the âbed.â The witch watches me very closely.
âWhere did that animal come from?â she hisses.
I keep my back to her and hope she doesnât hear how hard my heart has started to beat. I donât know what I would do if she took away Sir Kitty. âIt must have been hiding here the whole time, witch.â I keep one hand on the kitten protectively.
âI told you to call me Mother Gothel! Now go to thewindow! Do not turn around until you have braided that hair of yours. You are too old to be walking around with a mop like that!â
âI know that!â I say, turning to face her. âI told you it was already supposed to be cut!â
She points to the window. The conversation is apparently over. I donât tell her that I have never braided my own hair. Mother has always done it. I am afraid if I tell her, she might do it herself, and the thought of her touching me again makes me shudder. I have braided rope before, so perhaps it is not that different.
I face the window and gather my thick hair away from my face like Mother used to do. Using both hands, I reach around the back of my head. It takes me a good twenty minutes to make a braid that feels something like what Mother used to make. When I am done, my arms ache. I rest my hands on the ledge and find that if I lean slightly forward, I can catch the light breeze that comes off the treetops. The moon hangs low in the sky, illuminating the forest. It does not shed much light into the tower, though. Perhaps my parents are looking up now, too, and wondering where their only child has been taken. I still believe they will come for me. Surely they will leave no stone unturned, no tower unsearched. The witch said I could turn around after I completed the braid, but Iâd rather look at the night than herface. After a minute, though, I hear a crunching and scratching behind me. What is the witch doing now?? I sneak a peek over my shoulder. To my relief, the witch is gone, simply vanished. And Sir Kitty is happily munching on my roast pig!
Normally I would not be allowed to wander the grounds unattended, but today Mum was busy sulking because her sister did not deem it necessary to come in to visit when she picked up Elkin. Mum is convinced that her sister has never forgiven her for marrying the better king. She spent the day holed up with the seamstress and embroiderer, who together are making her a new wardrobe. This always makes her feel better.
This is what I learned on my journey to ask forgiveness from the hare:
All hares look the same.
If you pick a hare that you think could have been your hare, in that it has the same patch of brown on its rump as the one you chased, and if you bend down to talk to it, and if it then blinks at you and hops off, the peasant children who live on the outskirts of the castle grounds will look at you strangely.
When the peasant children look at you strangely, and you cross your eyes at them and wag your tongue a little, they will laugh and run off, proving that you are good with children.
Peasants live very differently from those of us in the castle.
Certainly I have been aware for many years that the peasants donât have the same luxuries my family does, but until today, I had never actually been inside one of their homes. There are dozens of young people living within a mile of the castle gates, yet I call none friend. Even Andrew is more of a secret friend since we are not of the same social stature. We loan each other books and sneak down into the kitchen at midnight for leftover plum cakes. He reads as much as he can, for he will become a squire soon and then a knight one day, with not much time for books.
My father is a generous king, and no one goes hungry in his kingdom. Still, the home that I visited did not have much by way of comforts. No thick velvet couches. No serving staff of twenty. The pigs and chickens wandered in and out of the house as though it were the most natural