You’re saying that you’re my real mother? Rapunzel’s story (2)

* Rapunzel’s perspective

“Who are you? If you don’t get out of this tower, right now, you’d better be ready to lose your life!”

I drew the sword from the knight’s armor that hung on the wall, threatening this strange woman who had suddenly appeared.

“Alice, listen to me. Two years ago, didn’t you suddenly lose your memory and wake up in a place you’d never seen before?”

‘!’

‘The White Queen clearly said that she wouldn’t tell anyone about my amnesia except the doctor who examined me and the chess soldier who was beside her… Who is this person and how does she know about it?’

“Hmph! What’s so great about knowing a fact that most of the chess soldiers know? You probably heard it from one of them. Now, stop meddling. Hurry up and get out of here unless you want to part with your life!”

I was quite unsettled, but I didn’t want her to know that I was shaken by her words, so I had countered back at her in an even more threatening voice than what I’d first used.

“Please listen to me just once, just once! I’m sure you noticed something strange about it too! Your warm golden hair is completely different from the icy silver of the White Queen’s hair. Your eyes, deeper than dark chocolate, are completely different than her barren gray ones. Even your skin, kissed with a glow by the sun, is the exact opposite of the white queen’s pale complexion, isn’t it?”

These were the things that had seemed strange to me when I first woke up in this tower. But what did they mean now?

“Well, so what? You’re simply listing things you see. Anyone who has seen me and the White Queen can say that much. I’m sorry, but we’re done here.”

I felt like I would fall into unimaginable chaos if I continued listening to this crazy woman, so I swung the sword I was holding in my hand skyward, ready to cut off her head.

“Wait! The rose pattern on the left of your chest!”

How did this woman know about that? No one had seen the rose mark on my left breast. I couldn’t say for certain about the time from before I lost my memory, but afterwards, not even the White Queen, who I called “Mother,” had seen it.

“H-ho-how do you know that?”

Oh no, I was so flustered that my voice came out shaky.

“Because I have it, too.”

‘What?’

It was an unexpected answer.

Before I had the chance to react, the strange woman in front of me had pulled open the laces fastening her heart-decorated dress. What I saw left me speechless.

‘What, wait, what? Why is there a rose pattern that looks exactly like mine, and is in the exact same place?’

Yes, without a doubt, on the upper left of her chest, she had a rose pattern mark that looked exactly the same as mine, down to the last detail.

‘I’m a little reluctant to call it a coincidence… Okay, let’s at least hear what she has to say.’

Now, well, it didn’t matter. I really wanted to hear what she had to say, even if it meant getting caught up in her pace. What was that rose symbol on her chest and why did she have the exact same symbol as me?

I loosened the sword’s guard and crossed my arms as if to tell her to explain it quickly. Of course, the sword was still held tightly in my right hand. It was a kind of warning sign that if she did something foolish, her head might be cut off at any time.

“Alice…”

“My name is Rapunzel.”

“… I know you must be confused, but your real name is Alice. I am the Queen of Hearts of Wonderland, and you are my daughter, Princess Alice of Wonderland. When you were 16, you fell sick with an illness that no herbs in Wonderland could cure. The cure for your illness, the Red Rose, was stolen from the White Queen of Mirrorland, and when the White Queen discovered this, she became furious and kidnapped you. It may be difficult for you to believe, but you’ve been deceived by the White Queen.”

‘What, what, whaaaaat ~? What the hell do you mean? Then, the White Queen locked me in this tower not because she was worried about me, but just because she wasn’t my mother?’

As she said, I was really confused. I’d probably never been in greater confusion than this. Heck, I felt like even when I lost my memory two years ago and woke up in the bed where the White Queen was nursing me, I’d more coherent than now.

‘What kind of nonsense is this? So, it wasn’t that I lost my memories then, but that the White Queen erased them? But the fact that I’m originally a princess hasn’t changed… It’s just that I’m a princess of different country? But this person who calls herself the Queen of Hearts looks too crazy to be a commoner, let alone a queen… she seems like a lunatic?’

