Her Missing Reflection

What She Is

She does not know what she is.

No one has ever told her, and the mirrors never show her.

Though they show the room, Mother, and Pascal, the mirrors refuse to show Rapunzel. As if she's a forbidden word they cannot speak, a creed they cannot break, and showing her would betray the trust of the gods.

She begs the one in the middle of the main, circular room to tell her its secrets.

It never complies.

Well, it isn't really a secret, is it? Not to anyone else. Just to her. Just to the one who needs to know it most. Or, at least, the one it's about.

Maybe that means she needs to know it least of all. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we aren't supposed to see ourselves, or know what the mirrors say behind our backs.

The only other person here is Mother. The girl has often asked why the people in her books don't, why Mother herself doesn't, drink blood. She laughs and says that though she is her mother, and though they in the books are people too, they are not quite the same kind.

Rapunzel doesn't quite know what that means, but Mother doesn't explain.

She has never minded being different, she has never had any reason to. But when she asks to go outside, Mother says they will hate her out there, that they will call her monster, that the men will not have pointy teeth like hers.

So she stays.

Her voice frail, soft, and timid, her gaze on the ground, she often asks Mother what she looks like. Mother says she is strong, confident, and beautiful, that she has green eyes, and white teeth, and of course—she runs her hands through it—golden hair. She kisses her head and says she shouldn't worry about things like appearance.

She tries not to.

Then Rapunzel grabs her paintbrushes, and tries to draw what she thinks she looks like, sometimes in her sketchbooks, sometimes on the walls. But Pascal always shakes his head sadly, or tries to smile, though they both know she still got it wrong. And the chameleon's own interpretations are...hard to interpret.

She tries to keep her chin up, to believe that one day she will know. She should after all. One day she'll get it right—she tells herself—one day a mirror will be kind to her.

It's not all bad. She can have fun with her lack of a reflection; some of the many games she plays up in her tower are with her empty space; one of which is making objects—pots and pans, books and plants—and Pascal float.

She asks Mother to bring her back things like antique mirrors, and old dishes, and things that could, and should, reflect her. Mother sighs, but brings them to her anyway.

Maybe, just maybe, the girl thinks, this one will like her.

They never do.

So Mother tells her, again, not to dwell on them.

She throws them out the window.

The girl never sees the pile of shattered glass they make below; daring any intruder to come and face something that doesn't like to see its own reflection.

Or face themselves.

Sometimes she saves one of the mirrors, and paints on the metal itself, sometimes tracing herself, creating an outline she can step into, she can see herself in. Sometimes she keeps one of her favorites in her room, just so she can see a smile in it every day.

Mother tells her she shouldn't ask for the mirrors, that maybe they shouldn't even keep any mirrors in the tower at all. She even tries to break the one in the main room, but when Rapunzel finds her, she shouts, and begs her to stop, and makes her promise to leave it alone.