Into the Wild

by Sarah Beth Durst

  He blinked his eyes open. “Rapunzel?”

  “Hello, Dad,” Julie said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Heart’s Desire

  Every year, she had decorated her school locker with illustrations of him. On multiple weekends, she had combed every bookstore and library for hints of him. Many times, she had pretended other fathers were hers, trying to imagine what he would have been like.

  None of that had prepared her for this moment.

  She felt as if she were standing above Niagara Falls, dizzy with the crashing water. The stuff rolling inside her felt too big, too strong, too scary. She concentrated on the little things: his eyes, his hair, his nose, his mouth. She had his chin and cheekbones. She had his cheeks, though hers were softer and rounded. She wondered if that meant they had the same smile.

  “I am ‘Dad’?” His voice was softer than she had imagined. Gillian’s father’s voice boomed across Crawford Street, but her father’s didn’t penetrate the tapestries. “You are Rapunzel’s daughter?”

  “Yes,” she said—and felt as if she had stepped over the falls. Yes. Yes, she was Rapunzel’s daughter. Yes, she was his daughter.

  She saw emotions flicker across his face so fast that she couldn’t read them—did he feel like she did? Was he happy to see her? Oh, what if he wasn’t? Maybe he didn’t want a daughter. Maybe he didn’t want her. He had to want her. She was strong enough to survive the woods, beautiful enough to be a princess, and smart enough to outwit the Wild. She was good enough to be his daughter!

  “You are grown,” he said at last.

  Was he disappointed? She felt her heart plummet. “I’m sorry.”

  “It is all right,” he said. She shook with relief. “But . . .” he said, and then hesitated. She lived and died a dozen deaths in that pause. “But it has been years?”

  “Five hundred years,” Julie said.

  His face paled and then flushed—thorn scars starkly visible on his cheeks. He hadn’t known, she realized. Oh, no. She should have thought to cushion the blow. “I’m sorry!” She was making mistakes right and left. She was ruining this!

  He took a deep, raking breath, and his face settled back into its calm, soft look. He took her hand. “Be easy,” he said. “It is all right.” And suddenly, it was all right. Julie stared at his hand—at her father’s hand. His hand swallowed hers completely. His palm felt dry, like warm wood.

  He said lightly, “You do not look like a five-hundred-year-old.”

  “I’m twelve,” Julie said. “Grandma worked a spell so I wouldn’t be born until Mom felt safe.”

  “‘Grandma.’ Do you mean Rapunzel’s witch?”

  “She’s not a witch anymore,” Julie said. “She’s nice. Or at least she was.”

  “Ahh . . .” He had a faraway look on his face.

  What was he thinking? she wondered. She hadn’t expected she would feel this . . . this uncertain. She had imagined she would fling herself into his arms. She’d thought she would feel an instant bond. Instead, she couldn’t read him.

  His eyes swept across the throne room with its ivory buntings, marble walls, and golden statues. “It is different,” he said. “Always before, after we reached the end, I woke riding through the woods; you were not here, and I could not remember.”

  “What do you remember now?” she asked. Maybe if he would tell her, maybe if she could understand what happened, maybe then, the years wouldn’t matter.

  He closed his eyes. “I remember despair.”

  “Despair?” she asked, startled.

  “We failed,” he said softly. “So many times, we failed. After the battle . . . even Rapunzel despaired.”

  This wasn’t what she expected to hear. What about Rapunzel, the valiant rebel? What about Rapunzel, unafraid, like a general? “What else do you remember?”

  “Hope.” He opened his eyes. “It was the dwarves who gave us hope after all was lost. It would have been over if not for them.”

  Snow’s seven? Snow’s seven were useful? She felt guilty as soon as she had the thought—they had tried to keep the prince from kissing her in the glass coffin.

  “The dwarves told us of the wishing well,” he said. “They risked much to learn its location and to send us word. Risked much and lost much—there were, at the start, thirteen dwarves.”

