Rapunzella, Or, Don't Touch My Hair

Part One

Seed

The Prophecy

In a garden, beneath a tower,

where dwelled witches, robbed of power,

gave breath and life to an avo-pear tree,

all fruit will ripen and set them free.

A son born of witch and might,

a thief who will learn to fear the night,

if witches’ magic he steals and drains,

the King will Persea with darkness stain.

One girl will be more powerful than all the rest;

two girls will in dazzling white be dressed;

three girls will fight, two will stand,

the other of us, and yet not of this land.

Keep them secret, and all will return;

say it’s a story, say it’s a game,

listen to our whispers, the truth you’ll learn.

Do not let him take her name.

The Seer

The Seer from Persea was friends with the trees.

Well, as friendly as one could be with trees. It was this that made her so good at her job. The great stretch of forest at the edge of Kingstown was the same stretch that had lined the horizon, just visible from the King’s palace and its surrounding estate, where she and her coven had worked for many years. She had often stared at that great, dense expanse, leaves stretching towards the sky as though trying to claim some part of it. Had often wished that she too could reach for the clouds, brush her fingertips against the sun and suck in the cool mossy air that surely tasted of freedom.

She had covered her crudely shaven head against the heat of the sun and left her coven that morning, headed deep into the forest looking for the right one. Long had her people known of the wisdom held in that age-old bark. Other plants had their own power, but willow trees were her favorite. The interconnected network of roots growing beneath the damp, fragrant soil had the capacity for far more than mere water absorption. This earth magic was what gave her coven power—power harnessed by the King.

Sneaking away from the palace was never without the quick two-step of anxiety in her breast, but her dreams had never steered her wrong before and it was worth the risk. There was a message for her today. The trees were calling to her. She could feel their whispers prickling along her skin. She walked among the willows, pressing her hand to their barks in a sign of respect and she felt, rather than saw, them bow in response. Eventually, after several minutes of treading carefully over fallen branches, stepping lightly over the sweet-scented mulch of dead leaves and decaying fruit, the Great Forest opened into a wide clearing and a river.

The great River Aphra was the most powerful source of magic in all of Xaymaca, guarded by the River Mumma, a mermaid of terrible wrath and beauty, who protected the river and the land that sourced it. The Seer bent her head as she ducked under the tree branches, before crawling into a cross-legged sitting position at its base. Touching her hands to the place where bark, roots, and earth all meet, she tipped her head upwards. Smiled. Breathed. And began to sing:

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalala

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalalalala

Brown girl in the ring

Tralalala

She looks like the sugar in the plum

The trees, her friends, sang with her in their soft whispering way. She felt the magic ebb and flow, until she was part of every willow in the land. As they sang, she felt her body thin and dissolve. Become liquid and gas and sparkle as the tree wrapped itself around her, absorbed her until she and the tree were one. And when she opened her eyes, she saw the great truths that the magic would only show to her.

And she was afraid.

Her people had not been free for a long time. They worked in service of the King, within his palace and its grounds. For generations he had bent their backs, bruised their skin, blistered their hands, bled them dry. The Seer was the only one who knew how old the King was, the only one who remembered a time before his darkness, before her sisters had been forced into submission.

Now, though, the Seer, lingering in the half-place between the Great Forest and truths brought to her by the land, could see change on the horizon. She summoned the dregs of her magic—what little had been left to her after the King had stolen the core of Persea all that time ago—and sent a message back through the tree. The willow understood, and as the Seer returned once again to solid flesh and bone, she felt her prophecy zinging through the roots and fibers of every plant and tree and flower around her. Hope and terror combined to hurry her footsteps to the path beyond the pines, which eventually would meet the road to Kingstown, and so she chased her warning, back to her sisters.

THE SALON

The beautiful lady is turning in a circle, slowly, slowly, in the empty window of the empty storefront.

