Veda Mal sat perfectly still in her favorite armchair. Her eyes were closed. Her hands folded in her lap. A fire crackled in the large marble fireplace near her feet. On the small, round side table beside her sat a steaming cup of tea in a saucer. To an onlooker, she would appear to be asleep, but in truth she was far from it. When her mind was troubled, she would often meditate. A technique she had picked up on her travels to calm her mind and organize her thoughts, as she was trying to do at that moment. But, meditation was not coming to her easily that afternoon.

Lately, her thoughts had been filled with her goal of capturing Rapunzel and of her past. The images and thoughts swirled around one another until she had a hard time separating them. Rapunzel was closely linked to her past, although through no fault of her own. Veda knew this, but she had done too much and come too far to stop now. She knew the moment she hired the first team of kidnappers, there was no turning back. They had failed and the most recent group had failed. She had gained a grudging respect for the strength and resourcefulness of the princess.

Veda sighed in frustration. She unfolded her hands and set them on either armrest, absentmindedly picking at a loose thread she found on the right arm.

Nana Agnes loved this green leaf upholstery, she thought, trying to push her current problems out of her mind. It is so worn, but I could never change it.

The chair had been given to her by her maternal grandmother, as was the thick, ancient, leather-bound book she had propped up on an easel, next to the workstation that housed her alchemy equipment. Those two items and her memories were all that were left of the one person Veda had ever loved, or made her feel loved. Veda opened her eyes and stared into the fire, remembering a conversation she had with her beloved grandmother nearly fifty years earlier while her grandmother sat in this very chair. It was a conversation that had altered the course of her life.

As far back as she could remember, Veda had noticed a single odd behavior in all the women in her family, which was entirely made of women, no male infants survived more than a few days after birth, and men who married in all died within five years, as she came to learn. Her own father was long out of the picture, if he'd ever been more than a one night stand on her mother's part. The fact that she had her mother's maiden name denoted that her parents were never married. Veda had no siblings and only a single surviving female cousin.

Her mother and her mother's sister had always refused to talk about her family's odd behavior and long line of dead males. Finally, just after her tenth birthday, she broached the subject with her grandmother. Veda hadn't intended to ask when she did, but it was something that was always on her mind. She crossed the narrow lane to her grandmother's house from her own, intending to ask for some eggs from her chicken coop. She found her favorite family member as she often found her, sitting in her green armchair, covered in shawls and blankets and hunched over a fire.

"Nana Agnes, it's the middle of summer. Why are you huddled over a fire?" she asked, the question just springing to her lips.

"You shall find out on your own in a few years," her grandmother had told her, clutching her wool shawl around her shoulders.

"I've asked mama and Aunt Hilda, but neither of them will answer me. Auntie has never explained it to cousin Hortense either. Both mama and auntie bundle themselves up just like you and are always cold when I touch them."

Her grandmother motioned for Veda to sit next to her.

"You will feel the cold enter you when you become a woman. It will never leave you and will only get worse with age."

Veda remembered falling silent for a while, trying to understand her grandmother's vague words. She hadn't realized that her grandmother had been watching her with a look of amusement on her face.

"You have always been a bright and inquisitive child," she said. "You may be just what this family needs."

Veda looked quizzically at her grandmother.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Our family is cursed," her grandmother said. "It was cursed long ago by the actions of one of our own."

"How come mama didn't tell me that?"

"She doesn't believe," her grandmother said. "She and her sister refused to take up our family's art, our calling."

"Our calling?"

Her grandmother had pulled out a thick, leather-bound book, the one that rested on the easel in Veda's own home now. She had seen it many times, sitting with her grandmother's alchemy equipment and ingredients. Veda's mother had forbade her from ever touching the book. Her Nana Agnes opened the book to the first page and handed it to the ten-year-old Veda.

The brittle page was covered in faded, thin handwriting. The very bright Veda noted that the words were from an old version of their language. She turned the next several pages carefully to look. The handwriting on these pages had matched the writing on the first page. It was all in the old tongue.

"How old is this book?" she had asked.

"Hundreds of years, I don't know exactly. It has been handed down for generations in our family, from mothers to daughters, except for the first owner of this book. She passed it to no one, it was taken from her by her son. Read the first page."

