Golden (18 page)

“‘For the greatest joy of all is the way you held my wish in the center of your heart through all the days of our lives. That is where the room that you have built for me lies. Just as the room I built for you lies within mine. And in this way have all our wishes been granted. Together, we have made ourselves a home.'

“Not long after this, the king died. Within the space of a year, his queen had followed, and the people mourned. But the tale of the young prince who
set out to grant his new brides single wish is still told to this day, and it inspires all who hear it.

“Do I think that love is no more than a first impression? No, I do not,” Alexander said. “But I think that all love must start somewhere, and that place may be no more than the blink of an eye.”

Oh, yes,
I thought. For I was all but certain that I could see it for myself now. The way to free Rue. The way to free myself. The way to free love.

“Who were they?” I asked. “The king and queen in your story.”

“My great-grandparents,” Alexander said. “Their portraits hang behind my parents' thrones.”

“And you're sure you don't want to marry that neighboring princess?” I asked. “Perhaps your father is only hoping that lightning will strike twice.”

“Quite sure, thank you,” Alexander replied. “Besides, its too late. Lightning may indeed strike twice, but I fear it has already struck. I will have no bride but you, Rapunzel. That much my eyes, and my heart, have told me tonight.”

There!
I thought. Now all I had to do was prove to Rue that I was right.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered to Rue, who had been listening, her face bowed down over Mr. Jones's copper-colored fur, all this while.

“I heard,” she murmured. “I heard him call me by your name. He calls me Rapunzel.”

“Of course he calls you Rapunzel,” I said. “It's the only name he knows. But he loves you.”

At this, her head came up. “You don't know that,” she whispered fiercely. “You don't
know.
”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “And I think I know the way to show you.”

Grateful that I'd had the presence of mind to wrap myself in a dark cloak, I dropped to my knees and began to crawl forward. Illuminated by the light of the torch below, Alex should be easy to see. But I should blend into the night sky, for I had no golden hair to reflect the starlight.

“Rapunzel,” Rue hissed, and she reached out and gripped me by the arm.

“Do you want to know, or don't you?” I asked. “This is it. There's only tonight. Let me do this. If I'm wrong, you can say ‘I told you so' for the rest of our lives. I'm not even certain this is going to work, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn't,” she said, but she let go of my arm. I scooted forward another few inches. I was almost to the railing now.

“You don't answer,” Alexander said, and I could hear both pain and wonder in his voice. “Is it that you don't believe me, or that you don't want my love?”

“Answer the question,” I hissed over my shoulder, and saw the quick gleam of her hair as Rue whipped her head around.

“What?
she cried, then clapped a hand across her mouth. But by then it was too late, for she'd spoken aloud.

“It was hardly a trick question,” Alex said. “I've
said I want to marry you, and I mean it truly. You don't answer. Either you don't believe me, or you don't want my love.”

“Just do it, Rue,” I whispered. “Talk to him. You're going to have to do it sometime. Don't think. Just say what's in your heart.”

“What if there's nothing there?” she asked.

“Of course something's there,” I answered. “If there wasn't, why on earth would this be so hard? Don't make me count to three again.”

“I hate you,” she whispered.

“I know you do,” I whispered back. Then I turned around and continued to crawl toward the railing.

“You think life is as simple as that?” I suddenly heard her voice lift. “The answers to important questions must be either yes or no?”

Oh, bravo, Rue,
I thought. For surely it was better to meet anything—even love, or its loss—head on.

“Of course I don't,” Alex protested. “It's just... I said I want to marry you. Doesn't that mean anything?”

“It does,” Rue replied at once. “But first you have to get me out of here. And second ...”

“What?”

That was the moment I finally reached my destination. I got to the railing and peered down. At the base of the tower, a torch blazed brightly. Beside it stood a young man, head thrown back, his hands on his hips and his face tilted upward. I could see a great bruise running down one cheek, precisely as if he'd done the thing I knew he had, run it straight into a
tree trunk. His eyes sparkled as they caught the torchlight, and his hair shone like a polished copper kettle.

Like Mr. Jones,
I thought, and made no attempt to hold back the smile. And then I had no time for any thoughts at all, for he looked up, and I discovered that I could do what I'd hoped: I could see into Prince Alexander's heart.

Almost I looked away, for what I saw was blinding. A light golden and pure, without beginning or end, like looking straight into the sun. I blinked and it seemed to me that I saw a face. It was no more than an ivory oval, outlined by all that gold, but I thought I knew to whom it belonged. Never static, never still. Not the face of a beloved, set in stone, but set in light. A light that held the dreams of the future, the limitless possibilities.

That was what Alexander had seen when he looked into Rue's face. The seed of love, planted in the blink of an eye. Yet from this no-more-than-an-instant beginning could grow a thing that would last the course of a lifetime. Nourished and tended like a plant in a garden. Built like the room for which his great-grandmother had wished, one stone at a time.

That is what love is,
I thought. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making, over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time. And in that moment, I knew what I was seeing. Not simply Rue's face, though that was where it all began, but the very face of love itself.

