An Inconvenient Princess

by Melanie Cellier

  My mother looked up, smiling and waving at me. She elbowed my father until he looked up and waved as well. I smiled back, trying to imagine them farewelling Anneliese in such a relaxed manner. I couldn’t picture it at all. Another suggestion of their trust. A pang of uncertainty shot through me. I hoped I wouldn’t let them or Liesa down. I had never journeyed on my own before.

  As I stepped out onto the street, they returned to the injured animal. An unexpected sense of sympathy filled me. They would have been so happy in their cottage in the woods. I wasn’t the only one forced into a position and a life I wouldn’t have chosen for myself.

  I shook my head. Perhaps, now that I was gone, they would choose to sell their fancy city house and return to their beloved woods, in defiance of Mortimer and his unwanted gift. I took a long look at my childhood home, just in case, and then turned my back on it and stepped out into the world.

  Chapter 2

  “Ohgreatfairygodfather,Mortimer. I,astupidhuman…” I knew I was muttering the words too fast to be intelligible, and I wasn’t sure if it would work that way.

  I forced myself to stop and take a deep breath before starting again. Glancing down, I reminded myself that there was no one to witness my humiliation but the tiger.

  “Oh, great fairy godfather, Mortimer. I, a stupid human, humbly need your magnificent and wonderful magic.”

  If Mortimer had thought such a stupid phrase would prevent my family from calling on him, he had clearly never been stuck up a tree with a tiger. I might hate every second of it, but I would have been willing to say something far more humiliating rather than starve to death up here alongside the tiger. Because now that I had let it chase me up a tree, I had remembered Ellie reading me a story about a tiger that managed to get itself stuck up a tree for five days. Apparently, tigers were better at climbing trees than getting out of them.

  The tiger from the book had eventually managed to extricate itself and had survived the experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I would survive five days in this tree.

  Of course, if I’d remembered the story earlier, I might have avoided the situation altogether. I sighed.

  These dire thoughts were interrupted by a sharp crack and the sudden appearance of a man, perched impossibly on a branch across from me. But it didn’t take the faint iridescent sparkle of wings to tell me that this was no human.

  I recognized Mortimer easily. His long face looked just as irritable as always, his chin clearly unshaven for several days, and his shock of slightly graying hair sticking up in every direction as if it hadn’t been brushed in weeks.

  “Oh, it’s you, the youngest brat. And you were doing so well, too. Ungrateful enough, of course, but at least you didn’t get yourself into trouble like the rest of them. Or do anything too heroic, either, which causes me almost as much bother. Not like all those sisters of yours.” He broke off his complaints and looked around as if he’d only just noticed our location. “Why am I in a tree?”

  Great. Even my useless excuse for a fairy godfather managed to remind me within a minute of his arrival that I’m too ordinary for notice. I couldn’t bring myself to reply, so I directed my gaze downward, and he followed my eyes.

  “Is that a tiger? Astoria doesn’t have any tigers.” He sounded intrigued, his irritation forgotten as he considered the puzzle.

  I glared at him. I didn’t want to prolong any part of this experience more than necessary. “A little help, please? How about you send me somewhere safe, and then you can study the tiger to your heart’s content.”

  He looked back up at me. “Oh, eh? Yes, of course.” He waved his hand, and my world went very bright and then black.

  “Arrghh.” I groaned as my head stopped spinning. Was I lying down? Had I fallen from the tree? I sat up quickly, my eyes popping open, only to have to close them again at the head rush produced by my movement.

  “Careful,” said a soft, chiming voice I didn’t recognize. “If you sit up so quickly, you’ll get a head rush.”

  I bit my tongue on a sharp retort and opened my eyes more carefully. I saw a beautiful, heart-shaped face surrounded by masses of golden hair. A girl about my own age appeared to be kneeling in front of me. Behind her, I caught a glimpse of a stone wall.

  I rubbed a hand across my eyes and then reopened them. Nothing had changed.

  “Where am I?”

  The girl giggled. “Astoria, silly.”

  “Where’s Mortimer?”

  The girl watched me with a clear, confused gaze. “Who’s Mortimer? Is he your friend? I think you might have lost him.”

  I groaned. “Actually, I have a bad feeling he’s lost me.” I looked around and saw we were in a large round room. “Where am I?”

  The girl giggled again. “I already told you! Astoria.”

  “But where in Astoria?”

  “Why, in my tower, of course.”

  I slowly heaved myself to my feet and crossed over to the single large window. We were certainly high enough to be in a tower, but I couldn’t see the rest of the building, so we must be facing out from one of the corners. I couldn’t see any other buildings, either. Just flat grassland and, in the distance, some trees.

  I tried again. “Yes, but where is your tower?”

  “In Astoria. I already told you, remember?” The girl’s tone gave no indication she was attempting to be anything but helpful.

  “All right,” I said slowly. “Can you direct me to the nearest town?”

  “No.” The girl was still kneeling where I had left her, her large eyes following me around the room.

  “No?”

  “I mean, I don’t know where the nearest town is. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, because there’s no way out of the tower.”

  “What do you mean?” My heart sank as I tried to think of any possible meaning beside the obvious one. “Are you telling me you’re a prisoner here?”

