Obviously the idea of Rapunzle doesn't belong to me so…. I'm not stealing, just borrowing. Please review. This started as an assignment for my creative writing class so I had to stop it somewhere, but I did have thoughts of continuing it. I'd like to know if I should continue Abriela's adventures. So… uh… hope you enjoy.
She ran her hands through her silky golden hair and, closing her eyes, heaved a sigh of relief. She had the dream again. The one were she is being strangled by her own hair; the strong golden strands cutting deeper and deeper into her arms, legs, and throat with every frantic desperate flail for freedom. She had woken suddenly and with a cry, as always. No matter how many times she had the dream it still troubled her. She would wake with a start, and then, to reassure herself, she would run her fingers through her hair, and then sigh thankfully upon learning that it was normal length. For three years she had woken up in a sweat, running a reassuring hand through the silky strands, as she did now. Every night for the past ten years she had been drowned in a sea of her own hair. The dream had become as much a part of her life as tending to the farm or raising her brothers.
As she lie in bed for several more minutes, letting the warm morning sun penetrate the shadows that had been left behind in the night and soak into her skin and through her closed eyelids, the dream melted away. As it always did; until she could no longer remember why she was so shaken, and put it behind her entirely. By the time she rolled out of her small comfortable bed the dream had totally left her and she was ready to meet the day that was slightly stealing into her window.
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The first time she had had the nightmare she was seven years old. She told her father; told him that she felt it was warning her of something. But her father was a sensible no nonsense kind of guy and he responded by saying, " bah! Just superstition and bit of nerves Abriela. That's all. You must have had something at dinner last night that disagreed with. Bad food, that's the only thing that causes nightmare. I remember the carrots did seem a little off didn't they." And that was all the comfort she got. And it was comforting… until the next night, when the nightmare came again. There had been no bad carrots at dinner that night. She didn't tell her father about it ever again, though it came to her every night since the first. Abriela wasn't certain, but she would of bet that the cause of it wasn't bad carrots.
Her younger days had been spent doing household chores and looking after her baby brothers. She spent her nights in a sweat, being choked by yards and yards of sparkling golden threads of hair from her own head. This was all the life she knew.
Her father worked as a tree cutter in the Great Forest. The trees there were huge and she had always been proud of her strong father who was one of the great choppers and wood suppliers for their whole kingdom. She loved him greatly, despite the fact that he was indeed a great fool. Her father was one of the most needed men in the kingdom, but also one of the poorest. He was a drinker and a gambler. He loved his children, and had he known that his drinking would eventually hurt one of them, he would of stopped. Well, he might have stopped. For you see, when Abriela's father became drunk he said the most incredibly stupid and self-destructive things. Thus the reason he was so poor. He would bet the local baker that he couldn't bake a cake that tasted of lemons, and then of course, because this was an incredibly stupid bet for everyone knows of and loves lemon cake, he would lose and would have to give the baker half his pay check for the week. Things like this happened all the time. But once, a week before Abriela's dreams started, he said the stupidest thing he had yet to say, and possibly that anyone has ever, or will ever say. He said, to an apprentice of a great witch, that magic was utterly unneeded in today's modern world, that witches were a bunch of superstitious old hags, and that he has never feared and would never fear a person claiming to hold magic in his life. Of course the young apprentice went straight to the witch and told her every word, using a special charm that let him imitate Abriela's father's voice and expressions perfectly. The witch was able to see all the disgust and dislike and skepticism that had consumed the old woodcutter's drunken face when he had said those incredibly idiotic words. Every one knows that witch's hold grudges. And this particular witch, hazel was her name but it was forgotten long ago and now everyone just called her witch, was particularly hostile toward people who were particularly hostile towards magic, and was always the best at holding grudges. Needless to say, she was past angry toward the woodcutter. In a fit of rage, she set off for his cottage.
