The Fairest of Them All

by Carolyn Turgeon

  “The forgetting potion,” she said.

  “That’s what the forgetting potion is made of? The one you gave me when I was a child?”

  “Yes. I mashed it up, coated an apple with it, fed it to you. That is all true.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why did you do that? There was never a garden in the kingdom, never a starving mother. What did you need to make me forget?”

  She shook her head. “That I was your mother. All the things you knew, through your hair. By the time I realized what your hair could do, what it told you, you already knew all my secrets. You were only a child, and yet you knew. It took a powerful spell to protect myself from you.”

  “And now you have destroyed me, and you’ve destroyed the kingdom. Has it brought you any relief?”

  When she did not answer, I stood.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I’m going to the house of bandits, to bring Snow White home.”

  “No,” she said. She stood, a fierce energy claiming her. “Leave her be. Stay with me, daughter. I have waited so long for this. They made me do this!”

  She reached out for me then, and I wanted to cry from the pain of it, that she was my mother after all, and that she loved me despite everything else.

  My mother. Finally.

  I took her in my arms, and I held her. My hair wrapping around us. All of her darkness moved inside of me, roiling like an ocean, and I knew it would never lessen, that she would always be out here, intent on destruction, that no vengeance could heal her. There was no relief, nothing in the world that could heal the great wound she carried. I knew what I had to do, knew that I could do it.

  I thought of all those moments I’d spent with her, growing up. All those days bent over the garden or sitting at her side as we handed out spells and potions, the way she’d carefully taught me how to work the earth. All those moments. And then, for a flash, I saw far, far into the future, when she was very old and bitter, when the little house was full of candy, when children, lost in the forest, would enter it and never come out. I might have imagined it, but she seemed grateful to me now as I watched her, as I focused all of that dark energy, and all of that love, down into a point of light. I took all those memories and fashioned from them a wing, a new life, and turned it from me to her.

  I don’t know if she knew what was coming. It seemed, from her face right then, like she might.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  And then, slowly, her body began to shrink. Her nose lengthened and jutted out, ending in a point. Her face narrowed, with its shocked, hurt expression, which broke my heart even then, and seemed to vanish altogether. Her hair turned bit by bit to feather, her long curls now short and sleek, erupting over her skin, erasing every bit of what she’d been. Her body folded in, over, and dropped to the floor. She looked up at me, her eyes small and wet and glittering, the same soft brown—grateful? I thought I saw it, I hoped I had given her some relief—and her great wings spread out on either side of her body.

  I opened the door and after one try, two tries, she started to lift herself into the air.

  “Go on,” I said softly.

  Something clicked, and her falcon’s body soared into the air, above me, and I was sure there was some joy, some new freedom in that flight as she flew up the side of the tower, past the window I’d looked out of, up into the sky, and disappeared beyond the canopy of trees.

  At night the forest filled with shadows. The moon was bright and full overhead, streaking down through the tree branches, illuminating the path in front of me. Behind me, the cottage burned.

  I could hear the flapping of wings, looked up and saw Brune with another falcon flying beside her. I smiled, despite myself. Two cat’s eyes glimmered down at me from a tree branch before me, and turned away.

  I passed the spot where I shot the stag and followed the path he’d taken until he fell. I passed the split oak tree, and I walked along the river, which reflected the moon and stars. I let the horse drink. I glanced down at my own reflection, my streaming hair. I remembered Mathena and me swimming here, the cleansing ceremonies we’d performed here, hand in hand. I petted the horse’s long black mane, pulled a few apples from a tree nearby and fed one to him, and put the others in my bag.

  Finally, we came upon the clearing, and before I saw the rapunzel, I could make out its rich, strange scent, which even then made the world seem asleep. It was all around now, grown wild, and I wondered how many beasts had come upon it and forgotten their way.

  I stepped over and through it, knelt down with it all around me. My hair covered the rapunzel like a blanket, hopefully providing some comfort to him, the man that Mathena had loved. I thought of it, her grief and rage as she cast the spell that changed man to beast, the rage that had colored everything that came after.

  It was not Snow White’s place to pay for what others had done, just as it was not mine.

  I pulled fistfuls of the rapunzel from the ground. I took the rapunzel and crushed it in my palms, releasing its sweet seductive scent, and then took an apple from my bag and rubbed the poison into its skin. When I was finished, I placed the apple carefully back into the satchel.

  I kept moving, navigating the dark woods. Finally, I saw the house that stood across the river. From the outside, it looked cozy, lovely, with golden, lit-up windows that would beckon to any traveler.

  I left my horse a good distance away. “Stay,” I said. “Don’t make a sound.” I placed my palm on his flank, felt his heart slow down, calm. I cast a protection spell around him and a glittery haze spread through the air; he was gone.

  I piled my hair on my head so that it would not weigh me down. I waded into the water, then pushed off the rock bottom and swam across.

  When I reached the other side, I crouched down and watched the house. Behind the glowing windows, I saw their shadows moving back and forth, hulking and large, smoke rising from the chimney into the air. I watched for any sign of her.

