Once Upon a Time: The Villains (3 page)

How could I have been so deceived? My own child. She would abandon me as everyone else had done. She was mine. From the moment of conception, she was meant for me. No one would dare take her from me. No one.

I saw the hurt in her eyes; heard the pleading in her voice. I ignored it all. I knew the rebellion the moment it sprang to life. Oh, she tried to cover it up, but I was no fool. She would leave. Her compassion for her lover was a palpable thing. She would go and never return. She would try, and I would stop her. I had to stop her.

As I pulled her up the stairs, I thought to lock her in her room, but suddenly that seemed inept. Her love was too strong. I must do better than that.

“Yes. I must do better.”

“Mother, please,” she continued to cry, weeping wretchedly at my side. “What are you doing?”

“Never you mind,” I commanded, and I expected her to obey.

She did not.

“What have I done to anger you? I thought you would be pleased.” Her face had grown blotchy and her eyes swollen with tears and jagged red lines. Her nose ran and her chin quivered. I had never seen her look so unattractive. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Disgusted, I headed for the tower — that horrible place my father escaped to when my mother had died. It reeked of madness so I had avoided it like all other unpleasantness in my life.

My daughter saw my intent and struggled in earnest. She had always believed the tower to be haunted and cursed. “Nay!” she cried. “Please let me go!”

Hearing the commotion, Pepper dashed up the stairs as best his old legs could manage. He barked and howled and got in the way. I kicked him sharply in the ribs and stepped over his whining form as I dragged my disobedient daughter behind me.

“Fool!” I spat. “A man. An outsider. No good will come of it. No good,” I muttered over and over. It repeated in my mind, the vision of the stoning. The hatefulness of others. They never thought beyond themselves. They never minded to their own, and were only happy when others were miserable.

I did not see how my life reflected theirs. I did not see my own selfishness staring back at me. I only knew I would die if my reason for life left me. I couldn’t allow her to be so impulsive. I told myself I was doing the right thing. Saving her from sure destruction. As soon as everyone knew she was my child, they would kill her as surely as they had killed my mother.

The tower room loomed ahead. I tugged and yanked and forced my daughter through the warped door and into the musty, dank room at the edge of the sky. I pulled her around me and thrust her to the floor. She fell, a puddle at my feet. A weeping pathetic mass I didn’t recognize.

“Who are you?” I asked, truly confused by the sight.

“I’m your daughter. Flesh of your flesh. Bone of your bone. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” I shouted.

I had never raised my voice to Rapunzel, not ever. There had never been a need. She had always been obedient, placid, and achingly sweet. What havoc a moment can bring.

I covered my mouth with a shaking hand. She had made me yell.

I backed away from her. My eyes wouldn’t acknowledge her stunned face streaked with tears. “I will let you out when I can trust you again.”

Little did I know that moment would never appear.

I slammed the door closed and cast an enchantment on the heavy wooden panel, making it fuse into the stones surrounding it. No door meant no entrance and no exit. She was safe, for now.

But what had I done wrong? Where did I fail my sweet child?

For the first week, I stumbled about, in a daze. Confusion, disenchantment, and deep loneliness ruled my mind. I barely ate. I forgot about the tower, about Rapunzel. I turned in on my world and wouldn’t try to see beyond my pain. When I stumbled over Pepper’s lifeless body, I remembered. I had kicked him…hard. My eyes flew to the tower door. Rapunzel!

I quickly threw a cold meal together. Mead and bread, cheese and a slice of ham. I took it to the tower and unbound the door from its enchantment. When I pushed it open, the stench of the room assailed my senses. The old, cracked chamber pot reeked of waste. The mattress I remembered finding my father upon the day he died was shoved into the corner, covered in old stains of questionable origin. No blanket, no comfort of any kind graced the sparse room. It was truly a madman’s haven.

My daughter lay where I had thrown her. Crumpled, she did not stir.

Had I killed her as I had the poor dog? No, her chest, though excruciatingly thin, still rose and fell.

I set down the tray and hesitantly approached. Regret sliced through my heart. Why had I not replaced the mattress? Cleaned the floors? Added all the little luxuries that spoke of care? How could I have been so cruel?

