Grounded: The Adventures of Rapunzel

by Megan Morrison

  And this was the Phillip whom Witch had loved.

  He swung his legs over the stones and entered the tower. His crown glittered. His cape billowed. When his eyes fell on the baby basket, he knelt before it and pulled apart the blankets. Rapunzel leaned forward to see the baby beneath.

  “Valor is here, Felicity!” cried Phillip. “He breathes! He is safe!” He reached into the blankets and picked the baby up. It looked tiny and fragile in his large hands, and Rapunzel stared at its pink, wailing face.

  The baby in the basket was not her.

  “My son,” said Phillip softly, and he touched his broad forehead to the baby’s little one.

  “Where is Justice?” It was Felicity’s voice again, and it was closer now. “She lives? Tell me she is also safe!”

  Phillip replaced the baby in his blankets and moved the basket aside. For the first time, Rapunzel saw that it was not the only basket in the room. There was another one behind it, also full of blankets.

  Phillip put one strong, shaking hand into this basket and withdrew not a baby but a letter with his name written on it in beautiful script. Rapunzel knew the handwriting at once. It belonged to Witch.

  Phillip ripped open the letter and skimmed its contents. As he read it, first rage and then terror contorted his features.

  “Envearia,” he whispered. “No …”

  A white hand gripped the windowsill, and a woman with dark red hair, who must have been Felicity, threw herself into the tower. She ran to the first basket and fell to her knees. She seized the baby from his blankets, clutched him to her heart, and began to weep.

  “My son,” she said brokenly. “My son.” As she rocked back and forth, she looked up at Phillip with haunted eyes. “Where is Justice?” she demanded, her voice thick with tears.

  Phillip said nothing, but stood as a statue, still staring at the letter.

  All at once, Rapunzel knew where she had seen him before — Prince Dash of the Blue Kingdom, who had cut her hair and been turned to stone. Prince Phillip was so like him that they could have been the same person.

  Phillip crushed the letter in his fist.

  “Answer me!” Felicity pushed the first basket aside and drew the empty one toward her. It came easily. There was no weight in it.

  Still clutching her baby in one arm, she began to shake. “She is not here,” she whispered. “She is not here. …”

  “A witch …”

  “A witch took her?” Felicity seized Phillip’s sleeve with her free hand. “Why? How do you know this?”

  “I knew the woman when she was mortal.”

  Felicity’s expression changed from fearfulness to fury. “Oh, did you?” she said, her voice so low that Rapunzel almost could not hear it.

  Prince Phillip bowed his head.

  “You will hunt her,” said Felicity, clutching Valor to her breast as she advanced on him. “You will not rest until my daughter is in my arms and the witch is destroyed.”

  Light flooded the tower. Rapunzel squinted into the blinding sun, which had risen with force into the sky. Birds sang outside the window, and a pleasant breeze licked through the room and tickled her face, but she turned away from it. An ugly truth had wormed its way into her brain.

  She was not the first baby that Witch had brought to a tower.

  In fact, Witch had brought two other babies, and apparently she had kept one of them. Prince Phillip’s daughter. Justice. Rapunzel wondered what had happened to her.

  “I have to get out of here!”

  Rapunzel searched the room for the source of the unfamiliar voice.

  “Please, just listen to me —”

  The second voice was Witch’s.

  Rapunzel stood. Witch was right there in front of her, looking more like Rapunzel remembered her. Her face was not as young and smooth as Rapunzel was used to seeing it, but she was simply dressed now. They were in a tower, but the fireplace, the furnishings, the shape of the stones in the walls, and the arch of the window were different all over again.

  But there were still hundreds of roses; they twisted in vines up the posts of the bed and formed a canopy over it. Beneath the canopy, the mattress was bare. The sheets were gone, and so were the blankets and covers.

  “I’m sorry,” said the first voice again, and Rapunzel realized that it was coming from the window. She turned toward it.

