Golden

by Cameron Dokey

“Be careful,” I said. “I want you to promise.”

  “You’re the one they’re hunting, not me,” he said.”

  “Harry.”

  “Oh, all right. I promise, Parsley.”

  “Why must you always do that?” I asked, horrified that I could once more feel the prick of tears at the back of my eyes, and I knew that anger hadn’t brought them on this time. I stamped my foot, to drive them away. “I have a proper name. You might learn to say it.”

  “Rapunzel,” Harry said. And again, “Rapunzel.”

  And then he did the very last thing I expected. He caught my face between his hands and pressed his lips to mine. I forgot the heat of the day, forgot my own danger. All I could feel was the touch of his mouth. All I could hear was the sound my own heart made.

  Home, it said. Home.

  Then, quickly as it had arrived, the moment was over. He let me go, stepped back, and spun me around.

  “Now, run, Parsley. If I find out you’ve let them catch you, I’ll hunt you down and tar and feather you myself.”

  I did run then, all the way to the crest of the hill, where the sorceress was waiting beneath my favorite apple tree. Then, just once and only for a moment, I stopped and turned around.

  The house sat just where it always had, and beyond it the barn. But of our horse, with the tinker’s boy upon its back, I could see no sign. Melisande reached out and put a hand on my arm.

  “I know,” I said. “I know.”

  And so, together, we turned away and hurried down the far side of the hill.

  But to the end of my days, my heart retained this picture: an image of the black-eyed Susans standing tall and straight and true in the ruins of our abandoned garden.

  Eight

  Our journey went just as the sorceress had said it would. Three days through the mountain passes, two days across the plains beyond. We stayed inside the wagon all the first three days, until we reached a place where the mountains ended suddenly, as if cut off with a knife, and a wider flat plain stretched out in every direction, eventually becoming the horizon line.

  It was hot and stuffy in the wagon. All four sides were down, lashed tight, in spite of the fact that it was summer and the weather was warm. My body ached from the inactivity. I had never been so restricted before, never even thought about what it might be like to be unable to do something as simple as taking a few steps. To be unable to feel the wind or see the sky. I would rouse from sudden stupors to find my hands had clenched themselves into fists, as if I had dreamed fierce dreams while I dozed.

  None of us spoke very much.

  At night the tinker sat beside his fire and con-versed with those who stopped to share its light. But they were few, though the road held travelers other than ourselves. It was as if all were infected by the sickness that had struck the town. Not the fever, but the sickness of suspicion. Fear walked that road, planting its feet as solidly as those of Mr. Jones’s horse.

  And so the first three days passed slowly, until, at last, we left the mountains behind.

  Free of the mountains, the land opened up like a child suddenly freed of a heavy winter coat, gleefully spreading its arms. The road we traveled upon opened up also, becoming wide and broad. There was a flash of light off to the west. Somewhere in the distance, a river flowed. It was cooler on the far side of the mountains, as if the heat that had held us in so tight a grip had hands but no legs and so had been unable to make the climb. About mid-morning on the fourth day, Mr. Jones brought the horse and wagon to a sudden halt. A moment later he poked his head through the opening at his back.

  “I have seen no other people for a good two hours,” he said. “I think it’s safe for you to come out now.”

  “You go first, Rapunzel,” Melisande said. “Perhaps it will still be better if we don’t both suddenly appear at once.”

  I wish I could tell you that at this moment I was overcome by a fit of thoughtfulness. That I turned to the woman who had raised me and said, “Oh, no, Melisande. You go first. You’ve been just as cramped and miserable as I.”

  I didn’t, though.

  Instead, I scrambled for the front of the wagon without another word, almost tumbling over the seat and onto the horse’s back in my eagerness to reach the outside.

  “Take it easy,” Mr. Jones said. “The world’s not going anywhere, you know.”

  “I don’t know that, as a matter of fact,” I said.

