A Grimm Grudge

Dear Brothers Grimm,

Please retract your latest story, Rapunzel. It is libelous and patently false. I should know—I’m the enchantress you demonized.

First of all, Jakob and Wilhelm, I have a name. And no, it isn’t Dame Gothel. The only person who called me that was my mother, and an angry mob burned her at the stake decades ago. By the way, if you were wondering why I live in a tower, that’s why. Towers are fire proof, hard to infiltrate, and easy to defend. I’m surprised they’re not more popular. But I digress.

My name is Berthadette. That’s something you’d know if you’d bothered to fact-check.

Fib-filled fables like yours wreak untold damage, making mortals wary of magic wielders. Oh, mundanes will come running to us whenever they have a problem that needs fixing, but the moment we finish cleaning up their messes they’ll tell everyone within earshot we’re the villain who hornswoggled them.

It just isn’t right.

The true tale began when I agreed to cottage sit for my best friend, Verbena, while she took a trip to the Faery realm. She’s a hedge witch, and her spectacular garden requires a lot of upkeep. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to get out of my tower and finally meet the right fellow. Okay, any fellow.

As you might imagine, my love life has been lackluster. Even before prejudices against my profession came into play, men were hardly knocking down my door. True, my tower doesn’t have a door, but that’s not the point. My mousy brown hair and dull grey eyes aren’t the sort to inspire poetry, let alone scaling seventy feet. Furthermore, food has always been a great solace to me, so I’ve got some love handles (or more accurately, unloved, unhandled handles).

Unfortunately, a great personality and a hell of a career doesn’t seem to count for much with most men.

Which put me in quite the predicament. For as long as I can remember, I dreamed of motherhood. To dote upon a child of my own was my greatest wish.

I had slightly more luck with ladies than lads, but none of my former female flames were in a position to impregnate me.

Time was already running short, as I was no spring chicken. I needed a tumble with a fellow, and I needed it soon if I was going to have any shot at having a baby.

My cat, Nightmare, had failed to satiate my maternal longings, since he was, frankly, an all-around terror and pain in the keister. The only affection he cared to show was knocking over my tincture bottles and coughing up hairballs whenever I had the audacity to leave him alone for too long.

So with Nightmare in tow, I settled in for a taste of ground-level living, hoping it would provide the change of pace and the potential pregnancy I so desired.

Verbena was critical of my aspirations, wagging her finger at me. “A baby won’t magically fix your problems, Berthadette.” I suspect Verbena’s noisy neighbors and their “brood of brats” (as she called them) had something to do with her sentiment on the subject. She was never one to enjoy the cheery sound of children at play. Still, she must have sensed I was determined, for she didn’t press the matter further.

I wasn’t expecting magical solutions, merely a child to cherish. What was so wrong with that?

House sitting proved more fruitful than I could have anticipated, only not in the way I expected.

I visited the local pub three evenings in a row wearing my flirtiest black dress, but sadly could not drum up interest from any of the male patrons. Each time I trudged home alone left me feeling more and more defeated. The rampion in Verbena’s garden, on the other hand, was getting ravaged nightly. Concerned that I was failing my friend, I hid in the garden the fourth evening, determined to catch whoever was responsible. I’d assumed the culprit would be a critter like a raccoon or possum, so imagine my surprise when a man clambered over the wall and made a beeline for the rampion.

I guess gardens are the ideal place to meet menfolk. Who knew?

Of course, I confronted him immediately. He didn’t even try to deny that he was the thief, instead making excuses about being helpless to the whims of his wife’s pregnancy cravings. Oh, how that stung, his complaining about the thing I’d been yearning for.

Now, let’s be clear—I did NOT ask for his child. Not by a long shot. I may have been desperate, but I wasn’t heartless.

All I asked was that he pay for the rampion he’d taken, so that I could buy more and replant. He suggested giving me the baby as compensation. Who does that sort of thing? I’ll tell you who—an unfit parent.

Even then, when the thing I wanted most was being offered to me, I didn’t accept. Snatching a baby from the arms of its loving mother sounded too cruel, too callous.

He insisted we discuss the matter with his wife, who eyed those greens with a longing she obviously did not feel toward the fourteen rambunctious children running circles around her, nor the one on the way. She simply shrugged. “By all means, take the baby when it’s born. You’ll be doing us a favor.”

At that point, it was my moral obligation to raise the child, as it seemed the best solution for all parties involved.

Three weeks later, when I held that tiny golden-haired baby in my arms, and she smiled up at me with those hopeful brown eyes, my heart sang. It was love at first sight. She was everything I’d always hoped for and so much more, my Rapunzel.

I notice you got her name right.

For the record, I went back to my tower shortly after, as soon as I’d replanted the rampion and Verbena returned. I did not hang around for twelve years. It would have been rude to raise the child next door to her salad-obsessed birth parents, especially since they requested a closed adoption despite my generous offer to send regular updates and portraits.