  There, sitting in the window and clutching one of the sheets in her hands, was a girl. She was younger than Rapunzel by a few years at least. Her hair was short, dark, and curly, and her skin was sallow, as though she was sick. Her eyes were bright with tears.

  “I don’t want to go away from you,” said the girl. “You saved me from the Pink soldiers, and nursed me, and you gave me so much to eat, and such nice playthings.”

  “Then stay with me, Amelia,” said Witch. There was desperation in her voice. “I can give you so much more, if you will stay.”

  “I miss playing in the sun,” said the girl, Amelia, still clutching the sheet in her fingers. Rapunzel realized that the sheet was torn — Amelia had made strips from it and tied them together, creating a rope. She had done the same with the blanket and the covers.

  The end of her makeshift rope was tied to one of the bedposts. The rest Amelia had piled at her feet, just inside the window. It looked like about as much rope as Rapunzel had hair — enough to get her to the ground if she wanted to leave.

  “I can give you sun!” said Witch. “I will take the roof off this tower if you wish it!”

  “I want to run,” said Amelia. “I’ve been up here for two years. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “Where will you live if you go back to the ground?” cried Witch. “How will you eat?”

  “Won’t you still help me?” said Amelia. “Won’t you still love me?”

  “The only reason you want to leave,” said Witch, ignoring her questions, “is that you remember your freedom. But you don’t need to remember — I can help you forget. And then you can stay here and have all the nice things you could ever want.”

  “Help me forget?” said Amelia, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  Rapunzel swallowed the sudden, bitter taste that had risen in her mouth.

  “If you will only ask me,” said Witch, “I can take away your memories of the war, of the soldiers, of the pain — of everything. You will only remember this place, and me. And then you will be happy here.”

  Amelia drew back, horrified. “But I wouldn’t be me anymore,” she said.

  “Of course you would!”

  “No. I’d be …” Amelia shook her curly head. “I’d be empty,” she said.

  She threw her rope through the window. Gripping the sheet, she swung her legs over the stones and out of the tower. She braced her feet on the outer wall and began to lower herself.

  “Don’t!” shrieked Witch, leaning out the window.

  Behind her, on the bedpost, the end of Amelia’s rope strained against her weight as she climbed down. The knot was not secure, Rapunzel realized, feeling queasy. The end of the makeshift rope began to slip through the loops Amelia had made.

  Rapunzel ran to the bedpost and tried to hold the knot together, but her hands passed through it. She watched, helpless, as it untied itself.

  Witch did not notice. She was shouting after Amelia, “Anything you want! I’ll give you anything you want —”

  Amelia screamed.

  The rope had come undone.

  Rapunzel watched it snake rapidly across the floor and out the window. Witch saw it go between her hands, and she snatched for it, but too late.

  The next sound was a sickening thud.

  And then Witch also screamed. She stared, openmouthed, down at the ground below, and then she sank, shaking, to the floor. She covered her face in her hands and began to rock, moaning.

  Her hair turned from dark brown to stark white.

  Rapunzel ran to the window and looked down at the ground. Amelia’s dark curls gleamed in the sunlight. Her body l
ay in a heap, her limbs splayed at crazy angles.

  The sight was so terrible that it took Rapunzel several minutes to realize that the ground below the tower was not the rich red she was used to seeing. It was rocky and gray. Rapunzel looked out at the horizon and saw that nothing was familiar. Mountains, high and jagged and capped with snow, ran from one end of her view to the other.

  Witch had built other towers, in other places.

  And Rapunzel was not even the second child that she had tried to keep in one.

  Rapunzel backed away from the window, no longer certain of anything in her life. She was not Witch’s first child, nor her second. Perhaps she was not the fifteenth or twentieth. Perhaps after her, there would be several others. Hundreds of others. Perhaps Witch had others even now. After all, she was not always with Rapunzel.

  Rapunzel looked down at Witch, who still sat rocking, moaning, her face in her hands. The skin on her hands was thin and spotted, as though it had aged many decades. Rapunzel did not need to see Witch’s face to know that she had become an old woman in the space of a few seconds.

