“I have to go now. Please, for your own sake and mine, don’t try to interfere,” said Circe, her face completely impassive.
“Can we have our mirrors back?” asked Lucinda.
“Not until the end. You can have your mirrors back at the end.”
Circe sighed. “Good-bye, Mothers.” And the mirrors went black.
“Our daughter has betrayed us. She is working with the fairies. She’s turned her back on us! Giving us ultimatums? Trying to command us! We created her! She is alive because we brought her out of nothing. We gave her the best parts of ourselves, and this is how she repays us?” Lucinda was incensed.
“I don’t understand! We were trying to help the Princess,” said Ruby.
“Circe doesn’t care! She’s the fairies’ creature now. She belongs to Nanny and the others. She is dead to us. Our enemy.”
“No, Lucinda! You don’t mean that!”
“She thinks we destroy everything we touch? She thinks we are walking nightmares? She has seen nothing!”
“Lucinda, no! We can’t hurt Circe!”
“We won’t hurt her, my dear. For hurting her would be like hurting ourselves,” said Lucinda, repeating the old words that had been said by many witches who had come before them.
“What are you going to do?”
“We are going to destroy everything she holds dear. Rip her away from those who fill her head with lies about us. Those who seek to take her from us.”
“Won’t that make her hate us even more?”
“No, it will bring her closer to us. We will have our Circe again.”
Gothel felt a terrible chill as she stood on the shore. Something was wrong. A horrible feeling of loneliness washed over her. She hadn’t felt that alone since her sisters had died so many lifetimes earlier. She almost wanted to call out to the odd sisters to see if they were still lurking behind the mirrors, but something told her they weren’t. She didn’t have to take the mirror out of her pocket. She didn’t have to call them in vain. They’re gone. She could feel it.
They’re really gone. They’ve left me alone.
She heard her mother’s words echoing in her ears again. You are destined to be alone.
Gothel sighed. She was waiting for the ruffians to do their work, waiting until it was time to call out to her flower, save her from the terrible beastly men, and from the young man who had used and betrayed her. She had arranged a grand spectacle. All for Rapunzel. A ruse. And she was sure it would bring her flower back to her, back where she belonged.
Hades! I forgot the sleeping potion! Never mind. She would bring her flower back to the tower and give her the sleeping potion there, then take her to the country house herself. She didn’t need Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha. Nothing else mattered but the flower. The flower and her sisters. Her real sisters. She wouldn’t be alone for long.
I’ll be with you soon, Sisters.
Finally, it was time. Time for the performance of her life. Time to make the commotion. Gothel would be the savior, the doting mother who saved her dear sweet daughter from the nasty thieves who played with her emotions.
Gothel called out from the darkness. “Rapunzel?”
“Mother?”
“Oh! My precious girl!”
“Mother!”
“Are you all right? Are
you hurt?”
“Mother, how did you…”
“I was so worried about you, dear. So I followed you, and I saw them attack you, and…Oh my, let’s go—let’s go before they come to!”