by Laura Kenyon
Donner smirked and traced his fanned out playing cards with the tips of his fingers.
“What?” she snarled, jerking forward in the tiny pleather seat and then slamming back again.
"Oh nothing,” he said, pulling two new cards from the deck. “I just recognize that feeling."
“What feeling? There’s no feeling.” She curled her fingers again and tossed two pretzels into the pile. She was not talking about this with Donner. “It's fine. I’m fine. Call, raise, or fold?"
His thick lips rose to one side as he placed the cards face down between them. “No it’s not," he said. “You just think I don’t know anything about relationships.”
Rapunzel exhaled sharply through her nose and slapped her cards in the middle of the table, face-up. The pile of pretzels she'd been using as chips spilled over. “That’s actually not true,” she said, launching to her feet and stomping over to the ladder. “I think you know loads about relationships. Just like an exterminator knows loads about mice. How else would you be so good at killing them?”
Donner scowled and followed her. “I’m not as bad as you think I am.”
Rapunzel’s laugh reverberated through the tiny cabin as she spun him out of view and threw her foot up on the first rung with such fury, it careened right off and crashed onto the floor. When she spun back around, she saw Donner’s eyes glowing red. His eyebrows had descended into a deep, wide “V,” and he seemed to have grown ten inches in an instant. In the blink of an eye, his fist rose up and slammed into the table so hard the entire boat shook.
Something inside her began to shake, too, and she heard shouting from above deck. What if he caused the boat to capsize? What if, in provoking the cursed monster, she triggered another rampage and somebody died? That would be on her. What had she been she thinking?
But just as she was about to make a run for it, Rapunzel watched Donner close his eyes, lower his face, and take three slow, bottomless breaths. As her hand gripped the ladder, he raised his chin and appeared to be muttering something to himself—something about control. The boat continued to shake for two excruciating, white knuckle minutes. Then, finally, it stopped. Donner’s fists steadied. His eyes opened, no longer red. And when he looked at Rapunzel again, it was as if nothing at all had happened.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked, pressing his hand into his forehead and tearing at his right eyebrow. What a strange tic. “Do you think Belle could ever forgive me?”
Rapunzel went to answer, but as soon as her lips parted, she felt something other than words trying to come out. Suddenly, her mouth filled with saliva. Her eyes flew wide. She spun back around, zoomed up the ladder, and was bent over the portside rail just in time to revisit Elisa Wilkins’ scrambled eggs.
A few seconds later, she felt someone pulling her hair up and behind her. “Let me guess,” Ethan said as a soft hand ran along her back. “Too much of Donner’s cologne in too small a space?”
Rapunzel’s chin collapsed against her knuckles, which were still white against the railing. Her legs and arms trembled. She appreciated the help, but hadn’t yet gotten over their argument in the car. “Is this really what I need to do to get your attention these days?”
Silence.
Then another voice: “Are you okay?” It was Donner, a clump of tissues in his massive hand. “Here. I didn’t see any paper towels.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, accepting the tissues but keeping her eyes on Ethan. He opened his mouth to say something but couldn’t seem to find the words. Then he pulled a faded orange life vest from a wooden crate and held it out. She couldn’t even count all the buckles, pouches, and snaps. It was Belle’s nursing bra on LSD.
“That’s really not necessary,” she said, holding up her hand. “I may be a little woozy, but I’m fully capable of walking around on a beach without drowning.”
“I’m sure you are,” Ethan said, tossing the vest at Donner and making some comment about them not carrying “monstrously huge” size. Rapunzel readied her tissues. She didn’t like where this was headed. “But we’re not getting dropped off on the beach. There’s a razor sharp reef surrounding the island that a vessel like this can’t navigate. Lucky for us, it isn’t shallow enough to hurt swimmers.”
“Swimmers?” Rapunzel blurted, feeling woozy again.
Ethan nodded, handed her the vest a second time, and then turned to look at Donner. “You at least know how to doggie paddle, right?”
Fifteen harrowing minutes later, the trio washed up on a beach with powder-fine sand set at the base of a small, craggy mountain.
