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“Soon Rapunzel's hair spilled out around her like a silver pond sparkling in the sunlight, or a frozen one in the moonlight. When the breeze shifted the branches above, the sun hit her tresses and its light scattered everywhere. The whole area under the tree was illuminated with shifting, dappled scintillations. Rapunzel wondered what it would look like from far away, from high above: would she look like a funny star? Were all the stars out there maidens with strange hair?”

“Then she dove into the morning cleaning. There weren't many rooms in the tower, which made it easy, but she liked to be thorough. Sweep, mop, polish. The garderobe and her mirror got sparkly from scrubbing with a bit of vinegar (a trick she learned from Book #14: Useful Recipes for Master Servants). She transferred a day dress that was soaking in a soapy bucket to a clean water bucket, scrubbing out the bit of lingonberry juice stain from breakfast on Monday. 7:00: Personal ablutions. She washed her face and nails and applied cream to her cuticles and everywhere on her face but the T-zone, which was, despite her fairy-tale beauty, just a tad prone to breaking out. 8:00: Reading. She (re)read Book #26, Sidereus Nuncius by Galileo. More a pamphlet than a book, but it counted. 8:30: Art! Lacking a proper canvas (or piece of wall space) she chose to spend her painting time decorating the mop handle. It might not be dry enough to actually use the next day, but that was all right. Birthday weeks meant the occasional break from routine-- that was part of the fun!”

“The moon repeated her phases on the exact same solar calendar day once every nineteen years. And she had just turned nineteen! So nineteen years ago, at this time, the moon would have been new. She would have been just born, and her magic would have been deadly. So that explained the nurse. But the other times? She couldn't remember. All she could clearly think of was that once when she was very, very upset about killing a game hen- more than usual- she had gone to weep and look out the window for hours. The sky was as black as her mind and spirit felt, and the usually comforting stars were pinprick harsh, untwinkling. Each was a stab into her heart. There was no moon.”

“Rapunzel woke up to the dazzling, sparkling, gently chiming display with more cheer than anyone really should who had spent the last six thousand and approximately nine hundred days in a lonely tower. "This birthday is going to be great. I just know it!" She only really knew about birthdays because she had read about them in one of the thirty-seven books she owned: Book #3: Stories from Rome and Other Great Empires. Marc Antony apparently had splendid birthdays, and Cleopatra gave him the most cunning gifts. Anyway, they seemed like a marvelous idea, and she had adopted this time of year as her own. Had there been anyone around, they would have been amazed at the hermit's beauty. For one thing, her cheeks were surprisingly rosy for a girl who had been indoors her whole life. (This was because on sunny Wednesday and Saturday afternoons she carefully followed the window-shaped spot of sun around her room, lying down and soaking in the warm rays.) Her eyes were large and green because of parents she had never known. Her lips were usually set in an expectant smile because she was Rapunzel; good-natured, lighthearted, with a quick mind that constantly refused to be crushed by her circumstances.”

“Moths, large and white and fluttering in a manner just a little too bat-like, came out of hiding to revel in this unexpected dismissal of day. So too did fireflies: Rapunzel squealed in delight when, like tiny candles, they twinkled in slow, unhurried loops around grass. "Is this your mother's magic?" she shrieked, clawing at Gina's arm. " ARE THOSE FAIRIES ?" "No, those are lightning bugs, Princess," Flynn said with a sigh. "In-sects. Whose butts glow." "Right. I'm an idiot," Rapunzel said, trying to get one to land on her. "Because in real life, fairies aren't real but witches are." "Touché," he said good-naturedly, with a bow. Rapunzel felt her chest flutter.”

“Now directly above her, transiting the meridian, was the new crescent moon. No longer a chalky white, it was as silver as a piece of polished jewelry, somehow shining and sparkling despite the fact that it should have been nearly invisible that close to the sun, traveling through his bright day. "Oh, how pret---" Rapunzel started to say, but then she was distracted because her hair began to glow. Just like when she killed the chickens-- but more. Brilliantly, with the white light of the diamonds of her (Flynn's) crown, with the whiteness she imagined the foam of a midnight sea would look like. She picked up a hank of hair and let it hang from her hands; it was like holding molten silver chains or all the distant rivers seen from her tower, gathered up together by some unimaginable fairy-tale giant.”