Rapunzel became my whole world. Sure, I lost sleep, especially during her bout with colic, but I’d never been happier. There’s nothing quite like a child’s love to fill up that empty hole in your heart and recapture your sense of wonder.

Initially wary of this new addition to our family, Nightmare warmed to Rapunzel once I started giving him saucers of milk so he wouldn’t feel left out while I bottle-fed her. Soon enough, he’d purr at the sight of her and snuggle with her at every opportunity.

Raising a toddler was tougher, for Rapunzel was prone to tantrums, but I’d lovingly quell them by ensuring she wanted for nothing. She remained my sunshine, chasing away the shadows of my previously dreary life.

Her teenage years were another matter entirely. Rapunzel grew distant, pulling away and yelling for me to get out of her room. An inconvenient request, considering we lived in a single room tower. Still, I tried to give her the space she required, heading out to run errands whenever possible.

Little did I know she wasn’t spending that quality time alone.

This is the point where you’re probably judging me for keeping her trapped in a tower and refusing to let her cut her hair. Which is utter nonsense. She wasn’t trapped—I flew her wherever she wished to go by broom anytime she asked. The outside world is a dangerous place to stray unaccompanied, and I only sought to keep her safe. Besides, growing her hair out was her choice, not mine. She was insistent about keeping it long, and I believe in letting children express themselves through fashion and hairstyle.

The rumors about my climbing hair are also greatly exaggerated. That happened one time and only because my broomstick broke. However, it was enough to give Rapunzel some shady ideas.

At first, I thought she was putting on stress weight. Familiar with the unpleasantness of fat-shaming, I refrained from commenting and quietly let out her dresses.

It wasn’t until she complained of stomach troubles that I finally figured it out. Rubbing her tummy to ease her pain, as I used to when she was little, a sharp kick against my palm hit me with the harsh truth.

I was going to be a grandmother. My darling daughter was pregnant.

Men will scale towers, it seems, just not for me.

It was as though I’d raised a stranger. How could she have kept something of this magnitude from me? I had failed her as a parent. “You’re with child.”

Rapunzel crossed her arms and pouted. “I’m most certainly not a child. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

A message I received loud and clear. “Oh, you’re a woman all right, and you’re expecting. That’s what’s been ailing you.”

“Expecting?”

Did she truly not know? “You’re going to have a baby.”

“A stork is going to deliver it to the tower? When?”

Perhaps we should have had the sex talk at an earlier juncture, but Rapunzel had seemingly grown up overnight. Time flies when your expected life span is centuries. I was waiting until she showed an interest in someone before bringing up the birds and the bees. The possibility of secret trysts never even occurred to me.

There was no easy way to say it. “I’m afraid you’ll be the one delivering the baby, not any stork. Who have you been laying with, Rapunzel? That’s what’s gotten you in this position.”

She broke down and revealed she’d been having regular rendezvous with Prince Adalric whenever I was away. That’s why she’d been so determined to keep me out of her hair, so she could throw it down to the prince instead. And clearly towers weren’t the only thing he’d been climbing.

The way her eyes lit up when she spoke of him, I could tell she’d fallen for this prince. He’d won her heart with flowery declarations of everlasting love.

Yet, had he meant those words, I suspected a royal wedding would’ve preceded her impregnation.

Determined to be supportive, I agreed to help her raise the baby no matter what.

But I wanted to give her paramour the opportunity to make things right. I could only hope he’d be a prince about the matter in more than title. Otherwise, my daughter would nurse a broken heart in addition to an infant.

I flew to the castle at once, demanding an audience with the prince. The guards turned me away, but I refused to leave without a fight. “You don’t understand. My daughter is in a family way!”

One guard smiled. “Congratulations!”

“Prince Adalric is the father!”

The guards exchanged a pointed look. No longer smiling, the same guard leaned close and lowered his voice. “Look lady, I hate to be the one to tell you this. You’re not the first angry parent to storm the castle. Prince Adalric dallies with many daughters. There’s nothing to be done about it, I’m afraid, unless she’s royalty. The king won’t even contemplate marrying his son to anyone of a lesser station.”

Alas, though I considered Rapunzel to be a princess, she was not one. My grandchildren would grow up without a father, and my poor daughter was bound to be devastated.

The disappointment of being rebuffed by the royal family was nothing compared to my dismay at returning home to finding Rapunzel gone. All that remained of her was a long braid.

She’d lopped off her hair, tied it around a loose nail, and absconded down it, fleeing to who knows where. My heart was whole no more, shattered into pieces.

Had a mob descended on me then, I would have welcomed them. Surely being burned at the stake would have hurt less than having my pride and joy abandon me.

I cradled her braid, as I once held her. Oh, to return to that time, when things were simple. How had it all gone so wrong?

When had I stopped being enough for her?

