described, in a few short sentences, without making eye contact, how parents go about making children. His voice cracked, and when he was finished, he strode off ahead of her and put several paces’ distance between them. Rapunzel was disgusted.
“So some other mother made me,” she said when she caught up with him. She ignored his pained wince. “And then Witch found me in the swamps. So that other mother must have left me lying around, but Witch took care of me. Doesn’t that make her my real mother, and the other mother a fake one?”
He didn’t seem to know how to answer.
“Do all parents make their own children?” Rapunzel pressed. “Aren’t there any parents who don’t?”
“Some kids get adopted,” he admitted. “Their parents can’t take care of them for some reason, so other people do it instead.”
“Are the people who adopt them still real parents?”
“Of course, if they take good care of them and love them and stuff.”
“Then Witch adopted me, and she’s my real mother! She loved me and took care of me. Nobody else did.”
He was quiet, frowning.
“What about fairies?” Rapunzel demanded after a moment, still thinking about the strange things Jack had told her. “Do Glyph and Rune —”
“Oh, don’t,” said Jack. “Just don’t.”
“Do you get to pick who you make children with?”
He gawked at her. “Of course you do. What else?”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t pick Rune. Glyph was the best of all those fairies, and he was the worst. What would she want him for?”
Jack shrugged. “He cares about her.”
“Cares about her? He never agreed with her once!”
“You don’t always agree with the people you care about.”
“Witch always agrees with me. And Rune was so nasty.”
“He’s scared,” said Jack. “People can be nasty when they’re scared.”
“I wouldn’t be,” said Rapunzel.
“Really?” He raised his voice and shrieked, “LIAR! BRUTE! EMISSARY!”
Rapunzel bit her lip.
“TROLL!” He went on, seeming to enjoy himself. He danced his hands about and tossed his hair. “IMP! UGLY LITTLE GNOME!”
“I shouldn’t have called you ugly,” said Rapunzel. “I’m sorry about that.”
Jack only laughed. “My sister calls me worse,” he said.
“You’ve said ‘sister’ before — is it some sort of beast?”
“Yeah,” he said with a snicker, but he quickly shook his head. “You’ll just get confused if I joke,” he said. “Children who come from the same parents are called sisters and brothers. Girls are sisters, boys are brothers. They grow up together, usually. My sister and I have shared a room since she was born.”
They had come to the top of a hill, and Jack stopped for a moment. Rapunzel took the opportunity to adjust the straps of her hair wheel, which were now cutting into her shoulders. She saw only another long stretch of tall woods ahead, overshadowed by dark gray clouds.
“If you have a sister, does that make you a brother?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Jack gazed out at the clouds for a long moment, and then he set off down the long hill ahead. “So,” he said as he strode along, “what other questions do you have?”
The lightness of his tone didn’t match his expression, and Rapunzel looked suspiciously at him. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Just ask another question, all right?” Jack’s voice was tight. “Leave it alone.”
“Then there is something wrong!”
But though she continued to press him, Jack would not share one word of whatever it was that troubled him — not even when Rapunzel reminded him that he had to tell her everything she asked, because Glyph had said so.
“This is my business,” Jack said shortly. And then he sped up until he reached a pace Rapunzel could not hope to match. Balancing carefully to offset the weight on her back, she followed him down the long hillside and into the gloomy woods. The air was hot and moist, and her nightgown stuck to her damp skin. Jack stayed far enough ahead to prevent conversation, and all she could think about was the pain in her back and feet.
They walked another hour and came to a stream. Jack bent down to the brown water, cupped his hand, and drank. Rapunzel drank a very small sip, afraid it would taste as bad as it looked. When it tasted fine, if rather warm, she copied Jack and scooped water from the stream into her mouth. She drank for some time before she was finished, and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.
Prince Frog leapt into the cloudy water, belly up and little feet splayed, looking very green and relaxed. He seemed to love to be wet, and Rapunzel decided to soak one of her pockets for him. She reached into the pockets of her robe to turn them out.
To her surprise, they weren’t empty. In one, she found her bag of jacks; in the other, Rune’s lifebreath. She held out the bubble to Jack.
“You have more pockets to put things in,” she said.
Jack stowed the lifebreath in his vest as Rapunzel dipped her pocket into the stream. She picked up Prince Frog.
“There you are,” she said, slipping him into her wet pocket.
Prince Frog croaked gratefully.
All day they walked, through thickets and across muddy streams, and with each step Rapunzel’s braid grew heavier. Her pace became a slow walk. Her slow walk became a trudge. When the sun began to set, they reached a wide, grassy field. At the far end of the field, where the grass gave way to rocks, she saw a crack in the ground. The rocks ended and dropped off into nothing.
Rapunzel stayed away from the edge. From where she was, she couldn’t tell how deep the crack went.
“Can we stop here for now?” she asked. “I can’t walk anymore.”