“So, where to?” Donner asked before anyone could even catch their breath.
“What?” Ethan gasped, still doubled over with both hands on his knees. “You mean after spending all that time as an animal, you can’t sniff her out?”
Rapunzel heard the skirmish start but frankly didn’t care enough to stop it. She was too busy shoving the sand around with her shoes and peering into the tree line that began a few dozen yards away. The branches seemed to twist and jut off in nonsensical directions, as if completely immune to the call of the wind or the sun. The bark was all gnarled, with patches of dark purple moss and bright turquoise lichens. The white sand seemed to sparkle gold as it approached the emerald water. And the air—there was something familiar about its smell, or its taste, or the way it flooded into her through every pore, as if she’d been suffocating these last twenty years without it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ethan said, pulling up beside her and unbuckling her soaking wet life vest. “Welcome home. I guess.”
“Marestam’s my home,” she said before floating forward mindlessly, letting her arms slip from the vest as he held it. As she stepped into the forest, she heard Donner order Ethan to move out of his way, but again, didn’t even bother to look back.
Home, she repeated, stepping around a bush with glowing white flowers. Home? How could this possibly be home? She wasn’t born here. She had no friends here. She’d never wished it a teary farewell on her way off to college. It had never invited her back for holidays. This was as much her home as was the roach-infested apartment her first “employer” allowed her to sublet when Grethel dropped her in Carpale without a dime to her name. But that didn’t take away from the fact that, yes, it was beautiful. And calming. And despite the way she and Grethel parted all those years ago, something about it made her feel … almost … happy.
Forgetting all about the quibbling men behind her, Rapunzel continued to wander. Soon, the beach disappeared entirely. The trees grew denser but the glow of the sun didn’t seem to fade. In fact, it seemed to intensify. Perhaps it was leading her toward something. Hopefully, it was something good.
She finally stopped to look around when she reached the base of the mountain. Her traveling companions were nowhere to be seen and there was no path at her feet—just white wooly grass, needle-thin trees, and a steep, craggy slope leading—well, she wasn’t exactly sure where. She felt like the marble in the center of a pinball machine, oblivious as to where she was headed but not concerned enough to ask questions. She just knew something was compelling her forward. No, upward.
“Why are we following her?” Rapunzel heard in the distance as she bent down to double-knot her sneaker. She’d made the mistake of hiking in ballet flats once before, with Belle, and was glad she’d come prepared this time. “Does she know where she’s going? Who’s in charge of this ramshackle—”
She heard a loud thrashing sound, followed by a series of curses.
“Geez, mate. Do you have feet in those shoes or boulders?” Ethan said, bringing a smile to her face. It was good to hear that bouncy sense of humor again—even if it wasn’t directed at her. “And she’s going exactly where she needs to go, mate. She just needs to remember.”
“I’m not your mate, buddy,” Donner snarled back. Another stumble. A flash of black between the trees about five yards back. And then silence. Rapunzel froze at the base of the slope, unsure whether to g
o back or push forward.
Then she heard Ethan’s voice again, only a few yards away now. “Like I said, she knows where she’s going. But keep up. I don’t want to lose her.”
Rapunzel smiled at this statement, and then began to climb. After about twenty minutes, the rocks flattened out and gave her a chance to rest. The treetops were far below her now, replaced by pockets of orange and yellow wildflowers. The sun was just starting its descent into the ocean, painting the horizon with a breathtaking orange glow and glistening off the water.
It made her think about Belle, who loved watching sunsets from above the rest of the world. She’d tried to take Rapunzel once, in the Braddax Hills, on the day they wound up encountering the Phoenix and the feisty old lady who lived there. That was just a few months ago, but it seemed like a lifetime. Rapunzel had just broken up with Ethan. Belle had just adopted Beast. Rapunzel had stumbled along like a baby deer trying to walk for the first time, while Belle looked like a professional hiker, with granola bars and water and a backpack full of everything they needed to survive—that is, until Rapunzel marched off, the sun went down, and they wound up lost in the darkness.
