An Inconvenient Princess Read online

  An Inconvenient Princess

  A Retelling of Rapunzel

  Melanie Cellier

  Entwined Tales Vol 6

  AN INCONVENIENT PRINCESS: A RETELLING OF RAPUNZEL

  Copyright © 2018 by Melanie Cellier

  First edition published in 2018 (v1.1)

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  [email protected]

  http://www.melaniecellier.com

  For my author friends

  who are there for me every day,

  even though several oceans separate us

  Entwined Tales

  Everyone wishes they had a fairy godmother to make the world a little more magical…

  They’ve never met Mortimer.

  Every good deed merits a reward, at least according to the Fairy Council. But when a kind woodcutter’s family is rewarded with a grumpy, sarcastic, irresponsible fairy godfather named Mortimer, their lives are changed forever… and not in a good way.

  Follow the woodcutter’s seven children as Corynn, Eva, Sophie, Elisette, Martin, Anneliese, and Penelope head out into the world to find adventure, new friends, and their very own happily-ever-afters. Their greatest challenge? Avoiding their fairy godfather’s disastrous attempts to help.

  Welcome to the Entwined Tales—six interconnected fairy tale retellings by authors KM Shea, Brittany Fichter, Shari L. Tapscott, Kenley Davidson, Aya Ling, and Melanie Cellier. Join the fun and enter the brand new world of the Entwined Tales for six enchanting stories filled with humor, magic, and romance.

  Vol 1 - A Goose Girl: A Retelling of The Goose Girl by KM Shea

  Vol 2 - An Unnatural Beanstalk: A Retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk by Brittany Fichter

  Vol 3 - A Bear’s Bride: A Retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Shari L. Tapscott

  Vol 4 - A Beautiful Curse: A Retelling of The Frog Bride by Kenley Davidson

  Vol 5 - A Little Mermaid: A Retelling of The Little Mermaid by Aya Ling

  Vol 6 - An Inconvenient Princess: A Retelling of Rapunzel by Melanie Cellier

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  The Queen

  The Prince

  Chapter 1

  Map

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I reached up to a higher branch, but it felt thin and insubstantial in my hand. I let go and instead wrapped both arms around the trunk. It looked like this was as high as I could get.

  I craned my head around to look down between the leaves. Was that a flash of yellow?

  My heart rate sped up, as I got a glimpse of the huge cat pacing around the tree. A sudden horrible thought flashed through my mind. Could tigers climb trees? Ellie, my sister who loved books, had gone through a phase of reading only books about animals. And I had a sinking feeling that she once mentioned that tigers could climb trees.

  I had to carefully let go of the tree, one hand at a time, to wipe my sweating palms against my dress. It had been hard enough to climb up here in my skirts; the last thing I wanted to do was lose my grip and fall out. Staring down at the animal again, I got the distinct impression it was weighing me up, trying to decide if I was worth the effort of ascending the tree.

  I tried to look as small and untasty as possible.

  Had it been only two days ago that I had left home in such confidence? Sure of my ability to not only look after myself but also rescue others. How foolish I had been. What good could I do my sister, if I ran into trouble myself on only my third day?

  Of course, I’d never even heard of tigers in our kingdom of Astoria before, so it hadn’t occurred to me that I might need to be prepared to fend one off. I couldn’t imagine where it had come from.

  A soft sound from below was the only warning before the whole tree shook violently. I held on tight, unable to do anything but prevent myself from falling, and waited to feel claws or teeth.

  The violent movement slowed to mere tremors without the expected blow. I took a deep breath and loosened my grip enough to look down. With a gasp, I almost lost my balance.

  The tiger had made it into the tree. It was perched, awkwardly, several branches below me. I opened my mouth to scream, but something about the tiger’s position made me pause. Its stiff tail pointed toward the ground, and I had the distinct impression that it was as uncomfortable in the tree as I was.

  Several more moments of observation confirmed the idea. The tiger was too heavy to ascend any further toward me, but two failed attempts to descend were quickly aborted. In fact, to all appearances, the tiger was stuck.

  I rested my head against the trunk in front of me. Thank goodness I had climbed so high. Only—what was I supposed to do now? I could no more descend than the tiger, not with the huge animal blocking my way.

  I was stuck up a tree. With a tiger.

  There was only one possible course of action I could think of. The last one in the kingdom I had ever wanted to use.

  Mortimer.

  Three Days Previously

  I stared down at the letter in my hands, trying to make sense of the almost illegible word part way down the page. Was Martin referring to himself in the third person? No, the word was too long. Maritime, then? Martin did live near the sea now. I squinted at it again, and my heart sank. Mortimer. It said Mortimer.

