ooo

Rapunzel saw the yawn that Thomas tried, but failed, to suppress. Both Primrose and Thomas were short on sleep, she could tell, so Rapunzel decided that she would try to coerce them into taking a rest somewhere on their tour of the castle. However, in the excitement of all the new things presented to her, Rapunzel forgot that decision. Not until she saw Thomas hide the yawn did she remember.

She felt guilty again for being an inconvenience. She wouldn't keep causing trouble for everyone, she promised herself. "I can look around on my own," she told Thomas and Primrose. They had come to the corner turning of a long corridor. "You don't have to stay with me."

Concern crossed the king's face. "We don't want to be overbearing," he began uncertainly.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean that," Rapunzel was quick to interrupt. "You're not overbearing at all. I mean, I like spending time with you. I don't want to take up too much of it."

"You couldn't possibly take too much." Relief, and a warm smile, filled his expression. Primrose nodded, wordlessly agreeing.

Rapunzel felt warm happiness in response. "But I can't take up all your time," Rapunzel replied. "You must have a lot of things you need to do."

Thomas opened the double doors before them. "For today, those things can wait, at least until afternoon. You haven't even seen the library yet," he said, indicating the high-ceilinged room into which they entered.

Rapunzel stopped just beyond the door and looked around. "How colorful!" The walls seemed to be decorated with short stripes of color, a mosaic of some kind. Based on the height of the room, which accommodated two sweeping staircases, she guessed that they were in one of the large, corner towers of the castle. She started touring the room, marveling at the space.

"I understand that you like to read," Primrose said.

Rapunzel was about to answer, but she had drawn close enough to the walls to see that they were, in actuality, shelves.

The colorful stripes in the shelves appeared to be books, tightly packed into the shelf space. More marvelous yet, they had different names on each spine.

She stepped closer. She reached to take one from the shelf, and it slid out from its fellows. She opened it and felt her breath catch. It was not a blank journal. It was a new book. It was a book she had never read.

It finally hit her. She looked at the shelves further up, and yes, they too were filled with books, further and further up as far as she could see. Each of those colorful stripes was a different book! The room was filled, wall to wall, with books she had never read!

She couldn't stop herself. She let out a yelp of shock.

"Are you alright?" Thomas rushed to her side.

Rapunzel looked at her parents with wide eyes. "I'm… I'm amazed," she said. "I don't understand. How can you have so many books? I didn't know there were this many."

"Our family has collected them for generations," Primrose answered, smiling, "and I am fond of reading." She took Rapunzel's limp hand and guided her toward a section of shelves near one of the curved staircases. "The newest novels are here. Fantasies, romances. I indulge in the occasional mystery tale, too. Maybe you would like to read them?"

"I would love to," Rapunzel answered. "What about geology, cooking, and gardening? Do you have those?" She half hoped that Primrose would say they did not. Then Rapunzel could bring her books and add something to the library. She half-hoped that Primrose would say they did, and that Primrose and Thomas had read them many times, so that they would have that in common with her.

"Philosophy, criticisms, history, and dramaticals form the middle section, here." Thomas walked toward the bookcases directly opposite the door. Rapunzel followed. He then guided Rapunzel along the shelves toward the side of the library opposite the novels. "Nonfiction begins here," he indicated, "Here is a particularly fine encyclopedia of minerals." He pulled down a tome from a shelf well above Rapunzel's head. He offered it for her viewing, open to reveal colored drawings and neat text.

She took the heavy book into her arms. Carefully, she turned the pages. Every listing included a painting, in ink if not full color, of the rock described. Each went into far greater detail than the book she had read and loved for years. The quartz section alone was nearly as thick as her entire Geology. Her shoulders drooped; she could not help it. She should have been happy, but she felt on the verge of tears.

Thomas reached forward to take the book from Rapunzel's arms. "Better for reading while its resting on a table than by holding in hand," he said. He carried it off to a table with a lamp upon it.

If only, Rapunzel thought, she had lived her childhood locked up in this library tower, instead of being trapped in one where she thought three books - four, if she counted the first cookbook - were all the books in the world! Had she been happier, never knowing?

Primrose moved to put an arm around Rapunzel's shoulder. "Are you alright?" she asked.

Her soft voice made the tears retreat. As confused as Rapunzel was about how different the world outside the tower was from Mother Gothel's telling, the real world came with a kind, warm, real mother in Primrose. Rapunzel leaned into Primrose, and Primrose wrapped her in a full embrace. The queen pet Rapunzel's hair while Rapunzel hugged her.

