I tilted my head, watching her. “Does he love his wife?”
She nodded.
“You want him to love you, the way he loves her?”
“I did, yes.”
“You want to be sure that she never knows what you’ve done,” Mathena said.
She nodded. “Please help me.”
“Rapunzel,” Mathena said, “can you get some arrowroot and dandelion from the cellar?”
I looked sharply at her, then realized that I was shaking, barely breathing. I stood and went down to the root cellar, where we kept the dried herbs and potions along with our food. The scent of earth overwhelmed me, as always. It was like being buried alive.
Mathena was right to give me a moment alone, I realized. I leaned against the wall, crouched down onto the dirt floor.
Everything came back to me. The wounds so fresh it seemed as if no time had passed at all. I wanted to scream with frustration. What good was our craft if I could end up like this, mourning a moment that had long passed? Surely Mathena’s powers extended past this. Surely mine did.
I felt something land on my shoulder, shocking me back to the present. Brune had flown downstairs and was rubbing her beak against my face. I laughed, cooed to her. It was odd behavior for such a ferocious predator, but I was used to it. I’d watched Brune rip apart animals limb to limb, and had turned away so I wouldn’t retch. I’d watched her race through the air more quickly than one of my own arrows, right to her target.
“Let’s go,” I said, quickly gathering the dandelion and arrowroot. As an afterthought, I grabbed some dragon’s root and stuffed it in my pocket.
When I returned, Clareta was at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of stew Mathena had set before her.
I spread out the arrowroot and dandelion on the counter, and began to mix them together into a piece of cloth. As I did, Mathena stood and left the room. I watched her step down to the root cellar.
“Thank you,” Clareta said, pausing from her meal and looking up at me. Of course, she must have been famished, unused to such hard travel. “Thank you for helping me.”
I did not respond, but focused on my work. I added in the bit of dragon’s root, too, infusing it with intent. There was no harm in making her more unappealing to the king.
When I held the bundle under her face, finally, and asked her to breathe in, I could feel the pain easing in her. The whole house became lighter, instantly. Even the fire seemed to shift color, becoming more brilliant.
I could not help but think how weak she was. The magic worked on her so quickly.
“Now that is better, isn’t it?” I asked softly.
Mathena reappeared and walked over slowly, a strange look on her face. She handed Clareta a small, cloth-wrapped package.
“Here is something else,” she said, “because I’ve taken pity on you.”
“What is it?” Clareta asked.
I looked at Mathena, trying to catch her eye. I’d never seen her do anything like this before. Her face was bright, alive. Only I would have seen how carefully she was watching the girl. The package bulged and I thought I saw a faint glimmer come from inside of it. I blinked and shook my head.
“I’ve gathered some special charms for you,” Mathena said. “Brew this into a tea for your queen. It will ensure that she will never know what you have done. No one else should drink it. Only her.”
Clareta took the package and clutched it in her hands, as if Mathena had handed her a bag of jewels. Her eyes were wet with pain, with gratitude.
After, I led her to the tower. She was still exhausted from her travel, and from the magic working to calm her. There was no way she could return home tonight.
We crunched over snow. The torch in my hands flickered in the night air. I was thinking only about the packages she was holding.
“How strange that there is a tower, in the forest,” she said dreamily. The moon shone down, making the snow sparkle. The tower loomed up in front of us. I was so used to it, I could forget how it looked to strangers, the way it reached up into the stars as if it were stabbing them.
“There was a castle here once, is all,” I said. “Our house is built from the ruins. They’re all around.” I pointed to the piles of stones sticking out of the snow, the top of an old wall just past the garden, still visible.
“I feel like I’m going to be locked up,” she said, laughing nervously.
I looked up at the window, imagined myself leaning out of it, my hair stretching down to where we stood now.
“Don’t be silly,” I said, more harshly than I intended.
I pushed open the heavy door, and began walking up the winding stairs, holding the torch in front of me. She followed closely behind and I had the wicked thought that I could kick my foot back, drop her down the stairs.
I pushed such thoughts away and led her up to my room. What had happened was not her fault.
“I will light you a fire,” I said, throwing new wood and leaves into the hearth and carefully lighting them with the torch.
In the mirror, I watched her set the packages on the bed. She moved about the room, touching the walls with her palms.
I had a sudden flash of anger. My eyes shifted to my own face, and I was the same woman the troubadours sang about. Could he have loved this girl, with the marking on her face? Could he love his wife, more than me? Had I not been the most beautiful, of the three of us? Was I not still?
I walked over to the window and looked out into the snowy night.
“Is that the palace?” she asked, appearing next to me, her voice full of wonder. In the distance, the palace glittered in the dark.
“Yes,” I replied.
For a moment we stood next to each other, staring out over the forest to the palace. I imagined how we looked from the ground, our two pale faces in the moonlight. She was my height, my stature. So close to me I could hear her breathing, feel the slight warmth from her body.
I turned to her, studied her auburn hair and delicate features, her moony, sad eyes gazing out at the world she’d left behind.
“It must be so peaceful out here,” she said, sighing.
I thought of the wild howling, myself in the mirror feral and strewn through with leaves and dirt, Brune ripping apart everything in her path. The bandits racing in the dark woods. Plants in the root cellar that could make a woman lose her mind, her heart, her child.
I thought of the world she was comparing it to. What was it like? Right now in that palace, what hearts were being torn to pieces?
“Peaceful,” I said. “Yes.”
I moved down the stairway alone, back out into the snowy night and to the cottage, where Mathena sat on the couch, waiting.
She looked at me, an intense, impassioned expression on her face.
Something was happening, I realized. Something new.
“What did you give her?” I asked.
“Medicine for the queen.”
“But what? Is it the forgetting potion?”
“No.”
“What, then?” I asked more loudly then, my heart hammering in my chest.
Still staring at me intently, she said, “It’s time, Rapunzel. We have been waiting a long time for this.”
“For what?”
I backed away, toward the door. She was scaring me.
“Your chance to have what you always wanted.”