  The girl nodded. “I suppose so. I mean it’s my home, but I’m not allowed to leave. So, I guess that makes me a prisoner.”

  I began to think of every story I’d ever heard about appearances being deceiving. I had lost my best knife in the scramble up the tree, but I still had my pack with another smaller one at the bottom, if I could just get to it.

  “What did you do?” I asked. “To get locked up here.”

  “Do?” The girl stared at me blankly. “I didn’t do anything. This is my home. I’ve always lived here.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “You’ve always lived here? Right here? In this room? You’ve never been anywhere else?”

  The girl nodded. “Well, sometimes I lean really far out my window, and then I pretend that I’m properly outside. So that’s sort of like leaving.”

  I shook my head. “No, no, it really isn’t.”

  The girl looked so downcast that I instantly regretted my words. “Sorry, I’m, um, sure it’s very nice.”

  “Oh, it is! Would you like to try it? I could help keep you from falling out.”

  “Uh, no,” I said, before quickly adding, “thanks.” I didn’t want to upset her again.

  I turned back to look out the window, gripping the frame with my fingers until they hurt. I had known the likely price of calling Mortimer. Had known he was sure to mess up my request—as he did every gift my family had ever received from him.

  I tried to remember that two minutes ago I had been in a much worse position. But all the positive thinking in the kingdoms couldn’t stop the rising tide of fury.

  That low-down, no-good, rotten, idiotic, mung-headed, flat-footed fool of a fairy. He had taken me entirely literally and placed me somewhere far away and safe while he—presumably—stayed to study the anomaly of the tiger.

  He had placed me in an unknown part of the kingdom, in a tower without an exit, with no one but…I glanced at the girl, and my heart sank even further as I realized the inevitable truth. Long golden hair, blue eyes, beautiful, sweet, trapped since birth in a bizarre situation. A princess. It had to be. I was tra
pped with a princess.

  I groaned. Who knew what would happen now, or what kind of trouble I had just gotten caught up in? I took a steadying breath. At least there weren’t any tigers.

  “I’m Rapunzel, by the way,” said the girl from behind me. “What’s your name?”

  I spun around. The girl had stood up but otherwise hadn’t moved. “I’m Penelope, but you can call me Penny.”

  “Oh, that’s pretty,” she said with every appearance of sincerity, and I couldn’t help softening toward her.

  “When you appeared here by magic, I got such a shock. But then it took you so long to wake up, I started to get worried. Are you on a quest?”

  “I suppose you could say that.” It was a quest of sorts, even if I’d assigned it to myself.

  “Just like in my books! People are always going on quests in my books.” Rapunzel paused. “I don’t suppose you came to rescue me?” She managed to sound both hopeful and without expectation at the same time.

  “Um, no? Sorry?” I wasn’t usually so hesitant, but Rapunzel looked so pathetic. It was strangely disarming.

  I walked in a circle around the tower, looking at everything in an attempt to avoid looking at her. A bed rested against the far wall, opposite the window, and a table and two chairs filled some of the space in the middle of the room. What appeared to be a small kitchen stood against another stretch of wall, and I noticed a small trapdoor partially hidden behind it.

  “Where does that go?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes up.

  Rapunzel wrinkled her nose. “To the wash facilities.”

  I stepped toward it. “Can you get out of the tower that way?”

  Rapunzel shook her head. “You’re not a very good listener, Penny. I already told you. There isn’t any way down.”

  I decided to check for myself but soon returned. Rapunzel was right; the tower contained no sign of an exit anywhere. I silently cursed Mortimer again, and his ridiculous interpretation of my wish. He hadn’t even given me time to ask him about Anneliese. I considered summoning him just to give him a piece of my mind, but who knew what he would do? I’m sure he’d consider me ungrateful, too. I could easily imagine his reply, “You wanted to be safe. What could be safer than this? You won’t be finding any tigers here.”

  If this was the result when he was intrigued by the reason for my call, what would he do if he was angered by it? And if I asked after my sister, would he extend his ill will to her as well? No, it was not safe to call him. I ground my teeth again and forced my mind away from his idiocy.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I said to Rapunzel. “How did you get here? And how do you get food?” I nodded in the direction of her little kitchen. “And don’t the other people think it’s odd that you never come down from the tower?”

  “I don’t know how I got here, I was only a baby. And there are no other people. Just my tower. And all that grass outside. But she comes regularly and always brings me food, so I’m never hungry.”

  “She?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say? I’m trapped here by a witch. Gothel, her name is.”

  I stared at her. “There’s no such thing as witches.”

  “Really? Are you sure? She can do magic.”

  “She must be a fairy, then. A rogue one, or something. They don’t normally do things like this.” I frowned. Just what I needed, another rogue fairy.

  If Mortimer could be considered rogue, that is. He did obey the dictates of the Fairy Council—in the loosest possible way. I kept wondering when they would realize humanity was better off without him and stop ordering him to meet gift quotas.

  “So, this fairy comes regularly and brings you food. When is she next due?” I waited with some trepidation for her answer. I had no idea what the fairy might do if she found me here.