  Thirteen? Did he mean . . . ? Were they . . . ? Six dead? Julie swallowed hard. Was that why Mom felt she owed them? “So you made a wish?” Was that how Mom and her friends had escaped? It made sense: a wish to make the Wild strong, a wish to make it weak. But if that was true, why hadn’t Dad escaped?

  “Not I,” he said. “It had to be the right wish. Rapunzel in the tower, who could want freedom more than she? Of all of us, she was the one who remembered first, the one who fought the hardest, the one who led the way. She did not know, not for certain, that anything existed beyond the Wild. None of us did. But she never wavered. She believed so strongly in her dream of freedom that she inspired us all.” His eyes shone with the memory. “Do you know of her deeds?”

  “Bits and pieces,” Julie said. “Not the whole story.”

  “She was our light,” he said. “Our beacon in the tower. She was amazing. Cycle after cycle, she would reawaken us and stoke the fires of rebellion. Our rebellions were small at first, but then she conceived the idea of the Great Battle. And she began to prepare us. Painstakingly slowly, so the Wild would not suspect, she laid traps: a woodcutter’s ax next to a future beanstalk garden, extra ice to make all the bears’ porridge too cold, signposts to replace the bread crumbs so that Hansel and Gretel could find their way home. She drilled us all in our tasks: we were at the same moment to stop every story from continuing. Break glass slippers, protect the Beast’s rose, dull the spindles on the spinning wheels, steal all the apples. The Wild rose up against us—every character that Rapunzel could not convert, the Wild used against us, until every ally we had won either perished or fell prey to stories and became our enemy.”

  Julie could picture it—the reminders that Gothel had told her about, the chaos that the griffin had described, the training the ogre had mentioned . . .

  “Rapunzel was the last of us to fall,” he said. “Gothel herself trapped Rapunzel in her story by chopping her hair with the same ax that Rapunzel had used on the beanstalk to save Jack. After that, even she despaired, until the dwarves brought their news. It was then she decided that no one else would suffer. She and I alone would continue the fight.”

  Watching him, Julie saw her mother through his eyes: strong and brave and selfless. She saw the pride in his face, and her heart felt like bursting. “So she went to the well?” she asked, breathless.

  “It was not that simple,” he said. His hand was damper now, more like flesh than wood. It was as if the memories were making him more alive. Maybe they are, she thought. “The only time she leaves the tower is after the witch banishes her to the desert. Shortly after, she finds me, wandering blind. Her tears touch my eyes, and then we begin again. It is impossible to change this pattern. Believe me, we tried, but our story would always find us.”

  “Then how . . . ?” she asked.

  “It was Rapunzel’s idea,” he said, pride swelling his voice again. “She was the only one who truly understood how the Wild worked. It must complete its stories, you see. Rapunzel thought that the way for her to reach the well would be if I were there. We told no one—not the dwarves, not the witch—to limit the chance of the Wild interfering. Cinderella took me there in her pumpkin carriage without asking questions. She trusted Rapunzel that much. Once I was in place, the Wild saw to it that Rapunzel found me.”

  It was a smart plan, including relying on Cindy’s trust. Julie realized she’d never considered whether or not her mother was smart. She was just Mom. Mom the hairstylist. Mom the fairy tale. But now—Mom the hero. Never “just Mom” again. “And that worked?” Julie asked. “She made the wish?”

  “No,” he said. “It failed. Her tears fell before her wi
sh could reach the well. We tried again and again. Even when I stood behind the well, even when I stood on top of the well, her tears touched me first. We tried again and again, I do not remember how many times. Perhaps hundreds. Perhaps thousands.”

  “But she made the wish,” Julie insisted. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  He smiled then like the sun rising. “Yes, it must have worked. You are here. Five hundred years have passed.” He looked around the throne room, wonder in his eyes. “Are we free of the Wild?”

  Her throat clogged. How could she tell him? Unable to meet his eyes, she studied her feet, crusted in mud and flecks of blood. She glanced up. He must have seen the answer in her expression: his face crumpled. He took a breath as if to speak and then released it. He took another breath—gathering courage? “Rapunzel is not here,” he said.

