An Inconvenient Princess

by Melanie Cellier

  But he flatly refused to stay. He said that if we left him, he would simply follow us, and I easily believed it. The long and short of it was that the four of us set out the next morning, waved off by Thomas and Cora, just as we had arrived the night before—except traveling in the opposite direction. I couldn’t believe that after traveling all that way, we now had to retrace every step. We might as well have camped out in the woods near Talbot for four weeks.

  Except that as we trudged along the road, I admitted that while I had come no closer to my sister physically, we had gained a lot of information in our travels.

  Simon seemed to be the only one of us not cowed by the knowledge that we were willingly returning to face a rogue fairy. He raced along the road, whooping and hollering, returning each time he saw some new marvel to point out to us.

  And as the days passed without incident, the rest of us relaxed as well, unable to keep up so much tension for such a prolonged time. The anxiety crept back in when we passed near Concord, but we saw no sign of the old miners. It was almost enough to make me hope they had listened to me and gone to the earl to make a resettlement agreement.

  We had debated whether or not to spend a night in Marblehill on our way past, but Arthur ended up convincing us all that we would waste too much time stopping in the town. He made no mention of Narelle, but Rapunzel and I shared several knowing looks that nearly sent us off into giggles again.

  When we reached the Sarrens River, Simon assured us he was an excellent swimmer and could easily swim across. All three of us stood firm in opposing that scheme, and he sulkily joined Rapunzel on Aster’s back.

  Arthur and I both moved more quickly than was probably safe, but we crossed with no trouble. Buoyed by our first success, we didn’t even get Rapunzel or Simon down, instead hurrying to the next half of the river. When this barrier was also successfully crossed, Rapunzel breathed a sigh of relief and perked back up again.

  Arthur, on the other hand, looked almost as concerned as I felt. This return trip had so far been easy and smooth. Almost too easy. As if whatever force had opposed our travel south, now welcomed us back north.

  Several quiet comments he made to me over the next couple of days confirmed my impression that he felt as I did. While we welcomed the lack of troubles, we also mistrusted it.

  But it was hard not to enjoy the days together. The weather had held, each day seeming more beautiful than the last, and our small band remained cheerful. Simon and Rapunzel’s antics kept us all laughing, and Arthur told me all about his home in Farthendale as we walked. I could easily imagine my sister Rynn there, and I promised him that I would visit her as soon as I had the chance and see everything he was describing for myself.

  When I suggested the visit, he opened his mouth, looking at me with an intense look in his eyes, before closing it again. I could think of nothing but what he had been about to say for the next hour. Did he want me to visit Rynn? Could he have been about to ask me to visit him? And would he still want me to come once he had met Anneliese?

  A day out of Talbot, Simon dragged Rapunzel into the bushes where she gave such a loud squeal that Arthur and I both raced after them, leaving Aster to fend for herself on the road.

  When we reached them, we found Simon rolling on the ground laughing, and Rapunzel giggling almost as hard. I rolled my eyes.

  “What in the kingdoms is going on here?”

  “It’s…” Rapunzel tried to catch her breath. “It’s a snail. And it’s so tiny. And so slimy.” She shook her head. “You didn’t describe it right at all!”

  “I’ve been hunting for one for a while,” said Simon with satisfaction. I could only imagine how he had presented it to her to produce the squeal we had heard earlier. Had Rapunzel been picturing a snail the size of a rabbit? I shook my head, deciding not to ask. I really didn’t want to know.

  But I couldn’t help smiling at Rapunzel’s amusement. Our earlier conversation about illness leaped back into my mind. Somehow, despite her upbringing, Rapunzel had managed to retain her joy for life. It was an impressive feat.

  And when truly confronted with the alternative, I had to admit that I wouldn’t trade a single one of my own siblings away. All of those times when I’d regretted being lost among so many, I hadn’t been considering the advantages that came with having a place in a big and lively family. Of the value of belonging as one part of a bigger whole.

