Wednesday 9 May 2012

Rapunzel


Gold was the colour of my true love’s hair. She wore it loose. Her skin was pale and bruised. She tore her rich dresses in the branches of trees. Her finger nails were filled with earth. She smelled of grass and leaves. She was a little thing but her laugh was as large as a man. Her mother begged her. Her father beat her. There was no taming such a wild princess.
My hair is black and coarse. My skin is much the same. My darkling, she would whisper in my ear. I am not beautiful. Though she said so. When we were girls and played at dressing up. When we were women and shared a bed. She would tear at my clothes with her royal paws. Playing the princess when she wanted. Thank the gods I loved her. It is likely I would have had no choice. She would tell me all her secrets. Dress me in her jewels. No one cared when no one knew. Then she would no longer hide me. She would sit me on her lap by the fireplace for all the servants to see. She would stroke my hair and laugh. She would laugh so sweetly at their hate. 
I am a healer. I am not beautiful but I know things. So I am a witch. In whispers throughout the castle that is what they call me. They sought me when they hurt and shunned me when well. My princess did not care what others thought. Or perhaps she did and loved to defy them. When we were only little she saw the outcast girl that picked herbs in the forest and made her a friend. She had the power to make it so. I was lonely no longer. In payment I took away the scars on her back from her father’s wrath. We witches have our ways.
It was when they brought her suitors. Brutish boys as tall as men but with faces like children. They smiled at her as though she must have been born to love them. Each one she met and hated and fled. Once she even spat in a prince’s face. The guards spent hours searching for her. I found her in a tree. She heaved me up and cried against me and kissed my face and my mouth and my neck. Her strong little paws. She wanted me, she said. Not these men, these boys. These monsters. They would strut and brag and speak to her father of her as though she could not hear them. Or joke about her with the guards as though she were a whore. They spent a few weeks killing things in the woods and laughing with the other men and looking at my love. And smiling at my love. And talking at my love. I never heard them ask her a single question. It made her love me. I was her’s entirely. My loyalty to crown and country had long since collapsed into my love for her. She was my princess, my queen, my all. She loved me for my love.
It was not long after that she would insist I be the one to brush her hair. The hair that should have been bound in pins and intricate knots but fell free to her ankles. I must be the one to bring her food, to dress her, to bathe her. No other servant would do, not the ones who had spent their lives doing these tasks. It was to be the dark witch girl. She would make the rest leave. She would brush my hair and cover me in jewels and silks no matter how I argued. My darkling, do not make me issue a royal command, she would laugh and force me to the chair. Or pull me into her bed. For a time my life was all expensive sheets, golden hair, laughing eyes and pleasure. Her parents heard rumours. Such nasty rumours. Bewitched. The savage princess must be bewitched by that ugly, dark girl. Corrupting. Perverting. Such sweet perversion is love. 
At last her father commanded that I be sent out to one of the villages. They have more need of a healer than a castle with its many physicians. He was reasonable. Forceful. I did not argue. As though I could and keep my life. My love was less demure. She screamed and raged in ways I never knew. I left. A kitchen girl told me how for weeks the princess would tear rooms apart, she would rip her clothes, smash her plates of food. They brought a prince to sedate her. She ripped open his face. Her parents were afraid of their savage daughter. Even her father quaked. They brought me back. The middle of the night the guards came. The air was dark blue and the candles of the castle burnt gold. I was a surprise it seems. My scowling princess raged into the room asking why she should take  commands. The scowl fell beneath her running feet and she grabbed at me and wept. My darling little lion. Gold and cruel and mine.
We knew it would not last. Her parents did not want this tyrant for a daughter. The same kitchen girl, who did not hate me when I cured her baby’s cough, told us how they planned to tame her. Another prince. A grown man, scarred by war, solid and strong and willing to take my love however he had to for the generous dowry. We ran. We dressed in rough servants’ clothes and hid in the those woods we loved. We moved deeper and deeper and found the crumbling tower of an old castle. Our home together. We allowed no door, only one wide window at the very top which we could climb to by a rope ladder I made. Two years almost. Two years a home to my love and I. She was no longer a princess. She had no silks or jewels to crush me with and no one to defy. Yet we were happy. Her laugh was even stronger. We drank the rain and dressed in woodland and had each other. I would hunt through the woods for herbs and rabbits and apples. I did not tell my love that one cannot get fruit all year round. She was too rich to know and I had my ways. Witches often do. So we feasted happily. I would climb our ladder and halfway up the tower I would be greeted by her loose golden hair that grew and grew so well since I began brushing it. I would tug it gently when I climbed and she would laugh and greet me with her mouth.
I was picking blackberries, my arms full of thorns. He climbed up the tower. She did not know. She must have hung down her hair. I found what he ripped out of her at the foot of our home. She must have greeted him with her claws. There is blood beneath her fingernails. Our mirror is in red pieces like jewels. Our sheets are torn. At the foot of our bed is the rest of her golden hair tainted with blood.  Her pale bruised skin. Her hair is as soft as it ever was. My princess was a savage one. I can be more cruel. I will find the monster that took her. We witches have our ways. They may have whispered their hate before. I will make them scream it aloud for all the gods to hear. They will know how I loved her. They will know in flames of gold.

3 comments:

  1. Sad, twisted, gorgeous. Looking forward to reading more of these.

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    Replies
    1. I sometimes forget how twisted little Choms is.

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    2. Never forget. Keep on yo' toes.

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