  The way he said her mother’s name made Julie’s heart hurt. It made her think of shattered glass. “She’s in a tower,” Julie said. “She’s in the Wild’s tower. What is the last thing you remember?”

  He was silent for a moment, studying her. “You will not like it,” he said.

  She heard a dull roaring in her ears. You will not like it. She knew what was coming: the reason why he had been left behind, the reason why she had grown up without a father. She nodded, understanding.

  He continued to look at her as if reading something in her face—what did her face say? she wondered, what did he see when he looked at her? “What’s your name?” he asked, suddenly changing the subject.

  “Julie,” she said, and realized in a rush she was relieved: she wasn’t ready to hear whatever it was that she wasn’t going to like. “Julie Marchen. Märchen means ‘fairy tale’ in German. I don’t have a middle name. Mom didn’t know kids had middle names.” She stopped talking abruptly, realizing she was babbling. “What’s your name?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Rapunzel called me her prince.”

  “Nothing more specific?” Surely, Mom could have done better than that.

  “You can name me, if you’d like,” he said.

  She didn’t know what to say. How did you name your own father? “I want to call you ‘Dad,’” she said.

  “I would like that,” he said.

  Julie and her father lapsed into silence.

  She took a deep breath. “I have to know,” she said. “The last wish. I need to know.”

  He nodded. “It was a simple thing,” he said. “A simple plan. We had tried most everything else.” Julie didn’t breathe. In his soft and calm voice, he said, “She came to the well, and I stood on the stones. As she reached me, she began to cry. And so I jumped into the well. Her tears fell, but I had fallen first.”

  “She made the wish before the tears could touch your eyes,” Julie said.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  So that’s what happened. The understanding felt like a wave, and Julie wanted to cry. Her father was a martyr, and her mother was a hero. In her mind’s eye, she saw it: her father falling down the well, her mother leaning over . . . the tears fell, she made the wish . . . How had she made that wish? How had she let him fall?

  “It was a simple plan,” her father said. “Simple enough even for me. But so hard to do. We did not know what would happen to me when I fell into the well. We did not know if I would survive the fall. I did not know if she would forgive me if I didn’t.”

  Not knowing whether he’d live or die, he had leapt, and she had wished. And the Wild had lost. “She’s missed you,” Julie said. As soon as she said it, she knew how true it was. “I’ve missed you.”

  For a moment, they were silent—a silence filled with so many unspoken words that it felt loud. The castle soaked in the silence.

  “You tell me now,” he said. “Why have I missed five hundred years, and why am I awake now? How can the wish have worked and Rapunzel be in the tower? Why am I not riding through the woods? Why have I not forgotten?”

  Julie took a deep breath. “Um, well, you see, apparently, someone made a new wish in Grandma’s well while she was having dinner with us, and she went to stop it and then Mom went to save her. But I didn’t know anything about it until I saw the Wild on TV . . .”

  “What is TV?”

  Despite everything, she burst out laughing. It was, she knew, tinged with hysteria. If she didn’t laugh, she’d cry—and if she started crying, she wasn’t sure she’d stop. Confused, her father half smiled. With an effort, she got herself under control, and she told her father her story.

  When she finished, he studied her for a long while. She shifted from foot to foot. Was he going to say Cindy and Goldie shouldn’t have let her into the Wild? Was he going to blame her for taking the lunch bag from Boots?

  Instead, he said, “You were very brave.”

  Julie beamed. “You think so?”

  “You’re just like your mother,” he said.

  Julie thought she’d never heard a nicer compliment. She felt her eyes fill with tears. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She could smell him. She had never imagined his scent. He smelled a little like pine and a little like dust. He had been here a long time.

  Julie spent the afternoon with him, telling him her stories and describing her life, trying to bridge the long years he’d missed. He was a good listener, laughing at her jokes and sympathizing at all the appropriate moments. In the evening, they ate dinner together, delicious dishes Julie didn’t recognize that appeared on a table at the far end of the throne room. After dinner, Julie and her father explored the palace together, hand in hand.

