Of Enemies and Endings (38 page)

Something clicked into place. “She stole her sister
before
the end of her Tale?”

“We went with Solange to the tower to deliver the present,” said the Director softly. “Rapunzel's hair was brown then. She was afraid of us at first. She hid behind the metal dummy enchanted to be her nurse, but Solange coaxed her out—she used the new light to make shadow puppets on the wall. She made up voices for each of them.”

I didn't want to know how much Solange had cared about Rapunzel. The memory of their last conversation in the courtyard was too fresh. It would make me angry, and Rapunzel wouldn't want that.

“It is hard to explain the horror of recognizing what my closest friend had done,” the Director whispered. “To steal a child from her parents, to shut her in a tower, to plan to harm her after she'd grown. Solange was shocked when we didn't immediately exclaim over how clever she was. To be fair, we usually did. During the rest of the quest, she told us the way she had rescued her sister from her peasant mother's hovel; how happy Rapunzel was; how happy they would be forever after they both joined the Canon; how they would take care of each other always. She'd half-convinced us by the end. Three weeks later, I was asleep.”

I wondered what I would do if Lena or Chase told me something like that. But that was the thing—they never would.

“Rapunzel was perhaps four then. I was certain she didn't remember. I thought if she knew, she would resent me for failing to rescue her,” the Director continued. “But that is what her letter addresses. She said she never blamed me for the past. She said Solange would not have listened to me. I didn't expect that kindness.”

“Rapunzel
was
kind,” I said, angry after all. I hoped the Director felt guilty for suspecting Rapunzel of betraying EAS so often.

Mr. Swallow soared between the houses. “Mildred, they're ready for you,” Sarah Thumb called before she and her mount circled back.

The Director stood and smoothed her violet skirt. “You are thinking the wrong way about the letter, Rory. When I met her, Rapunzel was fascinated by my dress. I showed her the pockets. She liked them so much that Solange promised her a dress with pockets of her own.”

Then the Director walked to the Canon building, gloved hands folded in front of her.

I stared after her. Pockets. Rapunzel had left a letter to the Director in the Director's pocket, a place that reminded Mildred of the first time they'd met. Maybe she'd done the same for me.

I'd first seen Rapunzel at the Table of Never Ending Instant Refills. It had been turned to stone when the spearman had used it as a barricade the day before, but it still worked.

I found nothing under any of the plates or trays or bowls. I squatted down and checked under the table. No letter taped down there either.

Well, it had been a long shot. The Table got too much traffic to be a good hiding place.

It's pretty awkward to stand up when you have a baby strapped to you. Dani didn't like it either. She curled her fists in my T-shirt, hanging on. Then she reached for Rapunzel's light again. I didn't let her touch it.

I'd always assumed Solange had stolen her sister after she had already lost Sebastian and Mildred. I'd thought being lonely had driven her a little nuts.

But she'd been my age when she'd stolen Rapunzel—or maybe even younger. She had already started to play the witch in Rapunzel's Tale.

I curled my hand around Dani's back. I walked along the doors that lined the courtyard, thinking.

The idea of someone hurting my sister terrified me. I couldn't imagine planning to do it myself. I couldn't even imagine keeping her in a tower for that long. I wanted Dani to grow up and have adventures and make friends like I had.

Maybe that is what Rapunzel meant when she said I was nothing like Solange.

Maybe
wasn't good enough. The world couldn't survive another Snow Queen, and even if I stopped her, who would stop me if I became just as—

My eyes landed on the ruby red door. I halted so fast Dani grabbed my T-shirt again.

The first time I'd seen Rapunzel had been at the Table. The first time we'd
talked
had been in the hallway between that door and the outside world. She'd been chiseling something. I hadn't been back to that corridor since the day before the Wolfsbane witches attacked us in San Francisco.

The door wasn't locked. I stepped into the hallway. It was dark, but then it had always been dark in there. I whistled over Rapunzel's light, held it up, and gasped.

I'd seen her carving, but I'd never seen the finished product. The walls showed four scenes.

In the first, a young woman—maybe Rapunzel—buried her face in her hands in front of a table. Spread across it was a candle, a knife, and a stack of paper. Rapunzel had even carved writing on it, upside down. French, I think, or Latin. I couldn't read it unless I put in my gumdrop translator, but I didn't think it was my letter. Too short. It looked more like a list.

The second panel was the one I'd seen Rapunzel carving. I recognized the woman's profile now. Rapunzel had captured the Snow Queen's icicle crown perfectly, but not the frosty smile she usually wore. Solange just looked confused.

The third scene was the Snow Queen's palace, the massive doors flung open, thousands of tiny figures marching in neat lines. The only ones big enough to recognize were the pillars. I couldn't tell if her allies were marching in or out.

The last was the strangest. It showed a tower and two figures on its roof. The Snow Queen's arm was outstretched to defend herself, but her eyes were wide with fear.

The other figure was me. I was pretty sure. That looked like my messy ponytail. The Rory figure had something cupped in her hands, and she was sprinting at Solange, cradling whatever it was against her collarbone.

