A/N: Special thanx to: *ahem* Dara, OYC_Bambi@yahoo.com, crystal, Heaven, and hemlock(who was the only with enough energy to sign in...lol)! They are my six reviewees! (BTW, is that even a word? oh, well...) Thanx, y'all! Now the rest of you who are spending time reading this review! Thank you! Enjoy! ~Jenny the chica~



Chapter Six: In which the truth is learned...


The next morning, I awoke a little after sunrise, and I stepped out onto my balcony to see the ending of the colors that lit up the sky. I had always loved the beauty that sunrises created, and I sat carefully on my balcony railing and began to sing, making up words and tunes as I went. I had always loved making up my own songs, and now that my voice had been even more finely tuned as a result of my classes at the convent, they sounded even better, if I could humbly say so.

I was interrupted after who knows how long by a familiar, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down thy hair."

I did so, but continued to sing, ignoring the witch as she climbed up.

She finally reached the top, and said, as my hair shortened, "That was beautiful, my dear Rapunzel, just beautiful."

I turned my back to her, refusing to acknowledge her presence.

"Child!" she scolded. "Stop acting like that! Do you truly have the heart to turn your back on your own mother, after I carried and bore you?"

I turned to her and accused, "Are you really my Mother? Why should I believe you? Kidnappers are not usually honest. Why should you be any different?"

"Rapunzel, my dear," she threw back through clenched teeth, "Do you think that I would go into this much trouble for someone who was not my own? Child! Not even I am that foolish. One does not do things like this for people who will not return the love this showed. Only a mother's would build something like this to protect you as much as this tower does."

I felt a tear roll down my cheek, realizing that it might be true that this witch was truly my Mother. Why my "real" mother would lie to me, I have no idea, but hopefully her reply to my letter would tell me.

"Well, child," the witch said, after letting me think for awhile, "I will go now and leave you to your thoughts. Let down your hair, and I will climb down, and come again tomorrow morning. Hopefully you will have realized the truth by then."

I rose from where I had been sitting and silently walked over to the edge of my balcony, and flipped my hair over my shoulder, as it began to grow, as quickly as it had before. The witch climbed down, then walked away, into the depths of the woods, until I could see her no more.

I trudged back inside, then, remembering my magic book, hurried to my bedside drawer and pulled it out. I opened it, to be met with the reply I had been waiting for. It said:



My dearest Gretchen,

I knew that this day would eventually come, but I'm so sorry that it did. You see, I am not your real Mother.



I gasped at this news, then continued reading, eager for more answers, though I felt tears flowing constantly down my face, like a slow, steady rain. I hated to cry over what I knew to be the truth, but I had just lost whom I had thought to be my Mother, to instead get a witch, who had kidnapped me, as my mother.



My dear, I know that this will be hard news for you to accept, but keep on reading, and I will explain everything.



Mother went on to tell the story of a baker and his wife, and how the wife, soon-to-be-mother, had longed for rampion, or rapunzel, from their neighbor's garden, and he ended up stealing it. The second night he did, he met the fairy who owned the garden, who let him take the rest of the rampion, but she had put a curse on it, unbeknownst to him. This curse killed him and turned his wife into a witch. His wife went into labor a few minutes later, and the baby girl she bore was taken up immediately by the fairy, who took her to raise her, far away from her evil Mother. But, just as the fairy flew away with the child, the witch vowed to someday reclaim her daughter.



As you might have already guessed, the Mother is the witch who kidnapped you, I am the fairy, and you are the child. My dear Gretchen, be strong. Remember how much I love you, even though I am not your real Mother. Please continue to write me, for though you are not my own flesh and blood, you will always feel like it to me.

I love you, dearest Gretchen,

Your Mother, forever



I fell back on the bed, thinking about what I had just read. Although it was hard news, I had half-expected it, or at least a part of it. I would still write Mother, even though I couldn't call her "Mother" anymore. I would find something else to call her. But still, the fact that she was a fairy astounded me. How could she have hid that huge secret all the thirteen years that I lived with her? Of course, the fact that she was a fairy explained why and how I had gotten the magic book, and why I always thought she had looked like the characters in fairy tales.

I hated having to admit to my "new" mother that she had been right, but I didn't want her to get suspicious, for then she would become more and more strict, until I had even less freedom than I already had.

Tears still falling, I went back to my drawer and brought out the book of fairy tales that Mother had given me, for I wanted never to forget her.

After thinking about it for a while, I finally thought of what to call Mother: my fairy mother. I quickly wrote her a brief letter asking if that was all right, and she wrote back a few hours later that that would be "just wonderful."



A/N: Welps, kids, that's all for now! Review and I'll post the next chapter...when it gets good! (dum, dum, DUM!!!!!) ~Jenny the chica~