Conner couldn’t agree more. The twins continued down the dirt path, running this time.
They had experienced more danger today than they had ever experienced in their entire lives. Unfortunately for them, it wouldn’t be their last encounter with Goldilocks, the Big Bad Wolf Pack, or the Dwarf Forests….
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAPUNZEL’S TOWER
The twins had been running for almost an hour straight, and they were starting to feel it. Their adrenaline was slowly running out, and the pains in their sides were increasing with every step they took. But since something dangerous seemed to happen every time they stopped moving, they were motivated to keep going.
“After all this running, P.E. testing should be a breeze,” Conner said through heavy wheezes.
“We’re almost there,” Alex said unconvincingly. “Just a little farther!”
The forest had changed as they ran through it. The trees weren’t so thick, and there was more space and grass between them. More sunlight fell through the branches, so nothing was in the dark. The path became wider, too, and much more visible.
The twins didn’t feel as threatened by their surroundings; the forest almost grew friendlier the closer they traveled to the Corner Kingdom.
Conner collapsed to the ground. He was breathing harder than a fish out of water.
“I can’t run anymore! I can’t take another step!” he said with his limbs spread out as if he were making a snow angel in the dirt.
“We can’t stop moving until we get into the Corner Kingdom,” Alex reminded him through her own heavy breathing.
“I think we’re there,” Conner said.
“How do you know?” Alex asked.
“That’s how,” Conner said, and pointed upward.
In the distance, a tall tower was visible above the treetops. It was circular and made of square stones. There was a single window near the top, just below the pointed roof made of hay. It was partially covered in thick vines of ivy.
Alex gasped and clutched her hands together.
“It’s Rapunzel’s tower!” Alex said, and her eyes became a little misty at the sight of it.
“Are you seriously crying?” said Conner, who was still on the ground.
“It’s just how I imagined it!” Alex said. “Get up! We’re getting a closer look!”
Alex yanked on her brother’s arm until he climbed to his feet, and the twins walked through the trees until they came to the base of the tower.
It was even taller than it looked, a few hundred feet tall at least. The twins’ necks began to ache after looking up at the tower for a while. A large golden plaque was displayed in the ground in front of it that said:
QUEEN RAPUNZEL’S TOWER
“It must have been so hard for her,” Alex said. “Seeing people and places so far away and never being able to visit them.”
“At least she never had to worry about burglars,” Conner said.
“I’ve got to go up there,” Alex said.
“Do you have a jet pack or a grappling hook that I’m unaware of ?” Conner asked her.
“No, I’ll have to climb it,” Alex said, surprising herself with the declaration.
“You have officially lost your mind!” Conner said. “We’ve almost been killed twice, and we haven’t even been here a full day yet! We need to stop fooling around and find a way home, Alex! What part of that don’t you understand?”
“Look,” Alex said. “I’m going to climb up there for just a few minutes, and then as soon as I climb back down, we’ll read the journal and find out what all the Wishing Spell items are, okay?”
“Alex…” Conner began. His face was turning pink.
“Please, Conner,” Alex said. “I need to do this, or I’ll regret it forever!”
Conner shook his head with the frustration that only a sibling could cause. He wanted to lecture her about how childish she was acting. But the way she was looking at him, with her big, wanting eyes, prevented him. It was so rare that Alex ever needed something, he supposed one last stop couldn’t hurt.
“Don’t kill yourself,” Conner said. “But while you’re up there, I’m going to start reading the journal and make a list of the Wishing Spell items we need to find.”
Alex happily nodded and put her bag on the ground. She stretched for the climb she was about to make.
Conner sat on the ground and began flipping through the pages of the journal.
Climbing the tower was easier said than done. After searching around the base of the tower for a place to put her first step, Alex could tell why a long train of golden hair might be needed to get to the top of it. Eventually, she found a stone block with a chip large enough to put her foot in and take her first step.
“Here I go,” Alex said. “Gosh, I wish I had a camera!”
“Trust me,” Conner said. “The real Alex I know isn’t going to want proof of this.”
It was like climbing the world’s most difficult rock-climbing wall. She relied on cracks and chips and uneven bricks sticking out just enough to put her hands and feet on. She moved slowly but carefully. If she were any larger, it wouldn’t have worked.
“You’re still at the bottom?” Conner said, looking up from the journal after a few minutes.
“Shut up, Conner!” Alex yelled back at him.
“I’m just saying, at the rate you’re going Mom’s gonna be eighty by the time we get home whether there’s a time difference or not,” he said.
After some time had gone by and she had gotten the hang of it, Alex moved more quickly, carefully pulling herself up using the ivy. The higher she climbed, the less she looked down at the ground, fearing it would tamper with her effort to reach the top.
She was so determined to see the top of the tower, to be in the room where Rapunzel had lived and to see what Rapunzel had seen through her window every day. She wanted to be where somebody else had been during the loneliest times of their life.