The cottage sat on the edge of the forest, on the edge of a cliff. It was small yet cozy, clean yet cluttered, isolated yet full of friendly shadows and ghosts. It was clear that it was comfortable with its inhabitants, and that its habitants were comfortable with it. The woodcutter was walking up a shaded path whistling (there was also a certain amount of stumbling seeing as how he had just come back from the local pub). Witch was disgusted. This man was going home to his children, tipsy! She crept closer. Flew actually. She had taken the form of her favorite animal, the crow. (When she was younger she had taken the form of the sparrow, but her old age had all but killed her frivolous side.) She perched on the cottage window. *
A little girl sat at the small wooden table reading a book. She was small with bright, curious gray eyes. She was pretty, not incredibly gorgeous, and there was no sign that she would ever be so. But, there was one characteristic that was absolutely breathtaking. She had the shiniest, most beautiful golden hair that witch had seen in her long life. It seemed to glow like sunlight and tumbled around her face, lightly sweeping her stooped shoulders. Witch was in awe; she could do nothing but stare as the little girl intently read her book. But then witch's trance-like state was interrupted by two very loud little creatures. They were exactly alike in every way; from their curly, unruly, blonde hair, to their height, and even the way they ran. Twin boys, thought witch disapprovingly. One boy was more than enough as far as she was concerned. Why did some people have to go and have an exact replica or something that would obviously turn out to be a little demon. The little boys ran over to their sister and started pulling on her arms, dress, and hair.
"Ella, Ella!" whined one little boy
"Ella, daddy's home and he's sick again. Ella when is supper?" said the other.
"Ella, will you read to us? I want to read the book too."
"Ella, dinner!"
"Ella! Read to me!" When Abriella could no longer ignore her siblings she stood up quickly, slamming the book and tossing her chin in the air.
"All right!" Her voice was firm with authority. "Supper is cooking. I'll read to you after supper. Where is our father?" She looked from one boy to the other, hands on her hips, one tiny eyebrow lifted.
Witch was shocked. Such a small girl, no older than ten, no younger than six. So young, yet she was like a little mother. Witch watched on in wonderment as Ella followed her brothers out the door and around the side of the cottage where their father lay… sleeping. "See Ella." Said one twin, running up to and kneeling beside his unconscious father. "He's asleep. He's sick again, or else he wouldn't be sleeping in the dirt."
"Go back inside." Said Ella in a tiny voice. The boys conceded. She knelt down next to her father and smelled his breath. Wincing, she stood up and walked to the well where she pulled up a bucket of water, which she poured over his head. The woodcutter sat bolt upright, surprised at being wakened so suddenly and so wetly.
"Supper is ready," said little Ella, looking disapprovingly down at him. She turned sharply on her toes and went back inside.
As she passed the window in which Witch perched, she stopped. She looked straight at Witch, blinked, looked again, then walked away. Something about that bird was odd, something just wasn't right. It seemed like the bird was watching her. But of course that was a stupid thought.
Witch watched as the tiny girl walked away, golden hair glinting in the setting sun. She would have the girl. That drunken man did not deserve such a treasure. No one did. She would have to hide the girl away, protect her from those who would have that perfect creature be no more than a servant. Witch endeavored to take the child that night, that instant even, but stopped before taking human form. She had forgotten in her determined frenzy that she was now old. She no longer possessed the strength she did when she was young; her powers were withered. But never one to be deterred from something she most wanted, she took flight. As she caught a wind that lifted her light body, sending it soaring high above the trees into the vast blue sky, she began formulate plans, to make decisions. Witch looked forward to the day when she would save the child; when she could take her away from those who did not deserve her.
That night, for the first time in her life, Abriela dreamed. She dreamt of golden strands of her own hair growing, and growing, and growing. Growing until they were wrapped around her legs, and arms, and worst of all, her neck. She awoke in a sweat, crying out.
Of course Abriela never knew of the circumstances before the beginning of her dreams. Three years later she never knew that the crow had actually been watching her. That it hadn't just been her imagination. She had never even thought about it past that single moment in time. She never knew that ten years after her birth, she would once again look into those eyes, though in another form, and would lose the life she had always known.
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Abriela crawled out of bed, dressed, combed her hair, and washed her face. When she went into the warm, inviting kitchen she saw that her brothers had beaten her to the breakfast table and that their father was preparing to leave for work. She cleaned up after her brothers and kissed her father on the cheek, wishing him a good prosperous day at work.