The source of my sorrow had the nerve to visit the next day and holler, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

I saw red. As you can imagine, I had a good mind to tell him off. But why would he stick around to listen? Then an idea struck. I tossed down the braid.

When he reached the top, peeked in the window and spotted me glaring at him with my arms crossed, Prince Adalric froze, his eyes round as saucers. “Er, sorry. Wrong tower.”

After all the trouble he’d caused, that’s what he had to say for himself?

He swiftly turned tail to scurry back down the hair, but I was having none of that. I hoisted him inside before dropping the braid to the ground.

With his only means of escape now cut off, I intended to have a few words with him. “You’d better have climbed up here to ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

The prince recoiled as if he’d been struck. “Good lord! You must be—”

“Your future mother-in-law? Why yes, I am.”

He threw his shoulders back and puffed up his chest. “I was going to say the wicked witch who ruined Rapunzel’s life.”

My broken heart fractured further. Had she really said that about me? “Asking her to pick up after herself occasionally hardly counts as life ruining. And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re dodging the topic of matrimony.”

The prince’s gaze shifted to the floor. “I’d rather keep things casual. There’s no sense rushing into wedlock.”

Rushing? Was he really that obtuse? “She’s already pregnant!”

His face paled. “S-she is? What makes you think it’s mine?”

The fact that he was the father of my future grandchildren was the only thing that kept me from throttling him. How had this absolute cad won my daughter’s favor? “You will marry Rapunzel, or I will turn you into a dung beetle. Is that understood?”

The prince responded by diving out the window. The heap of Rapunzel’s hair cushioned his fall, but he must have bonked his head on the way down, for he screamed, “You’ve blinded me!”

Before I could sort out what to do next, he’d fumbled his way to his horse, hopped on and ridden away.

Things could not have been worse. I feared I would never earn my daughter’s love back.

I flew to Verbena’s next. She soothed me as I recounted the situation and sobbed into her shoulder, refraining from pointing out her past warnings against parenthood. She truly was a good friend. When I’d calmed, she said, “The solution is simple.”

You could have fooled me. “It is?”

Verbena nodded. “Brew a healing potion to cure the prince’s eyesight. With a debt owed to you, he’ll have no choice but to agree to marry Rapunzel.”

It was a solid plan, so I set about enacting it at once.

After preparing the potion, I flew off into the forest, following the hoofprints the prince’s horse had left behind. But I found Rapunzel first, shivering beneath a fir tree with newborn twins clutched in her arms—a boy and a girl. Wandering through the wilderness and giving birth had not been kind to her. She looked malnourished, and she was running a fever.

Pleading brown eyes found mine. “I’m sorry I ran away, mother.” Her voice was hoarse, her stature so small and scared.

I thought of the healing potion. The prince would have to wait. My daughter needed it more.

As soon as I tipped the contents in her mouth, her health returned to her at once, like a wilted flower blossoming.

A whinny alerted us we were not alone. Prince Adalric, astride his horse, had galloped right to us.

I’d like to think the prince found us because of a change of heart, but I suspect it was blind luck.

“My love!” Rapunzel handed me the babies before rushing to him.

He attempted to dismount his horse, falling off in the process. My daughter dropped to the ground beside him, cradling his head in her lap.

The prince stared up at her blankly. “Rapunzel, is that you?”

My heart sank. I had no means left to heal him.

“Whatever is wrong with you? Can’t you see me?” The prince shook his head and Rapunzel burst into tears.

Tears that still bore the effects of the healing potion she’d just drank.

When they fell upon his eyes, he gasped. “It is you!”

She kissed him then, crying even harder, though these seemed to be tears of joy.

Perhaps I could make this work after all. “As my daughter has just healed you, your highness, I believe you owe her a debt. Might I suggest marriage as repayment?”

Before the prince could respond, Rapunzel squealed with joy. “We’re to be married? Oh, how wonderful.”

“I . . . Well . . .” the prince began. But there would be no getting out of it once Rapunzel set her mind on something.

Considering the matter settled, I returned Rapunzel’s twins to her. She looked between the two of them and hesitated before looking up at me. “Mother, as I’ve two children, would you like to raise one of them?”

I gazed at those beautiful babies. Here was my second shot at parenthood. Raising a new child would give me a chance to really get things right. Then I looked at my daughter. Did I truly want to go through everything again? And what if things didn’t go any better than before? After a moment’s careful consideration, I said, “Enjoy motherhood. I’ll be happy to babysit if you need a day off now and then.”

Since then, I’ve been working on self-improvement to take my mind off my empty nest. Rapunzel and my grandchildren are enjoying palace life. The prince has been surprisingly faithful to her. I’ve warned him that if he strays, he will find himself transformed into a dung beetle.

Now that you know the real story, I believe a rewrite is in order. Unless, of course, you’d enjoy experiencing life as an insect.

I eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,

Berthadette (not a Dame) Gothel