Rapunzel’s story had always been easy for Alex to identify with. Alex felt she was in a tower of her own, looking at the world from an unreachable location.
She was almost halfway up the tower by now, and she was above all the trees in the forest. Any tiny misstep would no longer result in potential injury, it would mean death.
“There’s a reason the witch put Rapunzel up there, you know!” Conner called up to her. “So no one could reach her!”
“I’m not listening to you!” Alex said, and then, stupidly, looked down.
Beads of sweat appeared on Alex’s forehead. She felt like her heart had fallen out of her body. What was she doing? There was no way she could climb back down. Was she really risking her life just to see the inside of a tower? If she ever reached the top, would she be able get back down? Would she have to wait until her hair grew long enough to climb before she saw anyone again?
What would Conner do if she got stuck up there? Would he try to find the fairy-tale world equivalent of a fire department with a ladder long enough to get her down? Or would he find the Wishing Spell items on his own and go home without her?
The more Alex worried, the more she climbed. She knew it wouldn’t be productive to worry and stay still, so she just kept going. It felt like hours had gone by.
She looked up. She was only a few feet away from the window! Just a few more feet and she’d be there! Finally, she felt the windowsill with her hands and slowly pulled herself up to it… then through it… she was almost through the window…
Alex swung her legs over the window and into the tower.
“Thank God,” she said to herself. She might be stuck in the tower, but at least she was safe.
Alex looked around the tower; it wasn’t at all what she had expected. It was a large, circular room with no furniture or decoration of any kind. In fact, it was completely empty except for some hay and bird droppings littered around the floor.
“Hi, Alex!” said a voice inside the tower.
Alex jumped and screamed. She was comp
letely shocked to see Conner sitting up against the tower wall just a few feet away from her.
“It took you long enough to get up here!” he said with a laugh. He was eating an apple, and he had the journal open in his lap.
“How in the world did you get up here?” Alex demanded. She was still out of breath from her climb.
“I took the stairs,” Conner said with a mocking grin. “I was reading the journal. It says that after Rapunzel became queen, she installed a staircase in her tower so she could come back and visit whenever she wanted. The door to the staircase was on the other side of the tower. We just didn’t see it.”
“Oh,” Alex said sheepishly. “That would make sense.”
“Apparently, since Rapunzel was the only known ward of the witch, when the witch died, Rapunzel inherited all the land from her. That’s how she became a queen,” Conner informed her. “But you would have known that if you had read the journal. It’s full of fun facts and helpful hints on how to get inside difficult places.”
“I suppose,” Alex said, and straightened her headband. She wasn’t going to let this ruin the accomplishment she had felt after climbing the tower. She turned to look out Rapunzel’s window.
The tower was surrounded by a sea of trees. Far off into the distance, Alex could barely see the rooftops of a tiny village; beyond the village was a large mountain range that rolled across the horizon. Now this was exactly what Alex had expected.
“It’s quite a view, isn’t it?” Conner asked.
“Yes,” Alex said, almost in a whisper. “It’s breathtaking. I just wish we could see it all, everything in the Land of Stories. But I did a lot of thinking on my way up here, and I know we have to get home. That’s what we need to focus on.”
“About that,” Conner said. “You really need to read this, Alex. I’ve only skipped through a little bit of it—most of it’s hard to read, because it’s written by hand—but the situation is much more serious than we thought.”
He handed her the journal. Alex sat next to him and opened it to the very first page and began reading.
Dear friends,
I don’t know how, why, or where you found this journal, but since it has found its way into your possession, I hope that it will be of use to you.
What I am about to tell you is going to sound ludicrous, but I ask that you allow me to explain. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed it myself.
I am but a simple man from a simple village in the Charming Kingdom, but I have been to another world. It’s a world with people and technologies that our world has only dreamed of and places we can only imagine. I know it seems absurd, but I promise you that an extraordinary place exists out there. We just can’t see it.
During my visit, among the many things I experienced, I fell in love. I fell into a love so deep it was unlike anything I’ve ever known.
I never thought this kind of love was real. It’s as if I am no longer living for myself anymore, but for her. So, I must find a way back. I must find a way to see her again.
The first time I traveled into the other world was simple. A fairy that knew of its existence allowed me to travel with her. She warned me not to get attached to anything or anyone, but while my brain was obedient to her request, my heart betrayed it.
The fairy has hence banned me from traveling with her. So, this time, I must find my way into the other world on my own.
Naturally, I didn’t know where to start. How does one go about traveling into another world? Who was I even to ask? How would I even be able to ask without appearing like a lunatic? Cinderellian society is very judgmental, and I surely would have been ridiculed if my mission were discovered.
I came to the conclusion that I’d have to ask someone who was crazy in their own right, so no one would believe them if they spoke of what I had inquired. I needed someone I could trust, but who would never be trusted by the world.
I figured such a person didn’t exist, and I lost hope, until I remembered the Traveling Tradesman. He was infamous for finding naïve children in the woods and trading their items of value for items he claimed to be magical. He was rumored to have given Jack the beans that grew his beanstalk.