Before I reached her, she lifted her head. Her hair had come unbound. It spread about her like a shield, golden and bright. Her eyes pierced me deeper than the sharpest dagger. And she rose from the floor, an avenging angel of pure hatred. “Get out,” she rasped.

I stumbled to a stop. I couldn’t have heard correctly. I lifted my hand in appeasement. “My sweet—”

“Get out,” she yelled. “Get out. Get out! GET OUT!” She lunged at me, nails curled into claws.

I reared back. My child had grown teeth like a wolf. I scrambled for the door and wrenched it shut. Without a doubt as to what I must do, I recast the spell and moaned by despair. My child had entered madness. Just as her grandfather had done. The tower had claimed another soul.

Months passed. I spent a great deal of that time outside her door. Afraid to open it, I peeked through a knothole to catch a glimpse of her. Though I spoke of all the little things she’d always taken pleasure in, she never replied. Not above a lie or two, I even begged for forgiveness, but she never accepted. Could she detect the insincerity in my voice? I wanted my innocent baby back, but it was a hopeless endeavor.

I fed her once in the morning and once at night, leaving a basin of clean water and lavender scented soap in the evening. I dared not do more. My hands already bore the scars of her hate every time her nails raked open my skin as I offered the few comforts I managed to pass to her through a temporary opening I created every day in the door.

Separated as we were, how could I have ever guessed my sweet child had found a set of long forgotten, mysterious books the dark-skinned man had brought my mother? Books my father had read. Enchantments so powerful, I now wonder if they drove him mad.

Everyone knows: enchantments are a dangerous business. And my sweet, obedient daughter had grown bold.

One morning, after I quickly shoved a bowl of porridge along the floor into the room, and before I stepped away, my daughter demanded, “Whose child am I?”

My heart sank. I had already sealed the opening I created every day to pass along food and necessities, and was once again forced to peer through the knothole. I longed to see her fully, to touch her delicate face and hold her close. Instead, I saw only a fraction of her image kneeling beside the door. “What do you mean? You’re mine.”

“No.” She had grown thin, a waif of a woman. Only her hair, gloriously golden, looked truly alive. She shook her head vehemently. “That I know is a lie. I could never come from you.”

“I gave you life. I gave you everything you desired.” Destiny had placed her in my hands. What more proof did she need?

“Am I an enchantment?” she demanded to know.

“Nay!” I said in a horrified voice. Why would she think that?

“Whose child, then? From whom did you steal me?”

“Steal?” I cried. “I never stole you.”

“Then tricked? You are a master trickster. You manipulate things around you to do your bidding.”

“Trick?” I asked in astonishment. “Nay. Never. I traded for you, fair and square.”

“So it’s true.” Her voice had gone hollow, matching her thin cheeks and slight frame. “You are not my mother.”

Sadness wrenched at my heart. “I am,” I gasped. “I traded a beautiful head of lettuce for you.”

Rapunzel didn’t say another word. She drifted away from the door and out of sight. No matter how much I pleaded, she wouldn’t answer me again.

Another day, another morning, not too long after that conversation, I noticed a clump of bright hair sticking out from beneath the door. I released the enchantment and tried to open the door. But it wouldn’t budge. “Rapunzel,” I called.

No answer. It wasn’t unusual for her not to reply. How long could this battle go on? It was clear to me, if not to her, that the boy had abandoned her. He cared more about his lost sight than her. His love, when faced with opposition, grew cold. Why was she holding out? Why would she not let me in? I pushed against the unbound door, but it still wouldn’t move. It was as if something was in the way.

Then from deep within the room I heard my daughter say, “Leave me alone.” I pressed my ear to the wood, straining to hear more, but was met with the sound of soft chanting. How odd. My daughter loved to sing, but this was not like her. I pressed closer, listening intently. Yet though I tried, I could not make out the words, only the soft rise and fall of the chant as it bathed the room in an off-key lilt.

Peering through the knothole, I only saw what looked to be another chunk of my daughter’s hair. Was she leaning against the door? Had her love for me grown so cold that even when I released the spell, she would not let me in? I tried one last time to enter and met a hateful spat of opposition from my daughter.