  A letter about our family’s fairy godfather couldn’t possibly be good news. I struggled on, sending mental abuse in my brother’s direction for writing the letter in such a messy scrawl. I could barely work out what it said.

  I was surprised to have received a letter from him at all. I had even checked twice to see that it was indeed addressed to Penelope. But the surprise only lasted until my eyes fell on a word that, after some deciphering, turned out to be Anneliese. I sat down.

  My twin had been gone for months now. Seeking her fortune and any adventures she might find on the journey—at least according to the farewell note she left before she ran away.

  And if Martin’s letter was about Anneliese, it explained why it had come to me. My older brother was a twin himself, so he understood enough to know that I would want any news on my missing twin directly. But it wasn’t the news I had hoped for. Not if it involved Mortimer.

  My hands tightened slightly, crumpling the edge of the paper. It still galled me that my own twin hadn’t told me about her plan to leave home in person.

  It hurt most especially because Anneliese was the only one in my large family who had ever paid me any particular attention. The only one I could rely on to know and value the true me. I had never imagined she would abandon me without a word.

  I sighed, my mind drawn irresistibly back to the letter in my hand. I tried one last time to extract further meaning from it before giving up. I h
ad deciphered the important point, at least. Anneliese had gotten into trouble. Bad enough trouble to call on our worse-than-useless fairy godfather. And Mortimer had actually gone to ‘help’ her—which most likely meant Anneliese was in even worse trouble now.

  I let the letter drop onto my bed and started pacing the room. My eyes kept straying to the second bed, its coverlet smooth and neat, as it had rarely been when my twin still slept in it. My frustration at my twin’s disappearance only masked my deeper emotion—worry.

  Anneliese might have abandoned me when she ran away, but it was the first time she had ever done so. For seventeen years we had always been there for each other. And if Anneliese was always the one to make the trouble, at least she had never deserted me while I got us out of it. But how was she coping without me now? Me, the level-headed, sensible one. Who knew what outrageous things Anneliese was doing out there on her own?

  An image of the two of us when we were younger filled my mind. Anneliese and Penelope. The youngest of that woodcutter brood. The odd lot, whose parents had a fairy godfather who had turned them into wealthy merchants—a gift they never wanted. And given them a house overflowing with children—another gift they never desired. A family wealthy enough to fit in anywhere, and yet who never quite did.

  With four older sisters and one brother, our poor parents had their hands full even before we arrived. But Anneliese had never hesitated to make their hands fuller with her mischief. She had never hesitated to defend me, either.

  When the younger son of the merchants next door had taunted me for my odd purple eyes, she had sneaked across the wall between our houses at night and left two frogs and a garden snake in his bed. Our neighbors had been furious with my parents for months, claiming it had been a deadly cobra. As if there were cobras in the middle of Torina.

  And when a visiting member of the nobility had lectured me for a straight twenty minutes on how my purple eyes and status as seventh child must surely mean I had magic, Liesa had not hesitated to let one of the pigs loose into the house. The commotion she had caused, including the destruction of the visiting lady’s dress, was discussed in all the fine houses of Torina for weeks.

  No one else had ever found me of any particular importance, but Anneliese had always vowed that I was better than anyone else in the kingdom.

  I stopped pacing, knowing that I was only delaying the inevitable. My decision had been made when I read my sister’s name in Martin’s letter. I would have to go after her. In truth, I had been itching to go for months now. Anneliese and I had always been a team. With her—if with no one else—I had value and importance. I didn’t like the feeling of being left behind, the only one of my parents’ seven children missing out on an adventure. But—precisely because I was the only one left—I had refused to run away as Anneliese had done. Despite their faults, our parents deserved better than that.

  I began to gather some essentials together in a carry bag while I considered how to broach the matter with my mother and father. When Anneliese had left, the two of us had only been seventeen—the reason for her stealthy disappearance. But we had turned eighteen now, which meant that technically I was free to do as I chose.

  I stifled the thought of my birthday, the first one I had celebrated alone. If only Anneliese had waited until after the milestone, she would have been free to go without running away in such a foolish fashion. I sighed again. I rather suspected the sneaking had been half the fun from her perspective. Things had certainly been boring since Liesa left.

  It didn’t take me long to pack since I would have to travel light. As I left the room, my eyes fell on the mirror beside the door, but I quickly looked away, hurrying from the room. I hated the uncanny sight of my amethyst eyes, so different from my twin’s sparkling blue ones. And the current situation only made it worse.

  Seventh child of a fairy-blessed family. Born with purple eyes—the only difference in appearance from her twin. Surely, they signified that the usual blessings attached to a seventh child had come with magical abilities on this occasion.