Crap. She looked around now. Sunset meant the beginning of evening, and she had no desire to share some sort of makeshift shelter with Ethan and Donner in the middle of nowhere. Let alone try to figure out the bathroom situation.
“Ethan!” she shouted, lumbering toward a pink-toned boulder with a cutout that looked like it would fit her derriere perfectly. “I’m up here. It’s going to be dark soon, so we should stop and talk about—”
She turned the corner and stopped. Her head dropped back. A few dozen yards behind the boulder, one side of the mountain shot straight up and was smooth as glass—with no ledges, no outcroppings, and no footholds. Only it wasn’t flat. It bulged all around. A perfect cylinder. As if some mythological giant had picked up a lighthouse, sliced it in half from top to bottom, and slapped it against the side of this mountain.
It wasn’t gray, as she remembered, but overgrown with purple moss. And rather than stretching into the clouds, it probably reached thirty feet—no taller than a standard single-family house in Braddax. The only thing she seemed to remember correctly was the bundle of brambles and thorns that loomed at the bottom. They hadn’t changed much at all—aside from now being stained with poor Ethan’s blood.
She turned around at the sound of heavy footsteps and hushed bickering.
“That’s it?” Donner griped, looking the tower up and down. “That’s the monstrous, inescapable tower you were imprisoned in for all those years? What’s with all the flowers? It looks like something from a fairy tale—and not the scary kind.”
Rapunzel leered at him, just in case he was under the impression that a bundle of tissues and a few rounds of poker made them friends.
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Ethan said, traipsing up between them and dumping the waterproof backpack he’d been wise enough to bring along. “Maybe she wasn’t as desperate to escape as the legends say she was.” He pulled out a water bottle, flipped the top, and handed it to Rapunzel.
“Thanks,” she said, letting their fingers touch as the bottle passed between them. She didn’t mind Donner’s assumptions. No one but Ethan had ever bothered to ask if there was another side to the whole kidnapped-girl-from-the-tower story.
“So now what?” Donner asked, marching toward the razor-sharp barricade and peering between the thorns. “Is there a doorbell or do we have to sit here while you grow thirty feet of hair?”
Rapunzel rolled her eyes. “There’s a difference between using a few magical hair extensions in place of rope, and hoisting a stranger up a tower by your scalp.” Her head throbbed just thinking about it. “But even if that part of the story was true, it wouldn’t do us much good on the ground now would it?”
Donner made a face, then turned to analyze the tower again.
The first twenty feet of rock looked slick as ice, but after that, a series of tiny windows spiraled their way up, leading to a bulbous wraparound deck and several larger windows.
Ethan looked at Rapunzel. “Any ideas?” he asked.
Rapunzel shrugged. “If Grethel didn’t even want me coming, she’s not going to be very happy to see three of us. Especially him,” she said, gesturing toward Donner. “She sort of hates men.”
“Ha.” Ethan ran his palm over the scar on his cheek. “Sort of?”
Rapunzel gave the ground a tiny smile and kicked her foot a bit. “Yeah, and you’re one of the good ones.” She felt the air between them loosen a little. “We have to tread carefully. She’s like a terrified rabbit.”
“Yeah,” Ethan laughed. “A rabbit that can break your neck with a wave of her finger.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But I can only imagine how she’d respond to that over-privileged Neanderthal over th—”
“Hey!” Donner suddenly hollered, flapping his arms and staring up. “Grable!” Rapunzel’s eyes grew three sizes as Ethan sprinted over to shut him up. “Or whatever your name is,” he muttered, jerking Ethan away as if he was nothing. “Witchy lady!” he hollered again. Ethan lunged back and grabbed his shirt. “We’ve come a long way with a big problem and—”
Silence fell as Ethan’s fist collided with Donner’s jaw. The men instantly shot apart, one shaking out his injured hand, the other cradling his chin.
