Sam glanced down at me; my head was in his lap by that point. “Nothing else?” he asked. “You altered the winds and grew violent plants and turned yourself into water.”
“Only a little bit.”
“You transformed your entire body into liquid ‘only a little bit’?”
“Can we argue about this when I’m done with the story?”
“All right.” Sam sighed and gave me a wry grin. “At least I finally know why your hairstyle keeps changing.”
“You never figured that out? I told everyone!”
“Not me. I thought you were just fashion-forward.”
“So much that I stopped to redo my hair in the middle of a pitched battle?”
“Fashion doesn’t wait on circumstance.”
The next morning, when her stepmother called up to her, Melilot flung a great waterfall of hair out her window.
“I suppose that will work,” her stepmother sniffed. “Brace yourself. This is likely to hurt.” She dug her hands into the masses of brown curls and scaled her way up the tower.
Once the queen was safely inside, Melilot pulled her endless length of hair back through the window and massaged her aching head. Hair climbing, she reflected, was unlikely to become a popular mode of transportation.
“Might I have visitors now,” she implored her stepmother, “since I have fulfilled your wishes?”
“Indeed you may,” the queen conceded. “And here I am.”
Melilot scowled. “I had hoped I could see my sisters.”
“Your sisters are off on the quest you refused to undertake. When they return, perhaps I will allow you to see them, if you find some way to let them in that’s more sensible than this hair nonsense.”
Melilot was deeply incensed and shouted bitter curses as soon as her stepmother had left the tower and was well out of earshot.
Thereafter, the queen came to visit every morning, shouting, “Melilot, Melilot, let down your hair!” After she climbed up, she would stay to chat, drink tea, and bring news from the world outside, including the fact that the invading army was pressing ever deeper into Skalla—
“The what, now?” Sam asked.
“There was an enemy army attacking Skalla at the time. I’m sure I mentioned it in the first half of the story.”
“Did you? I don’t remember that.”
“Well, to be fair, there’s been a lot going on since then.”
Melilot was surprised by how much time the queen was spending with her given the dire situation. Nevertheless, her resentment toward her stepmother grew with each passing day, especially since the hair climbing continued to be awkward and irritating, although much less painful once Melilot came up with the idea of winding it around the window handle first.
Then one afternoon, nearly a year into her imprisonment, a voice other than the queen’s called her name from the base of the tower. She stuck her head out the window and saw a man she had never met who was dressed in the clothing of a prince.
“Melilot, Melilot!” he thundered at the top of his lungs. “Let down your hair!”
Unsure what to make of this, Melilot wound her hair around the handle and tossed it out.
“Who in the world are you?” Melilot interrogated him. “And why have you come here?”
“A few nights past, while riding through the wilderness, I spied you at your window,” he cooed as he made his way up. “I immediately fell in love with you from afar. However, seeing as your tower has no doorway, I despaired of ever finding a way to enter and meet you. Each night since then, I have approached to admire your beauty and curse my lot. But today, I chanced to arrive in the morning and saw a mysterious woman ascend the walls by means of your glorious hair. And I vowed I would do likewise.” He squeezed through the window and bowed before her.
Melilot, as you might recall, was sixteen years old, so she believed every word he said. Soon the prince won Melilot’s very first kiss. Not long after that, he won even more.
A week passed by with her stepmother visiting every morning and the prince stopping by each afternoon. He spoke of love, and he frequently described the future life he planned for them together in the distant kingdom he left curiously unnamed. He paid her many compliments, especially for the long and beautiful locks of her hair. They broke off such talk only to curse the queen for imprisoning Melilot in the tower and mistreating her throughout her life. She confessed her fury at her stepmother as she had never done before, not even to her sisters.
