You have to kill her.
Those words snapped Sunflower out of her dumbfounded stare. Her father was asking her to kill her mother! Was this the reason why her mother's mother was dead? Had Eugene told her mother to kill her mother? And had Rapunzel obeyed?
This was not going to end like that. Sunflower had always tried to be like her mother in all ways but one. She had never tried to leave the tower, and she had always known that if she did, her mother might die. Now she knew how it had happened, how her mother's mother had died when Rapunzel had left the tower.
Sunflower would not do as her mother had done.
"No," she said. "I will not kill her."
Why did Eugene want Sunflower to kill her mother? He had been searching for her for years. Was that why Eugene was searching for her? Not to bring her back, but to kill her? And why did he think that Rapunzel wasn't Sunflower's real mother? He'd said it himself that Sunflower looked like her.
Suddenly, Eugene shouted out, "Gothel! She's right behind you!"
Sunflower looked behind her, shocked. But it wasn't her mother's mother behind her. It was her mother, wearing her cloak.