never heard from her before.
“Is it because of what I did to Marcus?” I asked quietly. “Is that what made you do this?”
She shook her head. “No. It was done before then, Rapunzel. I hoped you were the child of Marcus and me, that I had something left of him. And then you were born, and I knew you were the child of the king.”
“How?”
She reached down and picked up a lock of my hair, which had pooled onto the couch before falling to the floor below. I braced myself for the onslaught of feeling, which came forth with such vehemence I nearly lost my breath. “You had this blond hair, his blue eyes, his pale skin. You were the most uncommonly beautiful child, and I knew it was your royal blood.”
“You must have hated me,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I have always loved you. I do love you. I
“I slept with my own brother. My own brother is my husband. It’s an abomination! My child—” I pictured his twisted little body.
“We are daughters of Artemis, I’ve always told you that. Zeus and Hera were brother and sister, husband and wife, and they ruled over all the other gods. You’re a queen, Rapunzel. The most powerful woman in the kingdom. You were right to ask for the heart of Snow White, to claim what is yours.”
“What about the rapunzel?” I asked. “Is that . . . ”
“The forgetting potion,” she said.
“That’s what the forgetting potion is made of? The one you gave me when I was a child?”
“Yes. I mashed it up, coated an apple with it, fed it to you. That is all true.”
“But why?” I asked. “Why did you do that? There was never a garden in the kingdom, never a starving mother. What did you need to make me forget?”
She shook her head. “That I was your mother. All the things you knew, through your hair. By the time I realized what your hair could do, what it told you, you already knew all my secrets. You were only a child, and yet you knew. It took a powerful spell to protect myself from you.”
“And now you have destroyed me, and you’ve destroyed the kingdom. Has it brought you any relief?”
When she did not answer, I stood.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“I’m going to the house of bandits, to bring Snow White home.”
“No,” she said. She stood, a fierce energy claiming her. “Leave her be. Stay with me, daughter. I have waited so long for this. They made me do this!”
She reached out for me then, and I wanted to cry from the pain of it, that she was my mother after all, and that she loved me despite everything else.
My mother. Finally.
I took her in my arms, and I held her. My hair wrapping around us. All of her darkness moved inside of me, roiling like an ocean, and I knew it would never lessen, that she would always be out here, intent on destruction, that no vengeance could heal her. There was no relief, nothing in the world that could heal the great wound she carried. I knew what I had to do, knew that I could do it.
I thought of all those moments I’d spent with her, growing up. All those days bent over the garden or sitting at her side as we handed out spells and potions, the way she’d carefully taught me how to work the earth. All those moments. And then, for a flash, I saw far, far into the future, when she was very old and bitter, when the little house was full of candy, when children, lost in the forest, would enter it and never come out. I might have imagined it, but she seemed grateful to me now as I watched her, as I focused all of that dark energy, and all of that love, down into a point of light. I took all those memories and fashioned from them a wing, a new life, and turned it from me to her.
I don’t know if she knew what was coming. It seemed, from her face right then, like she might.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
And then, slowly, her body began to shrink. Her nose lengthened and jutted out, ending in a point. Her face narrowed, with its shocked, hurt expression, which broke my heart even then, and seemed to vanish altogether. Her hair turned bit by bit to feather, her long curls now short and sleek, erupting over her skin, erasing every bit of what she’d been. Her body folded in, over, and dropped to the floor. She looked up at me, her eyes small and wet and glittering, the same soft brown—grateful? I thought I saw it, I hoped I had given her some relief—and her great wings spread out on either side of her body.
I opened the door and after one try, two tries, she started to lift herself into the air.
“Go on,” I said softly.
Something clicked, and her falcon’s body soared into the air, above me, and I was sure there was some joy, some new freedom in that flight as she flew up the side of the tower, past the window I’d looked out of, up into the sky, and disappeared beyond the canopy of trees.
21
At night the forest filled with shadows. The moon was bright and full overhead, streaking down through the tree branches, illuminating the path in front of me. Behind me, the cottage burned.
I could hear the flapping of wings, looked up and saw Brune with another falcon flying beside her. I smiled, despite myself. Two cat’s eyes glimmered down at me from a tree branch before me, and turned away.
I passed the spot where I shot the stag and followed the path he’d taken until he fell. I passed the split oak tree, and I walked along the river, which reflected the moon and stars. I let the horse drink. I glanced down at my own reflection, my streaming hair. I remembered Mathena and me swimming here, the cleansing ceremonies we’d performed here, hand in hand. I petted the horse’s long black mane, pulled a few apples from a tree nearby and fed one to him, and put the others in my bag.
Finally, we came upon the clearing, and before I saw the rapunzel, I could make out its rich, strange scent, which even then made the world seem asleep. It was all around now, grown wild, and I wondered how many beasts had come upon it and forgotten their way.
I stepped over and through it, knelt down with it all around me. My hair covered the rapunzel like a blanket, hopefully providing some comfort to him, the man that Mathena had loved. I thought of it, her grief and rage as she cast the spell that changed man to beast, the rage that had colored everything that came after.
It was not Snow White’s place to pay for what others had done, just as it was not mine.
I pulled fistfuls of the rapunzel from the ground. I took the rapunzel and crushed it in my palms, releasing its sweet seductive scent, and then took an apple from my bag and rubbed the poison into its skin. When I was finished, I placed the apple carefully back into the satchel.
I kept moving, navigating the dark woods. Finally, I saw the house that stood across the river. From the outside, it looked cozy, lovely, with golden, lit-up windows that would beckon to any traveler.
I left my horse a good distance away. “Stay,” I said. “Don’t make a sound.” I placed my palm on his flank, felt his heart slow down, calm. I cast a protection spell around him and a glittery haze spread through the air; he was gone.
I piled my hair on my head so that it would not weigh me down. I waded into the water, then pushed off the rock bottom and swam across.
When I reached the other side, I crouched down and watched the house. Behind the glowing windows, I saw their shadows moving back and forth, hulking and large, smoke rising from the chimney into the air. I watched for any sign of her.
After a while, I could hear music, rough tones coming from inside, drunken voices. In my blood and bones, I could feel the savagery of these men, alone in this house, liquor erasing any civility they might have had left in them from wherever they came from and whatever women had raised them.
The next thing I knew, a door was slamming and a ragged, bearded man was standing outside, adjusting a knife in his belt. He turned in my direction. Instinctively, I held my breath.
A moment later the door opened again and several other men left the house, one after another, until there