  “She just came yesterday, so I have plenty of food, don’t worry.” Rapunzel smiled and then frowned. “I don’t know how we’ll explain you to her, though. She’ll think I let you up, and it might make her angry.”

  “Let me up? What do you mean?”

  “With my hair.”

  I had returned to my spot at the window, and she walked over to join me as she said it. For the first time, I got a good look at her hair, and I couldn’t make myself look away. She had plaited the long wavy strands into one long, thick, loose braid that trailed behind her. And trailed. And trailed. It was easily many times longer than she was herself. And unlike anything I had ever seen.

  “But that’s…” I wanted to say impossible, but my voice faded away. My own siblings had received both more powerful and more random gifts from a fairy. I knew better than to say anything was impossible where they were concerned.

  “Doesn’t it get horribly dirty, trailing on the ground like that?” I asked instead.

  Rapunzel frowned at me. “You know, I’ve never really thought about that before. But no. No, it doesn’t.”

  We both examined her silky locks in silence.

  After a minute, I managed to return to my earlier train of thought. “You said something about letting me up with your hair?”

  “Well, I don’t think I could, but she might think I did.”

  “I’m sorry, Rapunzel, but I’m really not following.” A headache was starting to form behind my temples—whether as a result of the fairy mode of transportation or the situation in the tower, I wasn’t sure.

  “It’s the witch…I mean, fairy. When Gothel comes to visit me, she calls for me to let down my hair. So I lower it out the window, and she climbs up. Except it only seems to work for her.”

  I rolled my eyes. I imagined her ascent had a great deal more to do with her wings than Rapunzel’s hair. I couldn’t imagine why the fairy kept up the charade with the poor girl.

  “So, your whole life you’ve only interacted with this one fairy?” I could see why she was so odd.

  “I have books to read.” She pointed at a bookshelf next to her bed. “So, I know all about other people.”

  “But you haven’t actually met another person before? Other than me or this fairy, I mean?” I marveled that she hadn’t panicked at my appearance. She seemed remarkably calm about the whole thing.

  Perhaps that came from being completely disconnected from reality. “So, there’s no point holding out hope for a rescue.” I began thinking of escape plans.

  “Well, there has been a prince coming to visit me. That’s how I know my hair doesn’t work for anyone else. He was far too heavy.”

  A prince? I stared at her and then sighed. Of course there was a prince. “Well, I’m not waiting around on the off-chance a prince comes by to save me. I’m finding my own way out of here.” The prince didn’t seem to be doing too great a job on the rescue front so far, from what I could see.

  She stared at me with wide eyes. “But there isn’t any way.”

  “There are two of us now. We’ll find a way.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” I tried to inject more confidence than I felt into my words. I could do this. This was what I did best. Practical plans. Rescues. Getting other people out of trouble. I tried not to think about the tiger.

  “And you’ll take me with you? When you escape?”

  “Of course.” I could hardly leave her in the tower.

  “Oh, oh!” She began to clap and bounce up and down. “I’ve never had a friend before. And now I get to go on a quest, just like all the heroes in my books. Oh, we’re going to have adventures, aren’t we?”

  She ran forward and threw her arms around me as my stomach sank into my boots. I had meant that I would take her with me out of the tower, not to find Anneliese. But what was I supposed to do? Dump her in the nearest town? She didn’t seem to have the first clue about real life. Who knew what would happen to her?

  “I don’t suppose you know who your family is? Or where you came from?” I extracted myself from her hug.

  “No, I’m afraid not. All I know is that I’m a princess. The witch…I mean, fairy…says my parents ga
ve me to her.” Her voice turned defiant. “But I think she stole me. I don’t think I’m from around here, but I don’t know anything else.”

  I considered. She couldn’t be Astorian, we didn’t have any missing princesses. But, then, from memory, neither did any of the other kingdoms.

  I sighed and acknowledged, with extreme reluctance, that I would have to take her with me. At least until we could find out who she was and where she really belonged.

  Chapter 3

  While we had been talking, the sun had started to set, and I didn’t much fancy the idea of trying to climb down the tower in the dark. Rapunzel was thrown into another whirl of excitement at the prospect of having a guest for the night, and between food and attempting to make her bedding stretch to two, the evening passed more swiftly than I had anticipated.

  While she was cooking, I took the opportunity to search the tower more thoroughly, only listening to her prattle with half a mind. As I had expected, I could find no rope, nor anything that could be used as one. I wished I had packed a coil in my own bag, but I hadn’t had one handy when I was packing and hadn’t foreseen the need.

  By the time I drifted off to sleep, I had only come up with one plan. And I wasn’t sure Rapunzel was going to like it.

  In the morning, I helped the princess make breakfast, as I tried to think of a tactful way to broach my suggestion. I couldn’t come up with one.

  She insisted on cleaning up neatly after the meal, and I let her, not wanting to upset her before we’d even begun. When she finished and turned to me expectantly, I said it straight out.

  “We need a way to lower ourselves down the tower. And we don’t have any rope.” I took a deep breath. “Rapunzel, we need to cut your hair.”

  “Cut my hair?” She sounded more bemused than upset, which I took as a good sign. “Whatever for?”