Rapunzel's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The next morning Rapunzel sat on the tall bed and stared at the far door. Half her hair still lay in the next room. It was too heavy to drag up alone. She had tried the day before. She had pulled until her arms shook, but the golden mass barely moved. She could brush the strands near her, but the rest stayed knotted on the floor. Every day, half of it went untouched. A knock came at the door. Rapunzel called out, and a young man stepped in. He had a dark beard and quick eyes. He stopped when he saw the hair spilling off the bed and across the boards. "That's a lot of hair," Elliot said. He didn't laugh. He crouched and lifted a coil, testing its weight. "You can't move all this by yourself." "I've been trying," Rapunzel said. "The far end won't come up. It's too heavy in one pull." Elliot set the coil down and thought. "Then don't pull it all at once." He walked to the far room and gathered a small armful. He carried it to the bed and laid it in her lap. Then he went back for another armful. Rapunzel understood. She lifted her brush and worked the section he brought while he fetched the next. They found a rhythm. Elliot carried the hair forward, foot by foot, room to room. Rapunzel brushed each length clean and let it fall in a smooth pile beside her. The knots gave way one at a time. The floor in the next room slowly cleared. What she could never lift alone moved easily in pieces. They worked through the afternoon and into the night. Elliot lit a candle when the light faded. His arms grew tired, but he kept going. He told her about the town below the hill. She told him about the cracked cup she swept three days running. She laughed, and he grinned back. Somewhere in the long hours, she stopped watching the hair and started watching him. By the time the last strand reached her lap, the sky outside had gone gray with dawn. Every foot of her hair now lay brushed and smooth across the bed. Not one section had been skipped. For the first time, all seventy feet were clean at once. Rapunzel looked at the finished work, then at Elliot. He sat slumped against a bedpost, half asleep, still holding the end of her hair. Her chest felt warm in a way the brushing had never caused. She had solved today's tangle. But she could not carry seventy feet alone, and tomorrow it would spill across the floor again. The clean hair would knot by nightfall. She would need him back. And she found she wanted him back for more than the hair.