Chapter 6

Rapunzel helps out her aunt around the house to the best of her ability, considering she's never been expected to do a chore in her life. Not only does she feel a sort of obligation toward Willow and her hospitality, but she enjoys cooking and cleaning, and taking care of the horses and the chickens, though it's different than what she's used to.

She's working in the kitchen one afternoon, watering the indoor plants. She hears Cassandra shuffling around somewhere in the next room of the main floor. The house is otherwise quiet with Willow having gone to the town's market.

Rapunzel raises her watering can over a potted plant on the windowsill above the sink. The motions are such routine to her now that as she gently presses her fingertips to the leaves to separate them, she almost doesn't react to their vibrant green colour slowly melding into a murky brown.

Somehow, what was once lush and full has now shriveled up into an intensely dried and decayed version of it, right in front of her eyes.

After a stunned moment, Rapunzel jolts away with a gasp, the watering can slipping from her fingers. Metal clatters loudly against the hardwood floor, interrupting the silence.

Cassandra worriedly rushes into the kitchen a few moments later, her palm lingering on the doorframe, "Rapunzel? You okay?"

Rapunzel's back is turned to her. The watering can is leaking at her feet. She doesn't turn at the sound of Cass' voice or even give any response that she'd heard her. Instead, she's staring ahead at the window with her shoulders so tense they reach her ears.

Cassandra approaches her slowly, thinking she may have gotten spooked by a mouse or a huge spider. "What is it?"

"I… I don't know," Rapunzel's gaze is intensely fixed on the wilted foliage in front of her, her mouth agape in awe. "It just… died."

"What are you talking about?" Cass' eyes shift between her and the apparently dead plant she seems to be so bewildered by.

"I just touched it and it… it died!" Rapunzel gestures at it in disbelief, unsure how else to explain it.

There's no way she could've imagined it. It happened right in front of her. One minute it was green and healthy, the next it wasn't.

Hesitantly, Rapunzel pokes at it with her finger, as if she's afraid it might jump back at her, maybe hoping to change it back somehow. But it doesn't. Nothing happens.

An idea comes to mind. "Wait." She turns, darting her head around the room in search of something. She locates a much larger bunch of ivy, hanging in a decorative basket from the ceiling. "Look, look."

She slowly reaches her arm up toward it. As her fingertips make contact with one of the leaves, a brown splotch forms beneath her finger. Then like a contagious disease, it spreads up and along the vine of ivy until they've all lost their colour too, withering and drying out instantaneously.

"Whoa," gapes Cass, "That's… different."

For a while, they both just stand there, staring up at it with puzzled expressions on their faces.

An eeriness simmers in the room.

"What's crazier?" Cassandra asks without taking her eyes off it, "Glowing birds leading you to mysterious caves, or plants instantly dying at your touch?"

"Rapunzel, what is going on?" Cassandra rushes after her through the doorway of their bedroom.

The princess had practically run upstairs with a sudden determination after whatever just happened in the kitchen, without another word or an explanation as to why she hasn't yet looked Cass in the eyes.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but the drawings that I found in that cave, they're the exact ones I was telling you about." Rapunzel makes for the desk across the room, frantically flipping through a specific book on its surface, one that she had borrowed from the library. She stops at a particular page, pointing at it. "See?"

Cassandra peers over her shoulder, also leaning over the desk. Between paragraphs of text is the familiar image of a black silhouetted castle.

"If they're related to this moonstone, then that must mean it relates to me," Rapunzel continues. "And I think whatever just happened connects to it somehow. Maybe I was meant to find that cave." The thought of going back there had crossed her mind since, but the entrance was completely blocked off after the cave-in.

Cassandra crosses her arms, staring down at the page in thought. "It was almost convenient how it seemed to appear out of no where."

"But why?"

Cass chews her lip in thought, staring blankly down at the open book before them. She shakes her head. "I don't know. But I don't like it. All of this just seems like bad news to me."

Rapunzel sighs deeply. She turns to face her, but her gaze remains lowered. "I know what you mean. Ever since we left that place, I feel… different. And not in a good way. In a very, very bad way."

"Yeah? I wonder if you suddenly being able to kill plants has anything to do with that."

"It's not just that," Rapunzel rubs a thumb across her opposite palm, staring absently down at her hands. Her voice lowers with devastation as she admits, "I can't heal anymore."

Cassandra watches her with intrigue, brows creasing slightly. "How do you know?"

"When I healed you, there was this… light. I felt it inside of me somehow. And when I touched those plants, that light was just gone." The princess slowly curls her fingertips, remembering the slight tingle she had felt within them just a few minutes earlier. "It almost felt like darkness. Even now, I can still feel it a little. Like it never left… What if it never leaves?"

