Grounded: The Adventures of Rapunzel Page 6

  This fairy tried to sit forward, but was too weak. She stretched one hand toward Rune, who flew to her and clasped it at once. With his other hand, he supported her back and helped her to sit up. The fairy looked at Rapunzel with blue eyes that spoke of many things Rapunzel could not fathom. Rapunzel stared at her, breathing hard against her gag.

  “Poor prisoner child,” said the fairy. “Rune, untie her.”

  “Eldest Glyph, if I let her go, and she runs, or strikes out —”

  “Untie her,” Glyph repeated. “She has nowhere to run, and she cannot harm us here. She does not even know her crime. To bind her like this is senseless and cruel.”

  “Compassion blinds you,” said Rune. “She wants you dead. This is a matter of survival.”

  Glyph ran her fingertips over the soft clay on which she sat, and then she made a gesture in the air as though moving aside an invisible curtain. Rapunzel’s braid tumbled to the ground. She dropped to her knees in the midst of all her hair.

  When she looked up again, Glyph had fallen back against the clay, her breath coming in heavy gasps, her eyebrows drawn together. Rune turned on Rapunzel. “She shows you kindness,” he spat, “after you whipped and broke her and would have let her die. You poisoned her!”

  “I didn’t!” cried Rapunzel. “I’ve never seen her before!”

  “Yes, you have.” Jack’s voice was quiet. “You just don’t remember it.”

  “Poor prisoner child,” Glyph said again. She opened her eyes and beckoned to Rapunzel with a weak hand. “Will you come to me?”

  Rapunzel wasn’t given a choice. The fairies pressed in on her, forcing her toward the dais and up its steps, then shoved her to her knees beside Glyph. The dais smelled of dying roses, and Rapunzel could see why: On a small table next to the fairy, the little glass vial of stolen dew lay empty on her pink handkerchief. Beside it, a large clay bowl smoked, giving off a pungently sweet scent that was not altogether pleasant.

  “Give the child space,” Glyph said, and the fairies eased off at once, though with a murmur of dissent. Glyph placed her red hand on the crown of Rapunzel’s head, then snatched her fingers away as though they’d been burned.

  “Witch magic,” she whispered, her eyes wide. She flexed her hand and paused. “Tell me, prisoner child, what do you think is happening here tonight?”

  “I know what’s happening,” Rapunzel retorted. “You’re the powerful fairy who came to my tower.” She wiped spit and tears from her mouth. “But you got sick from Witch’s magic, and you needed dew from my roses to make the cure, so Jack tricked me to get it, and Rune woke you up. And now you’ll kill Witch if you can.”

  “She knows this much,” said Glyph in surprise. The fairies murmured low among themselves.

  “Of course I know!” Being free of her bonds, Rapunzel was less frightened, which left her room for anger. “I know you came to my tower — I know everything!”

  “You know only what Envearia wants you to know,” said Rune.

  “Who is Envearia?” said Rapunzel.

  “You see?” said Rune to Glyph. “Do not confuse her little knowledge with actual understanding. She doesn’t even know the witch’s name.”

  Rapunzel started. “It’s just Witch,” she said.

  “She calls her Witch as a child says Mother,” said Rune in disgust.

  “Mother?” Rapunzel repeated.

  “Where is her mother?” asked Jack. “Does she have one? I mean, of course she had one, but did the witch kill her parents, or kidnap Rapunzel, or —”

  “Kidnap,” scoffed Rune. “No. It was a bargain. Envearia has played it very well. She has learned from her mistakes, and now she gains power year to year, and crushes us all in her fist as her magic grows.”

  “You frighten her,” said Glyph, watching Rapunzel’s face. “This is too much at once.”

  “What is?” Rapunzel cried, overwhelmed. “Why are you calling her Envearia? What is a mother?”

  “Her innocence is evident in every word she speaks,” said Glyph. “Treating her with violence will teach her that we are the ones to be feared. We will not be safe —”

  “Until this girl is destroyed and Envearia is forced to flee and start again,” said Rune. “And you know it. As for her innocence” — he said the word as though it tasted foul in his mouth — “it is high time to shatter it. We must kill her, Glyph.”

