Ravishing Rapunzel (Passion-Filled Fairy Tales, #6)(27)

Mother Gothel nodded. “We do change as we mature.”

“Well, that’s what I was wondering about, mother.” she said, and then paused. “Do you think that perhaps I could go out without getting ill?”

Mother Gothel swallowed hard and looked at her daughter. “Dearest, I don’t know why you keep suggesting this. I’ve told you, no,” she said. “It’s been my experience that we do not overcome our maladies without help.” She looked into her soup and took another bite. “Help like that given by the FaeRisen. I think you should join us, and I’m sure they could cure your malady. And then you could be truly safe.”

“Truly safe?” Rapunzel asked. “What do you mean?”

Mother Gothel waved her hand around the room. “This, dear,” she said. “Yes, it is to protect you from the illness you would suffer out there, but also to protect you from the evils. So many evils. So many people who throw themselves at lovers, only to be discarded. So many young maidens swindled and tricked by awful young men who are only interested in stealing their virtue. If you weren’t safely tucked away here, I would worry about you. I would worry that your mother’s loose nature were coming out.”

Rapunzel’s heart thudded out of rhythm. “My mother’s loose nature,” she said. “What do you mean? I thought you didn’t know much about her.”

Gothel shook her head, and sucked in a deep breath. “Thank you for the lovely dinner, child,” she said. “But I suppose we must now discuss important matters, ones that I should have discussed with you before. Ones I must discuss if you are going to join us.”

The older woman stood and walked over to the staircase. She headed to the upper level of the tower, and Rapunzel followed. Her mother went one more staircase up and headed out to the tower roof.

When Rapunzel stepped onto the roof, her mother was standing at the edge of the garden. It was dark out, but the full moon brightened the sky enough to see. Mother Gothel gently stepped around plants until she found a patch of rapunzel, and bent down and plucked a plant from the brown dirt. She walked back over to Rapunzel and handed it to her. “Your namesake,” she said.

Rapunzel nodded.

“The woman who gave birth to you,” Mother Gothel said, her lips curling into a sneer as if the very words curdled in her mouth. “She was one who had been a town hussy, roaming around from man to man. She finally settled with your father, a farmer, but it didn’t quell her lusts. And when she became pregnant with you, she was like a northern buck. You know, those deer stud with twenty to twenty-five different does during the rutting season. They’re bestial in their drives. Well, one thing that can sate those urges is magical rapunzel. Your mother ate it. A gift from your aunt, but then your father stole more.”

Rapunzel tried to keep her expression neutral as she watched her mother, this mother who had always been so reticent about the family who had abandoned her. “What happened to them?” she asked. “Where are they? Why didn’t they want me?”

Mother Gothel scoffed. “We’ll never know why exactly. I suppose it was in their nature,” she said, her tone harsh. It was almost cruel enough to stop Rapunzel from asking more, but something about her mother’s answer was too harsh, too bitter.

“Yes,” Rapunzel said, trying to figure out what exactly was bothering her about her mother’s explanation. “But surely there must be something more. Why would he love her enough to steal your rapunzel, but not enough to keep me?”

Mother Gothel walked over, took Rapunzel’s hand in hers, and breathed out. “Dear child, do not trouble yourself with the why of their evil. They are part of the wickedness that I have sought to protect you from. It is why I have kept you hidden away. To keep you safe from so much evil.”

She looked out into the distance, though it seemed too dark for her to really be able to see much. Even during the day, all you could see was forest, but Rapunzel knew there were towns out there somewhere. And people. People her mother was convinced were wicked. She swallowed as she looked out.

Mother Gothel patted her back. “I was glad to have you, my love. I have done nothing but try to protect you. But I can tell that you deserve more than tower life. I knew from the moment I saw your angelic face that you were magical. And I think you can become even more so. Joining us as FaeRisen will cure your ills and let you see the wickedness, while protecting maidens who did not have someone like me to protect them.”

Rapunzel stared out into the emptiness, searching for some sign that her mother was right, that the world was full of wickedness, that she should join the ladies who helped stop it. Yet Bradyn had described the FaeRisen as demons. And her mother had lied. For all these years, she had pretended to know little about the parents who had abandoned her. Yet, she knew all about them. Rapunzel suspected her mother knew why they’d abandoned her, too. She wondered if it hadn’t been wickedness, if perhaps they had been too poor to care for a child, or too sickly themselves.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Rapunzel asked.

“About the Fae?” Gothel asked.

Rapunzel shook her head, the weight of her hair, for the first time in her life, feeling onerous. “About my parents, what you knew about them.”

“Because they didn’t want you, dear,” she said, her voice plain. “What point was there for me to tell you more about those wicked people? I thought, in your wisdom now, you would want to know. You are older. You are more mature, as Giselle keeps insisting to me. I think that if you join the ranks of the FaeRisen, then you will do well. The magic of the Fae will allow you to overcome the illness your parent’s wickedness foisted upon you.”