“Hang on a sec,” said Jack with enthusiasm. He approached the crack in the ground and surveyed it, then
cast a wide grin over his shoulder at Rapunzel. “Can you believe this?” he asked. “We’re already at the Golden River! That fairywood saved us over two days of walking. Good thing too — now we’ll have enough food to last till Cornucopia.”
Rapunzel picked her way carefully to the edge of the crack and looked down into it.
“Yellow Country is right on the other side of the river,” Jack said. “Might as well go across now and make camp under those willows. See them?”
Rapunzel didn’t. Her eyes were fixed on the churning river.
“That’s a lot of water,” she said.
“It’s okay,” said Jack. “I’ve got this.” And he pulled a dark brown acorn out of his pocket.
“Oh good.” Rapunzel reached for it. “Is it time for dinner?”
“This one’s not bread,” he said. “It’s a Ubiquitous Instant Bridge.”
“Bridge?”
“It goes across things, so you can get from one side to the other.” Jack swept his hand in a rainbow arc. “Like this. And you can walk on it.”
Rapunzel looked at the little acorn in Jack’s fingers. “That’s going to be a whole bridge?”
“Sure is.”
“But what if it disappears like your rope did? Won’t we fall and die?”
“Nah, the fall wouldn’t be that bad,” said Jack, squinting at the water. “It can’t be more than fifteen feet. Twenty, tops.”
“But if I fall, I’ll go underwater with no breath.”
“Drown, you mean,” said Jack, flipping the acorn into the air and catching it again. “Don’t worry. Some people say Ubiquitous acorns crash all the time, but I say they’re cracking them wrong. Ubiquitous always lasts for me.”
“What do you mean, they crash? Into the ground?”
“No, crashing’s when they stop working all of a sudden and they disappear,” said Jack. “With some products it’s hilarious — like the ball gowns and stuff.”
Rapunzel stared at the furious river. “There must be another way.”
“There is.” Jack shrugged. “But I don’t want to take it. There aren’t many crossing points out of the Redlands — the Golden River runs along the entire northern border. It’s a day’s walk to the nearest bridge.”
Rapunzel sagged at the idea of carrying her braid for an extra day.
“Then … I suppose we have to cross,” she said. “Please don’t let me drown.”
“Just get ready to run, all right?”
Rapunzel took a deep breath and tensed. She fixed her eyes on the other side of the chasm and thought of nothing but getting across it.
“All right,” she said. “Crack it.”
But there came no cracking sound.
“Crack it,” she repeated. “Go on, I’m ready.”
Jack stared over her shoulder toward the woods, motionless.
“What’s the matter?” asked Rapunzel.
“Stalker,” Jack whispered.
Rapunzel whirled around to see what he meant, but all she saw were trees. Trees — and an odd shimmering patch of air that was moving along the border of the woods.
“Show yourself,” said Jack, his voice quavering. “Unless I’m wrong,” he added. “I hope I’m wrong….”
The shimmering patch of air solidified.
A hundred paces away, at the edge of the woods, stood a monstrous beast, with golden fur and a snarling, fanged mouth. Even on all fours, it was taller than they. It clawed at the rocky dirt and bared its dripping fangs. It pinned bloodred eyes on Rapunzel and shut its jaws with a sickening snap.
Prince Frog quivered in Rapunzel’s pocket. Then she realized it was she who was shaking.
The Stalker suddenly crouched, snarled, and leapt thirty paces toward them with frightening ease. Rapunzel’s shaking worsened when she saw that its mouth was easily wider than her head.
“Do something,” she said hoarsely.
“You’re the one who lost my dagger,” Jack hissed. “You do something.”
“I …” Rapunzel licked her lips. “I can call for —”
She was about to say Witch. But a faint red light shimmered in the woods beyond the Stalker, and Rapunzel knew that Rune had heard her.
Jack must have seen it too. “Rune!” he called out. “Help!”
The Stalker sprang forward again, and Rapunzel stumbled back and shrieked in terror. Another pounce and the Stalker would be upon them.
“Rune!” shouted Jack again as Rapunzel glanced over her shoulder. If the Stalker leapt again, they would have nowhere left to run. One more step and they would fall straight over the precipice.
Into the river.
Rapunzel had a sudden, wild idea.
“Jack!” she whispered, angling her back to him. “Take my braid.”
The wheel of hair whirred, and the end of her braid shot into Jack’s hands.
“Hold on to it,” Rapunzel said, barely moving her mouth. “When the Stalker jumps at us again, we’ll run in opposite directions —”
“And trip it into the water!”
Jack had barely said the last word when the Stalker crouched down once more and sprang toward the two of them with a ravenous roar.
“Go!” shouted Jack, and they shot apart. Rapunzel gasped as the Stalker slammed into her hair and her braid went taut against her scalp. The Stalker’s hind legs were caught on the braid; it stumbled, snarling — and then it lost its balance.