  Rapunzel shrank from the ugliness in his look.

  “No,” said Glyph, breathing so rapidly that even her dead wing seemed to beat a little. “I do not give my consent to kill her. While I live, the child lives.”

  Rune looked at Glyph with eyes full of an emotion that Rapunzel could not name. It was hard and soft at once. He touched Glyph’s cheek, and then the withered edge of her dull gray wing. “You live.”

  “I live,” said Glyph. “For now.”

  Rune tensed and pointed to Rapunzel. “For now,” he repeated. “But as long as this child lives for Envearia, nothing more can be done to help you. I refuse to trade your life for a life that has brought such suffering upon us!”

  At his words, the fairies raised their voices together in passionate agreement.

  “The child is not to blame for our suffering, or even for mine,” said Glyph. “She does not know what she is. My injury was an accident. She doesn’t even remember my visit — just touching her forehead, I felt so much witch magic that I would guess she has forgotten half the last year of her life.”

  Rapunzel jerked.

  “LIAR!” she shouted. “I remember the whole year, it’s just one day that I forgot!” She had put Witch in more danger than ever, coming here. For surely Witch would figure out where she was, and she would come to save her, and then they would both be killed.

  “I’m hurting her,” she mumbled, and her tears began to rise as she thought of the ugly wrinkles on Witch’s face, and the streaks of white in her hair, and how much worse it would all get now that she had left her tower. “I’m hurting her. If only I’d listened — I should have asked her to help me. She’ll be so frightened — oh, Witch, Witch, I’m sorry….”

  Rapunzel wept.

  “Poor thing,” said Glyph kindly, but her kindness only reminded Rapunzel of Witch and made her cry harder.

  “Listen,” Glyph said to Rapunzel, “and hear me. Two days ago, I came to the witch’s tower. While a prince called to you, I tried to climb your hair.”

  “Jack told me about that,” Rapunzel managed, hiccuping in an effort to stem her sobs.

  “Ah, but he doesn’t know all of it,” said Glyph. “Do you know what happened when I reached you?”

  Rapunzel shook her head.

  “I was smashed to the stones of your balcony as you collected your hair,” said Glyph. “My wing snapped and died, as you see. You didn’t know I was there, and you cannot be blamed for it. When you found me, you were alarmed — and kind.” She raised her voice, and beads of sweat stood out on her red brow. “I hope you are all listening,” she said, her words carrying across the silent Centercourt. “This child was gentle. She sought my comfort.”

  Glyph continued in a quieter voice, as though telling Rapunzel a bedtime story. “You took me in your hands and carried me inside. You were curious to meet another creature and anxious to do something to help, so you laid me in a clump of the witch’s flowers and fed me dew from her roses. I was too weak to refuse, and I could not use my voice — the magic in the tower was too strong. You could not know that it would all be poison to me.”

  Rapunzel already felt sick to her stomach; now she felt as though sickness were spreading into her heart. She couldn’t remember any of what Glyph was telling her. But somehow, she knew that the story was the truth. She had poisoned a fairy — she had whipped and broken her. Maybe not on purpose — but still.

  She covered her face with her hands.

  “She acts as though she cares,” said Rune. “Yet she knows nothing of pain, while you …” He made a sound of despair. “You cannot fly! Why do you
protect her? Why?”

  “There are more important things than flight,” said Glyph, clasping Rune’s hand tightly in her own. “And while I …” She drew a deep breath. “While I do regret the loss …”

  Her voice broke, and a terrible silence fell across the Centercourt. No one moved until Glyph spoke again.

  “The sacrifice was not made in vain,” she said. “The Beanstalker rescued me from the tower and brought me here. And now that you have come, prisoner child, I have what I wanted when I first climbed the tower.”

  “What did you want?” Rapunzel asked.

  “To speak with you,” said Glyph. “To tell you things and see if you can hear them, or if you are beyond all hope. I have faith that you are young enough yet to be salvaged, and my faith has grown since I met you, for though you are selfish and ignorant, your heart is good.”

  Rapunzel pushed herself to her knees. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her robe and hiccuped. She didn’t know what it meant to be salvaged, but it didn’t sound very nice.

