Golden

by Cameron Dokey

  Then she shifted, ever so slightly, and I saw that the gold came from a kerchief with gold-petaled flowers embroidered on it. Flowers with centers as dark as the girl’s eyes. And in those eyes, I saw the babe she had once been. I saw the tinker as a young man bow his head over hers as he held her in his arms. I saw him let her go, and what that letting go had cost.

  I bowed my own head then, and closed my eyes. The visions wavered and were gone. When I looked back up, the tinker stood before me, only now I saw him truly. Saw what he had been all along.

  “If my heart is strong, I inherited it from you,” I said. “Father.”

  “My child,” he said.

  And then I walked straight into his arms.

  The leave-takings began not long after that. For Alexander was understandably eager to introduce his bride-to-be to his mother, and the king wished to get back to the palace before rumors of his strange disappearance grew too dire and his wife too alarmed. Melisande would accompany her daughter to the palace. The tinker, Harry, and I would follow in two weeks’ time.

  “You are sure?” the girl who carried the name that I had possessed since I first drew breath inquired, as we prepared to part.

  “I am sure,” I said. “There was never any doubt in my mind.”

  “You really are impossible,” she said.

  I reached out and took a strand of that golden hair between my fingers. It was softer and finer than the finest embroidery silk. Not only that, it was the perfect length now. Flowing down her back to swing just above her heels, not quite as long as she was tall.

  “Your hair is beautiful, Rapunzel,” I said. “I thank you for it with all my heart.”

  At this, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said. “I don’t even know what to call you now.”

  “I’ll tell you at the wedding,” I said. “I owe you a cake, as I recall.”

  “An angel cake as tall as the oven door,” she answered with a smile. Then she glanced over my shoulder, to where Harry stood talking with the tinker. “I’d like to say good-bye to Harry, unless you mind.”

  “Why should I mind?” I asked. At which her smile got a little wider.

  “I’m sure I can’t imagine,” she said.

  “Who’s being impossible now?”

  “Rapunzel tells me you have been a good friend to her,” I heard a voice say as she moved away. I turned around and there was Alex.

  Oh, you are a fine young prince, I thought. Even with that great bruise darkening one cheek, he was as fine and handsome a prince as any girl trapped in an enchanted tower could want. And he didn’t stir my heart. Not one little bit.

  “I have done my best,” I replied.

  He cocked his head then, as if listening to a tune he’d once heard, but whose name he couldn’t quite recall.

  “Have we met before?”

  “You have never seen me before this moment,” I answered, choosing my words with care, for I wanted to be honest. “But I will look forward to seeing you again, at your wedding.”

  He smiled. I watched the way his eyes sought out Rapunzel and stayed there. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he asked.

  “I have never seen anyone more beautiful,” I answered, honestly once more.

  “You would say this?” he asked, as his eyes flicked back to me. “I thought women were supposed to be jealous of one another.”

  “That is a tale that men tell to make themselves more important,” I said, at which he laughed. “Besides, what’s the point of being jealous of love?”

  “I see that Rapunzel is right. You are a good friend, for you speak the truth,” Alexander answered with a smile.

  At that she came to him and took him by the arm. He gave me a bow, the first I had ever received from a prince, and together the two of them moved off.

  Finally, the time came to say farewell to the sorceress.

  “I don’t know what to say to you,” she said. “Though there is the obvious, of course.”

  “The obvious is the obvious because it works just fine,” I said.

  “I love you,” she said simply. “Thank you for freeing my child.”

  “She did that herself,” I said. “I just figured out how.”

  “She tells me you have inherited my gift,” Melisande said. “I’m pleased.”

  I gave a snort. “It’s a little uncomfortable, to tell you the truth. I’m sorry if I was unfair before.”

  But Melisande shook her head.

