The Golden Braid Read Free

to Rapunzel and was carrying on to herself.
    â€œMother, you don’t have to worry that I will marry someone unworthy.” Rapunzel could hardly imagine marrying anyone. One had to be allowed to talk to a man before she could marry him, and talking to men was something her mother had always discouraged. Vehemently.
    Mother did not respond, so Rapunzel went to fold her clothes and pack her few belongings.
    As she gathered her things, she felt no great sadness at the prospect of leaving Ottelfelt. She always had trouble making friends with girls near her own age, and here she had never lost her status as an outsider. But the real reason she felt no regret was because of what she wanted so very badly, and it was not something she could get in tiny Ottelfelt.
    Rapunzel was at least nineteen years old, and she could stay in Ottelfelt without her mother if she wanted to. However, it would be difficult and dangerous—unheard of—unless she was married, since she had no other family. But if they went to a large town, there would certainly be many people who knew how to read and might be willing to teach her.
    â€œMother, you promised someday you would find someone who could teach me to read. Might we go to a large town where there is a proper priest who knows Latin, a place where there might dwell someone who can teach me to read and write?” She held her breath, watching her mother, whose back was turned as she wrapped her fragile dried herbs in cloths.
    Finally, her mother answered softly, “I saw someone in Keiterhafen this morning, someone who . . . needs my help with . . . something.”
    Rapunzel stopped in the middle of folding her clothes, waiting for Mother to clarify the strange comment.
    â€œAnd now we will be going to meet him in Hagenheim.”
    Her heart leapt. Hagenheim was a great town, the largest around.
    She tried not to sound eager as she asked, “Isn’t that where you lived a long time ago, when Great-Grandmother was still alive?”
    â€œYes, my darling. Your great-grandmother was the most renowned midwife in the town of Hagenheim—in the entire region.” She paused. “Someone I once knew will soon be back in Hagenheim after a long stay in England.”
    â€œI don’t remember you saying you knew anyone who went to England. Is it a family member?”
    Her mother turned to Rapunzel with a brittle smile. “No, not a family member. And I have never mentioned this person before. I do not wish to talk about it now.”
    The look on Mother’s face kept Rapunzel from asking any more questions. Mother had never had friends, and she had never shown any interest in marrying. Although she could marry if she wished. She was still slim and beautiful, with her long, dark hair, which had very little gray.
    Later, as Rapunzel finished getting her things ready to tie onto their ox in the morning, she hummed a little song she’d made up. Mother enjoyed hearing her songs, but only when no one else was around.
    When night fell, Rapunzel sang her song as Mother finished braiding Rapunzel’s long blond hair. Mother smiled in her slow, secretive way. “My precious, talented girl.”
    Rapunzel embraced her and crawled under the coverlet of their little straw bed.

    The next day Rapunzel trudged beside her mother down the road, which was nothing more than two ruts that the ox carts had worn deep in the mud that had then dried and become as hard as stone. She led their ox, Moll, down the center between the ruts, careful to avoid stepping in the horse and ox dung. Their laying hens clucked nervously from the baskets that were strapped to Moll’s back.
    Night began to fall. Rapunzel lifted her hand to her face and rubbed the scar on her palm against her cheek absentmindedly. She’d had the scar, which ran from the base of her thumb to the other side of her hand, for as long as she could remember. The skin over it was smooth and pale, like a long