Veda did as she was asked, turning back to the first page.

My name is Wolfgang, I write this as a warning to those who come after me.

My mother abandoned us, consumed with grief at the knowledge her life would soon end.

A woman of wealth, beauty and intelligence throughout her life she thinks of nothing but of herself.

Everyone, even her own son exists to serve her, fulfill her dreams.

She is vain, cruel, manipulative, and as we all discovered, evil.

In her grief, she ran from the manor into the wilds.

There she found a great power.

A gift from God she called it, a golden flower.

But, for our family, it is a gift from Satan.

My mother used the flower's power to regain her youth.

In doing so, it cursed our family.

A great cold has afflicted all the women in the family.

Both of my sons have died, just leaving my twin daughters.

My brothers are all dead, I the youngest, lay on my dead bed.

First, I leave it to my daughters, break this curse, destroy your grandmother.

Use her spell book to find a cure.

If you cannot find a way, pass this book on until one comes along who can.

Veda closed the book and sat, staring at it for a few moments.

"So this woman cursed us?"

"Not intentionally, I don't believe," her grandmother said. "Your mother refuses to believe the truth, that we are cursed."

"She feels the cold though, I know she does."

"She abandoned our craft, so has your aunt. It is up to you to continue my work."

"This is a spell book?"

"Yes, we are of a line of witches. How far back it runs, I don't know. You must find a cure. I know you can. You must find the flower and destroy it. Dear Mother will be destroyed as well."

"She can't still be alive, can she?" Veda asked. "She'd be hundreds of years old, right?"

"Through the power of the flower, she is immortal."

"And this is her spell book?"

"Yes, it has been added onto over the years as well. I don't have much time left, dear Veda. I give this book to you."

"No, Nana Agnes, we can work on breaking the curse together."

Veda looked away from the fire and closed her eyes. She never had the time to work with her grandmother on the curse, she had died only two months later. Veda had moved the chair into her tiny bedroom and delved into the spell book, memorizing every word within it. She had to hide the book inside the armchair. If her mother had found it, she would have burned it.

The woman felt a red hot anger flare up in her chest, the only heat she ever truly felt, at the thought of her mother. Her hatred for her mother had grown within her over the years and intensified tenfold once she reached the age of fifteen. That was when the cold set in, slowly at first, but by the time she was twenty, it and bled through her entire body. The warm rays of the sun could never reach her again.

To think that woman kept my birthright from me! Veda thought. I am a witch, descended from witches. She tried to take that from me, left me to a life of suffering from the cold.

Veda glared into the fire as she remembered the last time she saw her mother. She was twenty and in the middle of her first year of mind doctor school. While witchcraft had become her passion during the previous ten years, she realized that she couldn't just be a witch. The intricacies of the mind had always intrigued her, so she chose to also study mind doctoring. Her natural intelligence gained her easy entrance into the university. Her seemingly natural ability as a con artist provided money to pay her tuition.

She was mostly involved in the black market at the time, finding buyers for stolen goods and taking a percentage of the profits. She also had her hands in human and drug smuggling, but she wasn't as involved back then as she was in the present. Now, she headed a large smuggling operation that spanned the continent, not that many people knew she was the head of it.

Her mother had come to see, why she could not understand. Veda had stopped speaking to her when she was seventeen, when she had left home and the woman hadn't reached out her for three years. Her mother had shown up at her boarding house. Veda lived in the largest, most luxurious of the rooms. She could easily afford it with the money she made. Her mother, old and grayed, stood before her, in the center of the room. Veda was sitting in her grandmother's armchair. She had glared at her daughter.

"Your grandmother would be heartbroken at what you've become," she said, flatly.

Veda burned with anger.

"You dare mention her? You are the disappointment. You abandoned our family's craft!"

"Well, that's better than what you've done with it. Using your spells to bolster your luck and get yourself more money while others suffer? You grandmother tasked you with breaking the curse of our family!"

Veda frowned and then took a sip of her tea. Her mother was right, she knew. Her grandmother had tasked her with using the spell book for good and finding a way to break the curse and save their family. In the beginning, she had fully intended to, but in the decade between the death of her grandmother and her acceptance into the university she had suffered greatly. Poverty was not a pretty or forgiving thing.