  And then I did what I had started to do three days ago and hadn’t finished yet. I began to run.

  I ran until my legs ached just as much with exertion as they had with inertia. Until the breath scorched going down my parched throat and burned inside my lungs. Until the kerchief I wore was plastered to my head with sweat, and then the sweat dripped down into my eyes. I ran until my hands hung limply, too worn out to make fists at my sides. And then I stopped and caught my breath, and sat down to wait by the side of the road.

  By the time the wagon pulled up beside me, Melisande was sitting next to Mr. Jones.

  “You ran a long way,” she said. “Was it far enough?”

  “I’m not sure I know.”

  “You’ll appreciate a drink of water, in any case,” the tinker said.

  “I would,” I acknowledged. “And a change of headgear, I think.”

  “Fortunately for you, I believe I can assist with both.” He handed over the waterskin, then climbed down from the seat of the wagon and began to rummage in the wagon itself. The sides had been rolled up, I noticed. Our hiding place was now completely gone.

  “Harry found this, our last trip together,” the tinker said, and he handed me what my fingers told me was yet another piece of cloth, even as my eyes watched it flash in the sun. “He intended to give it to you himself, of course.”

  After that first gift of cloth for a kerchief, Harry had continued to bring me such presents from time to time. Each more elaborate and fanciful than the next, till even Melisande looked forward to seeing what would arrive. Some were shot through with threads of gold and silver. Others were woven of every color I could imagine, and even some that I could not. The most recent had been stitched to resemble a peacock’s tail, with actual feathers fluttering along its edges. We’d put that one on the head of the scarecrow in the cornfield, where it had successfully intimidated the crows.

  I held the fabric by one corner and let the rest flutter out in the breeze.

  “For heaven’s sake, I can’t wear this!” I exclaimed. “I’ll blind the horse.”

  “You might at that,” Mr. Jones agreed. For, rather than being covered only with embroidery, this cloth was decorated with tiny mirrors held in place with elaborate stitches in red and silver. “It’s very beautiful, though. I can see why Harry thought you might like it.”

  “Harry” I said, and tried not to hear the way my voice threatened to turn those two syllables into a sob.

  “He’ll be all right, Rapunzel,” the tinker said. “He’s young and strong, and he knows the roads.”

  “Of course he’ll be all right,” I said, as if I could hide my fears by the crossness in my voice. “It’s just so like him to be late.”

  “He’s not late yet,” said Melisande. Then, to my surprise, she hopped down from the wagon seat. “Here,” she said. “You ride and I’ll run for a while. By nightfall we will come to a place where the river turns to run beside the road. There is a small stand of trees where the river bends that makes a fine campsite. There I will answer all the questions you’ve been so careful not to ask. For which I am most grateful, by the way.”

  “Can I have a bath?” I inquired.

  “Yes,” the sorceress answered, and she smiled.

  “That question I can answer now.”

  “I heard what he said to you,” Melisande said, late that night. “The boy, that last day, in our yard. He said that you were cursed. Not only is this cruel and unfair, it’s also untrue. For it is not you who is cursed, my Rapunzel. It is I.”

  We had come to the bend in t
he river, just as the sorceress had declared we would. Made camp, eaten our dinner, and washed from our bodies the stains that fear makes, and the dust from the road. Now the three of us sat around a small, bright campfire, while Mr. Jones’s horse grazed nearby.

  The tinker had brought out a pipe, and its bowl illuminated his face, then darkened it again, as he puffed. Its fragrant smoke mingled with the smoke of the fire. The water beside us made a cheerful sound. I was grateful for this, for I had found to my surprise that the land made me nervous in the darkness. It was so great and open and wide. In it, Melisande’s words seemed to fly out in every direction, gone almost before I could understand what she had said.

  “How can that be?” I asked. “Who has the power to curse a sorceress?”