Rapunzel watched, mortified, as Donner’s eyes lit up again. His chest puffed out. His eyebrows descended, just as they had on the boat, and he appeared to swell up in all directions. With a mighty grunt, he ripped a fist-thick branch off the nearest tree and stomped toward Ethan, who immediately threw both arms up as a shield. She screamed as he reared back, rounded up, and—with the force of a territorial rhinoceros—torpedoed the branch straight over Ethan’s head and into the rock.
Rapunzel shook as it cracked into a dozen jagged pieces and plunged into the bramble below. Ethan lowered his arms and panned from the bramble, to Donner, to her. The same questions flew through their minds as the cursed, magical maniac stood several yards away from them with his legs wide apart, eyes on the ground, and fists still pulsing. He looked as if he was trying to stop his heart from thumping its way out of his chest, but wasn’t having much luck. He was grunting, and flinching. He was a man at war with a second personality.
“Hey, calm down,” Rapunzel said, raising her hands and inching forward. “Breathe,” she commanded, her voice strong and calm. “Just like I saw you do on the boat.” She laid her fingers on his arm. He flinched but didn’t pull away. “No one here wants a fight. We’re just trying to help you—and your child. He needs you.” Donner grunted but let the air in. “Belle needs you.” She saw Ethan watching on the side, but her focus remained on Donner. His eyes bore into hers. The red began to fade. “Show her you can beat this. I want to tell her you beat this.”
Slowly, Donner’s hands fell to his sides and he backed away.
Rapunzel turned to Ethan in triumph. Had he seen that? She’d just averted a magical disaster.
But rather than looking proud or relieved, Ethan looked as if the branch had actually hit him—smack across the face. His jaw hung open. His eyebrows fell. His eyes jerked from Rapunzel to Donner and back again.
Shit. Her mind flashed back to the boat, to her attempt to make him jealous, to her three hours below deck with Donner. She thought about his swipe on the plane about her old life. But still. No, he couldn’t possibly think—
“I’m going to find some firewood,” Ethan grumbled. His face was white as the sand back on the beach. “If Grethel was home, she would have reacted to that. There’s no sense in all of us twiddling our thumbs here, waiting for her to come back without preparing for nightfall. Like you said, it’s going to be dark soon.”
“I’ll come with you,” Rapunzel said, charging forward.
“No.” Ethan shook her away before she could even reach him. “Stay with him. Keep each other company. Maybe you can find a way in.” He
looked at Rapunzel for a split-second and then marched away, weaving a little to both sides before vanishing around the bend.
A full minute passed before she felt Donner pull up by her side.
“Not that it’s my problem,” he said, his voice like nails on a chalkboard to her now,” but didn’t we pass all the trees on the way up here?”
Rapunzel shrugged and kept staring in the direction of Ethan’s ghost. “So?”
“So how do you suppose he’s going to climb up that last stretch carrying firewood in the dark?” He waited. Then, “What are the chances that was just an excuse so he could be al—”
“Oh, just stop talking and help me find a way into this place!” Rapunzel snapped, spinning around and tossing her hands toward the sky. “Maybe there’s a secret door I never knew about. Or a bell. Or even a freaking note saying, ‘Out to dinner. Be back at half past six.’”
One side of Donner’s mouth rose in amusement. But the other half stayed flat, almost disclosing a little guilt. “I’m on it,” he said, pushing his sleeves toward his elbows and wandering towards the tower.
I’m on it, Rapunzel repeated as she began circling the tower, studying it from the bottom up. What a piece of work he was. A master at getting under a girl’s skin. And not—despite his looks—in an enticing way. No wonder Belle had such an identity crisis while they were together. One minute, he was sympathetic—maybe even sweet. The next, he was either a sarcastic ass or a raging, dictatorial bully. Curse or no curse, when it came down to it, Donner Wickenham was a child who genuinely wanted to help but had a short temper and narcissistic tendencies. That’s what Belle must have seen in him—the propensity for good if he worked at it, even if the opposite was more natural.
“Found it!” she heard from the other side of the tower.
She rolled her eyes immediately, expecting another fruitless quip. But then she heard the same proclamation again, and saw Donner sprinting over as if he’d unearthed the next clue in a kindergarten treasure hunt.