She eyes each exposed brick, touching her fingertips to some. She studies each damp patch as though it is precious, as though she is a queen in her kingdom. She has reddish curling hair, almost as dense as yours, tied up with a colorful scarf, and she is adorned with many glinting gold necklaces. She is goosebumps-excitement, her smile is tired from dreaming, now brightened by the joy of acquisition, the warmth of accomplishment. A boy runs around her feet, enjoying the vast space, cluttered with an assortment of boxes, bags, and various lumpy packages containing mysteries. A kingdom all to himself. A young princeling with broad, bony arms and scuffed swagger.

You recognize him.

Recognize the scrawny limbs and lanky frame of someone riding the high-energy wave of a growth spurt as he mock-boxes an imaginary friend, lighter on his feet than any dancer in your class. He manages to make every swing of his arm look graceful.

Maybe he feels your fascinated gaze on him, maybe hairs go up on the back of his neck, maybe he senses your still shade, your small half-smile, and he turns.

He smiles. There is recognition, there is joy, and with it an unfamiliar swooping inside you.

Like missing an expected step.

Your palms tingle and you bury your face in Mum’s dress, but you’re laughing.

He waves a half-greeting. His mother looks from him to you. You can sense her questions and you see the boy’s mouth form your name through the window.

You know him from school? Mum asks, her expression curious. You shake your head. You’re six years old. You don’t know any other boys.

You clasp her hand tighter. Her manicured nails graze your skin. He boxes at the rec center at the same time as ballet. I’ve seen him.

His is the first smile to outshine your mother’s.

Well, it looks like his mum is opening a salon there. Your mum points as movers unload a van, dragging decapitated steam dryers into the room. Amid all the chaos, the queen is unmoved. Let’s go and help them.

What?

This is too much, really, too much for her to expect of you.

No, no, we can’t, we should go home, we should . . .

Come on, you can talk to your friend and I can find out what her prices are. It’s right around the corner from home, maybe I can finally make it to a hair appointment.

You squirm, wishing you were loose-tongued and lovely, not sulking, matching sleeping Saffy in her stroller. Mum tugs you with one hand, pushes the stroller with the other. Don’t be shy!

The queen is carrying a box of rollers, cradling them like a child, when your mum stops her. They talk and you look at the boy, who looks at you.

Hi! he says at last. I’m Baker, I seen you at the rec center with the dancers. His accent is a beautiful lilting thing, with strangely curling vowel sounds, partway between sounding like your little patch of city and somewhere else entirely.

Yeah, I know who you are. You are rude in your shyness but he smiles anyway.

These are my girls, your mum is saying and the queen smiles down at you. She is laugh lines and frown lines in equal measure. She places her hand on your head and gently tugs a pigtail. There is a mild crackling, like an electric shock. Even Mum notices. Ooh, static! Must be all the packing material!

So, little one. The queen’s eyes hold yours and you don’t know if it’s your childish imagination, but they seem to flash like lightning. What will it be? Her accent is soft but stronger than Baker’s.

Mum tuts. You’re so busy! It doesn’t have to be today; we can book it for when you’re set up?

But the queen shakes her head, earrings catching the light and sending gold dancing across the walls. No, please. It would be my pleasure.

You look up at her and quickly look away, squinting because looking at her is looking at the sun without glasses. You mumble something about just wanting to look like Mummy and both women laugh.

You can’t relax your hair like mine yet, Mush, you’re too young.

You wince at the private pet name in public, stare at the pavement.

Cane row would be nice; all little girls look cute in cane row, says the queen.

But they’ll take a long time, Mum warns. You’ll have to be a very good girl and sit patiently.

I don’t have a book, you say, horrified.

You like stories? Baker says. Mum tells the best stories!

Baker is looking at you, but you can’t look back at the son of the sun; his smile is too bright for your mortal eyes.

Yeah, you mumble. I like fairy tales—but the long ones, not the ones with the pictures we read to Saffy before bed.

You gesture contemptuously to your sister in her stroller, who is clutching a blonde Barbie beauty with a big pink dress.

Oh, fairy tales, yuh knuh? The queen’s accent reminds you of your grandma’s. It warms you inside out, and you find the courage to look at her again.

Yes. You are eager now. "I like Jack and the Beanstalk best. Or Hansel and Gretel. And now you’re on your favorite subject, the words come tumbling out. When me and Saffy play, I’m always the witch because imagine being able to do magic and living in a house of sweets! Those kids should have never just taken them without asking. They deserved what they got. But Saffy likes the ones where the girls just sleep and have shiny gold hair and get kissed."

