Rapunzel twisted

The bleak west of the world, a place where life has come to an abrupt stop and the edges trail on unconsciously.  On the bitter brink, night takes precedence over day. What sparring sunlight is afforded pierces through the mist and shrivels away from the desolate landscape into the fog, as though to turn away. Gusts herd dark loess around the skies causing moving shadows. Dead leaves scrape loudly across the floor, unwilling to move for fear of where they may end up, gnarled tree roots grasp with deformed fingers and hold tight to the thick mist. Few live there, though the earth is rich with iron, only a few women are brave enough to mine it. No men can, it’s too dangerous for them. Legend says when the settlers arrived the men disappeared. Pregnant women they left gave birth to sons who were lost in the night, all that remained were cold sheets and open windows.

The forest is full of Demons hunting with single deadly strikes, wolves possessed and creatures with dead eyes. Here live the Monsters that no tales do justice. In the heart of the dense forest the trees give way to cold stone pillars marching stealthily around the perimeter of a castle. Here the sharp hissing wind is stolen, for no living ears may hear it, and ear splitting silence replaces it. Mosses that attack the stone are dead, no petals live, no weeds. Nature's war on the castle is unsuccessful. For in the face of evil, beauty is said to perish. Huge uneven slabs of limestone release leaks of black liquid from cracks caused by bearing such weight, the narrow black windows and stone gargoyles glower with impending menace from every angle. Not even spiders, bravest in the face of evil, trespass past those glares.

  At the top lives something wicked, not human nor creature, not monster nor ghost.  Something un-dead yet still she rots like a corpse, her damp eyes the colour of off milk have no pupils, the witch is blind. Liver spots decorate grotesquely her barren head where black hair used to grow. Her cheekbones crumbled inwards long ago, her skin followed and sagged. Teeth replaced by jutting slate sharpened by gnawing on bones, nails replaced by needles which she decorates the wall with an engraved tally.

At night she sings. Shrieking, cackling. The women shudder in their beds, they hide their ears from the bone crunching sound of stone on stone as her hand made teeth crack and snag, they hear her manic laughter behind the voice. To men the most beautiful voice calls, there is no choice. They must go, find the singer and love her. They forget their wives, their children, their lives. Only one goal and one answer to their longing. They must go.

Atop the rafters of the grotesque monument, a chamber. No bed, nor a chair, but a dressing table where lies a mirror, pockmarked with age as though weary of reflection.  Corroded metal rings hold fast the grotesque trophies. A candle gutters, but offers no warmth. It splutters, suffocating from lack of oxygen, casting undesired light. See. The dried blood crusting the edge of once live thread that hangs by the window, impatient for more pieces to the ever growing noose. Out the window it drops, hair ripped from various scalps, sewn together by loving caress. In this place where no wind breaths to stirs it’s silent descent.

  Mare whinnies with a sense of foreboding, man made metal and nails paw the ground nervously. Rider packaged in fine chains of protection. Heavy armour, cutting deep rivets on the horses flank. Raw blistering chafing cuts. And she exhales sharply through her nose with each thrust forwards. Yet the adolescent feels safe parcelled in metal atop the mare. He rides onwards brave, poorly shaven. Thin and inconsistent stubble patterns his lower jaw, a weak lip juts proudly out beneath a brow with no creases of worry. His swagger protects him from the atmosphere, affords him from the silence enveloping the exterior environment - bar his breathing and his mares heavy snorts. From the warnings of the women in the village, he was also delivered unscathed. “Do not pass this way” they cry in already decaying memories. “This is no place for a man” Their husky voices shout. Brandishing worn calloused hands, their tattered robes, children slung on shoulders, modest pride at which he sneers : Tiny hands grasp reins, stubby and inexperienced from luxury.

His quest for the maiden, her beauty obvious, merited from histories of damsels in distress. It does not trouble him that no other has survived the journey. For he is by far the bravest and strongest. Though he notices his metal does not glint so proudly in the feeble light of reality.

The path he takes. Mutilated vegetation strewn across it, brittle brambles advance and coil around the horse legs - No matter, for he is hoisted above them. Tree roots, uprooted by prevailing winds; Attack! The solitary raven, flaps disjointed ash black feathers; Cry! His anguished caw adds no note of symbolic dread to the princes discordant whistling. Too late, as the grey light shifts to an impenetrable depth of black, a royal cloak is produced to ward off the chill which has not much to do with the deserting sun. The night is still and the breaths that rose in clouds before them, are no longer visible in the gloom.

Unlucky he hears, the voice. To this he listens intently, where warnings were before forgotten. The wind hushed quiet, abrupt. It’s breath stolen for the song. Intoxicated, he dismounts, stumbling off alone. Mare retreats, ears pinned back, disturbed she rears and turns. Time stopped. The journey took forever, but no time at all. Impatiently he hacked at dead, unmoving brambles. Until the trees surrender, fleeing the scene at the edge of a clearing, where from the earth juts the castle. Momentarily, the song stops, Pressure builds in his ears and it’s difficult to hear through his own desperation. Like oxygen starved organs his ears, his heart. It’s hard to breath when your drowning.

Suddenly, his heart pulses, and music fills the clearing. Magic drapes the rocky world, the dilapidated fortress turns into a castle, the marching pillars permit his passage, past the grimacing stone faces, towards the voice - the golden ladder of hair. The hair left waiting, longing. Hanging. From the rusted blood stained ring above. He holds it gently in his hands, like many before him. Kiss it, climb it.

  Add to it.

And all the while, the singing grows more and more urgent