Views from the Tower

Views From the Tower

by Jessica Grey

Copyright Information

Views From the Tower

Copyright 2012 by Jessica Grey

ISBN-13: 978-0-9850396-3-9

ISBN-10: 0-9850396-3-9

Tall House Books

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without the author’s permission

Dedication

For Tori

of course

View From the Tower: Captive

He had come.

She’d dreamed of being rescued so many times. She’d rehearsed it in her head over and over, planning what she would say and do. She’d wondered who might stumble across her tower in the farthest corner of the forest: a woodcutter, or a hunter, perhaps a merchant who had lost his way. Maybe an old medicine woman would be looking for herbs and find her instead.

Then he had come and been more than she’d ever dreamed, more young, handsome, and powerful. He was tall and broad; the golden circlet had gleamed in his dark hair, declaring to the world his importance. He had looked up at her with piercing blue eyes from where he sat on top of his horse at the bottom of her tower and she’d known that she would never be the same.

He’d climbed her braids, just like the witch had done every day. But with the witch she’d never felt this kind of giddy anticipation. She’d never before been grateful for her masses of hair.

He’d smiled at her with such an easy, charming smile. She had shyly smiled back. He’d teased her name and her story out of her and told her his. She’d fallen head over heals with him in little longer than it than it had taken him to introduce himself.

He’d coaxed more out of her than her name. And she’d given it, freely and without reservation. Because he was her savior, her freedom.

He had left.

He said he’d come back. Come back to see her again, to be with her again. He never mentioned taking her away from her tower, but when he left he took her heart—and her hope—with him.

Instead of gaining her freedom, she had gained another captor.

View From the Tower: Longing

She’d always thought it funny that she was named after an herb. She who had never even walked across the ground. As a child she’d gazed down from the tower window, longing to run across the soft ground, desperate to wiggle her toes in the rich, loamy earth as if they were roots and she were truly Rapunzel.

Then her hair had only been to her waist. The braids had been full and thick, but the headaches hadn’t started yet. Now she was older. Old enough to know that she was a prisoner, to understand her loneliness. Her hair was so heavy that she felt it’s constant pull against her scalp. She no longer desired to feel the earth against her feet and burrow through the dirt like a root. She was held down by her hair. It pushed her against the stone floor of her tower, as if the weight of her loneliness rested in the golden waves.

Rapunzel sat on the window ledge and slowly unbraided her hair. The witch had left. She liked the braids because they were easier to climb, but Rapunzel detested them. The thick ropes were her chains. As she silently untwisted the strands, she watched night fall over the forest. This was her favorite time of day, the only time she felt, for a few moments, as if she weren’t alone.

As the moon rose, the air filled with lights—little effervescent balls of magic. If she looked hard enough, she could see them—the wood fairies, mostly obscured by the magic that fizzed and sparkled around them.

Rapunzel envied their lightness and mobility. She wanted to be free. Free of the weight of her hair, of the oppression of her ever present loneliness. Even for one night, even if it meant death after. She would give anything to feel that lightness.

“Please,” she whispered.

It wasn’t the first time she’d said it, but perhaps her longing and desperation were stronger, because this time there was an answer.

“If you truly wish it.” The voice was soft but somehow as energetic as the light that surrounded the fairy. “But there is a price. If you wait long enough, help...love...will come to you.”

Rapunzel’s vision was filled with the face of a handsome man. He looked kind enough. But he was far off, and a choice had to be made now.

“I truly wish.”

And then the heaviness was gone. Her entire body was filled with brightness, she felt weightless.

And she was free.

View From the Tower: Hope

She’d seen him before, the young man with the serious eyes. He looked like a hiker, although why he was hiking this far out by himself she had no idea. Not many people came this deep into the forest, and definitely not on their own.

The first time he’d walked by her tower, she was pretty sure he hadn’t seen it. It wasn’t strictly a tower, just a three story cabin set back in a group of large trees that obscured it from the casual observer’s eye. Ivy always referred to it as the tower, though. Her mother kept her confined to the top floor whenever she wasn’t there. Ivy wasn’t sure which her mother feared most—that she’d run away, or that she’d be taken.

Not that Ivy had ever expressed a desire to run away, but her mother must have been able to read the secret longing in her eyes. The truth was, Ivy wouldn’t know where to run.

The hiker kept coming back, as if he’d known he was missing something. Now he had walked by the copse of trees obscuring the tower four times, and Ivy knew he’d seen it. He stopped and stared into the trees, squinting and pulling his baseball cap down to shade against the bright sun. Then he walked all the way around the cabin and even located the door in the back and knocked on it. Ivy held her breath, peering down at him from one of the shuttered windows.

Her mother wasn’t home. If she had been, she might have done something horrible to the young man. “Just go,” Ivy whispered.

He looked up, narrowing his eyes at her window. She jumped back, nearly tripping over her long hair. There was no way he could have heard her.

“Hello?”

Ivy placed a hand over her wildly beating heart, as if she could hold it inside her chest.