Baker ewww’s in agreement and the mothers chuckle again.

Right, says the queen. She smiles at you. No kissing. No sleeping. No girls with shiny gold hair.

She holds out her hand. You hesitate—a life, a minute, a nanosecond—then take it. She smiles wider.

I think I have just the thing.

Cynthia and Ama

The sun was hot where they stood in the soil,

as they labored on in an endless toil.

Cynthia’s sympathy hummed in her voice,

We don’t have a choice.

Ama and Cynthia, two witches,

weeding and seeding and

sewing and mowing

while ruled

by a bejeweled tyrant,

an indolent king.

Their rosebush-green fingertips granted life

to his gardens, buds brimming with color everywhere they walked,

they tasted the red and smelled the blue and saw the scent bathe the air

in an arousing rush of synesthesia.

But this was a mere fraction of what they could do—

their creation did not fill them with elation,

instead a frustration,

knowing that they were trapped in so many ways,

but knowing that they had the power to slay.

Out of all the fruit they grew, only one,

a pale green pear,

would not ripen.

They respected its defiance,

its refusal to ripen and grow,

to put on a show

for another’s benefit.

They wondered if they’d made an error

in its planting,

but that was unlikely.

They were rarely wrong when it came to plants.

Cynthia chanted as she worked,

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalala

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalalalala

Brown girl in the ring

Tralalala

She looks like the sugar in the plum

Ama had been practicing her magic from the time she was born,

magic that defied the royal’s structured norms,

turning herself from Amos the boy that they misnamed her,

witchcraft feminine power soon claimed her,

and she found in Cynthia a half of her whole.

They fell in love,

bonded as one soul.

But they did not want to labor

from dawn to the grave,

would cast off their shackles with the hope of the slave.

They worked beneath the shade of the avo-pear tree—

and then, through the roots—a prophecy . . .

AVOCADO OIL

The queen leads you inside, through the maze of boxes and bags and bits and bobs, saying over her shoulder to your mum, We finally just had the hot water turned on today. It’s been a to-do acually. . . .

You’ve been living upstairs with no hot water? Mum’s voice is horrified.

We’ve had to fill the bath using the kettle. The queen is cheerful enough, but Mum grabs her wrist, her carefully manicured nails a blush pink vice.

Listen, we’re basically neighbors now! If that ever happens again, you come to me. Mum is scrawling her phone number on a page torn out of the planner she is never without.

Ah now. The queen is bright proud, palms protesting. We ’uh fine.

But Mum just kisses her teeth and stalks over to a stack of boxes, officiously imposing her organizational methods on this warm stranger, ordering everything into zones.

Baker shows you around.

And over here is where Mum says the till will be and she says she’ll show me how to use it so I can help, and over there is where all the dryers will go and over here will be a big cupboard and drawers so Mum says I can help her organize all the rollers and oil jars—

I’d suggest this for her, the queen says, holding out a jar.

Oh, we never normally use avocado oil! says your mum.

I don’t use this often; it’s a homemade recipe, says the queen. She tugs your pigtail again, and again the same jolt of electricity surges through your skin like a current. Special. But for you I’ll make an exception. My first customer.

She swoops down on you, her firm hands appearing beneath your arms, and the ground vanishes beneath your feet. You are placed gently into the lone chair in front of the lone sink. She wraps a gown around you with a Superwoman! and places a towel round you with a flourish.

You face the ceiling, propped up on a mountain of cushions so that your neck reaches the basin. The queen undoes your pigtails and begins to run the warm water over your hair. You feel your scalp being gently massaged by expert hands, with just the right amount of nail. You are happy like dessert before dinner, like summer playdates, like Mum coming home early from work. The queen pours three different potions into your hair, each smelling more wonderful than the last, until you can feel how shiny your hair must look. She dries it and begins to braid, running each thick curly section through with the avocado oil and your damp scalp is warmed. You feel almost immediately sleepy.

