thicker than the dust â¦
She knew him the moment she opened the door, though he was all but unrecognizable by then, sallow and torn, his raiment in rags.
And there were those empty black sockets, the size of ravensâ eggs, where his eyes had been.
He said only, âRapunzel.â A word heâd spoken at a thousand thresholds already, and been a thousand times turned away, either cruelly or kindly, for the destitute and deranged creature heâd become. There is, as heâd learned, a surprisingly fine line between a prince on a quest and an addled, eyeless wanderer who has nothing more useful to offer than that single, incomprehensible word.
Heâd come to know the condition of the benighted; he who had, a year earlier, been regal and splendid, broad and brave, climbing hand over hand up a rope of golden hair.
When he stood finally at her doorway, having sensed the presence of a house, having felt his way along its splintery boards until he touched a threshold â¦
when she reached out to touch his scabbed and bleeding hand, he recognized her fingers a moment before they made contact with his skin, the way a dog knows its master is approaching, while still a block away. He emitted a feral moan, which might have been ecstasy or might have been intolerable pain, as if there existed a sound that could convey both at the same time.
He couldnât cry. He had no more apparatus for that.
Before he and Rapunzel left for his castle, she made a quick excuse, ran back into the shanty, and took her hair out of the bureau drawer in which sheâd been keeping it all the past year, wrapped in tissue, as safe and sequestered as the family silver.
She hadnât looked at it, not once, since the witch took her to the shanty.
What if it had turned drab and lusterless â¦
what if it was infested with mites â¦
what if it simply looked ⦠dead ⦠like an artifact in some small local museum â¦
But there it was, two twenty-foot-long red-blond skeins, intertwined, shining, healthy as a well-fed cat.
She slipped the hair into her bag before leaving with the prince.
They live in the castle now. Every night the prince lies beside her and caresses her hair, which she keeps by the bedside â¦
which she washes and perfumes â¦
which she pulls out discreetly, as the prince finds his way into bed.
He buries his face in her hair. Sometimes she wondersâwhy doesnât he ask how the hair still grows from her head? Didnât he see it severed by the witch? He canât possibly imagine itâs grown back in only a year.
But he still, with his eyeless face swaddled by her hair, lets out (though less and less often) that terrible howl, that protestation of revelation and loss, that mewling tentative as a kittenâs yet loud as a leopardâs growl.
It seems heâs either forgotten or prefers not to remember. So she never reminds him that the hair is no longer attached â¦
she never reminds him itâs not a living thing any longer â¦
she never reminds him itâs a memory that she keeps intact, that she maintains in the present, for him.
Why would he want to know?
Â
EVER/AFTER
Once, in time, a prince lived in a castle on a knoll, under a sky brightened by the royal blue of the harbor. Arrayed along the slope that descended from castle to harbor was a town in which carpenters made widely coveted tables and chairs, and bakers baked cakes and pies that people traveled some distance to procure. Every morning, the local fishermen hauled in nets full of sparkling silver fish; every night the smell of grilling fish filled the air. The avenue that skirted the harbor was lit by cafés and taverns, from which music and laughter were gently wind-borne throughout the town and into the forest, where hares and pheasants paused occasionally to listen.
When the prince turned eighteen, he was married to a princess from a nearby,
She knew him the moment she opened the door, though he was all but unrecognizable by then, sallow and torn, his raiment in rags.
And there were those empty black sockets, the size of ravensâ eggs, where his eyes had been.
He said only, âRapunzel.â A word heâd spoken at a thousand thresholds already, and been a thousand times turned away, either cruelly or kindly, for the destitute and deranged creature heâd become. There is, as heâd learned, a surprisingly fine line between a prince on a quest and an addled, eyeless wanderer who has nothing more useful to offer than that single, incomprehensible word.
Heâd come to know the condition of the benighted; he who had, a year earlier, been regal and splendid, broad and brave, climbing hand over hand up a rope of golden hair.
When he stood finally at her doorway, having sensed the presence of a house, having felt his way along its splintery boards until he touched a threshold â¦
when she reached out to touch his scabbed and bleeding hand, he recognized her fingers a moment before they made contact with his skin, the way a dog knows its master is approaching, while still a block away. He emitted a feral moan, which might have been ecstasy or might have been intolerable pain, as if there existed a sound that could convey both at the same time.
He couldnât cry. He had no more apparatus for that.
Before he and Rapunzel left for his castle, she made a quick excuse, ran back into the shanty, and took her hair out of the bureau drawer in which sheâd been keeping it all the past year, wrapped in tissue, as safe and sequestered as the family silver.
She hadnât looked at it, not once, since the witch took her to the shanty.
What if it had turned drab and lusterless â¦
what if it was infested with mites â¦
what if it simply looked ⦠dead ⦠like an artifact in some small local museum â¦
But there it was, two twenty-foot-long red-blond skeins, intertwined, shining, healthy as a well-fed cat.
She slipped the hair into her bag before leaving with the prince.
They live in the castle now. Every night the prince lies beside her and caresses her hair, which she keeps by the bedside â¦
which she washes and perfumes â¦
which she pulls out discreetly, as the prince finds his way into bed.
He buries his face in her hair. Sometimes she wondersâwhy doesnât he ask how the hair still grows from her head? Didnât he see it severed by the witch? He canât possibly imagine itâs grown back in only a year.
But he still, with his eyeless face swaddled by her hair, lets out (though less and less often) that terrible howl, that protestation of revelation and loss, that mewling tentative as a kittenâs yet loud as a leopardâs growl.
It seems heâs either forgotten or prefers not to remember. So she never reminds him that the hair is no longer attached â¦
she never reminds him itâs not a living thing any longer â¦
she never reminds him itâs a memory that she keeps intact, that she maintains in the present, for him.
Why would he want to know?
Â
EVER/AFTER
Once, in time, a prince lived in a castle on a knoll, under a sky brightened by the royal blue of the harbor. Arrayed along the slope that descended from castle to harbor was a town in which carpenters made widely coveted tables and chairs, and bakers baked cakes and pies that people traveled some distance to procure. Every morning, the local fishermen hauled in nets full of sparkling silver fish; every night the smell of grilling fish filled the air. The avenue that skirted the harbor was lit by cafés and taverns, from which music and laughter were gently wind-borne throughout the town and into the forest, where hares and pheasants paused occasionally to listen.
When the prince turned eighteen, he was married to a princess from a nearby,
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