  “I would like you to know this: I never let you call me Mother because I feared that if you did, when the time came, as I knew it would, I would never have the strength to let you go. But I have loved you no less than the daughter I nurtured with my blood. You have lived inside my heart from the moment my eyes first beheld you. You have been mine from the first time I held you in my arms.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I know it. Mr. Jones tells me that the woman who bore me died not long after I was born. Her heart simply could not find the way to beat, the doctors said. Perhaps the hole she had made in it was too wide.”

  “I hope you will call me Mother from this day forward,” Melisande said.

  “Thank you,” I answered. “I will do so with much joy.”

  “Mother!” another voice called out. Melisande and I shared a smile.

  “Your daughter Rapunzel is calling you,” I said.

  “So it would seem,” the sorceress replied. “I’ll see you at the wedding. I’ll even help you beat the egg whites, if you like.”

  “I’ll hold you to that promise,” I said.

  Then I watched as they rode away into the dawn.

  Eighteen

  It began with a theft and ended with a gift. And in between came an illusion, a sleight of hand, a choice that became the chance for love. For that is all we can see in just one blink of an eye. Love’s possibility; its outline. After that, it’s best to pick up a stone and put it in your pocket, to remind you of what you’re trying to accomplish, what you’re trying to build: a home inside your heart, a love that lasts a lifetime.

  For Alex, it was a girl with shining golden hair, never mind what that girl was called. For me, it was a tinker’s boy named Harry. And for Harry—I should tell you how we ended up, shouldn’t I?

  We lived happily ever after, of course. As did Rapunzel and Alexander—and to the end of his days, she called him Alex.

  What did Harry call me?

  I’ll tell you that as well.

  After we had walked beside the river on that longago day, after all the others save the two Mr. Joneses had departed, we came to a place where a great rock sat in the center of the slow-moving current. I hitched up my skirts and waded out to it.

  “What are you doing?” Harry asked, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to sit on this rock,” I said. “And, if you come too, I will both ask and tell you something. If you stay right where you are, you can just forget about it.”

  He gave a great sigh and waded out with much stomping and sloshing. But I knew him well enough by this time. I let him have his say with his legs and feet, and said nothing until he’d plopped down beside me. Then I took off my kerchief, the first that he had given me and still my favorite, the one with the black-eyed Susans embroidered on it. I held it in my lap, leaned out over the water to gaze at my reflection, and said, “This is what I look like.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said, his voice as cross as his legs had been. “Of course that’s what you look like. That’s what you’ve always looked like, more or less.”

  “I am not ever going to grow hair,” I said. “In particular, I am not ever going to grow lovely, long, and flowing golden hair such as adorns the head of the girl who will now go through life being called Rapunzel.”

  “I still don’t understand why you let her do that,” Harry said.

  “I didn’t let her do it. I asked her to do it.”

  “What?”

  “How would you rather
be remembered?” I asked. “As the girl with the golden hair, or the girl who was bald as an egg?”

  “Neither, if you want to know.”

  I gave him a push that would have sent him straight into the water if he hadn’t known me well enough to brace himself first.

  “You know perfectly well what I mean,” I said.

  “I don’t care about your hair. Your lack of hair.” He made an exasperated sound and dragged a hand through his own. “I’ve never cared about it. Is that what you’re trying to ask?”

  “Sort of,” I said.

  He leaned over and took me by the shoulders, turning me to face him. “I am only going to say this once, Parsley, so I hope you’re paying attention. When I look at you, I don’t see hair or no hair. I just see you.”

  “You kissed me. Why did you kiss me?” I asked.

  “Not even you can be that stupid,” he said. “Why do you think?”

  And then he did it again.

  His lips were impatient and just a little cool as they moved on mine, for the day was chilly, though it was fine. But the hands that held me close were gentle, and, beneath them, I felt my body start to warm. Just like the first time, my heart spoke one word and that was all.

  Home, it said. Home.

  Not very romantic, some of you may be thinking. To which I can only reply that you are the ones who haven’t been paying attention. The kiss ended and I rested my face against Harry’s chest.

  “You make me crazy” he murmured, his lips playing against my smooth head. “You’ve always made me crazy. Do you know that?”