“Well, I guess this means I find something the Snow Queen is afraid of,” I told Dani, feeling a little calmer now that I had some clues to work with. I stepped closer, trying to get a better look, but paper crinkled under my sneaker.

I looked down.

An envelope, covered with my name and all the fancy curlicues Rapunzel could fit on it.

sat down and ripped the letter open. My hands shook a tiny bit.

Dear Rory,

If I had your courage, I would tell you this face-to-face. It is all but too late for that now. I must make a confession: I turned my sister into what she is.

She came to me, after the former Rapunzel had given me her place in the Canon. I was great with child, very near the birth of my twins. The scar on my neck, made by my sister's shears, still pained me, but Solange was full of smiles.

Her plan had succeeded. She, of all Characters, had successfully manipulated a Tale. She had given me an endless, unaging life. She believed she had given herself a Companion for the centuries ahead. She spoke of raising my babes in the self-same tower she had thrown me from.

She did not understand the reason for my anger. She did not believe me at first when I told her I would never live with her again, when I said I would never allow her near my children. Then I threatened to stand before the Canon and to reveal the identity of the witch in my Tale if she dared to speak to any of us.

I told her we were no longer sisters, and she looked so hurt.

She left then and disappeared for decades. She did not return to the Canon until she had already kidnapped Kai and begun calling herself the Snow Queen.

I knew what she had planned. I had seen her books. I had read her notes. She was fully aware she could die in the attempt. I recognized that I was her only hesitation. I knew what she would do if she lost me, and I did not care.

My sister has always had two great desires—one for power and one for affection. Her mother was long dead. Her father had abandoned her for my family. Her other relatives had passed her among themselves, neglectful and distant. Sebastian was stone. Mildred was asleep. I was her last link to a different sort of life. I shunned her. I pushed her toward power.

I believed she would die in the attempt, and still I did not care.

Now she is heartless.

I tried to imagine forcing that choice on Dani: stay and try to stop me from becoming a great villain, or leave and live her whole life overshadowed by the destruction I caused.

I wished Rapunzel were still alive. I wished I could tell her that Solange had made her own decisions.

With this letter and these carvings, you have all the pieces you need to do what must be done. The first panel happened the day I told my sister we would not share our lives with each other. This last panel is a vision which will not come to pass within my lifetime. I have seen this final confrontation, but not the outcome.

Knowing you, I can guess it.

Living will carve you open. You can't choose what wounds you. You can only choose what seals the scar. You will never choose power as my sister did.

You are willing to sacrifice too. You would die to keep safe your loved ones and the world they inhabit. But consider too, my dear Rory: There is more than one way to give your life.

Solange only speaks of uniting magical peoples and giving them aid. You have already begun acting on what she has long promised.

You have a way of looking past traditional mistrust and forging bonds previously held to be impossible. As you read this, the Living Stone Dwarves live at Ever After School. Seelie and Unseelie Fey alike flock here.

These are only the changes you have wrought in two and a half years. Think of the good you can do within a lifetime.

I gave my immortality to Lena, not simply to allow her to reach adulthood, but for you to grow together. I want this world to be transformed by Rory Landon. I want you to live.

Rapunzel

Only Rapunzel would completely fail to tell me how Solange had turned into the Snow Queen. Only Rapunzel would try to tell me who I was instead.

I was crying by then. Rapunzel wasn't here to comfort me, and that thought made me sob even harder.

This didn't bother Dani as much as I thought it would. She just stared at me and then at the tears landing on her baby carrier. She'd probably never seen someone so big cry before. She must have thought it was only something she did.

My sister patted my cheek with her little hand. I used my T-shirt to rub her fingers dry. Then I wiped my face on my sleeve. Took a deep breath. Examined the wall.

Rapunzel said I had all the pieces. Maybe it would have been easier if she'd just
told
me, but I had to trust her. I had to believe I could solve the puzzle she'd left me.

The last panel showed me taking something to the Snow Queen, something small enough for me to cover with my hands. That was a pretty solid clue.

It had to be the key to the power she'd gotten after Rapunzel left her. The magic Solange had almost died to gain.

I raised Rapunzel's light over the first carving. I looked at Solange's hands over her eyes. I would be devastated too, if Dani decided she didn't want anything to do with me, but I liked to think I would understand why.

Grief is a messy thing though. It could make you reckless.

I focused on what was on the table in the panel.

A knife. It could be the same one she cut her sister with— No, Rapunzel said Solange had used shears. The knife could be for anything.

But the list . . . I dug my gumdrop translator out of my back pocket again and stuck it in my ear. The writing was upside down, but the translator slowly recognized the carving had words. The letters melted into something I could read:

Limbs (all 4)

Eyes

Heart

Head

A list of body parts. Great. In the early days of my research, I'd kept a list of body parts too. Reading
The Lyvves & Tymes of Sorcerers & Sorceresses
, I'd jotted down which limbs regular people lost to gain their magic. I'd stopped, because they repeated so often—hands and feet and sometimes eyes.