She took a deep breath and held it. She would try to be like Elsa, Rapunzel decided, a perfect princess that Primrose and Thomas could love. She would strive to be serene and strong, like Elsa. She let out the breath instead of tears.

After that, all she had to do to bring back a smile was to think about how much fun she would have, in this new, big world. Unexpected truths could be good! She could be excited about the promise of learning new things.

"It's an amazing surprise," she said, pulling away from Primrose so that she would include Thomas. Seeing the worry flee his face at the sight of her smile, Rapunzel felt the warm glow inside her deepen. She felt her resolve to be positive root firmly, too. She had left her tower to set off on a journey greater than she had ever imagined. Her life had begun. She wouldn't let misinformed expectations wreck the adventure.

ooo

As she walked down the corridor, Elsa silently fought with herself. She could easily turn and go up the stairs, and if she escaped into her room and sleep, no one would disturb her. She could explain it away as simple exhaustion. But Elsa couldn't allow herself to give in. She would slide like an avalanche if she ever gave in to the storms that howled inside her.

And so she fought with herself and won, as she always won,and went out to the stables instead to see to Maximus. He needed grooming and exercise. Besides, the apple in her dress pocket was for him, his share in the feast celebrating the return of a lost princess.

If she were unable to attend to him, he would still be well cared for, just like all the other horses in the stables. She gave that thought consideration, her steps slowing as she strode through the orchards, a shortcut to the stables. He was a horse in the castle guard, after all, and though she might consider Maximus her dear friend, he did not exist only for her attention. He would not languish if she were gone.

Gone from Corona, or gone from the world, Elsa would not leave anyone bereft, she thought to herself. For a moment, she let herself float in that thought as a snowflake might float when the wind stopped blowing. She closed her eyes. The breath she inhaled, although filled with the scent of the orchard, settled in her chest like the crisp, clean air of a mountain cloud.

Eyes closed, Elsa leaned against a tree trunk and simply breathed.

When she opened her eyes after the long moment of quiet, Olaf was standing in front of her, staring at her open-mouthed. "I thought you fell asleep, or something," he said, becoming lively. "I thought you were an Elsa statue!"

"Which one, Olaf? Asleep or a statue?" Elsa asked in an airy voice.

"I dunno," Olaf answered, his bucktoothed mouth turning into a lopsided grin. "I could stare at you all day long."

Elsa grimaced. She straightened her posture. "I don't want anyone looking at me all day."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm nothing to look at," Elsa said, knowing even as she said it that it wasn't the reason. "It doesn't matter," she said.

"Why not?"

She raised an eyebrow at Olaf. "Where do all these questions come from, Olaf?"

"I dunno," he said.

"Nevermind," Elsa said, unable to keep back a small smile. She reached out and fluttered her fingers over the snowman. "This summer weather has never been very good for you," she commented. "You should go."

"Go where?"

"I don't know," she murmured. Then she waved him away into snowflakes.

She went on and found Maximus. The stallion dozed in his stall, but not deeply, because when Elsa took the apple from her pocket and sent a not-too-cold current of air spinning out from it, his nostrils quivered. He awoke with the smell of his favorite fruit.

She walked the rest of the way in to the stable and handed the apple over. Maximus took it between his broad teeth and chomped down. Elsa simply watched him, happy for his happiness. "I wish I could focus more on the little things," she said to him.

He snorted and gave her a look.

"No, it's nothing," she answered his wordless question. " 'The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!'" she quoted at him. She sighed. Maximus snorted again. "That's Shakespeare," Elsa answered back with false distain. "Is that my thanks for calling you a paragon?" She leaned on the stall door. "Why can I never stay happy, my friend? What a lovely delusion it is, to be happy."

"This quintessence of dust," she mused without a smile.

Finished with his apple, Maximus put his nose close to Elsa's head and whuffled at her hair.

"Rapunzel is with Aunt and Uncle," she said. "Flynn is… roaming freely wherever he wants. He will probably find them. I suppose I could go join them all, too." She lifted her head. "Or... we could go for a ride. Flynn told me where he found the hidden tower, more or less. He got turned around, but I think we can pick up the trail. What do you think?"

She unlatched stall door without waiting for an answer. She buckled on his saddle when he stepped out, then put herself in the saddle and gave him the cue to trot out. Before leaving the castle grounds entirely, she left a message for Nils, in case anyone looked for her while she was gone.