  After a while, I could hear music, rough tones coming from inside, drunken voices. In my blood and bones, I could feel the savagery of these men, alone in this house, liquor erasing any civility they might have had left in them from wherever they came from and whatever women had raised them.

  The next thing I knew, a door was slamming and a ragged, bearded man was standing outside, adjusting a knife in his belt. He turned in my direction. Instinctively, I held my breath.

  A moment later the door opened again and several other men left the house, one after another, until there were seven in all. One was as short as a child, another tall and thin like stretched candy. Their voices were low and I could barely hear them above the sound of my own heart, but it was clear they had some kind of plan for the night. All those years I’d lived in the forest, and only now did I realize how powerful Mathena’s protections had to have been to keep us safe.

  They headed around the corner of the house and I could hear the sounds of horses, the clomping of hooves, and then they appeared again, all of them racing forward, on horseback, into the woods.

  I sat still, silent, and caught my breath.

  There was no sign of her.

  I stood, wiping grass and debris from my clothing, and walked as quietly as I could to the house, looking over my shoulders to make sure no one was watching me. Fear made me lose my senses, become afraid of ghosts and other imaginary creatures.

  When I reached a front window, I crept up and peeked inside. All I could make out were chairs and a long table, the gaping cavern of a huge hearth.

  I went to the front door and put my ear against it, but I could hear only the forest and my own breath. What if she wasn’t here? The thought seized me with a sudden awfulness: What if they’d killed her already? I cursed myself for not bringing the mirror to help me see.

  I turned the knob, and the door was locked. I concentrated. Focusing my thoughts, I said a quick spell and tried again. To my relief, the door swung open and I was inside, inhaling the smell of the
still-smoking hearth, a fire smoldering down.

  I looked around. I’d never been in such a small, masculine space. There were coins and papers and items of clothing scattered about, along with dishes and mugs that held remnants of that night’s drink. A staircase led to another floor. I ascended to another large room that contained a number of beds. Seven, lined up against a wall.

  She was not there.

  “Snow White,” I whispered. “Please.”

  I ran through the house, looking for any sign of her at all.

  “Snow White,” I said more loudly. “Are you here? Snow White!”

  I ran out of the house and back to the stable, to the well, and to the back of the house, where I saw a door on the ground, an entrance to what seemed to be a cellar. Crouching down, I opened the door and yelled into the dark space: “Snow White!”

  And just as I was about to cry out in frustration, I heard a faint sound, a voice, in the dark.

  I froze, and listened. I heard it again then, more clearly. My name. “Rapunzel?”

  “Where are you?” I cried, as relief flooded through me.

  “Down here.”

  My eyes adjusted to the dark and I began to make out shapes in the cellar. I could not make out stairs. It was a hollowed-out room under the main house, filled with bulging sacks and buckets.

  “I’ve come to take you back to the palace,” I said.

  There was no response.

  “Snow White?”

  I looked around frantically for some way to get down to her. Surely they used a ladder, but there wasn’t anything in sight. I ran back to the front door and into the house, looking for something I could use.

  Nothing.

  But I had my hair.

  Back at the cellar opening, I lay on my belly and stuck my head inside, trying to find her. “Where are you?” I said. “Are you all right?”

  A moment later her answer came. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so.” Something was wrong with her. Her voice was flat, strange.

  “Can you stand up?” I said. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I need to get you home, Snow White. Before those men come back.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “What?”

  “Go home, Rapunzel. Please.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t tell anyone you found me.”

  And then I heard a faint shuffling, and she appeared under me, her pale skin glowing in the dark, illuminated by the small bit of moonlight coming down. She was even deeper underground than I’d thought.

  “Snow White,” I whispered. I was shocked at her appearance even from so far above her, a flatness I’d never seen before in her, the wide, empty eyes.

  And then she was me, locked in the tower, and I was Mathena. But I realized that she could not leave the tower she was in.

  “Please, leave me here to die,” she said. “I can’t go home again. Not now.”

  Her despair hung in the air between us, in the damp darkness.

  “You must come,” I said, my voice rising in desperation. “They will keep hurting you if you stay.”

  I could see circles under her eyes, bruises on her skin. What had they done to her? I thought of that sad little girl I’d first met, walking next to me in the garden with her back straight, her dress swishing around her. How happy I’d been to make her smile and laugh.

  When she didn’t respond, I continued, “The king is devastated, he can’t sleep, he thinks of you every moment. Even now he is planning to go to war with your mother’s family.”

  “They cannot know me, the way I am now!” she said.

  “You will heal,” I said. “Be happy again. Let me take you home.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m ruined.”

  “People do not get ruined!” I said, though even as I said it I did not believe it.

  She laughed a dull, hollow sound.

  “Let me get you out of there and I will prove it to you.”

  “No!”

  “I can give you something so that you will forget all of this.”

  For a moment she was silent. She was crying now, her tears like diamonds on her cheeks.

  “Forget?” she repeated, her voice cracking.

  “Yes. You’ll be brand-new.”

