The Witch's Daughter Read online

  Rapunzel was dearer to me than any of my mother’s treasures. As she grew, so did our bond, and we were nearly inseparable by the time she had reached childhood. Her first word was my name, “Ayn”, and though she could not pronounce it properly with her baby tongue, I was touched. Even though I was five years older than her, neither of us seemed to mind. I enjoyed playing with her and teaching her, and she enjoyed learning.

  I told her stories by candlelight in the evenings, and eventually taught her to read them herself in the many books that my mother kept. I kept her entertained with shows of light, which I could conjure in my hands using my magical blood. I showed her how to run through the forest and how to climb trees, and I was always there to patch up any scrape or bruise she got when she fell off of a branch or tripped over a rock. I taught her to recognize the birds by sight and song, and with my knowledge of plants, I made sure that Rapunzel always knew which were safe to eat and which were poisonous.

  As Rapunzel learned, so did I. By the time I was ten, my mother started allowing me to help her prepare the herbs she used, and sometimes she would let me make simple healing draughts and potions by myself. Rapunzel was not as interested in healing herbs as I was. She had a wonderful imagination, and she would often talk to herself and play with her dolls while my mother and I worked in the garden.

  She had a voice as light and golden as her hair, and my mother and I loved to listen to her sing. We taught her all the songs we knew and when we ran out she made up new ones. When she adopted a kitten from another of Diath’s litters, she named it Sing, because singing, she said, was what she loved to do most of all. I told her that Sing was not a proper name for a cat, because I was ten and much more sensible about that sort of thing, but she did not care and my mother told me to let it be.

  Despite the strange events that brought her to us, Rapunzel was an ordinary child except for one thing. The beautiful curls that she had been born with had grown quickly and would not stop at her waist. Ever since her second birthday, her beautiful golden hair had trailed on the ground behind her. My mother tried all of her herbs and charms, but nothing could make the hair stop growing. I was delegated the task of cutting it to her shoulders three times a day, a chore that I did not mind because I could not deny my Rapunzel anything.

  When she was six, Rapunzel began asking questions about things she had noticed. “Why is it,” she said to me one evening as I brushed her curls, “that you and your mother have auburn hair when mine is golden?”

  “What does it matter? Your hair is more beautiful than ours anyway. Come, let us go and try on some of the dresses in the treasure rooms. You can be one of the princesses in your fairy stories.”

  And so I diverted her questions. She knew that my mother – whom she called Mother Gothel, the last name adding more formality – and I were not her blood, but not much more. I could not lie to my Rapunzel and so I settled for distracting her. I did not want to tell her that my mother had taken her away from her parents, because as I grew older, I started to understand just how painful it must have been for Rapunzel’s parents to lose their daughter, and how painful it might be for Rapunzel to find out that we had taken her from her true family.

  Even if I could not lie to Rapunzel, my mother could. Her questions finally came to a head one evening. She was reading a book by the fireplace in the kitchen while my mother and I worked. I cut the herbs and crushed them into a fine powder while she poured the correct dosages into the draught we were making. But Rapunzel’s voice floated across the room over the pages of her book, interrupting our work. “Do I have a mother?” she asked.

  I looked over my shoulder, staring into my treasure’s wide blue eyes. I silently pleaded that she would let the question drop, or that my mother would dismiss her, but something told me that neither of us could put her off any longer. “Why are you asking?” my mother said, sprinkling a handful of powder into a measuring jar.

  “I want to know. Please tell me.”

  Rapunzel was bright, but she overestimated herself. She was still a child and my mother and I both knew it. If Rapunzel had addressed the question to me, I would not have been able to lie to her, even though I might have wished to in order to protect her feelings. My mother, however, was fully capable of making up a story to ease the burden. “You had a mother and father,” my mother admitted. “All babies come from a mother and father, but sometimes they do not live with them. You know that.”

  “Then how did I come here?” Rapunzel wanted to know, her face eager now that she was finally getting the answers to the questions I had been tiptoeing around for years.

  “The forest gave you to us,” said my mother. “One night in summer, Ailynn and I heard something crying near the garden. You were a newborn then, and from the moment I saw what a precious girl you were, we decided to take you in and raise you as our own. I was waiting to tell you until you were older, but nine is old enough, I suppose.”

  “Why did you not tell me sooner?” Rapunzel asked, sounding only slightly upset.

  “I was waiting until you were old enough to understand.”

  I returned to slicing sneezewort leaves, afraid that Rapunzel might see the truth in my eyes. My hands shook and I almost cut myself twice.

  That ended Rapunzel’s stream of questions about her past. Part of me was relieved that my mother had fixed the problem so neatly, but another, deeper part of me felt guilty about the lie. Even though I had not been the one to tell it, the falsehood began to eat at me from the inside out. Eventually, I learned to ignore it, but the feelings of shame were still there, buried somewhere inside me.

  …

  Chapter Three:

  Growing up isolated from the rest of the world, I did not have many opportunities to make friends. It was one of the reasons that Rapunzel’s company was such a joy to me, despite our five-year age difference. She was not like a sister, but far more than just an entertaining playmate. I did not try to define our relationship. She was mine, and that was all that mattered.