  Of course she had. She had lost her fuel.

  The tower shifted subtly, and Rapunzel knew instantly where the Woodmother had taken her now.

  Home.

  The blue flames in the fireplace made pale shadows in the room. Roses bloomed from the ceiling garden; their petals rained into the bubble bath. Books lined the shelves. The silver bell gleamed on the mantel. The harp played a lullaby Rapunzel had known for as long as she could remember.

  “And I f-forgot to wind my b-braid….”

  Rapunzel knew her own voice, though it sounded strange in her ears. Perhaps because it was sobbing. Or maybe it was because she had never said those words before. Not that she could remember.

  She didn’t want to turn. She didn’t want to see.

  “My poor darling.”

  Rapunzel winced.

  She turned toward the bed, and her heart felt cold. There she lay, the old Rapunzel, collapsed atop her covers, weeping into her pillows. Her slippers and nightgown were clean. Her braid spilled across the floor.

  Witch stroked her head and kissed her. “Tell me everything,” she said.

  “H-he had orange hair,” the old Rapunzel wailed. “He grabbed on to my braid and tried to climb up, and I was so frightened!”

  Witch gently patted her heaving back. “It must have been awful.”

  “It was!”

  “How dare he come here and give you nightmares?”

  “N-nightmares?” The old Rapunzel lifted her head and sniffled.

  “Nightmares are very bad dreams,” said Witch. “When frightening things happen, nightmares come, and they make you live those things all over again. As long as you remember that prince, he will visit your mind every night and terrorize you.”

  Rapunzel was amazed. What a cruel thing that was for Witch to tell her. But the old Rapunzel did not see this.

  “I hate that prince,” the old Rapunzel whispered, sitting up in her bed. “I don’t want to have awful dreams about him every night.”

  “I know,” said Witch, and she drew her close. “I know. You wish you could forget all about him, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said the old Rapunzel at once. “I wish I could forget all about him — oh, Witch, I wish I could forget!”

  Witch touched her fingertips to the old Rapunzel’s temples.

  Rapunzel watched her own face as it went slack and the emotion drained out of it. Her pupils grew wide and dark. Her mouth fell open. It took only seconds, and then the old Rapunzel spoke, her voice uncertain.

  “Witch?”

  She glanced at her nightgown, then at Witch again.

  “Was I asleep?”

  This part, Rapunzel remembered. She gritted her teeth.

  “You were having a bad dream,” said Witch, and she embraced the old Rapunzel, who slumped against Witch with a little sigh.

  “I was?” asked the old Rapunzel, and she wiped her eyes. She looked at her fingertips, which were wet with tears. “I don’t remember it,” she said. “It must have been very bad.”

  “It’s all gone now,” said Witch. “And I’ve brought you something lovely for breakfast.”

  The old Rapunzel gave a little squeal of happiness.

  The real Rapunzel turned away from the bed and clenched her fists.

  “No more,” she said, and for the first time since entering the Woodmother, she could hear her own voice. “No more,” she said again, louder. “I’ve seen enough.”

  The Woodmother seemed to agree with her. The tower vanished, leaving Rapunzel in a world of dark nothingness, just as when she had first entered the tree. There was nothing above her and nothing below — but this time, she was not alone. The darkness abated slightly, and the Woodmother stood before her, a black silhouette in the shadows. Rapunzel looked up at her slithering branches, no longer surprised that she could be inside the tree and see her at the same time. The Woodmother, it seemed, could show her anything she wanted to.

  She did not want to see any more.

  “Let me out,” she said.

  The tree did not respond.

  “What do you want from me?”

  In the silence, she almost thought she heard the tree reply. She did want something. Rapunzel could feel it.

  “What?” she asked. “I won’t go back to my tower — is that what you want me to say? You want me to stay away from Witch because she’s done terrible things? Because I’m not …” Rapunzel’s voice failed her momentarily, but she gritted her teeth and found her strength again. “Because I’m not the first girl she’s used like this?”