The front door of the small cottage flew open. A woman, stooped and gnarled with age, stood in the doorway. Her coarse gray hair hung over her hunched shoulders and to her feet in two wildly sloppy braids, which were tied at the ends with leather and raven feathers as black as death itself. Her eyes were set deep into her face, as if they were the sunken sockets of a skull. They were black and bottomless, a stark contrast to the ghostly white face that surrounded them. Her clothes were gray and old yet immaculately clean, and hung loose around her bony shoulders and hollowed stomach. Her small frame conveyed more strength than one would expect in one of her age, and her thin lips were set into a hard line of determination. The determined line parted and let loose a voice deep and steady; a voice that knew what it wanted and held no doubts that it would get it.
"I came for the girl." Said the old woman. To which no one in the cottage had a reply. The twins had fled under the table, Abriela stood in awe, and her father stood in front of her, his eyes wide, his heart thumping. His fists clinched so hard that his fingernails cut into the callused flesh of his palms. His body was tense and his mind was filled with foreboding. "Abriella is it?" asked the old woman. "Come to me child." She held out her hand to the girl; bony fingers beckoning, sharp nails, pointed and jagged.
Abriella wanted to scream. She wanted to run away, but found herself taking first one step then another toward the strange intruder. She saw her father out of the corner of her eye, standing stiff as a statue, captive energy coursing through his body like an electric current. She took the old woman's hand and was slightly surprise at how soft it was, the skin like silk under her own work hardened hands. Abriella wanted with all her heart to pull away, to run back to her father whose presence she felt like a single strong ray of sunshine on a bleak winter's day. But she could not. She looked into the cold black eyes of the old woman and saw but a glimpse of what taking this woman's hand had meant. She shuddered and felt a single tear roll down her cheek as the small cottage that was her home, her whole world dissipated right from under her, and she went spinning into blackness.
The old woodcutter stood helpless as he watched his daughter mechanically step forward and take the woman's hand. Then they were gone; his little golden Abriella and the strange, evil woman. The twins crawled out from under the table, running to the comfort of their father's arms. The old woodcutter, the one who used to have a daughter he called Ella, started to cry.
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Abriella stopped spinning and the total blackness that surrounded her lessened to shadows and shades of black and gray. Giant trees loomed above her and the faint sound of crunching leaves carried to her ears. The silky hand still held her own fear overwhelmed her soul. For this fear, she never talked, not once even to ask where she was, or who it was that had taken her from her family. And why. Though the fear did not keep her from thinking them. She pondered them for the eternity that they walked through that massive and dark forest. She pondered them until her brain numbed and she no longer cared.
Then a strong force was pulling her back, forcing her to stop. She turned her gaze behind her and up at her strange abductor, the woman with the steel gray hair and bottomless eyes. "Abriella," said the woman, trying to comfort the frightened girl, "You are home now." She pointed a bony finger upward. Abriella's gaze follow the finger up a massive tree with a pointed top that was so tall that it's tip seemed to touch the stars. The young girl turned back to look at the old woman, communicating her confusion by a single look. "Look again." Said the woman. And Abriella did. This time, she found not a tree, but a great tower. Row upon row of cold gray stone circled upward and upward, ending in a pointed roof made of gold. There was no door, that Abriella could see from her side of the tower, and when the old witch (as Abriella now knew she must be) walked her around the tower's perimeter she found there to be no door at all.
The old witch smiled at the young girl, noticing how her golden hair illuminated the wood. She knelt down on one knee in front of her new ward and took both her shoulders in her hands. "Ella." She said softly, using the familiar name in hopes of comforting her. "This is to be your home now. This tower. I made it especially for you. It's a magical tower of course. For you have realized that I must be a witch. And I am going to keep you here, to keep you safe, and you will have no one but me, and I will have no one but you. And together we shall keep each other company. But you must never leave me. I won't let you. That is what the tower is for. While it will supply for you whatever your little heart wishes, it will never let you out without my consent. And I will not give it. This world is too mean, too ugly for a child such as you. Do you understand me Ella?"