  However, when I was eleven, I did have the opportunity to meet another child my own age. That experience, looked upon with older, wiser eyes several years later, was probably the first glimpse I had of my mother’s dark, manipulative side.

  It started one day in summer. The rain drummed on the roof of our cottage like thousands of tiny feet scurrying over a wooden floor. Rapunzel was staring at the glass windows in the kitchen. Although we lived in a cottage, some of the rooms looked like they belonged in a small palace. The windows were beautifully decorated and perfectly fitted. My mother would never settle for anything less. Rapunzel giggled as the raindrops raced each other down the clear glass surface, following them with her finger.

  “No,” I said, pulling her small hands away from the glass. “You might smudge it. Come away from the window and we can play the fairytale game!”

  The fairytale game was Rapunzel’s favorite. We would dress up in the fine clothes and jewelry that sat in my mother’s treasure rooms and pretend to be the knights, princes, and princesses from many of Amendyr’s famous stories. I knew that many of these stories were at least half-true, but Rapunzel was too young to understand that I was giving her a glamorous history lesson.

  Since there were only two of us, we had to play multiple roles at one time, which I did not mind at all. Rapunzel always wanted to be the princess or the lady. In order to please her, I gave her first pick. I found that my roles were usually more interesting, anyway. I had played knights, old wizards, giant dragons, cunning thieves, burly dwarves, and even Liarre, the half-human, half-animal creations of Lir the Shaper. Perhaps I was not much of an actress, but I was a wonderful storyteller and Rapunzel appreciated my narration.

  Personally, my favorite stories were the ones about Tuathe, soul mates, lovers that shared a bond so strong that nothing could sever it, not even death. The word meant ‘we two that are one’ in the ancient Amendyrri language. I was not surprised that the word had survived for so many generations. Secret
ly, I hoped that Rapunzel and I would be Tuathe when we grew up, but I was far too shy to voice such thoughts aloud.

  We played the fairytale game for a candle mark before I realized that my mother was not in the house. At first, I had assumed she was in one of the rooms behind the magical door, perhaps the library. When she did not emerge, I began to wonder and then I began to worry. Although I was used to looking after Rapunzel by myself, being without my mother for such a long period of time made me uneasy. She did not usually leave us alone without an explanation.

  Rapunzel, drawing on my worries, abandoned the game to stand beside me, taking my hand and looking up at me with trusting brown eyes and a concerned expression. I tried to reassure her, telling her that I would take care of her while my mother was gone and that there was no reason to worry. Her faith in me was unshakable, and she immediately wanted to return to our fairytale game.

  Before we could start playing again, the front door slammed open with a loud crash, sounding as though a violent wind had blown it against the wall. Mother stood silhouetted in the doorway, tall and draped in her heavy black cloak, which she held closed at the neck to protect her face from the rain. Holding on to her hand was another silhouette, one that I did not recognize. I realized with some excitement and some trepidation that this second figure belonged to a child.

  “Ailynn,” my mother called, holding open her arms to me and letting go of the other child’s hand. I ran to hug her even though she was soaking wet. So was the strange child, who turned out to be a boy, and not a very impressive looking one at that. He had blonde hair and blue eyes and a nose that curved up a little at the tip. He looked me up and down, obviously examining me and making a judgment. I felt like a piece of livestock going up for auction.

  Rapunzel, shyer than me, hung towards the back of the room, obviously uncomfortable with this new person in our house. Although he was not much to look at, I was as interested in him as he seemed to be in me. I did not get many opportunities to interact with children besides Rapunzel

  “Arim dei,” I said, letting go of my mother’s skirt to wave at the boy. “My name is Ailynn. What’s yours?”

  “My name is Byron Wylean-James the Third,” he said, reaching up to wipe his nose with his sleeve. I did not blame him, his face was dripping wet and he had no cloak to keep off the rain. He had a partially Serian name, and I later learned that he was from a very well to do mixed family that boasted both Amendyrri and Serian noble blood. Like me, he lived close to the border and his accent reflected the use of both languages. He seemed grateful to be inside, and I stepped back from the doorway to give him and my mother more room.

  “Why are you here, Byron?” I asked, also directing the question at my mother, who was undoing the clasp of her cloak and drawing down the hood. She glanced to the left, pausing. Usually, she did not hesitate to answer my questions, and I was suspicious.

  “Byron will be visiting us for a little while, my beautiful princess. And how is my other girl? Come here, my pretty,” she said, kneeling down so that Rapunzel, who had decided that it was safe enough to come forward, could give her a hug, too.

  “I’m bored,” said Byron. Now that the attention was back on him, he seemed content to keep it that way. “When do I get to eat? Where are the servants?”

  “Servants?” I asked, looking skeptically around the cottage. Where did he expect us to keep servants in a place like this? We had the magic door, of course, but Byron did not know about it.

  Completely ignoring our guest’s rather snobbish questions, Rapunzel asked, “do you want to play fairytale with us?” Byron Wylean-James the Third looked at her, his expression just as skeptical as mine had been moments earlier.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” my mother said before either of us could respond. “Go occupy yourself with Ailynn and Rapunzel, Byron. I need to get in touch with your Papan and tell him where you are so that he is able to… make arrangements.”

