Young Writers Society

The old hermit was known for their beautiful garden. Flourishing beds of flowers made a spiral pattern around the patches or assorted vegetables, fruits, and tomatoes, and fruit trees marked the barrier around which feral dogs prowled. Only the hermit could cross the wooden barrier without being torn to bits by the dogs, and so the hermit, whose hut was at the center of the garden, was never disturbed.

That was, until a cloaked figure, armed with a cut of venison and excellent skills in climbing the tangled limbs of lemon trees, slunk past the border and hunkered down amongst the plants, searching the vegetable beds furiously.

A candle flickered the life in the cottage window, and a silhouette reached for the edge of the lace curtains. The intruder held their breath.

“Who goes there?” croaked the hermit through the window.

The intruder didn’t move.

A growl and a bark, and the intruder jumped to dodge the snapping jaws of the big black dog that had crept up behind them.

The hermit’s lips pursed as they locked eyes with the intruder. “What are you doing in my garden?”

The intruder hesitated, eyes tracking the still-growling hound at their waist. A proper lie didn’t come to mind. “M-my wife is with child. She craves the rapunzel’s of your garden.” They dog prowled closer and the intruder shifted nervously away, then froze. Would moving make it snap? They took a deep breath. The hermit was listening patiently, holding up the candle to squint at the intruder’s face in the dark.

“The cravings are driving her mad, I could not leave her to suffer,” the intruder finished.

The hermit gave a slow, pondering nod.

“You may have one plant, in full, and three harvested,” they said finally. “Wait here, and do not move.” They then turned and hobbled back into the hut, returning a moment later with a pot and a small shovel. They stooped down and dug one of the rapunzel plants - which were quite a distance from where the intruder had been looking - out of the soil and planted it in the pot. They then collected the rest of the promised goods while the intruder stood very still and handed them over.

“Do not return to my garden. Plant this in your own and satisfy your wife,” the hermit warned.

The intruder thanked them and returned home. The intruder pulled the rapunzel from its roots and gave it to their wife to eat. It was mere days before the wife was once again complaining of her horrible cravings, staring wistfully out the window at the hermit’s garden. So it was that night when the intruder once again snuck past the dogs and once again knelt in the garden, this time knowing precisely where to find the rapunzel.

The intruder was caught once more, and the hermit, once again holding a candle in the doorway of the cottage.

They were quiet, staring at each other.

“I suppose you have payment for those plants,” the hermit said in a way that very much implied that the shining dots in the dark that the intruder kept spotting may spell their death if they refused.

“Yes,” they said cautiously, trying to think of anything they had on them. “I offer you my cloak in exchange.”

The hermit nodded. “Very well.” They gestured for them to remove it.

The intruder did, and the hermit took it, and once again the intruder left with the plants for their wife and a warning to never return.

The next time they snuck into the garden and the hermit once again caught them (the hermit must have some sort of spell to warn them when intruders entered the garden), they were offered an entirely different deal.

“You may take as much of my work as you wish if you vow to give me the child I am feeding when they are birthed,” the hermit offered irritably.

The intruder went home empty-handed that night.

And the next night they were back. A deal was made.

So it went for month after month. The beautifully maintained garden fed and nourished the intruder’s wife as the season turned to summer and she came steadily closer to term. When that day came, the hermit came for the first time to the home of the intruder and knocked with their staff on the door, which the intruder opened.

“Your wife will deliver today,” the hermit had said, waving off any protests and brushing into the cottage.

And so it happened.

The hermit assisted in the delivery, and before any protests could be said, was gone. The intruder could not, even after, find the cottage or the garden ever again.

⇮

Many years later, in a tower, with braids that would brush the grass far below is she were to drape them over the sill, Rapunzel perched on her windowsill and stared out at the thick forests that stretched out endlessly in all directions. Her wand flicked absently in her hands, twisting and flipping over her fingers as she waited, impatiently, for something, anything, to happen.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” The voice is not that of the witch. Something was finally happening. ‘