“Her hair glowed. It shimmered and shone and pulsed, the full length of it flowing behind Rapunzel and lighting up the undersides of the trees and throwing soft illumination on all the paler leaves and mushrooms, gleaming for a moment where it hit a drop of dew or sap. The moths who had fled returned, like a fluttering train of silken flowers on a long, magical wedding veil, following the mesmerizing river of silver light.”

“She sprang out of bed, the ornaments in her hair tinkling and jingling, making tiny versions of the noises of the chimes above her. And that was Rapunzel's most striking beauty: her hair. Bound in plaits and whorls and buns and knots and twists as tightly as she could manage. Some of the braids were so long they hung in loops that she put her arms through; they hung at her sides like giant sleeves or tippets from an ancient dress. Decorating all of this were dozens of charms-- also silver, like her hair, but some with exotic stones like lapis and turquoise. Bells, tiny moons, hands, suns, six-pointed stars, eyes, and anything else Mother Gothel could lay her hands on at her daughter's request. By these amulets Rapunzel definitely tried to control her hair, bind her hair, disempower her hair, and unenchant her magic hair.”

“They wanted me to not have any hope of returning, so they royally ordered her to tell me all that." "Then why give you anything with the royal sigil on it?" Flynn asked quietly. "If they didn't want you to know who you were? Like your pretty red bracelet there. Tirulian red coral, handwrought chain, pure gold clasp-- yes, yes, I totally sized it up. And the royal sun on the back." Rapunzel looked at her bracelet in wonder. The little sun, constant companion of her childhood, in mobiles, embroidered on her clothing, on the little gifts Gothel sometimes gave her, the crown... That was the symbol of the royal house? Her whole life had been hints of the truth, everywhere!”

“He didn't think they were all after a criminal. He suspected it was an innocent girl. Well, a beautiful young woman, really; as comely as his niece Tasha, who was so clever with her loom and quick with her tongue. But this girl had extraordinary silver hair-- a color so unusual the captain had seen it only once before in his long years in the guard. On a royal princess, a tiny baby, dead to the world. In fairy tales and myths, when children were given up because of a prophecy or because the family was starving, they did disappear into the world for a while-- and then came back years later like a cicada, bringing the power of youth and the unavoidable anger of the gods with them.”

“Wondrous..." was the last thing Captain Tregsburg ever said. When Rapunzel wearily opened her eyes, there was a magnificent white horse where the captain had been. There was dried blood on its pure white flanks, what looked like an old, healed wound on its belly-- and an ecstatic look in its eye. It rose onto its feet, trumpeting out a whinny of triumph, kicking its front legs and tossing its mane back and forth. "Oh," Rapunzel said, dismayed. "I didn't-- I'm sorry--" But Justin "Maximus" Tregsburg, captain of the royal guard and now shining white stallion, gently nuzzled her cheek. He was... happy. "I'm glad you're all right," Rapunzel said, hugging him. "I'm sorry we never got to talk." The stallion rolled his eyes and tossed his head: What's the use of talk, he seemed to say.”

“You haven't even asked what I'll pay you," Rapunzel said innocently. "You don't have enough," Flynn promised. Then he turned to Gina and said in a theatrical whisper, "This is where she offers her necklace, or a bracelet, or some other rich girl trinket I couldn't pawn even if I wanted...." "How about a crown?" Rapunzel suggested. Flynn grew very, very still. "Uh-oh," Gina said with a wicked grin. "What, um-- what crown?" Flynn asked casually. "The one that you stole. The one that the Stabbingtons want back. The one that you hid, rather obviously, in a tree hollow," Rapunzel said smugly, crossing her arms. "Diamonds, pearls, about my size... You know, that crown?" "That's my crown! Give it back! I stole it fair and square!" Flynn, cried, leaping up. "You mean you stole it from the castle, or you stole it from the Stabbingtons?" Gina asked interestedly. "Doesn't matter," Flynn said, crossing his arms and setting his jaw childishly. "It's mine now." "Well, no, it's mine," Rapunzel said. "At least until you take me to see the lanterns, and home again. Then it's yours." "You must have seen me hide it! In the tree!" "Déduction très brillante," Rapunzel said archly.”

“Last to check was her namesake: a rampion or bellflower, Campanula rapunculus-- little turnip. All by itself in a beautiful Spanish clay pot with a bright blue glaze. Its blooms were pinky-purple stars, tiny but perfect and delicate. Sometimes, if she was feeling down, Rapunzel would secretly break off a leaf and chew it, the sour/bitter taste comforting her through the worst of the drab winter months when nothing else grew.”