  “Why do you all call me prisoner child?”

  “Because that is what you have always been,” said Glyph. “A prisoner in a tower.”

  “I’m not a prisoner,” Rapunzel said. “I love my tower.”

  “Love is a slippery word. Are you sure you understand it?”

  Rapunzel nodded. “Witch loves me,” she said, “and I love her. I only came down here to help her — but I failed.”

  “You have failed no one.”

  “Yes, I have,” said Rapunzel. “You’re alive. I wish I hadn’t shown you compassion. I wouldn’t have helped you if I’d known you want to kill Witch. I would have wanted you to die.”

  Jack sucked in a sharp breath, along with the rest of the fairies in the Centercourt.

  “Do you hear?” said Rune. “Do you see?”

  “I see a creature more truthful than most I have met,” said Glyph, her clear eyes on Rapunzel. “Prisoner child, I know you wish to return to your tower. I cannot allow it. But you are tired in body and mind, and I wish to give you some comfort. Tell me what you need.”

  Rapunzel gazed at Glyph. Everything was dreadful, and it was no good attempting to sort out the truth from the lies; she could hardly remember half of what had been said in the first place. What did she need? “I’m all dirty,” she said plaintively. “And I’ve felt sick ever since I shrank.”

  “Do you want sympathy?” asked Rune at once. “You have been ill for an hour. Imagine your pain lasting near a decade. While Envearia’s magic crushes in around us, not one of us has a single day of ease. We are poisoned, weakened, unable to —”

  “Rune.” Something in Glyph’s tone silenced him. “I cannot take our guests to the lake to bathe,” she said. “I am not well enough. One of you, volunteer.”

  A plump, pretty fairy with short pink braids burst from the middle of the crowd, scattering several fairies in her wake. “I will, Eldest Glyph,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at Rapunzel at all. She fluttered straight up to Jack and hovered nose to nose with him. “Come with me,” she said, and flashed him a dazzling, red-lipped smile. Jack looked surprised, but not displeased. He even smiled back a little.

  “Go with Trompe,” said Glyph. “And when you have bathed, eat and rest. It is daybreak now, but both of you must sleep.”

  Daybreak. Rapunzel realized it must be true; the light was dim, but a few pale morning rays filtered into the glade, dappling the Centercourt and the fairies’ faces. It was nothing like the glorious sunrises she had known in her tower; down here, the world remained in shadow.

  “How long will you allow her among us — free, unchained?” Rune demanded in a low voice, leaning toward Glyph so that the rest of the thronging fairies could not hear him. “When will you decide what should be done with her?”

  What should be done with her. Rapunzel shuddered at the coldness of this statement. In her books, the punishments devised for her by ground people were always cruel.

  “Tonight, I will decide what must be done,” said Glyph. “Tomorrow, I will share my decision.”

  Rune looked uneasy. So did Jack. He cleared his throat. “It’s, uh, really nice of you to let me stay and everything,” he said to Glyph. “But I’ve got to head north. I’m running out of time. I don’t know if Rune told you about, ah, our deal?”

  “I know what you seek.”

  “Oh.” Jack shifted his weight. “So since I’ve done what he asked me to do …”

  “You may yet be needed,” said Glyph. “I will tell you more once you have slept.”

  Jack didn’t seem to know what to say to this.

  “Until then,” said Glyph to Rapunzel, “I hope that you will be at home among us.”

  “I won’t,” said Rapunzel. “But …” She hesitated, then decided a little politeness was forgivable. “Thank you,” she said, “for not killing me.”

  Glyph’s good wing shimmered.

  TO the lake,” said Trompe. She grabbed Jack’s hand and zoomed into the sky with him in tow. Jack dangled from Trompe’s grip as they sped over the tall red grasses and out of sight.

  Rapunzel followed only with her eyes. She remained trapped where she was as she worked out how to carry her hair, and finally had to resort to making giant loops of braid and hanging them over her neck and shoulders. The fairies tittered as she struggled. Hunched under the weight, she made her way slowly through the crowd in the direction Jack and Trompe had disappeared and into the grasses outside the Centercourt.