They passed through the town and over the bridge at a canter. Once they reached the woods, Elsa gave Maximus rein to run. Soon the world washed by in a blur. They left the King's Road after about two miles, though well before then Elsa had slowed Maximus to a more sustainable gait. In the shade of the forest trees, on a twisting path lumpy with tree roots, Maximus was content to amble along. Because they kept a steady pace and direction, they still covered the distance quickly. Elsa soon spotted the stream that she believed flowed near Rapunzel's tower.

They followed the trickling waterway upstream. It grew wider and deeper, becoming a stream supporting fish and frogs. Soon, however, Elsa and Maximus came to a place where the stream flowed out through a pile of large boulders. A wall of rock blocked progress further upstream.

Elsa looked for the growth of ivy vines that Flynn had described as hiding the passage through the rock. The ivy grew densely in spite of the obscured sunlight, no doubt aided by Mother Gothel's witchery. Maximus sniffed along the ground. He caught Flynn and Rapunzel's fading scent, but he walked past the secret entrance twice. Elsa found it by walking the length of the wall near where Maximus indicated that the trail disappeared. She pulled at the ivy vines until she at last found the loose ones that formed the obscuring curtain.

"If I cut these, it might release dark magic. I wonder if they will just grow back thicker," she thought aloud. "I think I will be smarter about it than that." For the purpose of leaving a marker in case passing through the entrance activated some kind of magic defense, Elsa worked with Maximus to create clear evidence of their presence at that place in the forest. They moved large branches and rocks into an unnatural formation that would be obvious to searchers, if it came to that.

At the last moment, their precautions were not enough for Elsa. She stopped Maximus from following her through the ivy curtain. She took a whistle from one of his saddle packs and tucked it into a pocket in her dress. "I'll whistle when I'm through, if all seems well, and again when I reach the tower. I don't want you coming through after me." She put her hands on his neck and spoke close to his ear. "I mean it, Max. If you don't hear the whistles, go back to the castle, but don't let them endanger themselves looking for me." She pat his neck to calm his restiveness at her plan. "I'll be fine, but promise me just in case, OK?"

She waited only long enough to be sure he wouldn't be stubborn. She wasn't frightened, but the possibility that Mother Gothel had the kind of magic that could be left as a trap made her cautious, at least for Maximus's safety.

Nothing unusual happened when Elsa passed through the vines and the short tunnel that passed through the rock wall. She entered the valley and looked behind her. The tunnel was still there. She could the the silhouette of Maximus through the vines.

She turned back to the view of the valley in front of her. Perhaps it was as serene as it appeared.

She blew a short note on the whistle so that Maximus would know all was well. It was not far to the tall tower that stood in the center of the valley, and she started toward it, remaining vigilant against the unexpected.

Which would be... what? she wondered. Putting aside the legend of role as champion, meeting Rapunzel was Elsa's first contact with magic other than her own. Rapunzel had been making a point of wanting to learn from Elsa, but Elsa knew that her cousin held knowledge about magic that Elsa didn't have. What kind of witch was Mother Gothel? How did her magic manifest? She seemed like an ordinary - though physically strong - human woman when Elsa fought and bound her.

Elsa knew that she could get caught up in her wonderings if she allowed herself. Now was not the time for thinking in that direction. Still, the valley around her was grand and natural, without a mark of magic's sickness. Even the tower's strange architecture had a quixotic beauty. Beyond the tower, the shining path of a waterfall cut through the surrounding stone cliffs. The waterfall disappeared into low trees and emerged as the stream passing through the valley. At the base of the tower, the stream collected in a pond.

She easily spotted the ground-level door. It was surrounded by broken mortar and stone. When she reached it, Elsa picked up a handful of the mortar. It crumbled in her fingers like dry, unfired clay. She examined the mortar of the stones that made the walls of the tower and found it to be firm, normal mortar. Up close, the tower seemed to almost be an ordinary building.

She took out the whistle, raised her face to the clear sky, and blew again. She was going to go into the tower. She would signal again when she reached the window above.

The door opened easily. Wobbly on its hinges, it closed with more difficulty. When closed, the interior of the tower filled with a gloom. She left the door open a few inches to provide more light, but not so much that she could be followed without a flood of light alerting her to the opened door. The dust on the stairs showed the recent passage of bare feet scuffled with shoe prints in two sizes. Elsa added her own shoe prints as she made her way up the stairs.