“She took out a charcoal stick and began to sketch-- on the workbench itself. Of course the moon wouldn't come to her in songs or poems or crystals or whatever... she felt the most centered, the most tranquil, when she was painting or drawing. Lost in her own world or in new ones she imagined. She shouldn't have made a chart; she should have drawn a circle, with the moons going from waxing to waning all the way around... She hummed to herself a little, the way she always did when she painted. Her hair began to glow. A little shading here, a few light strokes in the middle of the full moon for the face that Rapunzel saw there... Circles and shadows and crosshatching... She worked extra hard on the profile of the fatter waxing crescent, where the moon would be now. She knew what it looked like as she felt her hand shape it. Her power surged; her hair began to sparkle. She looked around frantically for something to release her magic on. The first thing she saw was her tea, so she grabbed the red clay cup and wrapped the end of a braid around it. Just like with Pascal, sparks sprayed off her hair and over the object. When they faded they revealed... ... a heavy, crude clay cup. Rapunzel started to slump in disappointment-- and then noticed something. Where the hair had touched the sides, the cup was now shiny black, like onyx or obsidian.”

“She managed to summon her powers twice more by gazing at her mandala, and was tickled with the results: she turned her bright red coral bracelet glittering black, and a dish of pale yellow dye a bluish black. Of course she had no idea if the color was set by the phase of the moon or if it was simply the way she thought about the moon, set in a blue-black sky. But imagine if she could summon any color! She would never have to worry about getting the right paints again.”

“She waved desperately, putting her hand out the window, but wasn't sure anyone would be able to see it. "What can I do? What can I do to show them that I'm alive?" she wailed. Pascal just looked at her. "Oh, right," she said. "Not thinking at all. Thanks, buddy." She gathered up as much of her hair as she could and flung it through the window. Hard. Like a thousand baby spiders parachuting into the sky, it glittered and sparkled-- completely unmagically, just because of the sunlight-- before falling down to hang along the wall of the tower, rippling in the wind.”

“But I wonder how much of this crime lies on my shoulders," she added quietly, to herself. "Too slow, too lazy, unable to make decisions... well, the evil is spread around, and some of it may be mine, Princess." "I. Am not. A princess!" Rapunzel tried to keep her voice under control in deference to the old lady. She ground her teeth to keep from screaming. "But of course you are," the old lady said in mild surprise. "You are the Crown Princess Rapunzel, daughter of King Frederic and Queen Arianna, heir to the throne.”

“She didn't know much about real princesses except for in fairy tales, and books like #27: Legends from the Time of Knights. Gawain and Roland and his tower and the like. Princesses were often the points on which plots turned, the fulcrum that sped the hero along on his journey of becoming legendary, dead, or both. Sometimes the princesses were good-hearted and the knights fought valiantly for their honor. Sometimes they were evil and used witchy machinations to control the people around them, lacking any real power over their own lives. But honestly Rapunzel didn't remember a whole lot about either kind. They were boring. She loved the swordsmanship of the knights and did her best to reenact it with broom handles and frying pans, dancing back and forth on her feet to evade imaginary blows.”

“Without knowing why, she brought her hair up to Pascal again. She knew he wouldn't be hurt. The little lizard was intrigued by whatever was going on; he nosed into her locks like a curious kitten. Immediately the sparkles that pulsed through her hair danced around him, falling and flickering. Soon they completely covered the little lizard like snow. Rapunzel watched, enchanted. Then he sneezed. Embers of magic flicked and faded as they fell to the earth. Rapunzel gasped. Pascal was perfectly fine. He just wasn't-- Pascal. He was an entirely different lizard. A lizard Rapunzel had never seen before, in books or anywhere. His eyes were now two balls that perched on the sides of his head and looked around independently of each other. His back was a graceful arch. His feet had two pairs of strange toes that opened up in the middle like claws. And his tail! It curled around and around and clasped onto her arm- prehensile and grasping, not a limp thing that just hung there to help with balance (and to occasionally break off and confuse a predator). And he was looking at himself! Holding his feet out one at a time and admiring them, thwacking the tip of his tail and snapping his mouth in satisfaction. Like a... person. He thoughtfully gazed back at his body, considering it. His skin suddenly started to change color: a wave of brown, and then red, pulsed through him from nose to tail. "Pascal!" Rapunzel cried. "You're a dragon!" She only wished he had turned into a slightly larger dragon so she could ride and/or hug him.”

