Ravishing Rapunzel (Passion-Filled Fairy Tales, #6)(40)

Rapunzel froze, her eyes now examining this woman in the low light of the room. The woman who had been kind to her. The woman who said Rapunzel looked a bit like her daughter. She had green eyes like Rapunzel’s and blond hair, too. But her nose was thinner, daintier than Rapunzel’s. Her cheeks were flatter, wider, a less pronounced bone structure than Rapunzel’s, but she turned to look at the girl who lay there, sound asleep despite the hubbub. She did look like Rapunzel. Same nose, same high cheekbones. She wondered, when the sleeping girl awoke, if her eyes would be emerald green, too.

“We looked for you everywhere,” Rosalind said. “We went back to our old home, back to hers, but no one had seen the old sorceress. And no one had seen you.”

“I’m sorry,” Eldon said, slowly rising from his knees, as if rising were difficult for him. “It’s my fault she took you.”

Rosalind shook her head and spoke softly to her husband. “I told you, it was both our fault. I wasn’t thinking and you were scared. We were both scared, and we had to forgive each other to move on.”

Rapunzel eyed the tenderness in Rosalind’s eyes toward her husband. When the woman turned back to her, that same tenderness was still there, only now it was directed at Rapunzel. And something in her heart swelled and wanted to return that tenderness. It was a tenderness that Mother Gothel had never, in all their years together, offered. She could feel a tear trickling from her eye. “She told me my parents didn’t want me, that they were wicked people who didn’t care what became of me.”

Rosalind shook her head and stepped closer to her daughter “Dear child, no,” she said. “We always wanted you. We even keep a bed for you. It’s just a straw mattress, and we use it mostly if we get a visitor, but we call it ‘Rapunzel’s bed,’ because we’ve always hoped we’d find you again.”

With that, Rosalind took a final step and threw her arms around her daughter. The embrace felt like coming home, like Rapunzel had found a part of herself that she hadn’t known was missing. She let the tears out. They were happy tears, and stayed in her mother’s warm embrace for much too long.

*

Rapunzel spent the next month getting to know her family, learning of how they decided to move someplace new and have another child. Her father, Eldon, worked for a local baker, while her mother worked as a barmaid. Rebecca, Rapunzel’s sister, worked in the local book store.

Rosalind and Eldon knew a man who traveled to Gresham for trade every two months, and they had word sent to Giselle about Rapunzel’s whereabouts. They kept her well and helped her birth what turned out to be two babies, a boy whom she named Brantley and a girl whom she named Brianna. She thought Bradyn would like the names.

As soon as she was well enough to travel, Rapunzel told her new family that she had to go. She had to find Bradyn.

Rosalind cried. “No, Rapunzel,” she said. “Not when we’ve just found you.”

“I must find Bradyn. He must know of his children.”

Rosalind fretted and moaned, but eventually, she saw the truth of Rapunzel’s plan. She went to Bradyn’s kingdom, only to learn he was missing. It was then that she wandered from town to town, with the children in tow, hoping to find her love. But, as much as she searched, he alluded her.

It was a happy time for the twins, though. They loved the people and seeing the sights. And even though Rapunzel had believed Mother Gothel had taught her little that she would need to know for the world, she realized she was wrong. Mother Gothel had taught her that people cannot be trusted to see the good the in the world. Mother Gothel was a prime example. She saw almost exclusively evil. And to be sure, while it was there, it wasn’t all that was there. There was so much more. And she tried to give her children that knowledge while still ensuring that they knew that not all were kind and good, but that most were.

After a year of searching to no avail, Rapunzel returned to Rosalind and Eldon’s little house. Rebecca had been married off that previous winter, so the little home was happy to welcome Rapunzel back.

She planted a garden in their backyard and tended to it the way Mother Gothel had shown her, and the plants that grew were always robust and tasty. Soon, people heard about her garden and came from all over to buy from her. It was wonderful, and Rapunzel made much money, which she used to help her parents fix up the small cottage.

One afternoon, Rapunzel decided to take a walk in the woods near the cottage. Her parents were keeping watch over the children and she wanted a bit of exercise, so she wandered further off the path than she should have.

Before long, she heard what sounded like a wounded animal. One that was in pain and misery. It was a sound of longing and loss, and for some reason, it called to Rapunzel. She ran toward the noise, knowing whatever beast was making it was probably a lost cause, that it was probably dying. But she had been alone, she had been in despair, and all that she had wanted at that time was a warm hand to rest on her shoulder and tell her things would be alright. A creature in such pain deserved not to die alone. So she kept running, following the sound, ignoring the denser brush, the thorny growths that tore her skirt, until finally she found the source of the wail.

Curled in a ball, his hair long and shaggy, a beard covering his lower jaw, his clothes tattered, lay the creature. A man. A man she recognized.

“Bradyn,” she breathed out, a faint sound of shock mingled with joy. She went directly to him, kneeled beside him and said his name, over and over again. His wails stopped, as he listened to her, and the contorted look of pain on his face vanished, replaced in moments by a smile.