Neglect and disuse decorated floor after floor as she moved up the levels of the tower. That seemed peculiar until Elsa got to the final, highest floor, and saw that it was the only one that showed evidence of anyone living in the tower. Clearly, only the highest floor had been used in years. Unlike the lower floors, the inhabited floor connected to the penultimate level with a ladder, not stairs. Elsa climbed back down and found where a flight of stairs had been removed, and the passway boarded over.

She returned to the top level and went to where the missing stairway would have ended. The space was disguised by the flooring. A heavy closet cabinet stood directly over it.

Elsa opened closets and cabinets. As she made her way around the small space, her curiosity and apprehension changed to a dismay. In fifteen minutes, she walked through all the world that Rapunzel had known for eighteen years. Only one room had a door that could be shut and locked. The locks on the furniture were simple; a skeleton key was enough to get them open. The wardrobe and chests in the room held a wealth of clothing, shoes, hats, jewelry, and personal mementos. It was the only room whose walls were plain. Everywhere else in the tower, murals covered every bit of wall and ceiling.

The plain room must have been Mother Gothel's bedroom. Elsa found a bed in another room that only had a curtain across the doorway. She shuddered when she realized the impossibility of privacy. Many families lived without privacy, all in one room together with perhaps no more than a sleeping loft. Wealthier homes might have interior doors and multiple rooms. Rarely had Elsa seen the imbalance of Rapunzel's tower, and certainly not with a household of two women.

Rapunzel's room was little more than a large bed inside close walls, though the walls themselves were a marvel. For a long while, Elsa leaned against a bedpost and looked at the painted images. The lower parts of the walls showed having been painted over many times. Elsa imagined that Rapunzel had started painting them as a child, and as she grew in height and skill, she painted over her earlier art.

Gothel's bedroom could have belonged in a completely different home from the rest of the tower. It was clean, but slightly untidy inside the lockable furnishings. Gothel's vanity drawers held beads and bangles in careless disarray. In the central room, the orderly contents of any drawer Elsa opened implied that Rapunzel had tidied every square of space that she could tidy. She found Rapunzel's box of paints and her box of sewing. She paged through the three old books she found on a shelf. In the kitchen, she found that the oven still protected live coals. Thinking about the isolation Rapunzel's life must have held, Elsa easily extinguished the coals with a crawling frost.

The largest window in the tower was as large as a door. Elsa stepped onto the low windowsill and looked out at the view. The window more-or-less faced the direction of Corona Castle, though nothing of the castle or harbor was visible. A pulley with no rope hung over the window. Elsa blew on her whistle. To her surprise, it did not echo as it should have done.

The valley was almost certainly ensorcelled so that it would not be easily found. Maybe it had also been charmed to prevent sounds from carrying. Sounds such as a crying child, singing, or shouts would not be heard from outside the valley. Experimentally, Elsa took in a deep breath and then yelled out her loudest, "Hello!" Not the least sound of echo answered back.

She returned to Mother Gothel's room and became convinced that the tower was not Gothel's only abode. She had the same feeling as when she had been called in to settle a domestic dispute between a townsman and his wife and discovered through investigation that the townsman had been keeping a second household and family who knew nothing of the first family. The same sense of incompleteness resonated from Gothel's room as it had from the man's second home. Somewhere, Gothel must also have a house or cottage where she kept the truest part of her nature, possibly with the garden that supplied food for the tower. A small farm was unlikely, because a farm could not be run alone, though Elsa would not eliminate it from possibilities.

Since it seemed that Maximus would not have been able to hear her whistles, Elsa determined that she should return to him quickly. The tower seemed safe enough to send men later to bring back anything that Rapunzel might want from it. Elsa gathered up the books and the box of paints to take immediately. They seemed like possessions that would be dearest to Rapunzel.

She took a final look at Rapunzel's small world. In spite of all the bright paintings on the walls, the place gave Elsa a lonely feeling that squeezed her heart. Only one door in the space had a lock, but the tower itself was like an all-encompassing lock, with the window like keyhole through which Rapunzel had peered out at the world denied to her.

Elsa shut the trap door and hurried down the levels of the tower. She shut the bottom door behind her to prevent wild animals from entering. They could have the tower after Rapunzel had taken away anything she wanted.

Jogging back to Maximus, Elsa wondered if Rapunzel would miss the tiny world that had been her home.

ooo