“I don’t think we have a choice, lady.” Mrs. Tiddlebottom put out her hand. “Now give it to me, and I will put it out in that field with the others.”
“There has to be another way.” But Gothel was worried the old woman was right. “I don’t understand why they need it! They destroyed my home taking the last one! I thought the Queen was healed!”
“The queen is ill again. Her pregnancy caused her to relapse.”
“But they have a flower! Why do they need another?”
“Well, she’s eaten the other one, hasn’t she?”
“Bloody fools!” Gothel was incensed.
She felt trapped. She couldn’t just leave with the flower. The soldiers might find her sisters in the cellar. They might find them there anyway, even if Mrs. Tiddlebottom gave them the flower willingly. Gothel didn’t know what to do. She wanted to run. She wanted to pack the old woman and her sisters on a wagon and leave, but she knew they would eventually find her. They would hunt her down as long as she had the flower in her possession, burning every home she ever made for herself. Maybe she should have let the odd sisters take the flower. At least then it would have been safe. Mrs. Tiddlebottom was right. There was no other choice.
“You’re right, of course. We will let them find the flower,” she said, pushing the flowerpot toward the old woman.
“You’d better get down to the cellar now, lady! Don’t make a peep!”
“Now?” asked Gothel, looking out the window to see if she could see the soldiers coming. “Are they coming right now?”
“Yes, my lady. Please. Now go!”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay dealing with this on your own?” Gothel was squinting, trying to see down the road. “Do you have time to get the flower in the field before they arrive?”
“I do! Now don’t you worry yourself over old Mrs. Tiddlebottom. I can handle any soldiers that c
ome knocking on this door! Believe me! Now off with you!”
“Thank you, Mrs. T!”
“Get down there and don’t come out until I come for you!” said Mrs. Tiddlebottom with a quick kiss on Gothel’s cheek. “Down you go! Off with you!”
Gothel went into the cellar. She hadn’t been down there since she’d first moved to the house, when she had frantically searched for her mother’s blood. Gold coins were scattered all over the floor, and the chests were open, just as she had left them. And her sisters’ coffins were there, just as they had been since they’d moved in. She hadn’t seen her sisters’ bodies since she left the dead woods. She was afraid to look at them, afraid they had started to decay. Afraid to see their faces.
Afraid they would wake up and accuse her of failing them.
She crept up on their coffins, like she was trying not to wake her sleeping sisters, and opened the lids. The sleeping beauties were side by side, still as lovely as ever. Still young, still fair, but dreadfully pale. It was as if all the color had been leached from their bodies. Even Primrose’s beautiful red hair had turned white. They looked like ghosts made of opaque glass. Like fragile replicas of the sisters she loved. The oddest feeling came over her. It was as if her sisters were there but not there. She couldn’t express it any better. To see them there but not feel them was the most disturbing thing she’d ever experienced. Her heart broke as if it was breaking for every loss she had ever had right there in that moment, and she thought she might die from the pain of it. She missed her sisters so much. She should have been trying to find a way to resurrect them all that time. It had been years since she woke up in the dead woods from her long slumber, and she chided herself for not having spent the time trying to find a way to bring them back. And if those wretched odd sisters hadn’t made me sleep for hundreds of years, I might have brought them back by now!
So many years wasted.
“Oh, my poor sisters, I am so sorry. I promise I will find a way to bring you back.”
She put her hands on her sisters’ and something happened. Her hands started to glow, just a little, like the rapunzel flower, and the light was spreading into her sisters like cascading fireworks. The light started to grow within them, causing them to glow, just a little, making them look more alive, the color returning to their faces.
“Hazel! Primrose! Are you there?” They didn’t answer. They were quiet and still. They were dead. But the power of the flower was doing something. Gothel looked down at her hands and saw that they were old and withered again, like bone covered in skin. Her sisters had taken all of the rapunzel’s healing powers from her. She ran to the chests to see if one of her mother’s mirrors was packed away, and found one she didn’t recognize among some of her mother’s other things.
She gasped. Her hair was entirely silver, and her face was withered and gray, like an old apple doll. She was so much older than she’d even realized. If she didn’t get to the flower now, she would die.
She went to the cellar door to listen for voices. Maybe she could sneak out and get the flower before the soldiers came. But she heard Mrs. Tiddlebottom talking with someone in the kitchen.
“Oh, a glowing flower, you say? Well, I suppose you will find it out there with the other wildflowers. I sometimes see something glowing in the field out there, but I just thought it was fireflies. You’re more than welcome to go out and look for it, kind sirs. By all means, if the King wants it, he is welcome to it! I’m just an old lady surrounded by beautiful flowers. What’s one flower to me if the King wants it?”
The soldiers laughed. “You don’t seem like a demon witch of the dead to us!”
Mrs. Tiddlebottom laughed with them. “My goodness, no! Whatever gave you that idea?”
“We were told the queen of the dead took refuge here with the last of her flowers, but clearly that information isn’t correct.”
Mrs. Tiddlebottom laughed again. “Imagine me, queen of anything!” She was laughing heartily until she saw an old beggar woman creeping in the far end of the field near the sea cliff. “Oh!”