Chapter 4: Race to Freedom

Rupunzel discovers the real reason her hair is so important to her soceress. She finds that her guardian has put an experation date on her life

                I stood staring at that sentence for what felt like an eternity.  I had no idea what it meant. I sat on the floor and tried to puzzle it out. I knew that the sorceress in the pictures had to be my guardian. Otherwise what would she want with me? What I really needed to know though was what I had to do with the girl in the photos. I compared my picture to that of hers and we looked so similar. It just didn’t make any sense. I still had that feeling like there was a memory that just wouldn’t come to mind that would help me solve it. It was so frustrating that I couldn’t remember. I stood up again and just stared at the pictures. What was the significance to this story? Then all of a sudden the memory came back. A woman crying as I was led away. I was three and it was the first time I moved. This woman didn’t want me to leave. She was my neighbor and she was always really nice to me. I liked her and I always had felt close to her. Her face came to my mind with a clarity that was shocking. It was the same face as the one in the picture just a little older. The answer was there just waiting for me to grasp it. But I just couldn’t figure it out. I decided to drop that puzzle part and try to figure the rest out.

My hair had to play a big part in this. So I got up and started to go through her books. After about an hour of doing that I realized that there were just too many to go through. So I turned on her computer. I should have done this first. She had them all in there and all I needed to do was type in what I was looking for and let the computer find the cross references for me. In her computer library search engine I typed “spells that use hair”. What came up was ridiculous. There were about 400 results. There were spells that called for all kinds of hair. Dog hair, cat hair, unicorn hair (who knew they really existed?), pig hair, all kinds of hair. So I changed the search to “spells with human hair.” This one was a lot easier to search through. There were only twenty results. I scanned through them but none of them made sense. There were spells for hair regrowth, permanent color change, self-servicing haircuts, but beauty keep up couldn’t be what this was all about. I got to the last one and immediately knew this was the one I was looking for. Isn’t that the way it usually happens? It’s always the last place you look? Anyways, I knew this was the one I was looking for because there was my picture again. This text was written in English so I started reading:

           Spell for Eternal Life

The purpose for this spell is to gain eternal life. The magic is strong and the spell is complex. This spell requires the human hair from an innocent girl. The longest part of this spell is the preparation.  You must brew this spell and use it as a shampoo for the hair. It will make the hair strong and make it grow at a fast rate. Keep this hair long and Do Not Cut It. A trim is fine to keep the ends decent but no more than an inch or you will have to dispose of that head and find a new one. When the girl the hair is on reaches her twentieth birthday you must brew a brand new batch of potion but instead of using the shampoo recipe use the soup one found on the next page. Feed this to her but then promptly cut her hair off right above the neck line. Throw the hair into a fire pit and the fire will burn causing her life force to transfer to the one who cuts the hair. Dispose of the body anyway you wish. All ingredients are found on the next page. Happy brewing!

               

                Happy brewing? These people are absolutely crazy! I went through it all again. An innocent girl had to mean one that had uh, well, you know, umm, never been with anyone before. And I’ve been locked in a tower so I most definitely haven’t. And I knew the shampoo I used was weird the smell was odd. Then the most terrifying realization came to me. I turned twenty in one week. She was going to try and kill me in one week!

                Why would she want to live forever looking like a fat old hag? I mean I would much rather be beautiful again. Why isn’t she trying to do that? Then I decided she probably was I just hadn’t figured out how yet. I’m not sure I wanted to. I was already freaking out. She was planning on killing me and I was stuck here. I needed to get out and fast. But I had no way out. I would have cut my own hair a long time ago and let myself down on it but she put a curse on me. The curse is if I cut my own hair I would go bald and stay bald for the rest of my life. And no way was that going to happen to me. So I needed another way out. Maybe I could use my hair a rope even though it’s still connected to me. That was an idea. But I knew that I wouldn’t leave until I figured the rest of her crazy evil plot.

                So I sent another search through her online library. It was “how to restore beauty.” What came up I think was more disturbing then the hair thing. She had to eat the heart of a young healthy girl of the age she chooses. Oh well that’s just great. She’s going to cut my hair to kill me then eat my heart to restore her looks? I don’t think so. I was so out of there. I needed to find a way out of there and the clock was ticking.

 

Reviews

[ByJ.T.Rogers]

I'm beginning to like this story more. So I'm going to be a little more harsh to help with the plot. You said all kinds of hair twice in second paragraph. Oh another thing, rupunsule said in the last chapter something like "I didn't believe she was a witch." She needs to believe if she had been cursed before. A curse of being balled? It needs to be more seeaball, I mean that's like your mom saying that to you, would you believe? When I say seeaball I mean something like "Every time I pick up a knife or sharp objected I faint." Happy Writing :-)
J.T.