  “The answer to that is simple,” the sorceress herself replied. “One whose power is greater than mine. In this case, it was a wizard, and for this reason: He had witnessed me doing a thing that I should not have done. Once, a very long time ago now, I committed an act of unkindness.”

  “But,” I said, then stopped short. Who was I to question the actions of a wizard, after all? But Melisande seemed to understand what my objection might have been, had I decided to say it aloud.

  “True enough,” she acknowledged. “Acts of unkindness happen every day, some intentional, others not. Mine was of the second variety, not that it made any difference in the long run.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

  “That is not surprising,” Melisande answered. “For it has taken many years for me to understand it myself.”

  She fell silent for a moment, gazing into the fire, then lifted her eyes to mine. When she did, I got a jolt. For it seemed to me that, just as I had done with the tinker on that day so long ago now, I caught a glimpse into the sorceress’s heart. In it I thought I recognized myself. But behind me, moving closer even as I watched, was the person Melisande had asked to step aside. Though for many years we had not discussed how I had first come to live with her, I had never forgotten her words: I made room for you inside my heart.

  It is another girl, I realized. Just as I thought she might come close enough for me to see her features, Melisande spoke again, and the vision vanished.

  “I have wanted to tell you this story many times, Rapunzel,” she said. “Even more, I have known that I must. But every time I wondered if the time was right, my heart counseled me to wait, and I listened to its voice. For that is supposed to be my gift, is it not? To see what is in the heart?”

  “In another’s heart, yes,” I answered without thinking, for my head was still full of what I believed I had seen, trying to figure it out. Mr. Jones shifted position suddenly, as if he would have answered differently if the question had been put to him. But the sorceress simply nodded.

  “That is a just response. To see into another’s heart is one thing. To see into ones own heart may require a different power entirely. I’m still not entirely certain its one that I possess.”

  And so the sorceress told us her story.

  Nine

  “Many years ago,” Melisande said, “long before you were born, Rapunzel, the world was less afraid of magic than it is now. As a result, magic itself was more powerful. In this, I suppose it could be said that it was like a radish in our garden.”

  “Better that than a carrot,” I said, and heard both the tinker and the sorceress chuckle. And with that, I felt the tension around our fire ease, as if, now that the story had at last commenced, we all understood we would stick with it till the close. What might happen then was anyone’s guess, but for now, we would all be united in the telling and hearing of it.

  “Though it could be any plant,” I went on, “assuming that I’ve grasped your point. If you give a plant room, it will grow and flourish. But if you crowd it, you may choke it out.”

  “That is indeed my point,” Melisande agreed. “Not that magic has died out entirely in these days. But fear is strong. Fear of what is different, of what cannot easily be explained, particularly explained away. We’ve had proof enough of that recently, I think, you and I.”

  “But this is not a story of these days,” I said.

  “No,” Melisande agreed. “Or at least, the start of it is not, for this story is still ongoing. It has not yet come to its conclusion, though I hope that the day for that is not far off. It is a cautionary tale, one that shows how, even when used with the best intentions, the strongest magic can still go wrong.

  “Like many such tales, it began innocently enough. One fine market day, a sorceress and her daughter, who was just the age that you are now, Rapunzel, left their home and went to the nearest town.”

  “Wait a minute. Stop right there,” I said. I felt a shock, as if I had suddenly been plunged into cold, deep water.” You have a daughter. A daughter of your own blood.”

  “I do,” answered Melisande. “Her father and I were childhood sweethearts. He died long ago. My daughter was once all that I had in the world.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, and still no sound came out. The numbness of shock was being replaced by a strange sensation, tingling in all my limbs as if my entire being was undergoing some great rearrangement of its very essence. All these years the sorceress had had a child, a daughter who was all she had in the world, yet not once had she ever spoken of her.

  “What is her name?” the tinker asked quietly.

  “I do not speak the name I gave her at her birth,” Melisande answered, matching his tone. “She lost it the same day as the events I am about to tell. For many years now, she has been called Rue. She dwells in the tower we will reach in another day’s time.”