And so, my eyes full of what I had found within Alexander's heart, I turned my head and looked into Rue's eyes.

I heard her catch her breath, then release it on one long, slow sigh. As if all her questions were being answered. And so I blinked again, and looked into her heart.

Rue's heart was a great confusion, and all of it caged and desperate to be let out. I heard a sound inside my head like the beat of frantic bird wings. The sound of footsteps going first down a great spiral staircase of stone, then back up again. Down and up. Down and up. Round and round. Round and round. I heard the sound her shuttle made as she pushed it back and forth.

But in the very center of her heart, no sound at all, only a single candle flame of light. A light I thought that I had seen, just once before. The light that had convinced me to stay with her in the first place. Rue's own hope, which—in spite of all the years she had spent relegated to the background of the only heart that knew of her existence—had still found the way to shine.

It was not as bright as the light in Alexander's heart. Not yet, but that didn't make it any less strong. For it had weathered storms his heart could never imagine and not gone out. In the very center of her heart, against all odds and misguided magic, Rue had kept alive the hope of love.

I closed my eyes then, and my visions vanished. I
was just a girl in a dark cloak crouched at the top of an enchanted tower, and the wind blew all around.

“What's the second thing?” I heard Alexander ask. “Just tell me, and I'll try to accomplish it, whatever it is.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Rue. She looked back, straight into my eyes. For a moment, the whole world seemed to fall away, leaving just the two of us at the top of the tower.

“There is a question that I have asked myself all my life,” I said softly. “Though I have always known that I would never have an answer for it. I've wondered what it might be like to have hair. Shining, golden hair. Hair just like yours, though even I never imagined quite so much of it. You can give me the next best thing, if you will.”

“How?” she whispered. “I don't see how.”

“Don't leave this place as Rue,” I said. “Leave it as Rapunzel. Rue was never your true name, but only the name of your mother's regret, and your own sorrow. Is that how you want to begin a new life?”

“No,” Rue said. “No, it's not. But who will you be, if I am Rapunzel?”

“The same person I have always been,” I said. “Only now my name can be one that I have chosen. From this day forward, if you are willing, when people speak of the longest, most beautiful golden hair in all the world, the name they speak will be Rapunzel. You would be giving me a very great gift. But only if that is what you wish to choose.”

“Let me think,” Rue said, and I could have sworn
I saw a smile play at the corners of her mouth. “I can have my freedom and someone to love if I will take your name in the bargain?”

“Something like that,” I acknowledged. “So what do you say? Is it a deal?”

“Oh, yes,” Rue said. “I think so.”

“Then tell your impatient prince the second thing that he must do,” I said. “And so accomplish the first one in the bargain.”

“All I wish,” she said, raising her voice so that Alexander might hear, “is to be asked, rather than told.”

“Is that all?” Alexander said.

“That is all,” she replied.

“In that case, will you please marry me, Rapunzel?” Prince Alexander asked.

And the girl who would now carry my name for all the ages, the girl with the shining golden hair, answered.

“Yes.”

Seventeen

“You could have told me,” Harry said several days later as we walked beside the river. “I can keep a secret, you know.”

“I see,” I said. “That wouldn't be anything like the way you can trust me, would it?” I watched as a dull flush slowly made its way across his cheekbones.

“I've said I was sorry about that. More than once. How many more times would you like me to say it?”

“I don't know,” I answered. “I'm still working that out. You hurt me, you know.”

“I do know that,” he said. “As I've said until I'm almost blue in the face, I'm sorry, Parsley. I never meant... Oh, for pity's sake,” he suddenly exclaimed. “This is completely ridiculous. I don't even know what to call you.”

“I've been working on that,” I said, with a smile. “And I think I've come up with something.”

“Just so long as it isn't Fenugreek,” Harry said.

I laughed and slipped a hand into the crook of his arm.

It had been almost a week now since I had ceased to be Rapunzel. Days full of wonder that had seemed to fly by. No sooner had Rue accepted Alex's
proposal than she and I were freed in a great burst of magic that lasted, as you can probably guess, no longer than the blink of an eye. Though it could have taken longer, I suppose. For the truth is that the experience was so overwhelming I kept my own eyes closed through most of it.

The tower first began to tremble, and then to shake, and then, with a sound like a thousand birds in flight, the whole edifice had come tumbling down. I had the sensation of falling head over heels, then landing lightly on my feet, through absolutely no effort I made myself. By the time I could bring myself to open my eyes again, I was standing on the greensward, which was now the size of a small meadow. At my back was the river, and where the tower had stood there was now a snug stone cottage with a slate roof and a bright red door.

Into each side was set a cunning curve of windows, which sparkled like stars. Later I learned that they had retained at least one of their former characteristics. From inside, it seemed that you could see the whole world, if you knew how to look. But from the outside, only your own reflection. The world could come in only if you invited it. Harry was standing in front of the cottage door, blinking rapidly, as if trying to figure out the impossible, which would be how he'd gotten there in the first place. He was holding the cat in his arms.