[La Divina]: 115.Coriander.The Tower

The Tower, Hair

When the need arose, the Enchantress went into the forest behind the church and off the path in search of new plants that she might want to raise. When the girls had ten years, they followed her, each carrying a basket to bring back berries or flowers if she chose. As they walked, Rose sang, and the birds responded to her. Cori skipped along, having a good eye for flowers and a good memory of their names and scents. Rose gathered rocks that she found interesting in shape or acorns, pausing in her song to push her hair behind her ears and bend over to pick something up from the forest floor.
“Look at this.”
In the middle of the forest there was a tower of stone, standing there like a great rook on a chessboard. It towered high up to the level of the highest oak trees, with only a tiny iron door at the bottom and a single window at the top. The iron door was locked tightly, and the window at the top appeared to have no glass.
“Who lives there, Mother?” Rose asked.
“No one, my Rose.”
Cori stood contemplating it for a moment, then wandered back to the flowers.

The tower had belonged to an ancestor of Cori’s. Built before the last war, it had been used to hold prisoners. The one tiny room at the top had only one window, and to enter it there was a hidden trap door that lead directly to a tight spiraled stone staircase. Several prisoners held there had jumped to their death, driven mad by the enclosed space. The key to it had been left in my possession along with a trunk of gowns and silk scarves that had belonged to Cori’s mother. Those I was saving them for her dowry, but as for the key, I knew no use for it.

Cori’s hair was now so long that her mother braided it every morning and looped it into an elegant fashion at the top of her head, letting the rest fall down her back. She refused to have it cut and flung herself into a heated passion when the scissors came near her. Rose’s hair dropped only to her shoulders, still as tangled a demon’s crown as it was in her infancy. She could be found with the scissors in her hands, cutting stubbornly at knots in her hair.
“Look at this,” she would say, holding up a lump of dark hair.
When they went into the woods Cori sat at the base of the tower, weaving flowers into her hair. There was a stream nearby where she liked to admire the effect of the flowers in the clear water, perhaps imagining herself a princess.
“See how pretty I am, Rose,” she said. Rose plucked an odd handful of weedy flowers and tucked them behind her ear.
“Am I pretty?” She asked.
“No,” Cori said thoughtfully.” Your hair is too short.”
Rose sat down in the dirt beside her sister and played absentmindedly with the roots of the flower she had torn from the ground. While the Enchantress gathered a few small shoots of chamomile, Rose began to sing softly. Cori frowned.
“You sing pretty,” she admitted.
Rose said nothing, but smiled to herself a little, because unlike her mother’s words, she knew that Cori was being truthful. The thought made her start to realize something profound about beauty. Cori, with her golden hair and blue blue eyes was beautiful. Everyone said so. Perhaps before then she thought nothing of it, but now she remembered that no one had ever called her beautiful. Her mother called her pretty, but it was a lie. Cori called her singing pretty, and even the holy man said it was. She contemplated the thought for a long while. Though she sang prettily, she would never be beautiful. She raked her knarled little fingers through her tangled hair, trying to decide if it bothered her. At last she decided that it did not, so long as her mother continued to love her.
She looked up to the one little tower window and wondered about it, the scent of flowers in Cori’s hair making her feel oddly calm.