13
Rachel
Is it a dream if you’re not even sure you’re asleep?
Lately, I’ve been having these dreams, strange dreams. Or maybe, they’re fantasies. In my dreams, there is a man. He comes to my window because the door is locked, and he says, “I’m going to steal you away.”
But even in my dreams, I know I cannot go with him. At first, I thought it was because of Mama, because she would be alone and miss me. But one day, I realized that wasn’t the reason at all. In fact, I am meant to leave Mama. But first, there was something else I had to do, something so important that only I could do it.
I liked that thought. There is nothing like sitting alone in a tower all day to make a person feel worthless, depressed. Often, I’ve thought that nothing in the world would change if I did not get up in the morning, if I didn’t get dressed.
I told Mama this and, not surprisingly, she disagreed. I was important to her, she said. She loved me and would miss me if I was gone.
But how much did that matter, really?
Perhaps the dreams were something I made up myself, to make me feel better. But I didn’t think so.
I did not waste time, wondering what it was I must do. I knew that, eventually, I would find the answer. Just like I found the answer to the other question that had been troubling my mind—the question of how my rescuer would be able to reach my window, so high in the air.
In my vision, at first I only saw his face. It was a handsome one, dark hair and eyes the color of the evergreen trees outside my window.
But something lurked in those eyes too, something troubling, as if some tragedy had befallen him, a sorrow he could never quite forget.
Like what happened to my mother.
At first, I merely saw his face, his hands on the window ledge. Then, his whole body as he swung himself through the window. Only I could not see what he swung on.
Until, one day, I told my dream self to look down. I approached the window, looking not just at the man, who had, up until then, fascinated me, but at the mechanics of his being there.
And it was then that I saw how he had come to my window. He had not flown, but almost. Almost. He had climbed on a rope. I knew without asking that the rope had been one of my own tying.
I knew for two reasons.
First, the rope was tied to an iron bench by my window, an object firmly in my control.
Second, the rope was woven from silken strands of yellow. It was woven from my hair.
This may seem insane. How can hair be woven into rope, a rope long enough to cascade to the ground from such a height, a rope long as the trunks of ancient trees?
My hair has always grown quickly, so quickly that it must be cut once a week, just to stay at a length where it doesn’t trip me. But, lately, it has been growing even more quickly.
Mama usually cuts my hair on Sunday. She allows it to grow to my waist, no farther.
But, this past Sunday, when I went to bed at night, I felt a tugging. I was sleeping on top of my hair. It had already grown far past my waist, and it had been mere hours since it had been cut.
Thinking this strange, I braided it up and threw the braids over my shoulder, so they just touched the floor.
When I woke, the braids were on the floor, all the way on the floor. But I couldn’t see them because coiled over them was more hair, so much more golden hair than I had braided. It grew so fast that I could see it move if I watched it. When I stood, it reached the floor, and if I folded it over, it would reach my head again.
For some reason, I knew not to tell Mama. Rather, I brushed and braided it, a task of hours, and then, I hid it under my covers. I even tucked part of it under the mattress.
When Mama came, I dimmed the lights. “I feel sick today. Please don’t turn on the lights. It hurts my eyes.” I often got headaches, so this was believable, though I never caught cold. Girls in books got sick from the cold or going out in the rain or being exposed to others who were ill. I did none of those things.
But Mama said, “Oh, my poor dear,” and pressed her wrinkled hand to my forehead.
“No fever, at least. Had I but known, I would have brought you a nice chicken soup.”
But, of course, there was no way for her to know because she was not there. But I did not say it. I would argue sometime when I was not hiding twenty feet of hair beneath my covers. Today was a day to be sweet, not cross. “Can you bring it tomorrow? Or come back later?”
She never came twice in one day, but I thought perhaps this one time, she might.
“I get so lonely here, especially when I am sick.”
She smiled, so I added, “And can you bring me some items as well?”
“What is it you want, my dear?”
I had thought a great deal about this, about a list of items, a long list, to mask my real request.
“My art supplies are dwindling. I need some paper and paints, watercolors and acrylics.” She had replaced my paints quite recently, but I hoped she would not notice their nearly full condition in the dark. “Oh, and scissors.”
“Scissors?”
I breathed in. “The snowflakes. I have been watching them from my window. They are so pretty, and when they sometimes land so I can see them on the glass, they have shapes, all sorts of shapes like faceted stars. I thought, perhaps, I could cut shapes like snowflakes and hang them from the ceiling, to bring the outside in.”
“You wouldn’t . . . hurt yourself, would you?”
“Of course not. I just want to create something beautiful. Please.”
“Very well. I will bring them.”
“Oh, and I’d need some string to hang them.”
“Very well. I’ll go now to get them. Do you want me to brush your hair before I leave?”
“It will hurt my head. I braided it anyway.” I gestured toward my hair, which had already grown another foot since I’d last braided it. “I don’t feel well enough to sit up.”
“I will bring some tea as well.”
By the time she returned, my hair had grown my body length yet again, and I had braided it twice more. She brought the chicken soup, and I allowed her to spoon it between my lips even though I was dying for her to leave. She loved to pretend I was an infant.
After she left, I did not cut my hair. I knew she would not be back until at least the next morning, maybe later. So I waited, braiding and rebraiding my hair, watching it inch away from my scalp. By morning, it stretched across the room and back. I braided it and waited, cutting snowflake shapes too, dozens of them, to make true my lie about why I needed the scissors.
When the sun was high in the sky, my braid reached the ground when dangled out the window. It was sufficient. I tied my hair on both sides with the string Mama had brought, then cut it carefully, the scissors nearly scratching my scalp. Then, I coiled up the braid and stuffed it under my bed.
Oddly, once I cut it, it did not grow so backbreakingly fast again. When Mama arrived, it reached my chest, no more. A little shorter than normal. I hoped she would not notice. I also hoped she would not look under my bed, for if she did, she would see the rope I had begun to make. There was only one purpose for a rope, and she would know it.
I began to cut more snowflakes. I was getting quite good at it, folding the paper over and over into a thick square, then cutting borders and boxes and diamonds to make it resemble the snowflakes on the windowsill. But this time, my hand slipped and the scissors’ sharp blade sliced into my fingertip. I gave a cry and felt tears spring to my eyes. A drop of red blood stained the white snowflake. I wiped a tear.
And then, the strangest thing happened. When I examined my finger again, it wasn’t bleeding at all.
It wasn’t that the blood had been staunched. Rather, it was as if it had never bled. But when I looked at the snowflake, it was still stained red.
Obviously, it hadn’t been a bad cut. I was just being a baby.
But when I put my finger into my mouth, the metallic taste of blood that wasn’t there still lingered.