“I said leave! Do not offend me with your presence. I won’t stand for it. I won’t.” A sob broke her voice. On a butterfly’s wing, I heard the soft appeal that rent my heart in two. “I want my mother. Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother,” she repeated before breaking down in tears.

I reared back. I was her mother. Me, but she did not want what I would give her. Anger and hurt vied for release. “Fine,” I said, rebinding the door to the surrounding stones. “Starve if you’ve a mind to do so.”

It was far and well passed time Rapunzel was brought to heel. No food or water would pass the tower threshold until she was once again mine. I slipped away, afraid if I held firm to my plan I’d lose her to madness for good, but what is a mother to do with a rebellious daughter?

It is unusual for things to go just as planned. That includes those plans made by lovers. They are a sneaky lot, hiding their moments together, stealing kisses and passionate embraces. And planning escapes, the trickiest maneuver of all, but as my daughter said, I was a master manipulator, and I could handle a love-struck boy. Arthur had proven easy enough to dissuade. Give him a slight disability and he slunk away, humiliated. I didn’t worry the villagers would come for me. If they listened to him, they would be more apt to call him crazy than think me a witch. In their eyes, I was a pathetic monster, not a conjuror of evil. Nay. I did not doubt my ability to keep my child.

I had schemes of my own. Little bits of words can do wonders.

Bring sorrow….

Cause doubts….

Every day for a week, I crouched upon the floor in front of the tower door and purred my treachery. “He does not love you.”

“Go away,” she said on a sob.

I smiled, spreading uncertainty like the tastiest cream. “Is he here?” I asked soothingly. “Nay. He scurried away and has not returned.”

“He will. He loves me.”

“He won’t. He thinks of you no more. He has found another. One sweeter, prettier.” People believe what they are told. If repeated often enough, lies become truths. She would soon believe me.

“Love is not a moment. It is a lifetime.”

I placed my hand on the wood. I could feel her sorrow and it gladdened my heart. She would be mine again. I could feel it. All I needed to do was wait. Be patient a little while longer.

“He will always love me,” she repeated stubbornly, a trait I was beginning to hate. “Arthur loves me enough to die for me.”

An image of my mother, crouched against the stones hurtling toward her, flashed against my thoughts. How dare she bring the memory to mind! How dare Arthur be compared to my mother.

I slammed my palm against the door, making it shake with my anger. “Then let him die.”

“Even then I would love him,” I heard her say. “I will always love him.”

“Love dies when people die.” I spoke rashly, but I was sick at heart. I could not stay and listen to her pathetic hold on hope. How did she do it? How could she know for sure he still cared, would always care? I went outside and tended my garden, furiously digging to vent my anger and the pain of a death long forgotten. From afar, I heard Rapunzel sing, a lonely, sad song that assaulted my heart.

So far my plan to starve her into submission had not worked. But I had faith. Her lack of food and her weakened state caused me only slight worry. She was my daughter after all. She was stubborn. But she would come around. Eventually.

That evening an oppressive heat settled over the forest. I threw open my bedroom windows and called in a light breeze, too tired to do much more than that. As I lay in bed, pondering what I should do to recapture my daughter’s love, I heard the oddest thing. A deep voice calling my daughter’s name. I rushed to the window. The night poured over the forest in shades of black and deep gray while the moon darted from one cloud cluster to another. I listened intently, but what I heard had grown familiar to my ears. My daughter crying.

I returned to my bed. I had just imagined the voice on the wind. But as I laid my head upon the pillow, a strange thud shook the side of the manor. I returned to the window.

Again I listened. I told the night creatures to quiet, demanded the brook behind the manor to slow its gurgling and for the wind to stop rustling the leaves. All grew still, and within the vacuum of quiet, I heard the step, pull and grunt of climbing. Someone was out there, outside.

This time, I called on the moon to come out of hiding. As it peeked from behind a cloud bank, I lifted my gaze to the right and then the left. What I saw shocked even me. There, dangling more than fifty feet from the ground was the boy, Arthur. His face shone wet with the healing tears of my daughter’s love for him. He could see.