  Seeing the unquestioning trust that Arthur, Rapunzel, and Simon continued to place in me, I had begun to wonder if perhaps I had underestimated how my family felt about me. Hadn’t my parents shown trust in me, too, when I left home? And hadn’t I so far proved them right? Was it possible that I had been the one choosing to define myself as a disappointment, instead of stepping forward and taking leadership when the opportunity offered? It was an uncomfortable thought.

  Another peal of laughter pulled me from my heavy reflections. Rapunzel had managed to put a snail down the back of Simon’s shirt, and even I had to chuckle at the expression on his face.

  The joking atmosphere died when we passed Talbot, however. We didn’t even discuss stopping in the village, all in silent agreement about giving it a wide berth. Rapunzel seemed to get paler with each step, and even Simon had picked up on the new mood.

  Arthur carried his naked sword in his hand, but I wasn’t sure what good it would do against a fairy. He’d never mentioned anything about it being an enchanted sword. And, yet, despite knowing how useless a blade would be, I’d also dug out my knife and started wearing it stuck in my belt.

  But, despite our fear, we reached the meadow that held the tower without incident. For a second, I thought it looked exactly as we had left it and wondered if we had come all this way for nothing. But then I noticed that Rapunzel’s braid no longer hung from the hook.

  A moment later, a familiar head appeared at the window. We stared at each other in shock before both calling out at the same time.

  “Liesa!”

  “Penny!”

  A smile broke over my face to see her healthy and whole, but she only looked terrified.

  “Penny, no!” She gestured wildly as if urging us to run. “Get away. It’s an ambush!”

  Chapter 16

  I took off by instinct, racing across the grass toward my sister before I had absorbed the meaning of her words.

  “Penny! Wait!” I could hear Arthur scrambling to catch me.

  “Penny, no! Get back!” Anneliese screamed at me from the tower, her eyes glued at something on the ground. I slowed.

  The grass in front of me started to writhe and then to grow. Vines erupted from the ground and snaked across the meadow as if alive. Within seconds they had grown tall, twisting all around me.

  I was still running too fast to avoid them, and my foot caught on a coil of vine. I went sprawling, barely getting my hands out in time to soften my fall. With my face on the ground, I could see the long and wicked looking thorns which had begun to sprout from the vines. As I watched, they grew to impossible lengths.

  One would have pierced me if Arthur hadn’t arrived and pulled me back to my feet. Rapunzel’s scream made us both spin around. She and Simon still stood on the edge of the meadow, near the trees, and the vines had not yet reached them. But she was pointing across the new growth to the other side of the grass.

  We spun again, and I saw a short woman, her hair thin and gray, her face twisted with anger. She gestured wildly with her arms, and more vines erupted from the ground. Gothel. It had to be.

  She didn’t look like any fairy I had ever seen. I could see no sparkle of wings behind her, and the lines on her face spoke of years of bitterness. While I watched, she half turned, gesturing for vines to spring up closer to where Rapunzel and Simon stood.

  From this new angle, I could see wings, after all. But they were dull and small, making even Mortimer’s shrunken wings look large. This was a fairy who had given humans so few gifts, she had almost lost her wings completely. No wonder she had needed Rapunzel�
��s hair to assist her in climbing the tower. And no wonder she had needed to offer a reward to find us. I had no idea how she managed to travel around at all. Could she even enter the Fairy Realm with such small wings? And without access to the Fairy Realm, her magic must be limited.

  The thought brought a moment of comfort, until a large thorn sprang up directly below my foot, piercing my boot.

  “Ouch!” I sprang back. The memory of the flash flood at the Sarrens shot through my mind. Limited or not, she still had a great deal more magic than any of us.

  I pulled out my knife and looked across at Arthur, a question in my eyes.

  “We need to circle around,” he said. “Try and come at her from both sides.”

  But before either of us could move, Gothel cackled loudly. “You humans!” she screamed at us. “You do not deserve to look upon Rapunzel.”