  Anneliese had envied me those eyes, and the coveted position of seventh child, which could just as easily have gone to either of us. Until it became apparent that there was nothing magical at all about me. Anneliese hadn’t envied the constant sense of vague disappointment that followed me around after that. But she had done her best to distract attention from the disappointment that was me.

  Occasionally one of my older sisters would encourage me to step out of Liesa’s shadow, not realizing half the reason she cast it was to shield me. How could they understand? They had their own troubles as the oldest of so many children—especially with Mortimer and his disastrous gifts—and they couldn’t possibly know what life was like for the youngest of the family. So, I had always shrugged and turned the question aside.

  But I had never wished so desperately that I truly did have magic as I did now. Because if I had been gifted with magic, then maybe I would have been able to help Liesa as I had always done in the past. I could have come to the rescue myself, and then Liesa wouldn’t have been forced to rely on Mortimer.

  Eventually I tracked down both of my parents outside. They had abandoned the family mansion in favor of the large walled area around the house. I ignored the smell of the many animals that called this space home and picked my way over to where my parents were busy caring for the flock of geese. They had never been able to give up their old ways, back when they lived in a cottage deep in the forest with their animals around them.

  The sight reminded me of Rynn, my oldest sister, who used to care for the flock before she went off to work for Princess Davina. The decision to leave had worked out for Rynn. She had accompanied Davina to our northern neighbor, Farthendale, and was now happily married to a Farthendellan nobleman. My family had a habit of landing on their feet. A thought I clung to whenever my mind drifted toward Anneliese.

  My father looked up and took in the sight of my bag.

  “Martha,” he called to my mother, and she looked up as well, her gaze also locking on the bag. I braced myself for their disapproval.

  All of my siblings had found success out in the wide world, but my father had never given up hope that one of his children would settle down and marry a nice respectable Astorian farmer. Not that his increasingly strict rules had prevented Anneliese’s flight, of course.

  I had to admit, however, that he had relaxed somewhat after we had attended my sister Ellie’s wedding the year before in southern Anura. I wasn’t sure if he’d done it because Ellie had married a prince—and he’d finally realized that leaving the family sphere wasn’t the worst thing for his children—or if it was because Anneliese had already fled by then, and the laxity had simply been an oversight. No one tended to remember me much, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had simply forgotten to maintain any severity just for my sake.

  John and Martha were finally freed from the large family they had never planned to have and could focus on living the simple life they had always craved. With the geese. And the cows.

  I tried not to glare at the animals who had never done anything to deserve my dislike. It wasn’t their fault I’d been born last, a very unnecessary extra. Well, unnecessary to anyone except Anneliese.

  Father rubbed his hands against each other as if he could clean off the dirt of the geese with the simple action. “So, you’re off after Liesa, then, I suppose.”

  “I’m eighteen now, so you can’t…wait, what?” I stared at him and then across at my mother.

  She came over and gave me a quick hug. “Did you pack some warmer clothes? She might have headed up north, you know.”

  “Wait.” I was still trying to adjust now that my carefully planned speech turned out not to be needed. “You’re not going to try to stop me? You don’t mind?”

  Father looked at me in silence for a moment. “It’s not what we would like, but you’re a sensible girl, Penny. You always have been. And we’d rather you left like this than ran off in the
night like your sister.” He nodded. “You’ve always known how to get out of a scrape, even without that magic we thought you might have. So, we trust you’ll come back to us—when you’re ready.”

  I flushed slightly and looked away at the mention of my lack of magic. You’d think after what happened to their other gifted children, my parents would have been glad to find me so perfectly ordinary.

  “We’ve been waiting for you to go for months.” Mother patted me on the arm. “We were glad to see you wait until you turned eighteen, though. It isn’t right for a young thing to be off on her own before that. Or his own, in Martin’s case,” she added inconsequentially.

  I felt an unexpected blockage in my throat. So, they had been paying some small amount of attention to my presence, after all. Could it be that their relaxation of the rules had been based on their trust in me? The thought was strange but reassuring.

  I cleared my throat and nodded at them both. “Thank you, Mother, Father. I’m glad to leave with your blessing.”

  “Oh, aye, you have that, for what good it will do you,” said Father. “You bring your sister home safe, if you can.”

  I shivered slightly at his last words, glad I had decided not to tell them about Martin’s letter. Their brusque manner hid their worry, and I didn’t want to exacerbate it unnecessarily.

  My mother gave me a final hug before I shouldered my bag and left my home of eighteen years. When I reached the front gate, I paused and turned back. My parents stood side-by-side, absorbed in mutual contemplation of a goose who appeared to have injured a wing.