Stay awake. Mum gently nudges you. Val’s going to tell you a story, remember.

The queen’s name is Val, you realize slowly, ploddingly.

Val is piling up yet more cushions, adjusting the back of the chair so you semi-recline deliciously, saying, It’s okay, let the chile’ doze off if she wants tuh. Good stories give good dreams.

Why don’t you use it often? you ask. The avocado oil.

Because it’s a magic potion and I don’t want to waste it.

You giggle. You never forget that.

As your mind stumbles inevitably towards nodding heavy restfulness, you hear her begin,

"There was once a witch,

on the run . . . "

*

Later, you are woken. Mum pays. You’re hungry, you realize, and still tired, eyelids drooping. Mum and Val talk and talk; they can’t seem to say goodbye. It’s nice. Mum doesn’t usually have time for small talk or friends.

As they chat, Baker says, Mum said the avocado oil was only for her. He is puzzled. She said it was the only thing she had of home and she doesn’t have much of it left. But she gave it to you. He reaches towards you and then hesitates.

Can I feel your hair? The intimacy of the question startles you, but you don’t mind. You nod.

He lightly touches the end of your fresh braid. You’re special. I can tell.

Oh. You mouth the word.

Baker grins.

It was that night that the dreams started.

King Charming

Once upon a time there was a king.

A king who ruled his land

with a hand tyrannical.

An abundant land of water and wood,

every day the King, he stood,

and asked,

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

Mirror, with dark power contaminated,

shudders to life, opens mouth, is animated, says:

"Mate, I won’t lie to you—you are fit. Charming, even.

See your beard and your nose and your ears and your chin,

see your brow, your jaw, your eyes, your skin—

why, you, my old friend, are the ivory tower,

the snow-capped mountain, the alabaster power,

and—quite frankly—I fancy you.

But in your kingdom, you have dissent.

There are women who are not meant

to conform to your way of doing things.

Dark eyes see things that we cannot,

they hear the whispering of the leaves,

the murmuring of the trees.

These women are sorceresses.

On this morn, one of these witches,

called forth a prophecy—

the shadows heard and whispered to me:

"A son born of witch and might,

a thief who will learn to fear the night,

if witches’ magic he steals and drains,

the King will Persea with darkness stain.

One girl will be more powerful than all the rest;

two girls will in dazzling white be dressed;

three girls will fight, two will stand,

the other of us, and yet not of this land.

Keep them secret, and all will return;

say it’s a story, say it’s a game,

listen to our whispers, the truth you’ll learn.

Do not let him take her name."

"They’re tired of you touching their hair,

they’ll want it back, they’ll feel no fear—

so be afraid, Your Majesty. Of this

Black Girl Magic.

Unlike everything else in your kingdom,

it owes you no pleasure."

The mirror told the King what the prophecy decreed,

but he did not the warning heed.

Instead, in his hubris, he sought to bend

the prophecy of the witches to his end.

"Stolen Xaymacan magic I will employ

to grant myself a baby boy—

a babe born of magic and might,

my own champion in this fight.

Persea may think this prophecy will save her,

but he’ll turn the tide in my favor."

The First Dream

You are in a garden, illuminated by the silver-gold electrum of the moon and stars. Neatly ordered flowerbeds, herbs with leaves familiar and strange, tendrils of green climbing the high fences, which dissolve into the dense thicket on either side. It is as though this garden has been carved out of the forest around you. You think of the Eden in the picture book Bible your grandma gave you. Clear, vivid, sharp, sharp cutting colors, like turning the brightness and the saturation up on the TV. The air is pure, the birds are loud, the trees are the greenest green. It is nighttime, you know it is, there is no light—but it isn’t dark. You know this is wrong, wrong, wonderfully wrong.

From somewhere, far away on the horizon, however, there is darkness that is at odds with the bright blue-black of the sky, a pulsating void that consumes even the bright pinpricks of stars. You turn away, back to the garden.

The flowers are pure vermillion, rich cerulean, deep violet, blooming before your eyes, and you can smell the warm salty skin smell of a day in the sun even though there’s no sun anywhere­—

Where am I? you ask aloud, not expecting a response.

