“Please speak up, Rapunzel. You know how I hate the mumbling.”
“I am the lost princess. Aren’t I?” Rapunzel gave Gothel a wrathful look and continued. “Did I mumble, Mother? Or should I even call you that?”
“Oh, Rapunzel, do you even hear yourself? Why would you ask such a ridiculous question?”
“It was you! It was always you.”
“Everything I did was to protect you.” My flower.
Rapunzel shoved Gothel and ran past her down the stairs. “Rapunzel!”
“I spent my entire life hiding from people who would use me for my powers,” said Rapunzel, walking away from her mother.
“Rapunzel!” called Gothel, going after her.
“And all this time I should have been hiding from you!” Gothel couldn’t believe how angry Rapunzel was.
“Where will you go? He won’t be there for you!” said Gothel, desperate to keep her flower.
“What did you do to him?”
“That criminal will be hanged for his crimes.”
“No.”
“Now, now, it’s all right. Listen to Mommy, all of this is as it should be.” She reached to touch Rapunzel’s hair, but Rapunzel snatched her mother’s hand in hers, and then she saw it. Her mother’s hand was like a claw. Like a witch’s hand.
“No, you were wrong about the world. And you were wrong about me. And I will never let you use my hair again,” Rapunzel shouted, pushing Gothel backward into a mirror, smashing it.
“You want me to be the bad guy? Fine, now I’m the bad guy.” Gothel slapped Rapunzel across the face, knocking her to the floor. “Is this what you want?”
“Mother! No!”
“I’m not your mother, remember! I’m just the witch who stole you from your real family!”
“Please! Please don’t hurt me!”
“I wouldn’t hurt you, dear! You think you know my story. You have it all written in your mind! You know nothing of my life, Rapunzel, or why I’ve made the choices I have.” She put her knife to Rapunzel’s throat as she chained her up.
“Rapunzel! Rapunzel, let down your hair.” It was Flynn Rider. He was calling from outside.
“How…Never mind,” said Gothel. “Now listen to me, my little flower, do as I say or I will gut that dreamboat of yours, do you understand?” She tossed Rapunzel’s hair out the window for Flynn Rider to climb up.
“Do you understand?” asked Gothel.
“Yes,” said Rapunzel.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“That’s right,” Gothel said as she gagged the lost princess.
Gothel stood at the window, waiting for Flynn Rider to come in. Rapunzel was frozen in fear. She didn’t know what her mother—what Gothel—would do next.
“Rapunzel, I never thought I would see you again!”
Before he could say anything else, Gothel stabbed him. She had killed before but nothing so intimate as this, and she had a keen sense of satisfaction, feeling the blade slip into his flesh and his warm blood pouring onto her hand. Rapunzel screamed through her gag, trying to reach Eugene, but the ropes kept her in place.
“Now look what you’ve done, Rapunzel!” Gothel said. “Oh, don’t worry, dear. Our secret will die with him.”
Rapunzel was terrified. Eugene was bleeding to death.
“And as for us…we are going where no one will ever find you again!” We will go to the dead woods, and I will claim my place as queen once again, and I will have my sisters at my side!
Rapunzel was struggling against her mother as Gothel tried to drag her down the secret passageway.
“Rapunzel, really! Stop already! Stop fighting me!”
“No! I won’t stop! For every minute for the rest of my life, I will fight. I will never stop trying to get away from you, but if you let me save him, I will go with you.”
“No, no, Rapunzel,” Eugene said.
“I will never run, I will never try to escape. Just let me heal him. And you and I will be together forever. Like you want. Everything will be the way it was. I promise. Just like you want. Just let me heal him.”
Together. Forever. The words were like knives in Gothel’s heart. Sisters. Together. Forever.
Gothel agreed. She finally had her flower. Rapunzel would go without a struggle. Gothel would take her to the dead woods, and they would be together, along with her sisters. They would never grow old and they would never die. They would never turn to dust like their mother. She would never suffer the indignity of death—of the horrible death she had given her mother. She was finally going to have the life she wanted.
“Eugene! Oh, I’m so sorry! Everything is going to be okay, though. I promise. You have to trust me, come on.”
“I can’t let you do this!”
He was dying, and Rapunzel’s heart was breaking as she watched him slipping away from her. “And I can’t let you die,” Rapunzel told him.
“But if you do this, then you will die.” She knew Eugene was right, but there was no choice. “Hey, it’s going to be all right.” She didn’t know who she was trying to convince—Eugene or herself.
“Rapunzel, wait,” he said as he touched the side of her face. And before she could stop him, he sliced off her hair with a piece of broken mirror.
“Eugene, what—?” She held her hair in her hands as she watched it die and turn brown. It looked like dead leaves.