So did Rapunzel. The weight of the Stalker knocked her off one foot; she teetered backward toward the crack in the ground. She heard the Stalker roar in fury, saw it tip over the edge of the cliff and fall, flailing and spitting, into the chasm.
And then she screamed as she too fell from the precipice and dropped like a stone toward the river.
Rapunzel hit the water with a smack that knocked the breath out of her. Its roar filled her ears as the river pulled her under and carried her away. She opened her eyes and scrambled for something to hold, but the water was dark and empty; there was only a faint gleam above her. She kicked and lurched, beating her way toward the light, but every thrash of her arms drove her deeper into the river. Her lungs tightened; her chest pounded. Her mind went red.
She would die like this, she thought. She could call for Witch now — Rune’s threats meant nothing if she was only going to die here anyway. She opened her mouth, but it was too late; she could not get air. Her brain softened into darkness.
The sensation of every hair in her scalp being yanked at once brought her back to her senses for one horrible second — everything was splitting agony. And then there was another wrenching yank, and Rapunzel’s head cleared the surface of the water. She sucked in the most fantastic breath that she had ever breathed.
“Rapunzel!” shouted Jack from high above as he pulled her by her braid through the rushing water.
Weak with pain and fear, Rapunzel could only breathe and tremble. That was enough.
“Grab your braid! Come on, you’ve got to climb it — I tied the end to a tree, I’ve got you!”
When Rapunzel was close enough to the wall, she took her braid in shaking hands and leaned her forehead against it. Jack had said the chasm was fifteen or twenty feet deep — she could never climb so high. She lolled against the stone valley wall, the water pulling at her as it rushed past.
“Try!” Jack shouted. “Come on, Rapunzel — brace your feet on the wall.”
“I can’t,” Rapunzel whispered to her wet braid. She gave a tiny sob. “I can’t.”
“Ribbit,” said Prince Frog from her shoulder.
“Oh,” she choked. “Prince Frog — you didn’t drown.”
Prince Frog gazed at her as if to say that frogs did not drown very often, and nudged her jaw with his clammy head. “Ribbit,” he insisted.
For him, perhaps she could. Rapunzel braced her feet on the stones and, for the first time, looked up.
Jack hung partway over the precipice, the braid clasped in his hands. His face was white against the black of his hair. “RAP
UNZEL!” he screamed. “CLIMB!”
Startled into action, Rapunzel reached up, gripped her braid, and hauled herself a foot out of the water.
A furious roar erupted behind her. She looked back over her shoulder.
The Stalker was there, clutching an outcropping of rock. Its head disappeared beneath the roiling water, then surfaced again, its red eyes wide, its dripping jaws no more than a few feet from Rapunzel’s waist. It struggled toward her along the rock.
Energy unlike any Rapunzel had ever felt surged through her limbs. Finding her strength had tripled, she pulled and pulled, putting hand over hand, until her feet cleared the surface of the water.
“USE YOUR LEGS!” Jack tried to pull the braid up, and Rapunzel with it, but only hefted her a few inches farther. “HURRY! IT’S BEHIND YOU!”
Rapunzel felt hot breath at her ankles, the snap of teeth closing just at her heel. She screamed, shoved her right foot into a crevice in the stones, and pushed up with her legs. Jack was right. It was faster. She shoved her left foot into a pocket between two jutting rocks and pushed up again. Her limbs trembled with power that felt almost like magic.
She looked down. The Stalker was a few feet below her now. It scrabbled at the valley wall, flailing to reach her with its claws and teeth. Terrified, Rapunzel climbed on.
“LOOK OUT!”
Rapunzel looked down. Below her, the Stalker bared its fangs and lunged for Rapunzel’s dangling braid.
“PULL UP YOUR HAIR!” Jack shouted.
Rapunzel shrieked, clamped her braid between her feet, and pulled her knees up as high as she could, yanking her braid out of the Stalker’s reach. She could only hold the position for a second, but it was long enough. The Stalker scrambled for balance, made one last leaping, desperate effort, and missed her hair by inches. With a howl, it fell backward into the river and was swept away by the churning foam.
Rapunzel hung from her braid, breathing in long, uneven gasps, until she felt ready to make her way upward. The strange, surging energy in her limbs had ebbed away, leaving her as weak as jelly.
“You can do it,” Jack called.
Rapunzel pushed as much as she could with her legs as Jack tugged her braid. When she reached the rocks at the top, she was careful, not wanting to grab hold of anything that might come loose and send her plunging straight back down again. Finally, her knees hit the safety of the grass, and she fell onto it, her heart racing, her cheek pressed to the cool dirt. Prince Frog stayed close as Jack untied her anchored braid and returned with most of her hair. He pulled the rest up from where it still hung toward the river, and then he sat heavily beside Rapunzel, panting. With effort, Rapunzel turned her head and looked up at him. He was sweating so much that his hair was wet. He massaged his upper arms and rubbed his hands, which looked red and raw.
Grounded: The Adventures of Rapunzel Page 9