  In one room, there was an ornate carousel. Surprise made Julie laugh out loud. She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t anything so—the word that sprang to mind was happy. Unicorns and griffins rose up and down as the merry-go-round went round and round. She stepped inside the room. Overhead, the ceiling was painted blue with white fluffy clouds. The floor felt like real grass. Shyly, her father said, “Do you want to try it?”

  Julie shook her head. “Let’s see what else is here first.”

  Together, they opened other golden doors. One room held a ballroom with chandeliers and pillars of gold. Another held a banquet hall with suits of armor lining the walls. Another held a stable of horses. “I’ll teach you to ride,” her father said. It was her turn to smile shyly.

  The next room held dozens of different instruments: pianos, harps, violins. Another held every game imaginable: Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, Pictionary, and a beautiful chess set of carved marble. “Ooh, let’s play,” Julie said. She set the pawns in a row.

  “There are still more doors,” her father said.

  “All right,” she said. As they explored, she began drawing up lists in her head of all the things she wanted to do with her father now that she had found him.

  The kitchen was stocked with cakes and breads and ice creams. The nursery held the most incredible dollhouse Julie had ever seen. The gymnasium had basketball courts, a baseball diamond, and a swimming pool. The gardens had an ice rink. There was even an entertainment room with a TV. Julie turned it on and demonstrated it to her dad. She didn’t recognize the channels, but it didn’t matter. Another room had an arcade. Another, a pool table. Another was a bowling alley. Another, a fabulous library with a shelf devoted entirely to her favorites. Everything Julie could have ever dreamed of was in this castle.

  Except her mother. And her grandmother. And Gillian. And Boots.

  Julie released her father’s hand as if it had stung her. She had forgotten. Oh, God, she’d forgotten they were still in the Wild. She’d forgotten this wasn’t real. She’d been caught up in just as much of a dream as after she’d eaten the apple, but she didn’t have the excuse of no memory. How had she let that happen? How could she have forgotten?

  Her father looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  She felt sick. This might have been the best afternoon of her life, but it wasn’t hers. It was the Wild’s. Suddenly, the stone walls felt darker, closer, and she thought
of dungeon walls. This was just a pretty cage. All of this . . . “What story are we in?” she asked.

  He seemed confused, but did she know that it wasn’t an act? She blinked fast. Her eyes felt hot. Dad. Daddy. Did she know that the Wild wasn’t controlling his every action? Did he know? “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You, me, the castle—what is it? Is there a spindle somewhere? A forbidden door? What?” Her voice cracked. Blinking faster, she took off walking down the hall. Don’t cry, she told herself. Don’t cry.

  Her father followed. “Julie, I don’t understand. Aren’t you happy here?”

  Yes, she was, and that’s what made it all the worse. She wanted very badly to be wrong. She wanted to believe that this was real, that her father had spent these hours with her by choice, that he wasn’t a puppet in the Wild’s story . . . Please, let me be wrong. Please . . .

  It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. Julie wished that it had taken a lifetime. She walked up to it, the last door on the hallway—a wooden door with flaking purple paint, odd amid the golden doors. It had a modern doorknob and a peephole under a plastic sign. ROOM THIRTEEN, she read.

  A motel room door.

  “You may have all the wonders this castle has to offer,” her father said in a wooden voice, “but you must not open this door.”

  Of course. She should have known. No matter how the Wild disguised this place with televisions and books and games, it had to make this castle from its old stories. It couldn’t help itself. The Wild has to play by its own rules, her mom had said. Remember that. The Wild had to present her with this choice: either she could be the one who heeds the warning and stays or she could be the one who goes through the forbidden door and faces her fate. It was the only thing that made sense, the final game the Wild could play: she had to choose.

  Her cheeks felt wet. She was crying, she realized. When had she started crying?

  On the other side of this door was the Wishing Well Motel. On the other side of this door was the well, waiting for her to make the wish that would put everything back to normal.