  To my relief, she nodded. I knew we had only minutes.

  I leaned down into the cellar entrance, and quickly, surely, I started pulling my hair, hand over hand, great chunks of it at a time, piling it in circles until I reached the end. Softer than fur, stronger than an iron chain.

  “I need you to climb,” I said.

  The expression on her face almost made me laugh, despite everything. Here I was a queen and she a princess, and yet the world was as absurd as it’d been that long-ago day when the prince came to the tower to find me.

  “It is strong enough,” I said. “Believe me.”

  She just stared up at me as I took the edge of my hair and dropped it through the entrance. The rest of my hair unfurled after it.

  She cried out as my hair fell down around her like a blanket. I felt her hands wrapping around it. I braced myself for the rush of feeling moving from her to me.

  “Climb!” I said.

  I held tight to the doorway as I felt her weight, as she started placing one hand over another.

  I felt it then: her pain and anguish, the way they’d taken her body, the horrors they’d enacted on it. I could see their sweating, clenched faces. Their massive hands. I could feel the wound in her body.

  In the distance, I could hear the beat of horses’ hooves on the forest floor.

  “Climb!” I said again.

  Older wounds streamed into me; I could feel her shock when Gilles took her to the forest, telling her that there was danger afoot and he was taking her to safety. The constant ache of her mother being lost to her. Her anguish from seeing me turn against her own father, and then betray him with Gilles. She’d known what I’d thought was secret. She felt I had betrayed her. I had to let the images pass, concentrate on what I was doing.

  It seemed to take hours for her to lift herself, one arm over the next, my hair gathered together like a giant, thick rope in her hands.

  And then I felt something else, beyond the pain and hurt. A strength in her that I hadn’t realized was there, that came at me as if the tower itself were smashing into me. She would survive this, I realized. I could see it as clearly as I could see the cellar door, her hand reaching up and folding around my hair.

  I could hear them approaching, forced myself to stay calm.

  Her hands were bright pink from exertion, her face shining with sweat. As she neared me, I saw that strength, that passion for life, inside of her, past her hollow eyes and thin limbs.

  Hurry, I whispered. Willing time to slow down, for her body to be stronger, for Artemis, or the god the priest spoke about, to help us to safety. I whispered a protection spell to the winds, the four directions.

  Her hands clasped my neck, and I used all the strength of my body to move back, pressing against the doorframe and pulling her out of the cellar and into the moonlight.

  We collapsed together on the grass. I didn’t want to let go of her, but I had to. There was no time.

  I jumped up, held out my hand. “We must go now,” I said. “They’re here.”

  And they were: the horses were wending their way to the stable, which was just in our line of sight. She got to her feet and took my hand and we ran.

  “You there! Stop!”

  They were calling to us, they’d spotted us, and my horse was waiting on the other side of the river, faintly visible now with the spell wearing off, and there was no time to cast another one, not with the way we were running. I glanced over at her, Snow White, as she raced for her life, toward her future, and I knew then that I did not need to save her, not more than I had already, that I did not need to make her forget anything, a
nd that she would be queen, a great queen like her mother had been, a queen who would bring peace and prosperity to our land, and she would survive and heal and be happy.

  I plunged into the river and she threw herself in after me, grabbing onto my hair. We reached the horse and mounted him, me in front and her behind me, the satchel of apples at my side, us riding like men with our legs apart, the queen and the princess, racing through the forest, and the winds helped to speed us along until we were almost flying.

  We rode through the forest, her arms around me, until the sound of hooves behind us faded, and then we kept riding, past where the rapunzel grew alongside the river, past Mathena’s smoldering cottage and the tower that was just visible through the treetops. Above us, two falcons soared through the air.

  I breathed in everything, took all of it in, because the world was wild and open and beautiful and the moment was full and it existed, it was happening right then, and for once I did not want to think about anything that had come before or anything that would come after. Here, right now, we were together and we were flying.

  EPILOGUE

  I sit here now, in my workroom, writing this down as quickly as I can, while outside my chambers the palace rejoices.

  I am the true queen, the rightful heir to the throne—though no one will ever know it, and soon enough not even I will remember it. And as the true queen, I have made one decision. It will be my sole decision, but it is the best thing I can do for my kingdom, and it is enough.

  It was at the inn at the edge of the forest that Snow White and I learned that King Josef had died in the fighting that had broken out just beyond the castle walls. With no male heir, I was named queen regent, a title I would carry until Snow White turned twenty-one and took the throne. Lord Aubert was acting as regent in my stead. With both me and Snow White gone, the whole kingdom was in disarray

  I sent a message to the royal council that Snow White and I were safe, and that in the interest of peace for the West, I would step aside to name her, Snow White, daughter of the West and East, sole ruler of our kingdom.

  When I told her what I’d done, she looked at me with that same serious look she’d had as a child, and nodded, and I did not need magic to see the combination of grief and strength and beauty that she will become known for in years to come. There was nothing I could do to console her, except use all my power and everything in my heart to wish her well, so that she might heal herself, and our kingdom.