  Her face scrunched up in concentration and then began to fade from view. And not just her, but everything around her as well. Darkness descended. More yells sounded from my companions.

  “What has she done?” I called. “Where did this darkness come from?”

  “Darkness?” The distant voice floated down from the tower. “It’s not dark!” And then, “Watch out!”

  A sharp pain pierced my left leg, and I jerked away, bumping against Arthur.

  “I can’t see anything,” I said to him, my voice low and fearful.

  “Neither can I.” He sounded grim. “She’s blinded us somehow.”

  I swallowed. Was it permanent? And what hope did we have against her if we were blind?

  “Put your sword away,” I said, slowly and carefully replacing my knife in my belt.

  “What?”

  “Put your sword away. Neither of us should be groping around blindly with outstretched blades. We’re going to kill each other by accident.”

  “Oh.” I heard his sword being sheathed. “Now what?”

  I bit my lip. I had run out of ideas and was afraid to even move for fear of being skewered by the thorns.

  “Where is she now?” I called, turning my face upward toward my twin.

  “She’s still over on the far side. She seems to be– Hey! No, don’t!” She didn’t seem to be talking to me anymore. “If you come into the thorns, you might be blinded, too. Stay where you are.”

  “Rapunzel?” I spun around to face in her direction, although I could still see nothing. “You can see?”

  “Of course I can see! Can’t you?” she called back.

  I shook my head and shrugged broadly so she would be able to make out the movement.

  I heard the low murmur of her and Simon’s voices, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  “She’s coming toward you now, quick, move!” called Anneliese, and Arthur and I took off, blindly stumbling through the vines toward Rapunzel.

  “Ouch!” Something bounced off my head, and I put one hand up in an attempt to shield myself, the other still stretched out in front of me. “She threw something at my head!”

  “Um, no, that was me.” Anneliese sounded guilty. “I was aiming for her.”

  I groaned. Anneliese might be good at archery, but she had a terrible throwing arm. None of our siblings had ever wanted her on their team for any kind of ball game. I could now hear the sound of things crashing all around us and could only hope she didn’t attempt to toss out the bed. With her luck, it would squash me like a bug.

  I could hear the sound of Gothel coming up behind us and kept pushing forward. I had stepped on several thorns, and my boots were probably filling with blood, but I couldn’t stop. I tried to step both more carefully and more quickly. It wasn’t working out too well.

  My outstretched fingers hit a particularly high thorn, and I yelled in pain, instinctively veering away from it. My momentum took me into Arthur, and we both went down hard.

  Arthur groaned loudly, most likely having landed on a thorn, and rolled back toward me. After a moment of thrashing around, we ended up twisted together on a thorn-free patch of ground. I took a second to just breathe, glad to have escaped the painful vines for a moment.

  But I couldn’t pull my thoughts away from Arthur, pressed up against me. I admitted to myself that I often daydreamed about how it had felt when he swept me into his arms after I escaped from the miners. What was wrong with me that I could even think about something like that in a moment like this?

  Unable to see, with Arthur’s warm breath against my cheek, my other senses seemed heightened. I could hear Gothel approaching us through the vines, a slithering sound surrounding her as if her creations were clearing a path for her.

  I felt frozen, unable to think what I should do. And then I felt Arthur’s arms around me and remembered the trust he had always placed in me. I hadn’t let my small group of friends down yet, and I wasn’t going to start now. A plan instantly formed in my mind.

  “Arthur,” I whispered.

  “Yes,” he whispered back. “If you’re going to ask me to kiss you before we both die, the answer is yes.”

  “Stop that,” I hissed at him. “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.”

  I rolled my sightless eyes. “How quickly do you think you can get up? She’s nearly here, and I think we should stay down until she gets close.”

  He moved slightly, pulling his legs into a better position to push upward. “And then we jump up and grab her.”

  I nodded, knowing he’d feel the movement against his chest. It was hard to lie still and breathe heavily, as if wounded, when every muscle screamed for me to get up and run. But I held myself in check, straining to hear her approach.