I stared in disbelief at her tangled, curly hair, loose and covering her eyes, and her torn, heart-patterned dress. Even if the White Queen was the criminal who kidnapped me as this woman said, looking at her appearance now, she was the one who looked more suspicious. However, there were a number of things that made it difficult to just completely ignore what she said.

An identical rose pattern on our left chests.

My memory loss two years ago.

Even my appearance didn’t seem to fit the mirror world.

‘Is there any way to find out for sure if what this crazy woman says is true?’

While thinking about it for a while, a good move came to mind. There happened to be some ‘Sincerity syrup’, which the White Queen would use to find out if I was lying to her, left in the desk drawer.[1] I quickly ran to the desk, picked up the vial containing the ‘Sincerity syrup’, and showed it to the madwoman standing in front of me.

“Anyone who drinks this will unconditionally tell the truth. Even after drinking this, if you can tell me that everything you’ve said so far is true, then I will believe you.”

Without a moment of hesitation, the crazy woman snatched the vial from my hand and started gulping the sincerity syrup down.

“Gulp!”

After confirming that she had drunk every last drop, I pointed the sword I was holding in my right hand at her neck again and asked in a sharp voice.

“What you’ve told me so far. That you’re the Queen of Hearts of Wonderland, and that I’m your daughter, Princess Alice, and that White Queen, angry that you stole from her to save me, kidnapped me, is it all true? “

“Yes, my dear daughter Alice.”

Flump.

Hearing the confession of this crazy woman, or rather, of the Queen of Hearts of Wonderland, my legs lost strength and I had no choice but to slump to the ground.

You might think I’d have been happy to learn the secret of my birth, but you’d be mistaken. Instead of feeling happy, I started to feel like my head was going to explode.

‘My mother wasn’t the White Queen? Is this crazy woman my real mother? What am I supposed to do now? Go back to Wonderland? What am I supposed to do with this person who claims to be my real mother until the White Queen returns? No, more than that, is there a way to escape this tower?’

Yes!

That was it!

Before I could decide whether to follow my real mother, the Queen of Hearts, to Wonderland or remain in Mirrorland, I had to figure out if there was a way for me to escape the tower.

“Wait, I’m so confused that it’s still a little hard to call you mom. Please understand that. Ahem. Anyway, you, uh. I mean, if what the Queen of Hearts says is true, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to follow you back to Wonderland? But in order to do that, I need to escape this tower and get far enough away from the castle that the White Queen and her chess soldiers won’t find me……”

“Hold on a second!”

Oh yeah. I’d forgotten about this guy due to the sudden appearance of the Queen of Hearts and her shocking confession. Suddenly, Chester appeared with a poof!, taking me away from the Queen of Hearts and whispering in my ear, “Rapunzel, are you crazy? Even if what that crazy, no, I mean, the Queen of Hearts says is true, you would follow her to Wonderland? Isn’t that too reckless, even for you?”

“I know you’re worried, Chester, but this might be my only chance in my life to get out of my tower. And she’s my real mother, who came all the way to look for me even when she was like that? Do you think she’d harm me if I went to Wonderland?”

“What are you going to do if she locks you in a tower again like the White Queen?”

“The White Queen did that because she was my stepmother!”

“Ahem.”

The Queen of Hearts cleared her throat, as if it was embarrassing to see just the two of us whispering in a corner.

“Seeing your strange, or rather, mysterious, flying friend does bring to mind a way to escape the tower…”

“What? A way I can escape the tower? What should I do?”

When I asked her in an excited voice, the Queen of Hearts took out a delicious looking cookie from the pocket of her dress and showed it to me.

“This is a ‘shrinking cookie’ from Wonderland that makes your body smaller. Alice, if you eat this cookie and your body shrinks, your flying friend…” [2]

“Chester.”

“Yes, Chester, could carry you and fly away from this castle, right?”

“But what about you, Queen of Hearts? Then, how are you going to escape from the tower? You’re not planning on staying in the tower, are you?”

No matter how sudden the situation was, once I knew that this tattered Queen of Hearts was my real mother, I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t know her.