  Rue, I thought. Another plant in the garden. A name even more bitter than mine. Rue for sorrow. Rue for regret.

  “What a terrible thing to be called,” I said aloud, before I quite realized I had done so.

  “I understand this must be difficult for you,” Melisande began.

  “Oh, do you?” I burst out. “I don’t think you understand anything at all. I know I don’t.”

  How could you? I wanted to cry. How can you say you love me and hold something like this back?

  It did no good for my mind to insist that the sorceress had always told me the truth. She had not told me of her own, her other, child. An omission so large and strange that, in that moment, it felt no different than the telling of a lie.

  “Let her finish, Rapunzel,” Mr. Jones said, his own voice calm. “There can be time for pain and outrage later, if that is still what you feel. But we’ll never get anywhere if you indulge in them now.”

  Almost, I did it. Stood up and left the fire. Almost, I walked off into that great, vast darkness that surrounded us. Walked off and kept on going. For it didn’t seem like such a foreign country now. In the moments since the sorceress had revealed that she had a daughter, vast and dark and empty had become familiar territory. It was just the same as the inside of my heart.

  I didn’t move, though. Instead I took hold of my pain and throttled it down. Mr. Jones is right, I thought. There would be time for pain and outrage later. Later I could scream and weep to my certainly confused and maybe even broken heart s content. For the moment, however, only by being silent could I learn what I needed to know.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Please, go on.”

  “I’m sorry too,” answered Melisande. “More sorry than you know. And so I will begin with two unkindnesses, it seems. One, tonight. The first, long ago.”

  “Upon a market day, you said,” I prompted, suddenly eager to get the telling of this tale over and done with. “You took me to town upon a market day also, as I recall.”

  “I did,” said Melisande. “And though what happened brought you pain, it also showed me that your heart was strong. Stronger than you knew then. Perhaps it is still stronger than you know.”

  “So it was a test, then?” I asked, as the pain and confusion I was trying to master grew too strong and slipped their hold. Was m
y childhood nothing but a series of hidden checks and balances, not really what I thought I had experienced at all?

  “How fortunate for us that I passed it,” I went on, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “How many more are there to be, or don’t I get to know until they’re all over?”

  “Enough, Rapunzel,” Mr. Jones said. I shut my mouth with a snap and pressed the tip of my tongue against the back of my teeth. “Let the sorceress tell what must be told.”

  “Upon a market day, as I have said,” Melisande resumed her tale, “my daughter and I went to town. There she saw a bright ribbon for her hair. She had eyes for nothing else. I had eyes for no one but my child. On that day, I, whose gift it is to see into the hearts of others, failed to see that my daughters heart was not the only one filled with desire. She had that ribbon for her hair, while another woman’s child had none.”

  “Oh, but surely—” I began to protest, then stopped. We were never going to get anywhere if I kept interrupting every other sentence. Not only that, I was contradicting myself. A moment ago I had been ready to use my words to lash out. Now here I was, jumping to Melisande’s defense.

  “You are exactly right,” she said at once, precisely as if she understood the objection I had planned to make.

  “The act was simple and unintentional, not deliberately cruel, but merely thoughtless. I thought only of myself and what I loved. Everyday people do this all the time, though I suppose it could be said the world might be a better place if they did not. But I am not an everyday sort of person. I possess a gift, the gift to see what lies inside another’s heart.

  “On that day, I did not look. I let myself be blind. It was this fact more than any other that weighed against me in the end. That made the wizard who saw my actions decide I needed to be taught a lesson in the uses of power.”

  “But why?“ I cried.

  “My gift is not simply a skill I may use, it is a skill I must use,” Melisande replied. “Not that I am required to act on what my eyes discover. My gift, my responsibility, is to see and nothing more. I am free to choose my own actions. Indeed, like everyone else, I must be so. A good act that is compelled is not goodness at all, but merely force.