  “Quick! Get up!” Anneliese called from the tower.

  I ignored her.

  “Penny! Arthur! She’s nearly there!” That was Rapunzel.

  I waited to hear a similar warning from Simon, but none came. I felt a vine slither against my leg and shivered. She must be close. Another snaked along my arm, and Arthur hissed beside me.

  Gothel cackled again, sounding close, but not quite close enough. “If those useless louts at Talbot weren’t so slow, I would have received word of Rapunzel’s escape before you all reached that accursed river, the boundary of my power. I should have known better than to trust a human for even the smallest task. Like those useless bandits who not only failed to capture Rapunzel but failed to even bring me the interloper. The girl who dared to claim she was my princess.”

  So she had been behind the flash flood. I frowned. But the wave had nearly killed Rapunzel as well as Arthur. I shook my head, trying not to be distracted by her words, focusing instead on how close she sounded. Almost close enough now…

  Gothel continued. “I had to fetch the impudent girl myself, though it cost me dearly. I’ve shown her, though. Shown her what it means to be my princess.” Her third cackle turned into a cough. “And imagine my joy when she got angry one day and tried to threaten me with her family. Then I realized all I had to do was be patient, and you’d come straight back into my trap.” She sounded almost on top of us.

  “Now!” Arthur yelled, and we both pushed up, scrambling madly as we struggled to our feet. Trusting that the ground around me would now be clear, I lunged forward, throwing all my weight into the gesture. My hands smacked into a solid shape, and I held on tight as Gothel screamed and kicked at me.

  Arthur grunted somewhere near, and then Gothel yelled again. I could feel his arms now, too, encircling her from the other side. It took both of our strength to hold down her writhing, cursing form.

  “I’ll get you! I’ll get you all!” she screamed. “How dare you take away my Rapunzel! I’ll see her dead before I let anyone else have her!”

  I held on tighter. I guess that explained the wave. She must have been desperate to stop Rapunzel leaving her field of influence—desperate enough to attempt to kill her rather than let her truly escape. And if she was as limited in her power as I had guessed, she must have been saving every scrap of power since she captured Anneliese
, waiting for us to arrive.

  “Ah, what do we do now?” I asked Arthur.

  “This,” said a determined voice behind me, and a loud thud sounded close to my ear.

  “I’ve been stuck in that tower for a month,” said Anneliese, “please, allow me.” I heard a second thud, and Gothel went limp in my arms.

  I lowered her to the ground with relief.

  “Liesa? How did you get down here?” I reached out my arms in the direction of her voice, and she fell into them.

  “That would be me,” said Simon’s voice proudly. “Rapunzel sent me sneaking around with a rope. I threw it up to her while everyone else was distracted. I’m just sorry I didn’t get to take a whack at that witch myself.”

  “She’s not a witch, she’s a fairy,” I corrected him.

  “Are you sure?” He sounded doubtful. “She doesn’t look much like a fairy.”

  “No,” I agreed, “but the wings are there, if you look closely.” His mention of her looks brought my earlier fears rushing back. Was this blindness temporary or permanent? What if I could never see again?

  “Is she breathing?” Rapunzel sounded torn between anger and fear, and I wondered which answer she hoped for. Gothel had kept her imprisoned her whole life. But she was also the only person Rapunzel had known for most of that life.

  Anneliese pulled away from our embrace to check. “She’s breathing. What are we supposed to do with her now?”

  I sat down on the ground. “I don’t know. Maybe we should call on Mortimer. Surely a rogue fairy is more his responsibility than ours.”

  “Mortimer!” Anneliese sounded incensed. “That no-good, dirty, rotten—”

  I waved her words away. “Yes, yes, we know he’s all those things. But do you have a better idea?”

  No one said anything.

  After a moment of silence, I asked, “Are the vines still there?”

  “No.” Simon sounded like he was bouncing again. “They’ve been shriveling up ever since Rapunzel and Liesa bonked the old woman on the head. They’re gone now.”