Surely if anyone had heard of another world, it would be him. He was on the move at all times, since warrants for his arrest had been issued in all the kingdoms. He would be nearly impossible to find, but then again, my entire quest was virtually impossible.
Late one night, I traveled to a tavern up the stream from my home. There I befriended two farmers, and I proceeded to buy them round after round of drinks. After we had had a few laughs about childhood adventures and adolescent mistakes, I asked them if they had ever heard of the Traveling Tradesmen.
They both grew very quiet and were almost offended by the question. I assured them it was purely out of curiosity, and I wasn’t accusing them of anything. I purchased another round of drinks, and after they were consumed the farmers confessed they had done business with him in earlier years.
“I traded two goats for a watering can that was supposed to magically water all my crops by itself,” one of the farmers said. “The damn thing never worked, and it had a leak! It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I traded two cows for a goose he told me would lay golden eggs!” the other claimed. “The goose was male! He gave me a gander!”
They tried convincing me to call off my search for him, but after one final round of drinks, they told me of the routes he covertly took through the woods.
I must have searched every patch of trees in the Charming Kingdom. Finally, in the woods just south of the Red Riding Hood Kingdom border, I found him.
The Traveling Tradesman was an odd, elderly, disheveled man. He wore several layers of raggedy clothing, and he had a long, gray beard. There were dark circles under his eyes, and one of the eyes wandered to the left, so it was difficult to tell what or whom he was looking at.
He traveled with a large cart that was pulled by a single mule. He was making a deal with a small boy holding a chicken when I first saw him.
“Wear this bear claw and you’ll grow up to be the strongest boy in the village,” the Tradesman told the boy, and then placed a necklace with a large bear claw around his neck and took the chicken from him.
The boy smiled and ran off. The Tradesman placed the chicken in the back of his cart. He must have made other trades that day, because he had already collected two geese and a pig.
“Are you a friend or a foe?” the Tradesman asked me.
“A friend, I believe,” I said.
“Oh, good,” he said with a jolly clap. “Then what may I do for you, friend? Would you like a bag of magic pebbles that grow into boulders? It’ll only cost you a duck! Or perhaps you’d like to trade a swine for a loaf of bread that’ll make you never be hungry again?”
“No, thank you,” I said cautiously. “I’ve come to ask you for advice.”
“Advice?” the Tradesman said. The eyebrow above his wandering eye rose. “That, my friend, is something no one has ever asked me for. What do you wish to know?”
“I am wondering…” I started, but wasn’t sure how to put it into words. “What is the farthest distance you’ve traveled?”
The Tradesman scratched his beard and thought about it.
“Well, I’d honestly say there isn’t a place in this world I haven’t been,” he told me. “I’ve traveled from the Southwest to the Northeast and from the Southeast to the Northwest. I’ve been from the bottom of the Corner Kingdom to the top of the Sleeping Kingdom and from the tip of the Elf Empire to the coast of the Fairy Kingdom—”
“What about farther than that?” I interrupted him, fearing he might continue listing every journey he had ever taken.
“Farther than that?” Both of the Tradesman’s eyebrows were raised now. “What’s farther than that? Only ocean is beyond that, and that’s it.”
“What about a different world? Have you ever heard of one or how to travel to
one?” I finally asked.
The Tradesman got a funny look in his eyes—or should I say eye.
“Young man, I’ve been all over the world, and I have never seen any suggestion of there being another,” he said.
This topic upset him somehow, and he hopped aboard his cart and took the reins of his mule.
“Wait! Please don’t go!” I pleaded.
“You youngsters always take pleasure in harassing an old man. Well, I won’t allow it,” he said.
He began to travel up the path. I was so desperate, I stood in front of his mule and was nearly trampled.
“I mean you no harm, old man!” I assured him. “You don’t understand! I’ve been to another world, another place and time, and have seen extraordinary things! I need to go back! It may be the greatest wish I will ever have.”
My arms were spread out, and I fell to my knees. I felt like an imbecile, confessing a preposterous need to a preposterous man.
The Tradesman sat still with his good eye fixed on me.
“Is it truly the most desired wish in your heart?” he asked.
“Yes!” I pleaded. “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life.”
“If it’s a wish you desire, then there’s only one thing you need,” he said.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“The Wishing Spell,” the Tradesman said.
At first I thought he was joking.
“The Wishing Spell?” I asked him. “You mean the childish legend?”
“It’s as real as the nose on my face,” the Tradesman said. “Many men have spent their lives trying to obtain it. Legend has it that if you collect a series of objects and place them in close proximity, the collector’s one true wish will be granted.”
I didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Perhaps he was harassing me now. My brain was critical, but my heart chose to learn more.
“And how do I find these items?” I asked.
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” he said.
Now I was frustrated with him. All of that explanation for nothing! I turned my back on him and began heading back home.