CHAPTER 23

The Woodcutter was awake in an instant.

The rain had stopped.

The boy was fast asleep, his head tilted back at an awkward angle.

But something was wrong.

The Woodcutter could feel it in his bones, even before the trees began to whisper, Quiet…quiet…

He crawled to the entrance and tried to see out into the night.

He could hear the snuffling grunts of an animal, a large creature tracking something through the brush.

The Woodcutter looked at the boy sleeping behind him. He placed his hand upon his final Ax. He waited as the footsteps grew closer.

A creature of silver stepped into the clearing. His ears were pricked, and his mastiff-like snout tasted the air. He muscles rippled like mercury. Walking on four legs, his shoulders stood as tall as a man’s chest. A halo of blue radiated from him. His eyes were mirrors, lacking pupils, and shone gray in the night.

Odin’s rogue hellhound.

The Beast.

The Woodcutter felt the boy behind him wake with a start.

He reached back and grabbed the boy’s ankle, hoping he would understand to stay silent.

The hellhound’s head jerked in their direction. The Beast lowered his nose to the ground and began creeping their way.

The Woodcutter placed his hands upon the opening of the tree and closed his eyes. He whispered a wish to the tree, and the spell took hold.

The Beast leapt, attracted by the movement, but when he reached the base of the redwood, all he found was wood and bark.

The Woodcutter still stood at the opening, mere inches from the Beast, but the spell had created a mirage that the hollow tree was solid. The spells he used were elemental, not the wild magic of the dark knives or unclaimed hearts that seemed to call the Beast.

The Beast snuffed and dug at the tree, but the spell did not give up its secret. The Beast let out a sneeze before padding away. As the last of the hellhound’s blue aura disappeared deep into the Wood, the Woodcutter relaxed.

“What was that?” the boy asked.

“A hellhound,” said the Woodcutter.

The boy shifted uncomfortably. “Can you kill it?”

“I shall try sometime when I am by myself.” The Woodcutter looked back at the boy. “I would hate to leave you alone with it.”

The Woodcutter released the spell and settled back against the inside of the tree. “Now, can you tell me why this beast has picked you as his prey?”

The boy seemed to size up the Woodcutter, as if weighing his character. “My name is Rapunzel.”

He took off his hat, and the Woodcutter saw it was a she, not a he, who sat beside him. She ran her fingers through her short, curly hair and then held out her hand.

Rapunzel.

A sense filled the Woodcutter’s being, a sense that there was something terribly wrong as he stared at her closely shorn hair.

He took her hand delicately in his rough and calloused own. “Woodcutter,” he replied.

They stood for a moment more.

“Perhaps now you remember how you came to the crossroads?” he suggested.

“There is a witch…” Rapunzel stopped and then began again. “My parents weren’t supposed to have a baby, but my father stole some watercress from a witch’s garden. The witch said she would take me as payment for the greens.” She looked at the Woodcutter proudly. “We’ve been gypsies since before the day I was born. I look like a boy to fool the witch.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged as she scratched her leg, but a small tremor in her voice gave away her worry. “I went to bed the night before last and woke at the crossroads where you found me.”

The girl with glass slippers…

The princes in the Vanishing House…

Rapunzel shivered, but not from the chill in the air. “Why was he tracking me?”

Even in the darkness of the tree, she seemed to shine.

“Because you are special, young one.”

Rapunzel laughed. “You’re mistaken.”

But he was not. There had been something unusual about the watercress her mother had eaten while pregnant with this child, he was sure of it.

“Have you ever nicked your finger?” asked the Woodcutter.

“Sure,” she replied.

“What color was your blood?”

“Blue. Like everybody’s.”

“Not like everybody’s.”

Rapunzel pointed at the veins in her arm. “Everyone has blue.”

The Woodcutter shook his head. “That is not how these things work.”

“You’re saying my blood is a strange color and so that creature wants to eat me?”

The Woodcutter wanted to deny it, but he could not.

So he said nothing.

She became quiet. “You’re serious.” She stood, their hideaway in the tree suddenly becoming too small. “So what do we do? Run for eternity?”

“We could,” said the Woodcutter.

“I just want to go home.”

“You would not be safe. You were brought to the Wood once. Whoever brought you here would most likely bring you once again.”

“I was brought to the Wood to be food for some hellhound.” She swayed and gripped her sides with her arms as she became desperate. “You have to help me. You have to find a way to keep me safe.”

Son…

His father’s voice…

It seemed like only yesterday they had stood in the Wood together.

Son…

He pushed it back.

Son, there will be a day that you will need refuge…

He pushed away the memory of what happened next.

“There is a tower…” the Woodcutter said.

She looked at him incredulously. “A tower?”

“You will be safe until I find the Crone.”

“The Crone?”

“I have been told she knows how to defeat a hellhound.”

“You would leave me alone while you wander off to seek out some crone?” Rapunzel’s voice hit a strained pitch.

The Woodcutter calmly said, “Or we could walk for eternity and hope we never cross paths with the Beast.”

Rapunzel’s mouth opened. And then closed again.

The Woodcutter looked toward where the Beast last walked. “We would best put some distance between us and this place.”

The Woodcutter crawled out of the tree and patted the rough bark. “Thank you, my friend. Know that my ax has never been tainted by unwilling sap and so it shall always be.”

The leaves of the hollow tree seemed to rustle, warily, but in understanding.

The Woodcutter held out his hand to Rapunzel and helped her to her feet.

They walked in the opposite direction of the Beast for the rest of the night, until the sky slowly faded from deep blue to light pink.

As the sun kissed the morning, they reached the clearing. The tower had no windows or doors, only a single balcony forty feet above the ground.

Rapunzel held out her hand to the Woodcutter. “Promise to come back for me?”

The Woodcutter took her tiny fingers in his palm. “I promise.”

He turned toward the trees, toward their long strips of bark, knowing he must ask them for a sacrifice to create a rope to climb to the top of the tower.

But before the wish could escape his lips, Rapunzel was already several feet off the ground, scaling the sheer sides of the building.

“Do not injure yourself!” he cried out in alarm.

She looked over her shoulder and smiled. “I have always been good at climbing.”

He watched as those tiny fingers found holds in the wall of the tower, as her feet found an impossible ledge, as she climbed higher and higher. She finally pulled herself over the balcony into the only window.

He stood below, wondering if he had done right to bring her, to leave her in the tower by herself, but the glowing form of the hellhound crept into the back of his mind, the hellhound who had killed so many already.

Suddenly the Woodcutter heard the sound of scuffling and heard Rapunzel’s terrified cry.

“Rapunzel!” he shouted as he looked for those holds that would carry him up the sheer blocks.

“Rapunzel!” he cried as the scuffling abruptly stopped.

Silence.

Silence.

His heart seemed to stop beating in that silence of a thousand years.

“It’s all right!” she called down. “There is someone else here.”

His heart was in his throat. “Who?”

Her voice softened.

And a warm buzz ran its way through the Woodcutter’s veins.

“A man.”

A man.

She and the man appeared on the balcony, their gaze oddly intent.

Wild magic finding its path.

Wild magic finding its home.

“I am Prince Martin,” the tawny-headed man called down. A ladder was thrown over the balcony and the two descended.