“If the White Queen finds out that you have escaped the tower, she will immediately come after you. I will remain in the tower and pretend to be you in the meantime, Alice.”

She would let herself be locked in the tower in my place…I don’t even remember her, but she would willing make such a sacrifice just because I am her daughter…The Queen of Hearts’ words immediately weakened my heart.

“No. No matter what, I can’t leave you alone in the tower! And how can you pretend to be me?”

Poof!

I’d barely finished my question when the Queen of Hearts snapped her fingers and red smoke billowed out from nowhere. When the smoke cleared, there stood the Queen of Hearts, her appearance completely transformed to look like mine.

‘Well, the White Queen of Mirrorland can use magic, so is there a law that says the Queen of Hearts of Wonderland can’t use magic as well?’

“I believe that you will find me again just as I have found you. Hurry! You must go quickly before the White Queen returns to the tower.”

“Yes, I understand. Uh … m-m,mo-mom.”

My heart was weakened by the Queen of Hearts’ sacrifice for me, and I managed to force out the word, ‘Mom.’

I ignored the look in Chester’s eyes that seemed to ask me to think again, and took a big bite of the cookie the Queen of Hearts gave me.

‘What? Nothing’s happening?’

My first thought was ‘Have I been tricked by the Queen of Hearts?’, but next I knew, the Queen of Hearts and Chester standing in front of me, and also all the furniture in the room, including the desk and bed, suddenly flashed, and soon they grew to be well over 100 times the size of my body. [3]

For a moment, I felt dizzy and like I was going to vomit, so I closed my eyes tightly.

Just when I opened my eyes, thinking ‘Isn’t it okay, now?’, there was a huge bundle of spider-like hair in front of me.

“Oh my!”

When I stepped back in surprise, a huge, sharp hook picked me up.

“Calm down, Rapunzel. It’s me, Chester.”

“Phew, it was you. When did you turn into a cat again?”

It seemed like it would take quite some time to get used to my smaller body.

“Mother.”

“…..”

“Mo! Ther!”

As my body got smaller, my voice also got smaller.

“What is it, Alice?”

When I screamed with all my might, the Queen of Hearts looked down at me and asked as if she only then had heard my voice.

“How! Long! Do! I! Need! To! Stay! This! Tiny?”

“How long? Until you find the antidote, of course. Now then, hurry and go before the White Queen notices! Chester, please take good care of my daughter Alice.”

‘Wait a minute, until I find the antidote? So, if I don’t find an antidote, I’ll have to keep living in this small body, right?’

After hearing the Queen of Hearts’ answer, I fell into a state of panic.

“Yes, I understand, Queen of Hearts. Hold on tight, Rapunzel!”

‘Understand? Chester! No, why are you just leaving!?’

It was already too late to stop Chester. Chester, who was carrying me, had already slipped out the window and was flying high into the sky, moving away from the tower.

“Mom! What! Is! The! Ant! I! Dote? Where! Can! I! Find! It?”

I did my best to shout to the Queen of Hearts as she was rapidly left in the distance, but there was no way for her in the tower to hear my voice, coming from such a small body.

In any case, one thing was clear.

‘I’m doomed until I find the antidote!’

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[1] ‘진실의 물약’  진실 honest, truth, fact, truthful, frank, sincere, genuine, 물약 liquid medicine. In other words, “Truth Potion”. Please applaud me for being a good little translator and just translating it as such instead of giving into the urge to name this ‘Hones-tea’ or ‘Vermouth of Truth’, ‘Information hydration’, ‘Gintegrity’ ‘incider information’, ‘may-tell syrup’. ‘Truth potion’ felt too on the nose though.

[2] 축소축소 쿠키*whispers* Shrinkerdoodle cookie. ‘Short’bread, Smallasses Cookies, mini-me muffin, Again, please note my restraint.

[3] FWIW, Chester was called out to be over 180cm in chapter 1, so using him as a baseline, this would make Rapunzel…1.8 cm tall (less than ¾ of an inch, for those of us sadly not on the metric system).

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