When Rapunzel—lonely, heartbroken, and occasionally suicidal—fell out of her tower, she did not bash her head against the ground and die. Instead, she banged her head amongst the magic and was transported to this era.
She was still crying because the witch had blinded her lover, so her tears made it hard to see, and at first she didn’t notice the difference. But how long can you ignore jeans and cars when you’ve grown up with petticoats and stone castles? She crossed a solid black river and a bus almost ran her over. And Zel fainted.
When she woke up a few seconds later, the people who were around her quickly dispersed, glancing back over their shoulder worriedly and almost—she couldn’t quite believe this—a little frightened. They were the ones dressed funny. She smoothed her hair and decided that this dream was not going to turn into another nightmare. It was uncanny enough as it was.
When she got to the other side of the black river at last, an old beggar was peering at her curiously over his cardboard sign. If Zel could read English, she would have been able to tell he’d lost his leg in the Vietnam War and the streets of New York hadn’t been much friendlier to him. She knew a pauper when she saw one, however, so she gave him what she had of value: her rings, her necklace, her gold-threaded headband. The beggar’s jaw dropped as her honeyed hair spilled down to the street.
“Dude,” he gawked. “That is wack.”
“You’re welcome,” Rapunzel said graciously. She hitched up her richly embroidered green gown and continued to follow the flow of the solid black river. She dodged a vicious yellow ship with black stripes and tried not to scream. Instinctively, she veered onto the sidewalk again, trying to shoulder her way through the masses. Ahead of her, the last few groups of the annual Halloween parade sashayed proudly by, dancing in the solid river. A light flickered on the far side of the river, the little ships froze, and the people around her surged forward.
She felt someone slip his hand though the crook of her arm, and flinched, turning her head quickly. A man shuffled next to her, a long stick in his other hand and two black mirrors where his poor eyes should have been. A deformed man, then, but otherwise a very handsome man. Bemused, silent, accommodating, Rapunzel jaywalked over to the other side, ignoring the angry calls of the ship captains, with the blind man at her side.
"Angreek87"
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