"What about my father, and my brothers, will I ever see them again?" spoke little Abriella for the first time since her abduction. "I miss them, I love them." She had tears in her eyes as she spoke these words, and do not think that they didn't affect witch (for we must know by now that it is she, the same witch named witch who the wood cutter offended those three years ago), for they did.
"Oh child," said witch with much emotion in her deep voice. "They did not deserve you." And taking the weeping child into her arms, the kneeling figure of witch embracing the golden haired girl vanished like no more than a bit of mist.
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Ten years passed slowly in the room at the top of the tower; the first filled with pain and tears, the last filled with impatience and frustration, all filled with a strange mix of loneliness and companionship that both plagued and pleased the tower's occupants. Witch proudly watched as her tiny pretty captive grew into a woman of beauty so great it was almost painful to see. Her eyes were a deep sapphire blue and her features soft and delicate. Her tanned, callused skin had softened to a pale pink that darkened in her cheeks whenever daydreaming. She was tall and slim and as graceful as the wind. Yes, Abriella was indeed a rare beauty in every aspect, but still her hair shone above all her other features. It glittered in the sunlight and illuminated the dark.
Witch obsessed over it. She came to the tower three times a day to brush it for Abriella, bringing with her each time a new bobble, or jewel to pin in it. She would stroke it, braid it, twist it, play with it for hours at a time, but never cut it. Not once in those ten years was Abriella's hair cut. When it grew to her legs she asked, "Witch, would you cut my hair for me?" And Witch flew into a rage. She threw things about, sent things hurling out the single tiny window, stamped her feet, and howled in languages little Abriella did not understand. Then Witch left. She didn't come back for three days, and when she finally did, she looked Abriella straight in the eye and said in a cold manacing voice, "You will never cut your hair. Do you hear me? I forbid it." Abriella heard, and obeyed, not wanting to ever see her guardian in such a state again. So her hair grew to her feet and past, falling in silken mounds on the floor next to wherever she sat.
The girl had at first been scared of the witch. She would often cry and ask to be taken back to her father and brothers. The witch never yelled at Abriella, never fumed and punished her for her sorrow. No, witch sat quietly beside the small girl, rubbing her silky bone like hands round and round in comforting circles on her back. She sat quietly until the young girl, thirsty for human conversation of any kind, even with the witch who took her from her family, forgave her enough not to hate her.
The girl and witch became close over ten years. The girl became like a daughter to the witch and the witch like a grandmother to the girl. They loved each other, for they had no one else to love. After the first year or so, Abriella never mentioned her old family again. But that did not mean that she never thought of them. They lived in her dreams and daydreams, they lived like ghosts in the shadows of her tower room, in the depths of the forest surrounding her. Though she learned to love her captor, for Witch loved Abriella also, she never forgot or stopped loving her father and brothers.
The tower was bewitched. To her and witch it was a Tower, to others who happened to pass by, it was a tree. No one ever saw its true appearance, no one ever really looked. And Abriella never tried to talk to the travelers who passed by her high tower window. To her they were strangers who might take her away from the only family she possessed: Witch. And Witch fed this fear. Not wanting to lose her child, and determined to protect her, she filled her with stories about the evil of man, the horrors of society. And Abriella never became curious about the world outside her tower.
Until her eighteenth birthday. "Witch," she asked, "May I have a book to read? Like the ones I used to read as a child?" And witch could never refuse her requests. But she might had she known what type of books Abriella had been want to read as a child.
"I must go for the day Ella, but as it is your birthday, you may have it. You'll find them in your trunk after I've gone." The trunk was magic. It did not work by doing Witch's bidding, but rather by reading the mind of its mistress, Abriella. Whatever she wanted, the trunk graciously supplied. This time, when Ella opened the trunk, she lifted out one very large red book. On the cover, in gold cursive writing it read Fairy Stories. Running her fingers across the wording, Abriella felt a shiver down her spine and quickening of her heart. She remembered these from long ago, from the little cottage in the forest on the cliff.