“Hello, is anyone there?” he called again.

She had never spoken to anyone besides her mother. Ever. At least not that she could remember. They’d come to the cabin when she was four. Maybe before that she’d had a normal life, but all she had left was brief images of it. Her mother hardly ever talked about why they’d left, why she’d fled into the deep forest and away from people. But she made sure Ivy knew that if she ever let one of the random strangers that hiked through their little piece of forest see her, she would regret it.

Looking down at the young man’s face, his dark blue eyes as solemn and calm as a midnight sky, Ivy wondered which she would regret more: spending her whole life not being seen or disobeying her mother.

Her hand shook so hard that it took three tries before she’d unhooked the latch on the shutters. As they swung open she resisted the urge to let her long, pale hair fall in front of her face. She was done hiding.

Ivy placed her hands on the edge of the window and leaned out into the warm sunshine. The young man looked up at her, his eyes widening in surprise for a moment and then a warm smile spread across his face.

“Hello,” she replied.

Chasing Storms

I could smell the storm coming. I could feel the anticipation in the air; it itched up my spine, making me want to move, to run, to slither out of my own skin and become someone different. More wild and free.

I ran down to the beach. There in the sand lay the dragon, the fierce sun glinting off his iridescent scales. I glanced out to the horizon, to where the clouds were gathering. Before he had been changed Kade and I used to sneak out of the castle during thunderstorms and dance in the rain. I grinned at the memory. In reality it had been Kade sneaking out and me following him, wanting to be like him.

Kade’s tail twitched. Just a small movement but I could sense the impatience in him. He was drawn to the storms just as he had been as a boy.

I ran the few feet that separated us and pulled myself up onto his tail. His scales were uneven under my bare feet; the heat seeped through my soles. I moved, half walking, half running up his tail and across his huge back. My toes gripped onto the edges of his scales, helping me balance against the rough movements of his breathing. I was getting better at climbing across him now; I didn’t have to bend over and use my hands anymore. I slid to a halt at the top of his back near his shoulder blades and lay down, wrapping my arms as far around the base of his long neck as I could. It was an odd sensation pressing my body against his, the deep warmth of dragon made the humid stickiness in the air feel cool in comparison.

“I know you want to go,” I whispered. His ears flicked back at the sound of my hoarse voice. “Fly with me.”

I could feel his muscles rippling and tensing under the scales. Then without any other warning he leapt up, launching us a hundred feet into the air. Up, up, up and then we were falling. My stomach dropped and I closed my eyes against the sensation. I tried to focus on the wind pushing against my face, whipping my hair; tried to be unconcerned about the ground seeming to rush up to meet us. And then, at what felt like the last possible second, his wings, tucked away and hidden against the shoulder blades on either side of me, unfurled with a great whoosh and we took to the sky.

Kade shot straight up, away from our little island, turning mid-air to fly east toward the gathering clouds. The bottoms were black with green streaks and flat, but the tops towered huge and white, billowing into the sky like smoke from a giant’s signal fire. As we raced toward them, I pulled myself up into a sitting position, straddling Kade’s neck. My knees pressed into his rough scales, my feet finding the little ridges between them, toes tucking in and grabbing on to steady myself. The wind pushed forcefully against me, so I changed my mind about letting go with my hands and kept my arms curled around his neck.

The storm was coming fast. The clouds seemed to boil in on each other as we careened toward them. I could smell the tang of the lightening that was already shooting between the clouds and hear the rumbles of the answering thunder. Kade flew straight on. I was afraid for a moment that he would fly into the heart of the storm.

As we reached the edge of the black-green clouds they seemed to reach out for us. The snap of the electricity around them made my hair stand on end. The power was overwhelming and somehow energizing at the same time. I felt it race through me—the thrill of standing toe to toe with such a powerful force.

Kade wheeled around and drove hard for the western horizon. I could tell then, just how fast the storm was moving across the sky. Kade was racing away from it for all he was worth, his huge wings disturbing the air around us almost as much as the storm was. I could feel the wind, as if the storm were sucking everything back into itself, and we pushed against it, flying faster and faster as the clouds billowed behind us. One minute we were ahead, the next minute the clouds were rolling up over Kade’s tail and toward where I clung to his back, and then the next minute we were free again.

I looked behind me and then wished I hadn’t. The clouds were close on our heels, a writhing mass of black and light green. The entire sky behind us was filled with them. Lightning leapt from one mountain of clouds to another, cracking like a whip of fire. The thunder that followed right on the lightning’s heels almost shook me off of Kade’s back. The sound flew out like a physical blow, nearly paralyzing.

I turned back around as soon as I could move again. Ahead lay only bright blue, clear sky, but I knew it was being eaten up by the storm. In a few moments it would overtake us and we would be in the middle of the ferocious clouds. The rain began to fall behind us some of the fat drops catching on Kade’s tail. I could see the small spurts of steam where the cool drops met the heat of his scales.