Let Your Hair Down

The air was a bit thin at the top. That didn't matter though, she was used to it. Rapunzel was leaning on the window sill of her tower, letting the cool night air caress her white face. Her beautiful blond hair trailed across the small room she was confined to, and settled in a small pile in the corner by the door. Yes there was a door, but she was never allowed to use it. She didn't even know if it could be used. As far as she knew, it had always been closed.
She turned slowly away from the window, leaving the shutters open to allow a light breeze to roll in, and blew out the large candle by her bedside. She was already seventeen and had yet to see another human, aside from her mother who left every morning at eight, and came back every night at midnight. She was late today, and Rapunzel was too tired to worry about her, and frankly too tired to listen for a raspy voice to yell, “Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”
Rapunzel was lying in her bed on her side, breathing softly. The only light that shone in the room was that of the full moon. The dull thump, thump, thump of a woodpecker on the roof, was the only sound other than the rustle of leaves in the night.
She woke up the next morning with a slight headache, but wasn't sure why. She looked out of the window as she stretched and saw not a soul in sight. She sighed and looked down and saw that she slept in her dress. It was a simple white, cotton day dress with a pink lace around the middle, fashioned into a bow.
Rapunzel wanted to leave. She wanted to explore the world outside the confines of this stifling prison. But she couldn't leave. Her mother loved and needed her. But she wanted someone else to love her too, a prince perhaps, but really anybody else. She had been waiting for that special someone for the past two years, yet no one came. And would continue that way, for she realized after a long time of waiting, that her and her mother were the only two that even knew of the tower’s existence.
She was about to close the wooden shutters that had a heart carved in the middle of each one, when she heard a faint grunting from below. She saw a young man, who looked to be about the same age that she was, trying to climb the stone wall, with little advancement. She excitedly shut the shutters and backed up almost tripping over her hair. After overcoming her befuddlement, she ran back to the shutters and threw them open, yelling below, “Hey! Up here!” she proceeded to grab her hair and chucked it out the window, watching it cascade down the tower wall like a shimmering waterfall. It landed beside the man with a soft flump.
The man ran his hands through the silky hair, with a half curious, half amused look on his face and looked up to see the beaming face of the girl who just sent her impossibly long hair down below. Rapunzel indicated with her hands that he was supposed to use it to climb. The man looked at the hair, wondering how it could possibly be used as a rope, and decided that it was better to try than to sit there and ponder the situation.
After some effort, he finally got the hang of climbing the hair and made it to the top of the tower, and crawled through the window. “My lady, you have such beautiful hair. Why are you in this tower?” he said, looking into Rapunzel’s blue eyes.
“I-I can never leave, such as long as mother forbids me,” she replied hesitantly.
"Then let us leave together we can-" he stopped.
A voice was heard from below, a raspy voice that sounded like gravel in a cup, “Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!”
“Rapunzel? Such a beautiful name!” the man gasped.
“Quick! Hide!” Rapunzel hissed.
The man looked around and ran into the nearby wardrobe and clambered inside and closed the door behind him. Rapunzel sent her hair down and waited as her mother slowly climbed up with greater ease than the now hidden man.
“Rapunzel, my darling,” the mother croaked, hugging her daughter, “I've missed you so.”
“Mother, it’s only been a day,” Rapunzel responded.
“Oh yes, but it’s so good to see you aga—something’s wrong,” the mother stopped immediately and looked around the room the way one looks at the sky for a flying object that has been lost in the sun. She glided across the room looking behind the objects around the room before finally opening the wardrobe door to find it, to her satisfaction, empty. “I guess it was nothing,” she concluded, waving her hands in a matter-of-fact sort of way.
She was about to leave when she heard the other door of the wardrobe squeak open. She had only looked in the right side of the wardrobe and disregarded the left. The man quickly realized his mistake and tried to reason with the old woman but all that he could muster was a small squeak. He had summarily been stabbed in the stomach, and watched as blood came pouring out of his stomach the way syrup glides out of a bottle onto fresh pancakes. The woman looked at him as such, and swiftly turned towards her horror stricken daughter, who was now trying to process what had happened.
“When I said that no one was to discover this place, I. MEANT. NO ONE,” the women growled. “I can't believe he found us, and that you, the only other person who knew about this would go and disregard my one rule!”
“One rule?!” Rapunzel yelled, “You think that’s one rule?! What about locking me in a tower all my life, never once letting me see the outside world other than the view I have from my window?!”
“It was to protect you!”
“From what?!”
“From the truth!”
Rapunzel stared, “The truth?”
“Never mind, child,” the woman stated, “and I want this body cleaned up by the afternoon.” The woman promptly left the tower the same way she got in, and left Rapunzel to herself and a freshly dead body to keep her company.
That night the woman had come back, “Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!” No response. “Rapunzel! Rapunzel! Let down your hair!” Silence. After several failed attempts of getting her daughter’s attention, she decided to use the stairway that was long sealed off to condemn the possibility of escape. After some difficulty, she was able to extract the lock from the door and enter the room. It was silent and dark. The only sound was a slow and monotonous, creak, creak, creak, creak.
The candle by Rapunzel’s bed was lit by the mother and revealed the horrendous sight above her. Her “beloved daughter” was hanging from the rafters, by her hair, slowly swinging back and forth making the rafters creak sounding like a parody of the woman’s own voice. Ironically, the one thing that gave her the most beauty was used as the catalyst to her death.
Creak, creak. Creak, creak.
Category:Contest Winner