The stories inside told Abriella of a world much different from the one that Witch had told her of. True, it was a place of danger and evil. But good always prevailed, love always conquered evil. No one was alone. She read the stories day and night, memorizing and keeping each in her heart. But they made her restless. She wanted more, she wanted freedom from the tower that had been her home for half her life. But she never told Witch. For that would be to hurt her. And this she couldn't do. So she sat day after day, staring out her window, watching the tree's shadows move from one side to the other as the sun moved across the sky. And she dreamed; now more than ever she invented places and people who she had never seen or met, whom she was quite sure she never would.
One day, while Witch was braiding Abriella's long, long hair, she jumped up rather quickly, startled by some unseen menace. "What is it Witch?" asked Abriella, a worried look on her face.
"Nothing child, just a bit of urgent business I must attend to. I'll be back." And leaving behind nothing but a faint outline that faded quickly and quietly, Witch disappeared from the room. Abriella went straight to her window where she commenced to stare out into the trees and dream dreams that sank her heart. She stayed there for quite some time before her reverie was interrupted.
"Excuse me." Bellowed a deep melodic voice from somewhere down below. "But could you tell me exactly how you came to be in a tower in the middle of a forest?" Startled, Abriella looked down. He can't be talking to me, she thought. He can't even see me. She stared down at the man. For a man she realized it to be. There was no telling his height from up in her perch at the top of the tower, and his features were also fairly blurred, but his hair glinted like gold in the sun and he wore fine, expensive clothes.
"Hey, you there, young lady," he said. "How did you come to be at the top of that tower? There is no door down here."
"Are you speaking to me?"
"Why, yes. Who else would I be speaking to?"
"You can see me?" Then more to herself, "But how?"
"Of course I can see you. You're not invisible you know."
"But, the tower doesn't seem like a tree to you?"
"No! Are you daft or something?"
Witch must have left in such a hurry that she forgot something, or tore some of the magic in her hast to leave here, Abriella thought. "What is your name?" she asked the young man below her.
"Prince Timothy of North Kingdom. Of course. But you do live at the top of an inaccessible tower so I should forgive you for not knowing me." He said this with such an air of superiority that made Abriella's smooth brow knit together and her sapphire eyes glint with disgust. "And you are?" he asked.
"Abriella," she said confidently before her better sense could check herself. She wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. Well, she didn't think she was supposed to. She had never been in this situation before. "I… I live here."
"Oh you do? Well, how did you get in? There is no door down here?"
"A witch put me in. She lives here with me."
"You live in a tower with a witch?"
"Yes."
"Then you must be in need of a rescuer," said the prince with a confident air to his already confident voice.
"No, not really. But thank you."
"Don' t be silly, of course you need rescuing. And I will do it."
Abriella was quickly tiring of the Prince's insistence and wanted to get rid of him. "Dear Prince Timothy," she said in her fakest voice. "If but only you could rescue me, but I fear my captor shall be back any second and I dare not pit you against her evil and powerful magic. She will surely kill you, then whatever would I do?" The speech had done the trick.
"Fair maiden," said the Prince. "I must away for a while, but I will return for you. This I promise." And with final wave to Abriella, he mounted his horse and rode off into the forest.
When Witch came back that evening Abriella did not tell her about the Prince and the tear in the tower's magic. She should have, she knew this, but she didn't. She waited all night and several weeks for Witch to notice the tear herself and to fix it, but this occurance never came. Witch was growing weaker, though Abriella did not know this, and could not maintain all the magic she used to be able to on the tower.
Abriella grew more restless day by day. She had never thought of rescue before, of escape, but Timothy's proposal had affected every nerve ending in her body. She felt the need to leave with every inch of her now. She wanted to explore the world, to have adventures. And though she loved Witch, she felt it time to leave her. Maybe, she thought in her darkest and most secret thoughts, she'd try to find her father and brothers. But she never told Witch any of this. And it killed Abriella to keep it secret. One morning, after she had dreamed all night of climbing out the window, down a rope to freedom, she found a very interesting item in the magic trunk: a very long, very strong length of rope. Abriella had realized quite a while back that Witch's hold on the tower was weakening, but that the trunk had actually supplied her with a means to escape astounded her. She wasted away several weeks with the rope hidden under her mattress, a burning coil in her back as she slept.