  That was when I realized that Byron would be staying for the duration, not just an hour or two until the storm let up. I was both irritated by and interested in the young noble. On the one hand, I had a new playmate, a total stranger. I could ask him questions about his life and the world outside of the forest. Perhaps Byron had been to many interesting places. On the other hand, I was annoyed by the way Byron had simply come into my house, unannounced, and proceeded to judge everything about it and me with only a glance and a few questions.

  “We were playing fairytale,” I said when it became obvious that my mother planned to leave us to our own devices. “We were doing the story of Reagan and Saweya. Maybe you can be the knight that comes to rescue Saweya from the tower?”

  “I’m Saweya,” Rapunzel chimed in, showing off the golden circlet that she wore on her head. In fact, it was the one I had presented to her on the night she came to stay with us. Byron saw it, his interest obviously piqued by the pretty bauble and the idea of the game.

  “Who are you?” he asked, pointing at me.

  “I’m Reagan.” He did not recognize the name. “The dragon,” I clarified. “Don’t you know the story?”

  He shrugged. “I like to play outside. I don’t have time for stories. My father does important things.”

  “Well, Saweya lives in a tall tower in the middle of the forest. There is an enchantment on her, and she cannot leave because a large dragon guards her…” At the time, I did not know that my mother was listening to every word from the next room. It was sickeningly ironic – that I might have been the one to give her the horrible idea that destroyed our lives six years later.

  The game went well at first. I played the dragon that circled Saweya’s tower to protect her from knights errant. In the original story, the dragon was actually female, although later Serian retellings of the story edited this part. The dragon, Reagan, was not a true dragon, but a human cursed to change form whenever the tower needed to be protected.

  Over time, Reagan falls in love with her captive. She offers to let her go, but Saweya decides to stay – with the condition that she may occasionally leave the tower. On one of her journeys, her father’s emissaries kidnap Saweya and return her to his palace, where he intends to marry her off. Saweya uses her own cunning to escape and return to Reagan, who, in a blood-rage, finds the strength to break the bindings that tie her to the tower and flies to destroy the cruel king’s palace.

  At least, that is how the story was supposed to go. Ours ended abruptly before the interesting part.

  Byron entered on his cue, playing the knight-errant as the first role. I had also offered to let him play the king later in the story, even though I sometimes liked being the villain. Besides, I already had to play Reagan so that I could destroy the palace. He was wearing a helmet that was far too big for him and a swirling silk cloak. In his left hand he held a silver dirk with a jeweled hilt, another of my mother’s pretty things. Except for the dirk, I thought he looked rather ridiculous, but he seemed to think that the props made him dashing. I decided not to correct his assumption.

  “I challenge you, dragon, to mortal combat!” he hollered, waving the dirk around in a threatening manner. He was actually doing well in his role despite the over-large helmet, and I gave him a smile of encouragement.

  “Run,” I roared, quoting a line from the story, “run, or I will feast upon your pathetic carcass and leave your bones to bleach in the sun!” Bearing imaginary claws and teeth, I lunged at him and began the fight. It was more difficult than I imagined, because I had to be careful of his swinging blade, and unlike the real Reagan, I had no leathery hide, claws, or fire-breath to protect me.

  “Okay,” I said, swiping at him with my hand, “now you have to die.”

  Byron dropped the dirk, looking very disappointed. “I don’t want to die. The knight should win the fight.”

  “That’s not how the story goes,” I told him. “Besides, you are still playing; you also get to be the tyrant king.”

  Crossing his arms stubbornly over his ches
t, Byron stood his ground. “No. The knight should always win the fight and rescue the princess.” He gestured at Rapunzel, who looked very confused. She had never seen me argue with anyone before, although that was only because I had no one to argue with but her.

  “Your parents only raised you on Serian fairy-stories, then,” I said, unwilling to change the events of the story just because of some strange boy that I had made every effort to include in our game.

  Byron pouted, actually pouted, which made him look just as spoiled as I suspected he was. “My father is a very important man. Byron Wylean-James the Second…”

  “If you like him so much,” I muttered darkly, “why are you here instead of at home?”

  “I don’t know. Your mother just took me away.”

  That statement stopped the argument. “My mother… took you?” I asked, not sure if I had heard him clearly.

  Byron shrugged. “Yes. It happened once before. Father says that bad people sometimes take the children of important men like him and ask for gold to give them back. He said it’s called a ransom.”

  “My mother is ransoming you?” I asked, my voice growing louder and higher pitched with each question.

  “Yes,” said Byron. “She says if my father gives her what she asks for, she’ll send me back and nothing bad will happen. It didn’t the last time, so I’m not worried. She knows better than to hurt someone like me, my father will come after her if she does. He just thinks paying the gold is easier.”

  I was floored. I had been aware of my mother’s greed from a young age, but never thought her capable of kidnapping a nobleman’s son. “We… shouldn’t play anymore…” I stuttered, not sure what to say after such a revelation. I had a lot of thinking to do.

  Fortunately, my mother saved me the trouble of finding an excuse to leave the room.