“No!” Gothel screamed as she tried to gather the dying hair to her. “No, no, no! What have you done?” And then it was happening. She was suffering the same fate as her mother. She started to wither. She started to age. It was horrific. And the pain, it was worse than she had imagined. It consumed her. It devoured her from within. “What have you done?” She ran to the mirror, trying to find the odd sisters, trying to find someone who could help her. She couldn’t leave her sisters alone. What would become of them? She had failed them. She had failed her sisters. She was going to die. I can’t leave my sisters! I can’t! She screamed as the pain filled her body. There was no escaping it. Had her mother felt that way when she died? Had it been that horrendous for her? Gothel was turning to dust. She could feel herself falling away. And she saw Rapunzel’s horrified face as Gothel tripped and fell out the window. The last thing she saw was the last thing her mother had seen.
A look of utter revulsion and horror.
Circe put down the book of fairy tales and sighed. “He died.”
Snow dropped the teacup she had been holding. Her sweet face crumpled into tears. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I broke your teacup,” she said, looking down at the pieces.
“Eugene died in Rapunzel’s arms, Snow.”
Snow cried even harder “It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not!” Circe walked over to one of her sisters’ large mirrors she had propped up against one of the onyx ravens that flanked the fireplace. “Show me Rapunzel.” She saw Rapunzel crying over Eugene’s body. Circe closed her eyes, placed her hand on the mirror, and said the words:
Flower, gleam and glow
Let her power shine
Make the clock reverse
Bring back what once was hers
Heal what has been hurt
Change the fates’ design
Save what has been lost
Bring back what once was hers
What once was hers
As Rapunzel’s tears fell, they created spiraling golden light that grew and twisted around them like wild creeping vines dancing around the tower, and from the vines blossomed a beautiful golden flower.
“Did you do that?” asked Snow as she watched Eugene come back to life.
“I’m not sure,” Circe said. “Rapunzel may have had a bit of the flower still within her.”
Snow smiled at her cousin. “Either way she has her happy ending.”
“She does,” said Circe, frowning.
“What’s wrong, Circe?”
“I…I’m not the real Circe.”
“Of course you�
�re real, Circe. I promise you. You’re very real.” Snow rushed to Circe, took her into her arms, and kissed her again and again. “Listen to me, Cousin. You’re the bravest, most loving woman I have ever met. You are real. And I love you. Don’t ever let me hear you thinking differently. Don’t ever think you are less.” The house started to rumble and shake, shifting and moving rapidly. “What’s happening?”
This time the ladies didn’t panic. This time they simply went to the window and saw the endless black sea, streaked with light and glittering with stars, transmute, swirling and morphing and somehow connecting to the world they knew, until the celestial world they had been living in was entirely gone and they were once again in the many kingdoms.
“Circe! We’re home!” said Snow White, her face filled with happiness.
Circe smiled back at her sweet cousin. She could tell Snow wasn’t ready to return to her old life. She wanted more adventure. She wanted to see more of the world. “Should we go see Rapunzel’s wedding on our way to Morningstar?” she asked, hoping Snow would say yes.
“Are they getting married already?” asked Snow, laughing to herself.
“No, not for a few years yet. But I can take us there,” said Circe.
Snow White laughed again. “Yes! Let’s see her happy with her family. I would love that!”
“So would I! And will you come with me to check on Mrs. Tiddlebottom?” asked Circe, remembering the poor woman left alone in her country house.
“Oh yes, of course! I almost forgot about her!” Snow said, also remembering Gothel’s sisters and wondering what Circe was planning to do about them. “And I will go with you to Morningstar afterwards to check on Nanny and Tulip,” she added.
“Thank you so much, Snow. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you.”
“I love you, Circe. We’re in this together. I promise.”
“Good, because I think I’m going to need you in the days to come.”
“What’s wrong, Circe?”
“I’m not sure. I won’t know until I read the journals my mothers wrote during their time in the dead woods with Gothel.”
Snow White wanted nothing more than to see her cousin happy. But she knew in her soul that if Circe let her sisters out of the dreamscape, she would never have peace. She would never have happiness.
“Are you going to let your mothers use the mirrors now that the story is over?”
“No. Let them sit in darkness. Let them wonder. I’m done with them.”
THE END
SERENA VALENTINO has been weaving tales that combine mythos and guile for the past decade. She has earned critical acclaim in both the comic and horror domains, where she is known for her unique style of storytelling, bringing her readers into exquisitely frightening worlds filled with terror, beauty, and extraordinary protagonists. The books in her best-selling Villains series are best enjoyed when read in the following order: Fairest of All, The Beast Within, Poor Unfortunate Soul, Mistress of All Evil, Mother Knows Best.
Mother Knows Best: A Tale of the Old Witch Page 20