“Then she got to work. Thinking a bit of organization would help, Rapunzel took out the wanted poster of Flynn and made a chart on the back, dividing the rectangle into twenty-eight days. She wrote the moon phases neatly on each. On Day One, New Moon, she wrote Murderhair. Now it was Day Six; Waxing Crescent. Under this she wrote Transformative-- Lizard to Dragon. Day 8 would be Waxing Half Moon-- that would be exciting, right? Maybe that would mean a really big change in her powers. For Day 15, Full Moon, she wrote Healing? She looked at her neat little chart and felt very pleased with herself. Projects. They were the best.”

“Boys and girls come out to play...'" "'The moon doth shine as bright as day!'" Rapunzel finished. She thought of the bright, cold winter full moon that cast a light so strong that windows in her tower lit up like magic, and instead of sunbeams, blue moonbeams traced the floor. She would run to the tower window.... Leave your supper and leave your sleep... ... and the whole world would be white and blue, as bright as daytime, but with a glowing, magical scrim. Rapunzel had felt like she could dive into it, fly over the whole world in its strange state. And join your playfellows in the street. Her hair began to glow.”

“Rapunzel," Gothel repeated. "Now! Before they see you!" "They?"Rapunzel demanded. She felt anger boiling up from her stomach, bile and venom. "Which they, Mother? The ones who were bidding for my hand in marriage-- or just the ones in the employ of a sadistic monster?" Gothel's face twitched between impatience and irritation. "Rapunzel, I never meant for you to wind up with Bathory. She's a terrible woman. I was coming to save you from her!" "Who did you mean for me to wind up with, then? The one who gave you the most money?”

“You're a liar, and worse-- you broke my heart. You're not a mother. You're a villain." Gothel's eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and hung there as though even she was a little curious as to what she would say, what words would come and bring the situation back under her control. "I would rather take my chances with an honest villain like Bathory!" Rapunzel hissed. "Get out of my sight and never let me see you again!" "Or what?" Gothel asked, a knowing, nasty tone in her voice: her real voice. "What could you do to me, Rapunzel? I am your mother, and besides that I control all of these sword-playing idiots." "Did you forget that I'm a crown princess? And a powerful witch who can control her hair now. Or did you think the castle just fell on its own today? "Either way, your time with me is over, if you know what is good for you." The two women glared at each other. And after a minute, Rapunzel realized that's what they were: two women. Despite being younger and shorter than Gothel, she wasn't a girl anymore. She had power and will and a stubborn disposition. "Go. Now," she ordered. "Never approach me again." Her mother started to growl something-- "What's that? I can't hear you. All that mumbling," Rapunzel said airily, and walked away, turning her back on the woman forever.”

“Rapunzel knew exactly when her adopted birthday was coming because of her careful tracking and observation of the heavens. What had started out as a child's interest in the longer days of summer and shorter days of winter had progressed into a study that would have been the praise of any university professor. She knew all the constellations, of course; which ones came and went with the seasons (Orion), which ones stayed wandering the heavens forever (the Big Bear). She could predict when Jupiter would rise. She could predict some lunar eclipses. She had astrolabes and pendulums and squares and straightedges and compasses for measuring the precise height of an astral object above her window ledge.”

“Happy birthday, darling." She reached into her cloak and pulled out something so surprising Rapunzel's jaw actually dropped. It was a bright red bracelet, one of the most cheerful things she had ever seen. It didn't match any of her clothes or other accessories, and that was wonderful. It looked like fire, and the tongue of a cat in one of her books (or maybe it was a dog), and a really good sunset in autumn; happiness in a color. There was even a cheery, many-rayed sun on the clasp. It was one of Rapunzel's favorite symbols, one she painted again and again everywhere in the tower. In her favorite color, too!”