I had to survive, I had no choice, she thought, remembering the three months she, her mother, aunt and cousin lived in a shack made of sticks and burlap sacks, freezing, starving and covered in mud.

She'd used the spells and potions in the book to help her family and find a place to live, she had poisoned the actual inhabitants. Her first kill had been hard and it had haunted her for a long time. But as the years went on, it became easier and easier and she found that she had a distinct talent for it.

She remembered the day a gang of ignorant and rash villagers who had dragged off her Aunt Hilda. They believed she was a witch. They burned her at the stake. Sometimes, Veda could still hear the screams of her innocent aunt as she burned to death in her dreams. Veda knew that the woman had been blamed for her own actions, but she certainly wasn't going to fess up to practicing witchcraft. It was alright though, Veda got her revenge on the village. Many of their children were taken and sold into slavery a few years later. They were the beginning of Veda's human smuggling operation. She felt no remorse for doing that.

But always will I regret not fulfilling my grandmother's wish for her, she thought. That is my only regret. I don't regret my other decisions. I had to survive and now that little bitch is standing in my way! I have to obtain the power of the golden flower!

Veda had been twenty-five when she graduated from university and began setting up her mind doctor practice in downtown Corona and took up the title of The Serpent. It was also a front for her flourishing smuggling operation, which would continue to flourish until the raid on Struthers Street nearly twenty years later. She'd had to move her network to Arendelle for a few years after the raid.

As she thought back to her twenty-five and twenty-year-old selves, she remembered the one event that gave her the impetus to try to find the golden flower and take it for herself, and when she learned the truth about her family's curse. She met Dear Mother herself.

Dear Mother was how her son and granddaughters referred to her in their writings in the spell book. The vast majority of the spell book had been written by Dear Mother, but her son, granddaughters and several others of their lineage added their own sections when they made a discovery. Veda herself added the most recent section only a year earlier about wheat she had learned in Arendelle about the heir to the throne and strange goblin-like rock creatures that lived in the woods.

She was eighteen, almost nineteen, when she met Dear Mother, she recalled. She knew exactly who she was the moment she walked by her on the street in Corona, even with a hood pulled low over her eyes. It was a vibe, a familial feeling she received from this woman. It had been nearly forty years, but she remembered every word uttered, every sight and sound around her.

It was if time stood still as I said those two words, she thought.

"Dear Mother."

The hooded woman stopped dead in her tracks, nearly dropping the basket of food she was carrying. She had turned to face Veda. Without warning, the woman had sprung forward and dragged Veda into the nearest alleyway. She had pulled her partway down the narrow alley, where they wouldn't be seen or disturbed. The woman shoved Veda up against the wall, both hands clasped around her shoulders. The hood had fallen back from her head, revealing her luxurious, curly, raven hair and the youthful beauty of her face. The woman' eyes were as gray as a cold winter sky and had glinted evilly at her. Veda remembered the chill that ran down her spine when she looked into those gray eyes.

Veda had noted the dress the woman was wearing. When she had pushed Veda up against the wall, her cloak had fallen open to reveal her outfit. She wore a rather lovely, but very old-fashioned style of dress. Veda had especially admired the beautiful deep crimson color of the dress.

"You are who I thought you were," Veda had said. She remembered that she felt far less confident than she had sounded.

"I haven't been called that for many years," the woman said. "How do you know I was called that?"

"I am your descendent. I have your spell book."

The woman had not been surprised by this answer, but she did let go of Veda's shoulders.

"You look like my mother," the woman said. "And everyone always said I looked like her."

"I sensed our familial bonds," Veda said. "You and I practice the same craft."

"To a degree."

"Your son Wolfgang wrote about you in your spell book. He never said what your name is, just called you Dear Mother."

"I insisted that all my children call me that back then. Mother knows best after all. My name is actually Madame Gothel."

"I'm glad I met you."

"Oh, why's that?"

"You can help me break the curse that has afflicted our family ever since you took the power of the golden flower," Veda said.