Cassandra's eyes trail back and forth thoughtfully. "When you read those words on the wall, that's when the cave collapsed. If reading it… changed you, maybe we made a mistake in going there. Maybe you weren't meant to find it."

"Or maybe I was," Rapunzel meets eyes with her then, the unease behind her own theory silencing them both for a while. Something about this brings a fear to the surface she's not sure she'll ever be rid of. A part of her doesn't even want to ask. "Do you think it's her? Do you think… she survived somehow? And all of this is her coming after me again?"

Something twinges within Cassandra's chest at that, at the mere thought of her mother alive. Or maybe it's only the mention of her that causes her stomach to twist. But even Cass knows it isn't possible.

Cassandra's voice is rather emotionless as she says, "She's not coming back. She's dead." As crazy as all of this is, none of this feels like her doing. No, this is something else entirely. Something that Cassandra can't quite place.

Rapunzel presses her lips together, realizing now how unlikely that would be. A part of her had known it already, while another will probably always be paranoid about it. Considering the look on Cassandra's face right now, she regrets mentioning the woman in the first place. "You're right. I just don't know who else would do this. Nobody else knows about me, do they?"

Cassandra wishes she knew the answer to that, but after Gothel, there's no telling what other secrets may be out there that they don't know about. "I don't know, Raps."

With a defeated sigh, Rapunzel lowers herself to the chair in front of the desk, observing the book quizzically.

As she scans the pages in front of her, she remembers the ancient kingdom she'd read about at the library, and the legendary moonstone that once resided in it. "This castle… The kingdom of Celest… It has to be the same one I found on the wall. Except that one had big spikes around it." As she speaks, she places a sheet of parchment directly over the page, and begins to trace the spikes around the castle with charcoal.

As Rapunzel continues to sketch what they'd seen in the cave, Cassandra blinks at it in sudden realization. She leans further forward over the desk, gripping the edge of it. "Wait a minute… Those look like the rocks from the cave." Her eyes are fixed downward while hovering near Rapunzel's shoulder. "I'd never seen them there before. What are they?"

Rapunzel stares down at her own sketch for a few moments. "I don't know, but I know how to find out."

Suddenly, she stands. Cassandra steps back as Rapunzel pushes out her chair. She walks across the room, opening the wardrobe and beginning to rummage through it in search of something.

Cass follows her with her gaze. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to find that castle," Rapunzel states with her back turned, voice slightly muffled from having her face buried inside it.

"What?" It isn't until now that Cassandra realizes Rapunzel isn't looking for something, but packing.

"It's the only clue I have to figuring out what happened to me," she explains. "And if that's all I have to go off of, then I have to take that chance."

Cassandra appears by her side, deliberately keeping her voice calm. "Rapunzel, let's just talk about this."

The princess stops suddenly, turning to face her. They're standing directly in front of each other now. "Cass. This entire time, I've wanted to know why I can do what I do, and how any of it is possible. This could be my chance to finally find out."

"How?"

Rapunzel shrugs, but her voice remains hopeful. "Maybe the bird will lead me to it. The way it did with the cave."

"And what if it doesn't?" Although Cass hadn't seen the bird herself, she doesn't doubt that Rapunzel saw something that day.

"I have to try. And if nothing comes of this, then at least that way, I'll know."

For a while, Cassandra just stares at her with her brows creased slightly, a part of her at a loss of what to say now.

Rapunzel notices the desperation in her eyes – the helplessness that tells her Cass doesn't want her to do this, but won't break her heart by saying it.

"I know it's crazy…" begins Rapunzel, "But I just can't help but feel like this is something I was meant to do. You said it yourself, I started something by reading those words in the cave, and now I have to fix it. Or at least find out what it meant."

"Rapunzel, I understand. I really do. But I think you need to stop for a second, and just think about this, okay?" Cassandra's voice remains soft. Clearly, this means a lot to Rapunzel. Cass would probably feel the same way if it were the other way around. But something about this seems all too fast. "We don't even know if this is anything to be worried about," she points out. "And you know how dangerous it is out there. Especially for you. If anybody finds out about this… I just don't want you ending up getting hurt."

Rapunzel sighs softly at that, unable to disagree. "I know."

Willow's muffled voice from downstairs snaps them both out of their thoughts, "Rapunzel! Can you come down here for a minute?"

They only gaze silently back at each other for a few moments. Rapunzel's expression remains unconvinced, unsatisfied with Cass' response yet knows that she's right. Cass reads it on her easily, and a part of her feels guilty for causing it.

Rapunzel turns and leaves through the door, drowning the bedroom and Cassandra in silence.