  Hovering among the tall blades were more coppery cages of light, each one no bigger than her fist. She paused and looked around to be sure that the high grass concealed her from fairy eyes. When she was sure that no one was watching, she reached up to touch one of the lights. The copper cage was cool; still, the light gave off comfortable warmth. Rapunzel couldn’t help thinking it was pretty.

  So were the shining globes, windowed and lit from within, that hung suspended in the air overhead. Some of the globes were made of colored glass, others of glittering metal. A few dangled so low that their curving underbellies brushed the grass; others sat so high that they reflected in the sky.

  Rapunzel blinked at the odd sight. Things couldn’t reflect against the sky. Except it wasn’t a real sky, she realized, squinting up at it. Far overhead curved a dome that appeared to be made of countless tiny bits of colored glass. They were set meticulously together, which was how the dome reflected the hanging globes. It had to be glass; the whole sky was somewhat transparent.

  When Rapunzel looked closely, she could make out the shadowy outlines of the twisting vines and roses that covered the dome outside. Morning light pushed weakly through the flowers, but mostly they were dense enough to block out the sun. In a few places, Witch’s roses had even cracked the glass sky. Vines with flowers snaked through the jagged holes, and Rapunzel caught her breath in longing. It looked so like her ceiling garden at home. In fact, the more she looked, the more cracks in the glass she found, and the more roses she saw, the tendrils of their vines patterning the inside of the dome, their blooms darker red than any of those in Rapunzel’s tower.

  Of course, if they were Witch’s roses, then it was Witch who was blocking out the fairies’ sun. And if Witch’s roses were magical, and her magic made the fairies ill, then Rapunzel supposed, with some reluctance, that it made sense for the fairies to be angry. Still, it was their fault. Witch wouldn’t have needed to protect herself if the fairies hadn’t wanted to kill her.

  Tired of such thoughts, Rapunzel pushed her way out of the grasses and was glad to see that she had walked in the right direction. Jack stood several paces ahead with Trompe, looking down a sloping hill that led to a shining mass of water. Rapunzel stopped to gaze at its rippling surface. It must have been a thousand times the size of her bathtub.

  “You can bathe here, in the lake,” said Trompe, her eyes on Jack. “Go ahead.”

  Jack dropped his knapsack on the ground and stripped off his patchy vest. He unlaced his bo
ots and kicked them off. He grabbed the hem of his shirt to pull it over his head, but glanced from Trompe to Rapunzel and stopped. “Just a sec,” he mumbled, and he hid himself from their view behind a wall of tall, red grasses. Rapunzel heard the sounds of a few soft thuds, followed by a loud splash.

  “Hoo!” shouted Jack. “Feels good!”

  Rapunzel believed it. She couldn’t wait to be clean. She unwound her braid from her arms and neck and dropped it to the ground, then stripped off her robe and nightgown and stepped out of her slippers. The red clay ground was cool and spongy beneath her bare feet. She picked up the tail end of her hair and began the long process of unbraiding it. As her braid came apart, she found plenty to disgust her: rocks, sticks, and leaves were all tangled in her tresses.

  “How ugly you are.”

  Rapunzel looked up from her braid to find Trompe staring at her.

  “Ugly?” Rapunzel said. “You can’t be speaking to me.”

  “Your skin is all white,” said Trompe in distaste. “And no wings. And your hair.”

  “What about my hair?”

  “It’s silly,” said Trompe, and she flew up to Rapunzel and gave her nose a hard, painful tweak. She laughed like a little bell and soared out over the lake.

  Rapunzel was furious. The horrible little fairy hadn’t even given her a chance to retort that her hair wasn’t silly, and of course she didn’t have wings. She stomped down to the water’s edge and stepped into the lake. Cold water closed over her feet, and she screamed.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack called from the other side of the tall grass.

  “It’s freezing!” cried Rapunzel. She eased her legs into the water, inch by excruciating inch, and longed for her warm bath at home. When the water reached the tops of her legs, she stopped, afraid to go farther in and feel such a chill on her bare stomach. Instead, she busied herself dragging all her hair down the bank and into the lake, where she hoped it might get clean.