What Once Was Mine QUOTES

41 " Moths, large and white and fluttering in a manner just a little too bat-like, came out of hiding to revel in this unexpected dismissal of day. So too did fireflies: Rapunzel squealed in delight when, like tiny candles, they twinkled in slow, unhurried loops around grass.
"Is this your mother's magic?" she shrieked, clawing at Gina's arm. " ARE THOSE FAIRIES ?"
"No, those are lightning bugs, Princess," Flynn said with a sigh. "In-sects. Whose butts glow."
"Right. I'm an idiot," Rapunzel said, trying to get one to land on her. "Because in real life, fairies aren't real but witches are."
"Touché," he said good-naturedly, with a bow.
Rapunzel felt her chest flutter. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

42 " The chèvre's real good this time, Ma. What's the herb?" Gina asked.
"Wild amaranth tips-- seaseep. Your old friend Karl picked it for me from the Fenton."
Flynn grinned at Rapunzel over their meal. Get a load of them, he seemed to say, cocking his head at the two women.
Rapunzel smiled back, honey dripping out the side of her mouth.
He reached over without thinking and dabbed it off with his finger.
They both froze, looking at each other.
Then Flynn coughed and went back to eating. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

43 " If it's any consolation, I used my fantastic powers to turn things different colors today," she said with a smile. "Well, one color. Black."
"Very goth. And hey, more than I could do." He looked down at her trailing silver hair. "This is a much better look for you, by the way. Neoromantic. And... not actually deadly, I take it?"
"It's harmless," she said with a smile. "At least until the new moon. And even then, I have to be actually focusing and directing it to cause harm. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel... comfortable with it now. No more tying it up!"
Flynn smiled and for a moment looked like he was going to reach for her hair, now that it wasn't dangerous. His hand rose and floated in the air halfway between him and her... and then he quickly used it to slick his own hair back out of his face.
"Yeah. My hair can do things, too. But it's kind of dramatic and you have to ask nicely, sometimes with a little gel. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

44 " If they accept me, they accept all of us. If they reject me, I'm going to burden you until you figure out what to do with me."
"I would give all the stolen crowns in the world for you to burden me," Flynn said--- giving his old, devilish smile at the end. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

45 " After Gina left, the princess walked the rose garden by herself, feeling melancholy and moody. She wondered about the ends of things, and if happily ever afters ever lasted.
That's how Flynn found her. Sensing her mood, he took her by the hand and pulled her over to the little bench by the apple trees.
"What are we doing?" Rapunzel asked curiously.
"I think you need a break from princessing," Flynn said. "Besides, it's after eight. Wayyyyy past time for reading."
He held up a book whose cover he had replaced with one he made; it said Book #38.
Rapunzel, overwhelmed by how much he understood and loved her, reached up and kissed him fully on the lips.
Reading would have to wait until later. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

46 " Inside was a wonder.
The ceiling was entirely obscured by bunches of herbs, flowers, and sweet rushes hanging to dry. Shelves lined every spare inch of wall, filled with bottles of potions, salves, and powders of all colors. A friendly fire blazed out of a flagstone hearth. Farthest away from this, in the back where it was cooler, was a dairy pantry filled with cheese, milk, and butter.
All goat, probably.
Growing through a window was a healthy spray of roses that looked like a neighbor poking her head in for news and a good gossip. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

47 " She waved desperately, putting her hand out the window, but wasn't sure anyone would be able to see it.
"What can I do? What can I do to show them that I'm alive?" she wailed.
Pascal just looked at her.
"Oh, right," she said. "Not thinking at all. Thanks, buddy."
She gathered up as much of her hair as she could and flung it through the window. Hard.
Like a thousand baby spiders parachuting into the sky, it glittered and sparkled-- completely unmagically, just because of the sunlight-- before falling down to hang along the wall of the tower, rippling in the wind. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

48 " Soon Rapunzel's hair spilled out around her like a silver pond sparkling in the sunlight, or a frozen one in the moonlight. When the breeze shifted the branches above, the sun hit her tresses and its light scattered everywhere. The whole area under the tree was illuminated with shifting, dappled scintillations.
Rapunzel wondered what it would look like from far away, from high above: would she look like a funny star? Were all the stars out there maidens with strange hair? "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

49 " Thank you, kind sir!" Rapunzel stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek before running off after her friends.
She couldn't, of course, see Hook Hand's face since they were running the opposite direction; but one could probably imagine the look of surprise and soft wonder that grew there, and the dawning of ideas and worlds that had never seemed possible before. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

50 " But I wonder how much of this crime lies on my shoulders," she added quietly, to herself. "Too slow, too lazy, unable to make decisions... well, the evil is spread around, and some of it may be mine, Princess."
"I. Am not. A princess!" Rapunzel tried to keep her voice under control in deference to the old lady. She ground her teeth to keep from screaming.
"But of course you are," the old lady said in mild surprise. "You are the Crown Princess Rapunzel, daughter of King Frederic and Queen Arianna, heir to the throne. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

