Frosted (Frosted #1 | Jackunzel)

{ Epilogue }

The world was rocking from side to side. It was gentle, yet fierce, a force Rapunzel was unable to stop despite how still she lay.

It threw her out of bed.

"Ow!" She groaned, one set of fingers brushing the sore spot on her head and the other the sturdy wood beneath her. What had happened? Where was she? Rapunzel couldn't remember anything from yesterday... Or anything beyond that, now that she thought of it.

Rustling came from somewhere to her left, and then a lantern sputtered to life beside her. It was only bright enough for Rapunzel to see the beautiful, green-eyed girl holding the light. She must've been only ten, give or take a year. "Tilly?" The girl asked. "Are you alright?" The words were spoken in German, which made Rapunzel thankful Mother Gothel had bothered to teach her the language at all. She also noticed that the girls' voice was not at all laced with sleep as Rapunzel would have expected it to be.

"Where am I?" Rapunzel asked, moving to sit on the bed she'd woken up in. There was another directly atop hers. "Who's Tilly?"

But the girl did not seem to hear her questions or see her confusion. Instead, her bright face shifted into one of worry and fear. She wiggled on her bed. "Tilly... I'm scared. I—what you said yesterday, did you mean it? Are they truly taking us for employment? Mother and Father will be there like you said, yeah?"

Rapunzel couldn't tell if 'employment' was a good or bad thing. She decided it was—why wouldn't it be?—and nodded her head. "Yes, of course," she whispered, voice deeper than usual. It startled her slightly, to hear it come out from her lips, but there was a calmness in her that compelled her into acceptance. It was starting to dawn on her now—when she looked down at her hands, they were not hers. They were long, women's fingers, so pale they shone even through the darkness. She did not know this little girl nor this place. She knew this for certain, regardless of her blank mind. At once, she knew:

This was a memory.

But why was she seeing it?

Rapunzel winced at the soft pain that pricked her chest. She pulled her hand up and pressed it against the skin above her heart, massaging it deeply.

When she opened her eyes, the little girl nodded to the top bunk above Rapunzel—Tilly. "I have no idea how Günter is managing to sleep through the night. The ship is making my insides roil. A-and the crew... Tilly they've been acting strange. I know what you say about snooping, but I heard the Neumann's talking about it this afternoon, too, and I'm not the only one who's worried. They are too! Everyone's just as confused."

Rapunzel caught herself worrying at her lip. "Everything's going to be fine, all right?" She promised the little girl. But before she could continue, the ship gave a vicious pull, causing the wood to groan loudly around them. She and the little girl shared quick looks of alarm. "You should rest," Rapunzel decided after a moment.

The girl looked down at her lap. "Sing to me? The song Mother used to sing, with the sheep?"

Olden German lullabies quickly fluttered through Rapunzel's mind for a moment. One stood out to her almost immediately; for reasons she did not yet understand, she was certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the song the girl had meant. She crawled quietly onto the other bed so that the girl could lay her small head upon Rapunzel's lap, and began to sing softly. "Sleep, baby, sleep. Thy father guards the sheep..." She brushed her hand over the girl's long, brown hair until her breaths grew long and heavy.

"Everything will be okay," Rapunzel assured her once more as she finished her song, though she knew she wouldn't be heard. The girl's shoulders were rising and lowering softly. In the spur of the moment, Rapunzel reached down and gently folded the neck of the girls' nightgown down to catch sight of the embroidery. Rapunzel wasn't sure if it would be there, but...