  “I do it on purpose,” I said. And felt what it sounded like when he laughed.

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “You could marry me,” I said. “We could make a home in that stone cottage.”

  “I could marry who?” Harry asked.

  I lifted my head. In my lap I still held the kerchief. I looked down at it and said:

  “These are my favorite flowers.”

  “You told me that when I gave it to you. I know that,” Harry said.

  “Stop interrupting.” I poked him in the stomach with one finger, and he sucked in a breath. “They’re called black-eyed Susans.”

  “So?” Harry asked, but I thought I could see the beginnings of a smile play around the corners of his mouth. He was quick. He’d always been so quick. Quick and stubborn, with hair the color of mud and eyes like the promise of spring.

  “Now who’s making who crazy on purpose?” I asked.

  “Susan,” he said. “You want to be called Susan, am I getting this right?”

  “I do,” I said. “It’s a good name. A straightforward name. A no-nonsense name with backbone.”

  “And it’s not some nasty-tasting herb,” Harry put in.

  “It’s not any kind of herb at all,” I said. “So what do you think?”

  “I think I love you whatever you’re called, but I will call you Susan if that’s what you wish.”

  “And you’ll never call me Parsley again, right?”

  “Oh, no. No promises about that,” Harry said.

  “Now wait just a minute, Harry,” I began.

  He reached over and gave me a push. I wasn’t quite as quick as he had been. I hadn’t braced myself, but I did grab him on the way down. We tumbled into the river together. Fortunately, it was shallow.

  “So,” I suddenly heard Mr. Jones call. “You’ve decided to live happily ever after.”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Harry called back. He grinned down at me, and, in spite of the fact that I was soaking wet with small, sharp stones digging into my back, I felt my heart give a great roll inside my chest.

  “Her name is Susan, in case you’ve been wondering,” Harry said.

  “Of course it is,” Mr. Jones said. “Now come inside. It’s time for supper.”

  “In a minute,” Harry said.

  He kissed me again, of course, until I could no longer tell whether the sound in my ears was the rushing of the water or my own blood.

  “Marry me,” he whispered. “Marry me soon.”

  “Yes,” I whispered back. “Yes.”

  He let me up then. He pulled me to my feet and kept my hand in his as we waded back to shore. Just before we got there, he bent and picked up two stones, holding them out in the flat of his palm.

  “You sneak!” I exclaimed. “I knew you were listening.”

  “Pick one,” he said.

  So I chose one, and Harry kept the other. And, though no one ever tells the tale of a girl named Susan and a boy named Harry, we have been living happily ever after, building the room that is our love, our home, inside our hearts from that day to this.

  We build it, still, for as long as we draw breath.

  About the Author

  CAMERON DOKEY is the author of nearly thirty young adult novels. Her other titles in the Once Upon a Time series include Sunlight and Shadow, The Storyteller's Daughter, and Before Midnight. Her other Simon and Schuster endeavors include the Charmed books Picture Perfect and Truth and Consequences; Here Be Monsters, a book in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series; and The Summoned, an Angel series title. Cameron lives in Seattle, Washington.

  “Once upon a time ... ” is timely again in these retold fairy tales:

  THE STORVTELLER’S DAUGHTER

  by Cameron Dokey

  BEAUTY SLEEP

  by Cameron Dokey

  SNOW

  by Tracy Lynn

  MIDNIGHT PEARLS

  by Debbie Viguié

  SCARLET MOON

  by Debbie Viguié

  SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW

  by Cameron Dokey

  SPIRITED

  by Nancy Holder

  THE NIGHT DANCE

  by Suzanne Weyn

  From Simon Puhe

  Published by Simon & Schuster

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Cameron Dokey

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Debra Sfetsios

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Jenson.

  First Simon Pulse edition March 2006

  Library of Congress Control Number 2005928863

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-0580-6

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-0580-4

  eISBN-13: 978-1-43912-073-6