She couldn't get out of the forest on her own. She could get down from the tower with the rope, but she could never escape that maze of trees. But if she was with Prince Timothy…
She began to pray that the Prince would keep his word and come back. It was her only hope, the only thing she wanted. And he did come. One dark night, when no stars dared peek out over the rain clouds, Prince Timothy's horse clopped up to the tower wall. The Prince dismounted and threw back his head, calling, "Abriella, Abriella! Show me your beauteous face!" The call woke the sleeping Abriella instantly and she rushed to her window and peered over the edge and down into the blackness where the voice was coming from.
"Prince Timothy?"
"Yes my love, it is I. Your Prince whom has come to rescue you from the terrible Witch."
Abriella lifted her mattress pulled and out the rope. Tying it to her solid bedpost, she threw it over the edge of her window and watched it fall with much apprehension. What if she fell too? Wouldn't it be much safer to just stay with Witch, to just stay in the tower? She needed courage. Too bad I can't find that in the trunk, she thought. But then something, idle fancy probably, made her push open the lid to the all providing piece of furniture. There, sitting on the barren wooden bottom of the chest, was a single white envelope. The single word, Ella, was scrawled in spidery handwriting across the front. Sitting in a chair, Abriella opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of thick cream colored paper covered in the same spidery writing. Ella it said,
I know what you are about to do. My magic has not failed so much as you think. I know you long for more than I can give you here. I know that I cannot protect you forever. Ella, my time on this world will soon come to an end, and I must make sure that you can survive in this hard world on your own. This cannot happen if I keep you in our happy tower any longer. I know you plan to leave, and I let you. Go with my blessing..
Witch
Abriella stood up with tears in her eyes. She kissed the paper and let it fall to the bottom of the trunk. She was about to climb out the window and down the rope when she noticed a break in the stone wall that had never been there before. Drying her eyes and focusing on the farthest wall from her, she soon discerned the form of a wooden door. Tentatively, she stepped over to it and turned the golden handle. It moved freely in it's socket and clicked. The door swung open to reveal a small corridor and a set of steep, spiraling stairs. Abriella descended them, coming, after what seemed an eternity, to a door just like the one that had appeared in her chamber. It too opened easily.
Prince Timothy stood, head craned back, hand shading his eyes, looking up at Abriella's now empty window. "Prince…" she said tentatively. He turned around, startled.
"What! How did you?!"
"Magic. She let me go."
"What! An evil witch never lets her captive go," said he, as if the thought of it offended him.
"She wasn't an evil witch! She was my family." She threw the Prince a look full of venom, then changed her mind, softened her features, and threw him a dazzling smile. "You will of course take me to the nearest town? I am ever grateful for your rescuing me."
"Of course your are! And of course I will! I am not such a cad as all that! And you are perfectly welcome my Lady." He was enjoying just looking at Abriella, her beauty astounded him, and quite frankly, he planned on making her his wife and queen. The prince could not take his eyes off the long, flowing, golden tresses that fell gracefully, like a waterfall reflecting sunlight, down her slim height, ending in a soft, still pool at her feet. He wanted to reach out and gently stroke a strand, to wind it round his fingers and arms, to see if it was, as he believed, quite possibly the softest silkiest thing in the world. "Your hair, Lady Abriella."
"Yes?"
"Well, it's unusually long." was all he could manage while entangled in an admiring stupor.
Abriella looked back at her hair, she was standing a good three feet away from the doorway and it was still leading into the tower. Then pulled it toward her, gathering it in her arms. It gathered dirt and leaves as she drug it across the forest floor, and lost some of its luster. But neither Prince nor newly freed maiden noticed.
"I suppose it is," said Abriella as the Prince helped her onto his horse and mounted it himself. A whole world of opportunities and adventures lay before her, possibilities seemed boundless. The world was hers. She smiled at the Prince. He was rather goofy looking and not at all the brightest lad she had ever imagined. She hoped he wouldn't cause too much trouble when she left him at the first town they came to. For Abriella had no intentions of staying with her "rescuer." She would find her own path in life, follow her own dreams to a new beginning. And I just might start, she thought, by cutting my hair.