Gothel had looked at her quizzically.

"The flower…I don't know what you are talking about, child."

"Don't play dumb, your son Wolfgang wrote about it in the spell book. He said that it cursed the family when you used it to prolong your life."

Gothel burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, she doubled over as tears began dripping down her face. After a few very aggravating minutes for Veda, she managed to compose herself.

"The flower never cursed anyone, that's not how it works, child! No, I cursed my family."

Veda couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"You cursed your family? Why would you do that?"

"They rejected me, ME! They were all against me, but mother knows best! I was the head of the family, the matriarch!"

As Gothel spoke, Veda watched in wonder at the woman's theatrics. The woman spoke with great emphasis on her words and grand hand gestures, as if she were on stage. As if the entire world was only there to be her audience.

"They all ganged up against me the night I found the flower, said I was too old and needed to step back," Gothel had continued. "I left them to their scheming and went off into the woods. There, on a cliff by the ocean, I saw a drop of light fall from the sky and when it hit the ground, it bloomed into the most beautiful flower I'd ever seen. I used it to become young again. Then I returned to my manor and my treacherous family. They rejected me still! Accused me of being selfish, vain, manipulative and evil. Humph, I thought nothing but for my children and grandchildren, for mother knows best! They threw me out, even after I told them of the flower and its power, and the power we could have had. So, I paid them back. I cursed them to be cold and lonely for all time and kept the flower for myself."

"Then you can remove the curse! I have done nothing to you. I feel the icy cold of winter in the heat of summer! Please, remove the curse!"

"I have no way of doing so," Gothel told her. "The curse was worded as for all time. So, I imagine the curse will exist in your…my family until there are none of you left. Well, except for me of course."

"The flower then, let me use the flower as you do. I am a member of your family, the flower is also mine by birthright."

A crazy look came into Gothel's eyes. She grabbed Veda around the throat and began squeezing.

"Never, you will never see the flower! It is mine and mine alone!"

Veda had managed to knee Gothel in the stomach and escape the woman's strong grasp.

"I find it then on my own. I can find out where our family used to have a manor. It can't be that hard to find."

"Don't you dare touch my flower! I'd topple a kingdom to protect it! I'd also kill you!"

Veda didn't remember much after that. She had woken up two days later in a doctor's office recovering from a stab wound to the stomach. She had nearly died, the doctor had told her. Gothel was long gone. Veda was true to her word, she had tried to find her family's ancient manor, but its location was long lost to time. She had spent years upon years looking for the flower, only knowing that it was on a cliff along the sea. She was determined to take the flower for herself. She would remove the curse and then be the one to live forever, just like Gothel.

Then eighteen years ago, it was found and given to the Queen of Corona. The power was passed to the princess who was subsequently kidnapped by none other than Gothel. Veda had to look elsewhere for a cure to her curse, which had eventually lead her to travel to Arendelle on the words of a rumor about the cold afflicted royal heir. She would eventually live there due to the raid on her smuggling operation.

And then the princess escaped, killed Gothel, Veda thought. She lost her hair, but then regained it. I have to obtain the power! It is mine by birthright!

The woman added another log to the fire as she pondered her current reverent mood. She hadn't thought of her past very much for a few years. Thinking of the past had only reminded her that her access to the gold flower had been stolen from her. It also reminded her of her broken promise to her grandmother and that her grandmother would most likely be disappointed in her choice of lifestyle. Looking at her empty tea cup, she was deciding if she wanted to start another pot when there was a knock on the door.

Sighing in annoyance, she rose and walked leisurely to the large main door, opening it.

"What are you doing here?"

"Rapunzel, please let me in. It's me, you know, Eugene."

The dark haired young man had spent the past ten minutes knocking on Rapunzel's bedroom door. She hadn't even made a single sound in response. He was sitting in his wheelchair nearly against the wood of the door.

"Come on, Rapunzel," Eugene said. "This is getting old and it's not going to get you anywhere."

Still no sound came from within. Eugene sighed in annoyance.

I love her, but she can be so aggravating, he thought.

He decided to change tactics.