In my garden. My garden is in Persea. And Persea is in Xaymaca.

Xaymaca?

The Land of Wood and Water.

Two girls are standing behind you, leaning against a broad white swing seat. The girl who spoke could be a night-blooming flower or a comet dashing across the vivid sky. Her eyes are aflame with curiosity, and her night dress is spangled with stars. She is your height but her hair—her magnificent elaborate twisted and wrapped crown—gives her several centimeters’ advantage. She steps towards you and you see round, ripe features on her broad, full face.

The second girl is her opposite but no less striking. Smaller, bonier, darker-skinned, with a face made of straight lines and clean edges. Her hair is shorter but coiled looser and spun into many small braids that hang in neat precision to just below her ears. Her eyes are deep-set and seem to swallow the not-quite light of the garden around them. She is warier than the first girl, hanging back against the swing, twisting her long, thin limbs around it like a tree clinging to a stake for support.

They are simultaneously strange, these children of this night garden, and familiar. You know them, you think. But that is impossible.

Did you hear us singing? the first girl asks. Is that why you came? Her accent is lilting and musical.

I don’t know why I’m here. I’m dreaming, I think. What were you singing?

It’s the song we have always sung, she says. My sister and I. She gestures to the girl behind her. We are most powerful when we use our voices.

Will you teach me?

She grins at you, then looks at her sister. What do you think, Kam?

The girls eye each other in silent conference. A powerful current seems to pass between them, seems to charge the air around you, and the first girl asks, Do you mind if Kam touches your hair?

You are startled. Before Baker, no one had ever asked for permission.

You nod.

Kam reaches towards you and gently touches the end of your braid. Up close you see how kind her eyes are, how her hand shakes slightly. She gives a sharp intake of breath. Releases it. Looks at you. Really looks at you. Sees you.

Yes. Yes, we will teach you.

She nods to her sister, waits a beat, and then,

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalalala

There’s a Brown girl in the ring

Tralalalalala

Brown girl in the ring

Tralalalala

She looks like the sugar in the plum

Though your bed is far away, this is a homecoming.

The song is like sinking into a perfectly temperate bath, sugared plums and smiling. The charge between you swells in time with the music. You all hold hands, palms warm and smooth beneath your own. When Kam squeezes your fingers, you feel it—something like an electric shock.

You stand with them, pulsating with the life around you. Your feet are bare in the grass, like theirs, fronds settling between your toes, but you feel no cold. You had often wondered why moths, if so attracted to brightness, didn’t simply emerge during the day instead of waiting till night. But you understand now. Understand the magic of a vivid bright spark, shining among the dark.

You feel a low tug inside and the vivid dark night around you begins to blur. You’re waking up, you can feel it.

What’s your name? you ask the taller girl, the girl with the hair that seems to breathe all on its own.

Zella, she says.

Will I see you again? you call out as wakefulness claims you, pulling you towards the surface of your consciousness like a large buoyancy aid.

The other girl, the quiet one called Kam, calls, Often, I think.

*

As you linger between the hazy half-wakefulness of morning and the deep pool of sleep, you try to catch it before it escapes you. That sweet dream, those half-forgotten friends. It’s like trying to cling to a melting snowflake. When you strain to remember, it vanishes. They leave something behind, though. A lingering, warm glow.

And then Mum opens the curtain and daylight pours in.

The Ripening

I won’t live this way any longer! said Ama, angry and proud.

"Working until we cannot stand,

living every day mouth to hand,

watching the King’s power infect this land,

beat and quell our people into submission.

I’ve not seen my own sister

since the King summoned her

to serve him in the palace.

Twelve moons have yet passed since Yvane did see

the prophecy—

how much longer will it be,

until the pear tree sets us free?"

But soothing Cynthia said, Sing with me.

So Ama sat by her woman and

sang the Brown girl song.

And as they felt this internal stirring,

a great warmth came from the avocado tree.

Through the power of this great shift,

Cynthia and Ama felt Xaymaca’s gift,

and when Cynthia plucked, peeled, and tasted,

she knew the prophecy would not be wasted.

For lover, mother, growing babes alike,

knew the time had come