“She opened the satchel. And honestly, fate couldn't have provided a better prize at the end of a scavenger hunt. She pulled out a beautiful, sparkling crown. Her large green eyes grew even larger. Despite the hour and lack of sunlight, its jewels still managed to shimmer and twinkle in a magical, expensive way. Rapunzel might not have had much experience with royal gems or any kind of precious stone, but it was very clear that these were those. The thing was straight out of a fairy tale, what a princess would be wearing when she was turned back from a swan. The giant diamonds were even shaped like swans' eggs. Under each was a round pink ruby, and threading between them was a strand of perfectly round pearls. She turned it over in her hands, tracing the tiny, intricately wound gold wire that held it all together. And there, in a small flat patch of smooth metal, was the artist's mark-- and a multi-rayed sun symbol. The same one on her bracelet clasp. The same one that she constantly painted and dreamed of. The one that meant life and happiness and energy in the personal vocabulary of Rapunzel's soul.”

“It was summer, so the sun appeared in the bottom left-hand corner of the big window at quarter past six. Ish. It was hard to tell exactly until the sun rose just a little bit more, enough to send his beams through the holes carefully bored through a piece of wood, above which the hours were marked off in beautifully painted flourishes. This simple timepiece hung from the ceiling off a stick hammered sturdily in, because a string would have let it spin and therefore fail its task of tracking the sun. The wind chimes, however, assembled from more bits of wood, and pieces of metal, and shaped and dried bits of pottery, were free to swing and tinkle as they pleased. These were surrounded by celestial bric-a-brac that also dangled from the ceiling and spun with abandon when the breeze found them: paper-mâché stars, comets of hoarded glass shards and mirror, a very carefully re-created (and golden) replica of the constellation Orion, a quilted and embroidered cloth model of the sun, and several paintings on rectangular panels hung such that they faced straight down. So that the viewer, in bed, might look up at them and pretend they were windows or friends, depending on whether the subject was landscapes or faces.”

“Tonight, according to her astronomy notebook (#4 of her notebooks, which were even rarer and harder to come by than actual books, according to Gothel), the moon would be new, meaning not there at all; the sky would be black but for the stars. And in a few days the floating lights would appear. They came at the same time every year. Even when it was cloudy, Rapunzel could see the telltale pinprick glows of their presence, gold and pink against the clouds. Which meant they were of the earth; below the moon and stars. How far up the lights floated she could never tell; they drifted into indifference when her eyes could no longer make them out against their sparkling stellar counterparts. Whether they were a natural phenomenon like rain (that went the wrong way) or some sort of magma or volcanic spew (Book #8: Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder, Complete with Letters and Notes by Pliny the Younger-- including, of course, the Elder's death by volcano), or something else entirely (pixies? Titans?), Rapunzel had no idea. She only knew that they came every year on what she had decided was her birthday. This year she would go see what they were. Herself.”

“Of course she could have just dropped the length of hair down, but she liked getting it to sail through the air, unraveling its coils prettily as it went, a silver streak in the sky like a rain cloud spun into yarn. The end of the braid, soft and fringed like the tail of a fairy-tale donkey (the only kind Rapunzel knew), just brushed the ground before falling back against the tower with an incredibly satisfying thwack.”

“She took his moment of stillness to study him intently. From an... artist's perspective. All she could see was his body at an angle: the top of his head (he had brown hair), and his arms when they were out (they seemed young and muscular and lithe). She wished she could see his face. The way he moved made her think that he was probably handsome. (She couldn't have said why, nor did she bother to differentiate think from hope.”

“She knew it was a lizard from pictures in the fairy-tale book, long and lithe and dry and scaly but with legs, unlike a snake (lizards were turned into handsome footmen in "Cinderella"). Probably a skink of some kind. The reptile bore her touch with the vacuous patience of a cold-blooded creature that liked to be warm and didn't smell anything dangerous like a fox or a hawk. Its experience with humans was minimal to none. Rapunzel, of course, assumed this not-running-away meant it was a potential Wilderness Friend. "I'm not going to kill you," she promised the little lizard and herself. "You adorable soft-skinned thing! You're perfect!" She would tell her mother what she had done and then show her mother the lizard... and then it was only a matter of convincing her to take her to the floating lights. She wasn't a danger. "Isn't that right... Pascal? I'm going to call you Pascal!" And with that she plucked the lizard deftly up and put him on her shoulder.”

“Wow, I really like your... um... arm painting!" Rapunzel said to the man in the metal helmet as they squeezed by him. The picture was of a cupcake, with what looked like a whisk and a spoon crossed in front of it. "I love making cupcakes on rainy days when I'm feeling down!" Of course she couldn't see the expression on his face as he turned to watch her go. And it was very hard to hear him whisper, over the background noise: "She knows. Finally, someone who gets it....”