All the while, his whispered words evoked heady fantasies in Melilot’s mind—a future far from Skalla, in which she would no longer be at the mercy of the queen’s whims. Soon enough, Melilot wanted nothing more than to escape the tower and run off with him.
“A ladder of sufficient height would be too bulky for my horse. But perhaps I could bring you a length of silk each time I arrive,” the prince proposed. “You can weave them into a rope in secret, and when it’s ready, you shall descend it, and then together we will ride away from this place.”
Melilot was puzzled. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to bring a pair of scissors? We cut off my hair, tie a knot, and both climb out?”
“My idea would make a more thrilling story,” the prince huffed.
“But with mine, we could leave earlier—as soon as tomorrow night!”
The prince hesitated and bit his lower lip, weighing his words before he allowed them forth. “I perceive one great flaw with either plan. Is not your stepmother a powerful sorceress?” he pointed out. “No matter when we leave, wouldshe not bend the very elements themselves to hunt us down and capture you once again? I care little for my own life, but I would not see you imprisoned for the rest of your days.”
“That is true,” Melilot acknowledged. “What, then, should we do?”
“I can see no other option. We must kill your stepmother.”
Melilot blinked. “Kill my stepmother?” she echoed.
“Tomorrow, when I come to your tower, I shall come armed!” he attested. “I will stay the night, until the queen comes to see you in the morning. While you toss down your hair, I shall hide by the window, and as she comes through, I will cut off her head. The very sword we use to slay her shall serve to shear off your hair and provide our escape.”
He gave her a kiss and departed until the morrow, leaving behind nothing but the memory of his words.
The following morning, when the queen came to visit, she found Melilot curiously silent. She was used to hearing, at the very least, barbed rejoinders from her stepdaughter and did not know what to make of this uncharacteristic reticence. After a few minutes of one-sided conversation, the queen frowned. “What is amiss?”
Melilot did not look up from her teacup. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been seduced by the leader of the invading army.”
The queen raised her eyebrows. “You’ve been what?”
It was the first time her stepdaughter could ever recall the queen looking surprised.
“He’s been stopping by every afternoon,” Melilot continued, each word dropping from her lips like a leaden weight. “I suppose he learned there was little love lost between us and sought me out to see what advantage he might gain. He plans to assassinate you when you arrive tomorrow.”
“Ah.” The queen finished her tea and set the cup in the saucer with a clink. “Then I imagine we shall have to deal with that today.”
“I’m sorry your first boyfriend turned out to be a deceitful murderer.” Sam laid his hand over mine.
I laced our fingers together. “It wasn’t great. At least he didn’t get me pregnant.”
That afternoon, the prince came at the appointed time. “Melilot, Melilot,” he rhapsodized as usual, “let down your hair!” When the mass of curls came tumbling down the side of the tower, he scrambled up, a great sword strapped to his back.
As he approached the window, however, Melilot was nowhere to be seen. Her hair, he saw, had been snipped from her head and knotted to the window handle. Almost as if his plan had already been enacted. But it proved to be someone else’s plan entirely. For waiting for him within the tower was the queen.
“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” she greeted him as he dangled below her, clinging to the rope of hair, “but I hear you’ve been seeing my daughter.”
The prince reached for his sword, but before he had a chance to draw it, the queen undid the knot that held the hair in place.
Hidden in the wasteland nearby, Melilot watched him scream as he plummeted down and down and down, landing in the rosebushes Melilot had grown at the base of the tower with her magic. They cushioned his fall to the extent that he did not die, but they thrashed and attacked him, the wicked thorns piercing his eyes. Cursing his fate, he stumbled away blind into the vast wilderness surrounding the tower, and for all anyone knows, he wanders there still.
But it is far more likely he died there, lost and alone.
Melilot thought her stepmother, in her anger at the princess’s foolishness, might cast her out to wander the wilderness as well. But she did not. Instead, some days later, freedfrom the tower, Melilot gazed out from a palace balcony while her sister Jonquil routed the leaderless enemy soldiers almost singlehandedly, mounted on the back of a dragon. The quest to retrieve a dragon’s toenail had been fulfilled, and the result was a complete victory over the opposing army.
From behind her, as the dragon breathed fire on the invading troops, she heard her stepmother’s voice.
“I hope,” the queen whispered, “you have learned something from this.”
Melilot laughed bitterly. “I have learned I will be punished if I disobey you. I have learned I am weak in magic and easily deceived. And I have learned I am the least of your children. Is that the lesson you sought to teach me?”
“No.” The queen seemed to be speaking directly into Melilot’s ear, so quietly she could still scarcely be heard. “But at least you have finally called yourself my child.”
