Rapunzel

I sit on the window sill. The light pours across my dark skin. I hear a soft and gentle voice whispering in my ear, “Rare beauty, my little beauty.”

His voice is familiar and warm-but gruff and dangerous. I often dream of this disembodied voice, a spirit who has haunted my mind ever since I can remember. Mother says I am mad, but I think it’s the voice of my father reaching out to catch me. I never knew my father, my mother says never to mind, she won’t even tell me if he’s dead or alive. But for some reason I cannot remove him or the voice from my mind-or each other for that matter.

My long gold hair glistens in the sun and waves blissfully back and forth; it is nearly ten feet long now, I’m just letting it dry, I’ll need help braiding it later. I do not look like anyone I’ve ever known, I’ve always wondered why that is.

To be honest I haven’t met many people, but that’s partly because my mother keeps me locked away in the attic. She says I look odd. Odd has not nearly as nice a sound as rare beauty. You see, I have skin the color of copper, only slightly darker, this is not unique, there are many people with dark skin-take the beautiful fairy Azure for example. I never met her, they say she died bearing a child, but my mother has described her to me, her skin was darker than mine, and there was not a blemish to be found upon her face. Her features were strong and kind, she was known as the most beautiful fairy in the land for a time.

Where I become-odd-as my mother says, is the combination of my features. My hair is long and bright gold, the color of the sun. There is not a soul in the world who naturally looks as I do, or if there is I would love to meet them. Not to say I don’t like how I look, there was a time where the voice in my head calling me beautiful was the only voice I could hear. But years of being called odd has the tendency to wear on a person until they cannot fight it any longer.

I hear the door open and I look over my shoulder. A little girl of eight years bounces into the room. She wears a tattered frock and a dusty old apron. Her brown hair is tied back neatly in a pony tale with a tiny piece of twine.

“Are you ready to braid your hair yet?” She asks with an adorable lisp.

“Yep,” I say, reaching down and gathering an armful.

I shove it over the window sill and let it fall in a pile on the floor. I shift so that both legs dangle out the hole, Gretel pushes a chair behind me. She clambers onto it and begins braiding. Her hands are small, but quick from lots of practice. Mother taught her to braid my hair before her fourth birthday.

“Is dinner almost ready?” I ask, my eyes wandering across the tree leaves and twig shapes I’ve only seen hundreds of times before. I strain my eyes searching for something-anything that could be new.

“Yes, but Red is here so madam says you ought not come down,” Gretel lisps.

I sigh. Mother says people will laugh at how I look, so she won’t let me meet any of her guests, if anyone happens to stop in she locks me upstairs as if I am something to be ashamed of. I suppose to her I am something to be ashamed of. If it were up to me I would leave, in an instant. But my mother happens to be a witch, and nothing’s quite so hard as running away when the person you're running from has magic.

“Gretel, do you remember what it was like before you came here?” I ask, twisting a stray hair she missed absently around my finger.

“No ma’am-”

“Please don’t call me ma’am, I’m Rapunzel to you when mother isn't around,” I say.

“Yes ma-Rapunzel.”

“That’s better,” I approve.

“I don’t remember anything, but Hansel says he does. Sometimes he tells me about them. He says they aren’t real memories, just echoes of what might have been, but they make me feel all warm inside as if something in me remembers them too, even though I know that’s impossible,” She trails off.

“What do you mean it’s impossible?”

“Well, I came here when I was a baby, seven years ago, and no one remembers anything when they’re a baby, if they did it would be quite impossible if they did. I’m done,” She ties the end of the braid with a piece of twine.

I hop off the window and onto the attic floor. I walk to the mirror and spin around admiring Gretel’s handy-work. My hair is beautifully twisted into a set of intricate and delicate braids. It falls regally down my back, and instead of trailing four or five feet behind me it’s tied up just above my ankles.

There is a knock on the door, “Come in!” I yell over my shoulder.

The door opens and Hansel’s head peeks through, he is nearly thirteen, but he acts much older than that, he and Gretel are the only people I’ve ever known, other than mother that is.

“Madam is looking for you,” Hansel tells Gretel.

She nods and hurries to the door. She pauses and turns back to look at me, “You are very pretty you know,” She says kindly, her round eyes wide with honesty.

I smile and she grins. She goes through the door and quietly closes it behind her. I go back to my lonely place at the window, there’s a distant howling and makes my blood grow warm and color creep into my cheeks. My mother does not like the howling, but that doesn’t stop the wolf from doing it.

I’ve never seen a wolf, but Hansel has and he described it to me. He says they are scary creatures and even hearing the sound will draw all the color out of Gretel’s cheeks, but I love the noise. It feels like a distant echo of something past. I hope that someday I will live to know what it’s an echo of.