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At first, she didn’t even realize she was doing it. Her hand instinctively reached up to her head and her nails dug into her fingertips around a single strand of golden hair. Rapunzel chewed her lower lip as she twirled it absently, her eyes always locked on her book. And then she felt it: the sting in her fingertips, the vibrating electricity in her scalp. She blinked, shaken from her daze, and found an incomprehensibly long piece of her own hair entangled in her fingers. At the closer end was the root.
Did I just do that? She thought to herself. Did I just pull out my own hair? She knew she had. And the worst part was that it felt good .
All her life, Rapunzel was nothing but her hair. It was the life force that kept Mother Gothel young and happy, the ladder which she climbed every day to enter their home, the source of the one thing that made Rapunzel special, useful, purposeful. Without it, what even was Rapunzel?
Mother would be so furious , Rapunzel thought to herself as she considered Gothel’s reaction. But now she was riding a high that she could not stop. Her skin screamed at her for more, the stimulation comforting. She pinched her nail and her fingertip together around another long, silky piece of hair. She had to pinch rather hard to actually uproot it, and sometimes it took a few tries, but when she finally plucked it from the root, that electric zing spread out across her scalp again and she felt alive.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before she realized that if she was going to do this, she needed to be tactical about it. If she pulled too much from the top of her head, Mother would surely notice and that she could not have. She would have to be more discreet, and so she started pulling from the underside of her head, nearer to the nape of her neck. Nearer to the single brown lock that warned her what would come of damaging something so valuable. She considered that short little tress for a moment and felt a small pang of guilt. The hunger in her hands pushed it away as quickly as it came.
It was nearly mid afternoon when she finally forced herself to stop. She had done all that she could without causing her fingers to bleed. The tip of her index pulsed as the indent of her nail stared back at her. And there, upon her propped open book, was a tangled mess of golden hairs strewn all about the pages.
“Oh no…” Rapunzel whimpered. “What have I done…?” Flying to her feet, she raced to the mirror–knocking over her chair in the process–to survey the damage. The area where she had began, on the top of her head, appeared slightly sparser but nothing that couldn’t be covered up with a change of parting until it grew back. The underside, however, was another story. Though harder to view, if she craned her neck and tilted the mirror just so, she could see the bald patches spotting around the nape of her neck. “I’m terrible” she sighed, and buried her face in her hands. Pascal came scuttling up to her then and curled up on her knee, sympathetic. He hated to see her in distress, and perhaps he had let her go too far. Next time–if there was a next time–he would have to take action.
When Mother Gothel returned that night, Rapunzel made a scrumptious dinner for them almost as if in silent apology for something she didn’t even know Rapunzel had done. Gothel eyed her curiously, suspiciously, but said nothing more on the matter. Once they were finished eating, it was time for Rapunzel to sing. The routine had been the same since she was a child: Rapunzel would sit by the fire as Gothel brushed her hair, relief washing over her as the young girl’s song cleansed the woman of her age. Tonight, however, Rapunzel sat tense for her mother. She feared what she would say should Mother Gothel catch her sins.
And she did. She brushed a section of Rapunzel’s hair to the side and saw the bald patches. Her eyes darkened and her grip on the brush tightened, but she did not say a thing. As the golden hair glowed, the damage that Rapunzel had done seemed to right itself. Mother Gothel hoped that this would not be considered an invitation to keep doing this. Rapunzel’s regenerative abilities were not an excuse to harm her precious hair.
Come bedtime, Rapunzel was so emotionally exhausted from the adrenaline rush of hiding her crimes that she collapsed into bed and fell quickly asleep. Pascal curled up on her pillow beside her and wrapped a tiny foot around a long strand of hair. Like an anchor holding tight to a ship in the sea. Don’t drift away. I’m here to hold onto you.
With the morning sun came breakfast and another goodbye as Gothel retreated into town. Before she left, however, she peered over her shoulder at Rapunzel and reminded her, “Don’t forget, today is wash day.” Her hand skated across the girl’s golden hair and Rapunzel’s face flushed.
“Yes, mother” she said obediently and bid Gothel goodbye.
Wash day was always such an arduous process, as was to be expected with seventy feet of hair. Rapunzel stripped down to her underclothes so as to not get her dress soaking wet, and then set about a large basin of sudsy water and a wide tooth comb. Towels of all shapes and sizes lined the floor like a patchwork quilt. It was slippery business washing so much hair.
Before she began, however, Rapunzel turned and surveyed herself in the mirror. She checked the top of her head and the nape of her neck and found relief in the way her power had mended her crimes. Pascal watched, however, as the relief in her eyes soon shifted into something darker, something tempted. She twisted another strand of hair around her finger before pinching it at the root, ready to pull. Before she could even commit to the act, however, Pascal grimaced and shot his tongue out to adhere to her hand.
“Pascal!” Rapunzel yelped, eyes wide. “What was that for?” Pascal simply eyed her smugly, as if to say You already know . Then, climbing up the golden stair, he clung to a section of her hair and shook his head, frowning. “You want me to stop” Rapunzel deduced. Pascal nodded definitively. “I know I should, but I can’t help myself! Sometimes it just feels nice to have…control.”
Pascal sighed. He understood where she was coming from–really, he did. But that did not allow her the right to harm herself in this way. Pascal climbed up onto Rapunzel’s shoulder and nestled her cheek comfortingly.
“Thanks, Pascal” Rapunzel whispered. “I guess I can try my best. I’d hate to make you angry–I know how good of a hider you are when you’re mad at me!” And he was–any time that Rapunzel had dissatisfied the little chameleon, he would take his camouflage skills to the next level and sometimes would stay hidden for days. The silent treatment was maddening when you are all alone in a tower. Rapunzel would try to be good, for him if nothing else.
And years later, when all was said and done and the tower was just a lingering shadow in her memory, Rapunzel would look at her reflection, changed with age now, and sometimes twirl a finger around a short brown lock of hair. A faint zing of hunger would skitter across her scalp and her fingers would itch for that relief once more, but she would remind herself not to succumb to it. Pascal would glare at her from across the room and shoot his tongue toward her hand, and she knew that even after all of this time, it still wasn’t worth it. She could not afford to reverse the clock; she had healed what had been hurt and now she was no longer bound by the hunger of the pull.