By Irith Ayllistira
THE HANGING
I am glad you stumbled upon this journal.
I never thought about the consequences. I was too young. I was too naïve. Gothel never treated me again with respect. She didn't spoil me with her gifts anymore, nor sang to me bedtime songs nor talked to me for entire nights about the world out there. She never smiled again. And neither did I.
I expected pain, but not so much pain. I expected loneliness but not that much loneliness. I expected despair... but I had never thought about death until she took me to Eugene's hanging.
I have a story to tell you.
It's a long story. A true story. The legacy of a myth that haunted the kingdom of Corona for many long years. I was the core of that myth – and I was the core and the cause of much tragedy. You could think that when Eugene took me to see the lanterns you were half-way into the story – you were mistaken. That was only the beginning of all the misfortune that was about to fall upon our lives.
I promise you will cry. I promise you will laugh. If you aren't searching for the truth, close this journal. If you can't bear the most irrevocable details about how my life turned out to be, turn away. It was not a fairytale. It was not what I dreamed it would be. But I promise you this: you'll never be truly prepared for what you're about to read because not even in your wildest dreams you could imagine such conclusion to my tale.
And when I promise something, I never, ever, break that promise.
My name is Rapunzel.
And this is the story of how I died.
Gothel's nails dug into her young flesh. Unable to resist her mother's deathly grip, Rapunzel forced herself to look up. She saw a row of black-cloaked men facing the gallows, all of them looking at the muddy floor beneath their feet, trying to focus on something else besides their imminent death. A couple of crows flew over the courtyard, crying in a shrill, melancholic melody. Rapunzel stood there, unmoving, touching the sides of her black-laced dress, the last tribute her mother had offered her before the hanging. A last sign of respect, maybe. Or perhaps the utter need to detach the sadness and desperation that had fallen upon Rapunzel.
She saw him. A brief shriek slipped through her throat, lost in the middle of the crowd. Gothel strengthened her grip on the girl's arm and further dug her blood-red nails into her skin. Rapunzel felt the urge to scream, to call out for his name, asking him to look at her one more time before he hung lifeless from the gallows.
But Eugene didn't look back. He simply stood there, his eyes lost on the loops of the rope, his mind numb with the drugs they had administered him to unable him from fighting the noose.
The crows cried one more time and Eugene stepped onto the platform, slowly climbing the three-legged bench that would be removed from under his feet. Tears slowly trailed down Rapunzel's face, lost beneath the transparency of her dark veil. Her hair had been pulled back under a thicker dark veil and braided to cover its length. She was wearing black like a widow. She was wearing black because that was the last reverence she could make to the man she loved. Rapunzel knew that she would never be able to wear other colors again because her heart would never be cleansed from the darkness that Gothel had swept over it. She was to be a widow until the day she died. She was to be alone and unloved until the day she died.
Eugene. Eugene had loved her.
He stepped onto the bench. She searched for his eyes.
"EUGENE!"
Once again he didn't look. In an act of desperation, Rapunzel launched herself forward into the middle of the crowd, pushing everyone in her way and opening a path to the platform. And Eugene never looked at her, solemnly fixing the horizon as if lost in a strange nirvana that utterly prepared him for the hour of his death.
A strange pain suddenly coursed through her, numbing her senses. She felt like she was falling to the floor but couldn't feel her arms and legs hitting the ground nor could hear anymore the sound of the crowd cheering around her. She knew that she was on the floor, because people's shoes were levelled with her line of sight and although she fought to rise and to see her love for one last time her body wouldn't obbey her.
And then she saw her mother's eyes, dark with cruelty. Gothel pulled her up and slapped her in the face and then hit her hard on the chest. All air slipped out of her lungs and Rapunzel reached out for air, panting in an effort to remain alive.
"Look, Rapunzel, look at him dying. You deserve it, you horrible, cruel devil."
Her green eyes met his and even through the veil, she understood that Eugene had recognized her at last. She smiled and with her smile tears burst from her eyes. She was slapped again. But she couldn't feel the pain anymore.
A black-cloaked man reached for the edge of the bench were Eugene stood. Rapunzel flinched and her face transfigured into a mask of ever-lasting despair.
And in that precise moment, everything was turned upside down.
Leave feedback. Are you liking the introduction? Worth continuing? Let's be honest here: I won't write for an empty audience. That's what reviews are about. So if you like it and want me to continue it, click the button below and let me know.