She whispers one to herself, instead.
nce upon a time there was a woodcutter whose wife was with child. But she grew very ill, her golden hair turned brittle gray, and in his desperation the woodcutter went to the local hedge-witch and begged for a cure. The hedge-witch told him of a black tower in the hills covered in green-growing vines even at midwinter. Just three leaves from this vine would cure his wife.
The woodcutter found the black tower and the green-growing vines. He stole his three leaves and brewed them as the witch instructed. Soon his wife was rosy-cheeked and smiling again, her hair the brightest gold. When their daughter was born they named her after the herb that saved her: Rapunzel.
But as they named the baby there came a terrible wind from the east, smelling of earth and ash. Knuckle-bones knocked at their door and they found a bent-backed Crone hunched on their stoop. She wore a tattered black cloak around her shoulders and an asp around her wrist, like a bracelet made of obsidian scales.
She came, she said, to take back what was stolen from her. When the woodcutter pleaded that his wife had already eaten the leaves, the Crone shuffled into the house and peered down at the baby girl. The baby girl peered back at her with eyes the color of green-growing vines.
When the Crone left the house that night, trudging through the silent snow, she carried a baby bundled beneath her cloak.
The Crone raised the girl in her high, lonely tower. Rapunzel grew to love the old woman, and, inasmuch as a witch loves anything, the Crone loved the girl. By the time Rapunzel was half-grown the only sign that she had ever belonged to anyone else was her hair: bright gold, long and shining.
One day when the Crone was away, a traveling bard saw the shine of Rapunzel’s hair through the tower window. He sang to her:
My maiden, my maiden,
Let down your long hair,
Braided tight and shining bright,
A way where once was none.
There followed the usual course of events when a handsome stranger sings to a beautiful maiden, and soon Rapunzel was climbing down a golden rope woven of her own hair, reaching her hand out for his.
The Crone returned just as the pair took their first step away from the tower, hands clasped.
“If you would leave me,” she told Rapunzel, “you must return what belongs to me.”
Rapunzel raised her chin and agreed to pay any price. The Crone bade her close her eyes and touched two cold fingers to their lids. When Rapunzel opened her eyes once more the green-growing color had been taken from them, along with her sight.
The Crone returned to her tower and watched the maiden and the bard stumble together across the hills. Rapunzel did not turn back or call out.
The Crone wept, and as her tears touched the stone floor, the tower trembled and fell. Or perhaps it vanished outside of time and memory and took the Crone with it. Perhaps she waits still for her stolen daughter to call out to her.
The only certainty is the tears themselves.
My maiden, my maiden,
Let down your long hair,
Braided tight and shining bright,
A way where once was none.
A spell to escape, requiring three hairs & nimble fingers
When Beatrice Belladonna runs from the riot on St. Mary-of-Egypt’s, she knows two things for certain: that her youngest sister is alive, and that her middle sister is with her.
It shouldn’t comfort her to know that Agnes is there—she learned long ago that she couldn’t trust her when it counted—but it does. If anyone could haul their little sister out of the mess she made and keep her alive through the night, it’s surely Agnes.
“If you’re finished staring at nothing, I would quite like to keep running for our lives now.” Beatrice makes a private note that Miss Quinn grows drier and more cutting under pressure, before bunching her skirts in her fists and following after her.
For a woman born and raised in New Cairo, Quinn possesses an uncanny knowledge of the north side. She leads Beatrice down narrow alleys and nameless back streets, following a winding path that leads them somewhat mystifyingly to the respectable row house where Beatrice rents a room.
“How did you know my address?”
Miss Quinn gives a very unsorry shrug. “Stay inside tonight. The police are awfully scarce this evening, which makes me wonder just who’s behind this mess.”
Beatrice wants to say, Thank you for saving me, or Be careful, or Who exactly are you and what uncanny secrets are you hiding? but Quinn is already turning away, taking long-legged strides down Second Street.
By the time Beatrice is in her attic room, peering down from her round window, Quinn is gone, vanished entirely from the neat grid of streets below.
Beatrice dreams that night of witches and traveling bards and a golden-haired girl smiling from a tower window. Except her hair isn’t golden at all, actually, and her smile is full of secrets.
The following morning, Bella pins her own hair with unusual severity and stares hard at her reflection in the mirror, reminding herself that she is bony and graying and very boring. Then she feels the tug of her sisters through the line—still alive, still together, moving through the city—and wonders if perhaps she is growing less boring the longer James Juniper remains in New Salem.
Beatrice steps into the street just after sunrise, when the shadows lie soft and the air sparks with dew, and hopes very much that Mr. Black-well will forgive her for missing a second day of work.
The headquarters of the New Salem Women’s Association are already jammed full of bustling women and urgent whispers. Miss Stone stands behind the front desk like a small general overseeing her troops, wig pinned slightly askew. She is so surrounded by people—a