"Blondie, I would have thought you'd be upset about me being out of bed. You know I've been out of bed this whole time I've been outside your door. Oh and I've also been out of bed all day while you were gone. I went to the dungeon and the kitchen to talk to the people on the list you gave me. I about passed out from the exertion…"

Eugene's final statement got a reaction from within the room. The door flew open and a very irate princess stuck her head out, her hair billowing around her. Eugene felt a slight chill run down at the look on her face.

"Hah, I was just kidding about that, just kidding," Eugene said quickly. "I was just trying to get a reaction out of you."

Rapunzel frowned at him. It was obvious that she had been crying.

"Can I please come in, Rapunzel," Eugene pleaded. "I'm worried about you."

"Fine."

Rapunzel turned from the door and walked into her room. Pete wheeled Eugene over to the window seat where Rapunzel had settled.

"Could you give us the room please, Pete?"

The young guard nodded and took his post outside the bedroom door. Eugene turned to look at Rapunzel. He could see that she was trembling. He reached out to her, leaving it up to her to take his hand or not. She looked at his offered hand, but turned away. Eugene put his hand in his lap.

"Are you alright, Rapunzel? If you're upset about what just happened…"

"Of course it is, what are you stupid?"

Eugene was struck dumb by this totally out of character statement.

"Rapunzel, what's going on? I've never heard you talk like that."

"I don't want to talk. I feel like I am choking."

"Like you are choking?"

Rapunzel nodded. It looked like her shaking was getting worse. In a raspy voice she continued to speak.

"This place is choking me, I feel like the world is spinning around me and I can't breathe. I can't escape this place. I'm trapped in this place. I feel like I am back in the tower again and I can't get out. My heart is racing in my ears. I heard you at the door, but couldn't move, not until you said something that got me angry at you."

Rapunzel clutched her head in both hands. Eugene hopped out of the chair and onto the window seat to join the princess.

"You've just got yourself all wound up," Eugene said, taking her hands from her head, lowering them to her lap and gently holding them in his. "You need to breathe, Rapunzel."

He hesitated before he continued speaking. He had not wanted to mention the woman's name in any form.

"Did Dr. Mal suggest any techniques to help when this happens?"

"Yes, she gave me instructions for breathing techniques and focusing on other things."

"Do the breathing techniques she suggested. They should help."

Rapunzel nodded and they were silent for several minutes as Rapunzel got herself more under control. Eugene could tell that she wasn't quite over her panic episode.

"It-it wasn't just being forbidden to leave the castle that upset me," Rapunzel hiccupped. "I remembered something from earlier, something you said."

"What did I say?" Eugene asked, concerned.

"I don't remember exactly, but it was about you dying, but living a long time first before you die. I was just thinking, what if my hair keeps me young like it did for Mother Gothel? What if I have to watch all my family and friends die. Any children I have die. I'll be alone again, like I was in the tower. I don't want to have to watch you die and never age myself."

Eugene sighed.

"Rapunzel, you did age from the time you were born until now. I don't think your hair ever had any antiaging effect on you."

"Maybe you're right."

"It's not something I can explain away either way," Eugene said. "We just don't know enough about your hair and how it works. I'm sorry Rapunzel."

"It's not your fault, Eugene. Thanks for coming for me. I am feeling much better now."

"I'm glad I can be here for you. Please lay down in your bed, Rapunzel, and try to get some sleep."

"Will you stay here until I fall asleep?"

"I sure will."

"Good afternoon, Pete, Stan, I thought you were with Eugene."

"Good afternoon to you too, milady," Stan said. "We were, but a few things were shuffled around. Anyway, both the princess and Eugene are in the princess' room at the moment. Rapunzel was very, very upset by being confined to the palace by the king. Eugene was trying to console her. She was having a panic episode I think."

"Oh my," Queen Ariana said in concern.

She carefully opened the door and looked in. Rapunzel was sound asleep on her bed. Eugene was sitting in his wheelchair, head thrown back against the back rest. He was snoring softly.

"Let's not wake them," the queen said. "They both need their sleep. But, Stan will you please step into the room. Just to keep an eye on them."

"Will do, milady."

The queen hurried away down the hall. She needed to have Dr. Mal summoned to the palace to see her daughter as soon as possible.