  The air whispered and whirled.

  “Well, too bad,” said Rapunzel, stepping back. “Yes, I’ve heard the stories — and now I’ve seen them.” She tightened her stomach against the sensation of sickness. “And I believe them. But I’m not afraid of Witch.”

  The whispers in the air became frantic. The tree’s monstrous branches slithered wildly.

  “You listen to me,” Rapunzel commanded, standing as tall as she could and throwing back her head. She pointed a finger at the tree and raised her voice. “I told you to let me out! I’m going back to make her explain, do you hear? I have to make her stop. I’m the only one who can. She can’t do this again — not to anyone else. Not ever.”

  Dawn broke in the darkness, so bright that Rapunzel had to shield her eyes. The black nothingness around her subsided and the sky became golden. Rapunzel found herself standing on a path of stones that led straight to the trunk of the Woodmother.

  She caught her breath.

  The Woodmother was a creature of incredible beauty. Her trunk was a deep, gleaming bronze that shone like liquid in the dawn light. And her branches, Rapunzel realized in awe and delight, were not slithering at all. They were growing — endlessly growing — reaching infinitely outward and upward, twining and braiding together, blossoming every second with leaves of all colors and flowers of all kinds, stretching as far and as high as Rapunzel’s eyes could see and then vanishing into the air.

  Rapunzel found that she was kneeling on the path. She didn’t remember kneeling. The tree reached for her with one shining branch, and Rapunzel put her hand on it to steady herself as she stood.

  The branch was cool and warm together. It grew beneath her fingers, silk and rough, and she was content just to stand there and hold on to it. She could have stayed there forever. But the branch coiled gently around her hand and drew her along the path, toward the great, gleaming trunk.

  When Rapunzel reached the Woodmother, the branch withdrew, and she was sorry to feel it gone. She looked down at her empty hand and blinked. There, on her second finger, was a thin bronze ring. It appeared to move in a circle, as though growing and growing forever.

  “It’s beautiful,” Rapunzel whispered, and she closed her fist. “Thank you.” She looked up at the tree, who reached for her own trunk with two delicate branches, like hands reaching for a skirt. The Woodm
other parted the great, gleaming trunk before Rapunzel, revealing a path that she knew was the way out.

  The tree swayed, and her leaves whispered in a language Rapunzel did not understand. But it was comforting.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered in reply.

  Rapunzel stepped into the tree and onto the path.

  The Woodmother closed behind her.

  THE world outside was just as she had left it, except that dawn had come, pale gray and cold, bringing snowfall with it. Fat white flakes drifted down around Rapunzel, and she shut her eyes and turned up her face to feel them.

  When she opened her eyes again, she looked over her shoulder to see if the Woodmother was still there — but she was gone. Where she had gone, and how something so big could move so quickly, Rapunzel had no idea. She supposed she never would.

  At the campsite, she saw the fire pit she had made with Jack, and the fairy wheel still abandoned in the snow, and the wagon waiting with their belongings and Prince Frog inside it. But there was no Jack. He must have gone south with Rune, Rapunzel realized, and this knowledge made her feel more alone than she ever had in her life. She didn’t blame Jack for going — not at all. She had seen. She understood.

  It was time to return to the tower.

  Rapunzel grabbed the fairy wheel and fed the end of her braid into it. “Wind up,” she said, and when it did, she donned the wheel and drew a deep breath. She had never felt such dread at the thought of her home, but after the things she had seen, there was no other way to feel. She had to journey back; she had to face Witch. What would happen, she did not know. Best to start walking and figure it out when she got there.

  She picked up the wagon handle, surprised that Jack had left all of their belongings there for her. He should have taken half for himself.

  “I have the money too,” she murmured, glancing down at her belt. She wished she could have given him half the coins.

  Jack, however, had the compass. Rapunzel squinted at the early morning sun in the east and oriented herself to head south. She started walking. One foot after the other, and then again. And again.

  It was going to be a very long journey without Jack to talk to.