51 " She didn't know much about real princesses except for in fairy tales, and books like #27: Legends from the Time of Knights. Gawain and Roland and his tower and the like. Princesses were often the points on which plots turned, the fulcrum that sped the hero along on his journey of becoming legendary, dead, or both. Sometimes the princesses were good-hearted and the knights fought valiantly for their honor. Sometimes they were evil and used witchy machinations to control the people around them, lacking any real power over their own lives.
But honestly Rapunzel didn't remember a whole lot about either kind. They were boring. She loved the swordsmanship of the knights and did her best to reenact it with broom handles and frying pans, dancing back and forth on her feet to evade imaginary blows. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

52 " She took out a charcoal stick and began to sketch-- on the workbench itself. Of course the moon wouldn't come to her in songs or poems or crystals or whatever... she felt the most centered, the most tranquil, when she was painting or drawing. Lost in her own world or in new ones she imagined. She shouldn't have made a chart; she should have drawn a circle, with the moons going from waxing to waning all the way around...
She hummed to herself a little, the way she always did when she painted.
Her hair began to glow.
A little shading here, a few light strokes in the middle of the full moon for the face that Rapunzel saw there... Circles and shadows and crosshatching... She worked extra hard on the profile of the fatter waxing crescent, where the moon would be now. She knew what it looked like as she felt her hand shape it.
Her power surged; her hair began to sparkle.
She looked around frantically for something to release her magic on. The first thing she saw was her tea, so she grabbed the red clay cup and wrapped the end of a braid around it.
Just like with Pascal, sparks sprayed off her hair and over the object.
When they faded they revealed...
... a heavy, crude clay cup.
Rapunzel started to slump in disappointment-- and then noticed something. Where the hair had touched the sides, the cup was now shiny black, like onyx or obsidian. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

53 " She managed to summon her powers twice more by gazing at her mandala, and was tickled with the results: she turned her bright red coral bracelet glittering black, and a dish of pale yellow dye a bluish black. Of course she had no idea if the color was set by the phase of the moon or if it was simply the way she thought about the moon, set in a blue-black sky. But imagine if she could summon any color! She would never have to worry about getting the right paints again. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

54 " Rapunzel," Gothel repeated. "Now! Before they see you!"
"They?"Rapunzel demanded. She felt anger boiling up from her stomach, bile and venom. "Which they, Mother? The ones who were bidding for my hand in marriage-- or just the ones in the employ of a sadistic monster?"
Gothel's face twitched between impatience and irritation.
"Rapunzel, I never meant for you to wind up with Bathory. She's a terrible woman. I was coming to save you from her!"
"Who did you mean for me to wind up with, then? The one who gave you the most money? "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

55 " The house was squashed like a mushroom by a thatched roof that hung far out over the walls. A pair of windows sparkled on either side of a rounded, heavy wooden door. There was nothing particularly creepy or witch-ish about it at all, except for maybe some leeks that grew on the roof around the higgledy-piggledy chimney (out of which wafted a lovely, homey-smelling smoke).
Next to the cottage was a small fenced-in kitchen garden, and even in the low light Rapunzel could see it wasn't given over just to herbs and vegetables. Tall rockets of flowers and pretty, feathery foliage shot colorfully out of the corners.
There was even a neat flagstone path that led up to the front door.
"Witch?" Flynn asked, skeptical. "Or, like... crunchy earth mother type who drinks herbal teas and pretends the goddess speaks to her? "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

56 " She sprang out of bed, the ornaments in her hair tinkling and jingling, making tiny versions of the noises of the chimes above her.
And that was Rapunzel's most striking beauty: her hair.
Bound in plaits and whorls and buns and knots and twists as tightly as she could manage. Some of the braids were so long they hung in loops that she put her arms through; they hung at her sides like giant sleeves or tippets from an ancient dress.
Decorating all of this were dozens of charms-- also silver, like her hair, but some with exotic stones like lapis and turquoise. Bells, tiny moons, hands, suns, six-pointed stars, eyes, and anything else Mother Gothel could lay her hands on at her daughter's request.
By these amulets Rapunzel definitely tried to control her hair, bind her hair, disempower her hair, and unenchant her magic hair. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

57 " And so a healthy baby girl, a princess, was born. After a week of waiting-- as was custom in those days, when there was high infant mortality-- they named her: Rapunzel, for the field of rampion or bellflowers where the magic flower was found. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

58 " Last to check was her namesake: a rampion or bellflower, Campanula rapunculus-- little turnip. All by itself in a beautiful Spanish clay pot with a bright blue glaze. Its blooms were pinky-purple stars, tiny but perfect and delicate.
Sometimes, if she was feeling down, Rapunzel would secretly break off a leaf and chew it, the sour/bitter taste comforting her through the worst of the drab winter months when nothing else grew. "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

59 " But... lately... added to the excitement was something else, something just the slightest bit off, a daub of grey in sunny yellow paint. Something unsettled and anxious. It might almost have been...
Trepidation . "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine

60 " Happy birthday, darling."
She reached into her cloak and pulled out something so surprising Rapunzel's jaw actually dropped. It was a bright red bracelet, one of the most cheerful things she had ever seen. It didn't match any of her clothes or other accessories, and that was wonderful. It looked like fire, and the tongue of a cat in one of her books (or maybe it was a dog), and a really good sunset in autumn; happiness in a color.
There was even a cheery, many-rayed sun on the clasp. It was one of Rapunzel's favorite symbols, one she painted again and again everywhere in the tower. In her favorite color, too! "

― Liz Braswell , What Once Was Mine