Rapunzel (Faerie Tale Collection) Read Free Page B

his steed had not had much rest. It could not be helped. He had to find her! Now.

RAPUNZEL’S HEAD BOBBED AS she blinked awake. She moaned and rubbed her temples, and then wondered at the intense cold in the room. Did someone not keep the coals alive during the night? She sat up and winced, wishing she had not risen quite so quickly. A grunt escaped her lips as she attempted to open her eyes again. Good heavens, she had not felt this dreadful for ages. Perhaps she was ill.
    Finally her lids obeyed her and she felt a jolt as she took in the scene of the little room. Where was she? A shot of panic coursed through her. Blinking in confusion, she stared at the beautiful, but small, bed where she lay as if she had been set there on top of the blankets. She shivered and quickly snatched up the folded afghan at the foot of the bed. She placed it around her shoulders like a shawl. There was an elegant table with a washbasin on it, and a small fireplace with a chimney, plenty big to keep the room warm, but no coals. The odd room looked to be smallish and round, but finely decorated.
    Glancing behind her, she found her own personal trunks. She scrambled off the bed and rushed to the smallest one on top. Clutching her shawl closer, she opened the case and was amazed to find her clothes inside. When did she have these packed? What had happened?
    Why was she here?
    Everything seemed fuzzy and so confusing. She placed the first trunk on the ground and quickly opened the second. How did they get here? She could have sworn she had never seen this room before, but it all seemed so familiar, and she was not certain.
    Was she alone? Had she always lived here?
    Why could she not think? Why was everything so frustratingly blank?
    Rapunzel. Her name was Rapunzel.
    These were her clothes.
    She glanced around the little room, and yet she could not remember anything else.
    “Rapunzel!” shouted a voice outside.
    Her eyes traveled to a window she had not noticed before in the only flat-walled area of the room. She opened it and stepped out onto a curved balcony. It was beautiful, and the views to the forest around her were vast and breathtaking. Until she looked down.
    Oh!
    Never had she been so high in her life. She stepped back a few paces and attempted to calm her pattering heart.
    “Rapunzel!”
    She heard the voice again and cautiously made her way to the ledge and looked down, her hands clutching the balcony railing. There below her was Lady Vactryne.
    The witch!
    All at once, everything came flooding back to her mind. Her parents’ turning to stone, the woman coming to get her, the terror, the confusion—everything. She screamed and stumbled backward. Racing around the little room, she searched frantically for a door to get out, and could not find one.
    “Rapunzel! Come here this instant!” the woman shouted.
    “No!”
    She felt her hair yank and pull her back through the opening to the edge of the balcony. “Ow!” she cried and tugged against the hair to relieve the pressure on her scalp, but could not as she was dragged all the way over to peer down at the woman below. “What do you want from me?”
    Her hair lifted and began to unravel itself from its extensive braid. It jerked against her head as it unfurled and straightened in the air above her. Tears stung Rapunzel’s eyes as the sharp pain pierced her tender skin.
    Finally the hair had completely unwound and began to drop about five feet below the window. Then all at once, Rapunzel watched it begin to grow and lengthen until it puddled on the grass at the woman’s feet. Rapunzel could not hold her head up under the new weight. Her eyes were inches from the stone railing as she leaned over the edge and braced herself on the railing. Her hair had always been long, but my goodness! Had anyone ever had hair that reached what looked to be forty feet or so?
    It was so heavy, her head began to throb.
    But the spell was not done. The new, longer hair began to twist and braid itself