Tangled 2 Frozen 2

Chapter Two

I woke up to the sound of birds chirping. I sat up in bed, glancing at the clock. It was 7 o'clock.

"Chores, Noelle," I said to the figure in the bed next to mine.

"No," Noelle groaned and rolled over in bed.

"You'd rather get in trouble with Mother?" I asked her.

"No," she said, a distinct change in the tone of her voice. Mother was frightening. The white-haired, wrinkled, faded, shifty body under the cloak had given us nightmares since we were little. Mother was horribly scary. Thankfully, neither of us were directly related to Mother. She was our step-mother and we were step-sisters.

"Come on, Noelle," I said. I slipped out of bed and stretched. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and braided it. My hair was inconveniently long. It reached a good way down my legs, the result of Mother never letting me cut it for almost 18 years. Noelle, on the other hand, had neatly trimmed white-blonde hair. Her hair only reached about halfway down her back, but was neatly trimmed and in layers.

Mother was actually particular about my hair, but was equally particular about Noelle's hands. She had to wear gloves at all times. She was never allowed to take them off, not to sleep, not to eat, not even to bathe. I had no idea why.

Noelle sat up in bed. Her hair was a wreck. I laughed at her. She glared at me. I sat on her bed and braided her hair for her. She picked at her gloves.

"Why don't you take them off?" I asked.

"Why don't you cut your hair?" she asked.

We sat in silence until I finished braiding her hair. Neither of us answered each other's questions. We both already knew the answer. It was because of our fear of Mother.

We did our chores. We sat in silence in the living room together. Noelle picked at her gloves and I played with the ends of my hair. Mother would be home soon and our daily routine would begin. She would ask me to sing for her and Noelle to take off her gloves. Then she would ask us to close our eyes. Noelle would take off her gloves and I would begin to sing. I only knew the first word to whatever song I always sang because then Noelle and I would black out. We would wake up later. My hair would be unbraided and Noelle's gloves would be off. Mother would order Noelle to put her gloves back on and me to braid my hair to protect it. Then we would make breakfast.

"Flower," I whispered, just like the first word of the song.

"Madelyn, don't," Noelle said.

We sat in silence for a few more minutes.

"You know," I said breaking our silence, "I have this theory."

"What?"

"Mother Gothel doesn't seem the artistic type," I said.

"I've wondered about the walls before, too," Noelle said.

"I know but I think we're not the only 'step-daughters' Mother has had. I think some other girl painted these walls, but I wonder what happened to her. I mean, I'll be eighteen tomorrow and Mother has made no mention of letting me leave. I think the other girl died."

"Maddie!" Noelle said. "That's horrible!" Then she sighed. "But likely."

"Exactly," I said, "So I think we should escape before we die, too."

Noelle looked at me, her eyes wide in her classic "You're crazy" expression.

"Listen, I've already got a plan," I said. "It could work. We could be free!"

**********

We stood in the kitchen together. Noelle was cooking and I was pretending to cook. We heard Mother come in.

"Girls!" She said warmly. "You've started breakfast early!" She must've smelled Noelle's decoy breakfast. My plan was working perfectly.

Mother came in to the kitchen inhaling deeply and exaggeratedly.

"Mother, come here," I said. "I'm experimenting with a new recipe. I would like you to see it." I gestured towards the frying pan I was pretending to cook out of.

"Of course, dear," she said, approaching me. She felt my braid, running her fingers down it before looking over my shoulder to see what I was "cooking". I lifted the frying pan and hit her in the face with it. She fell over unconscious.

"It worked!" Noelle said in disbelief.

"I told you it would," I said. "Come on, let's go." I kept the frying pan with me and Noelle armed herself with our extra frying pan. We approached the window Mother came in everyday.

"How do we get down?" Noelle asked. "Or do you have a plan for this too?"

I pursed my lips. "I guess we climb," I said.

"Sometimes you're genius, Maddie," Noelle whispered, "but sometimes, you're an idiot." And she climbed out the window. I followed her out and immediately regretted my decision. Noelle and I clung to the wall. We both tentatively lowered ourselves. Our fingers slipped and it was difficult trying to find adequate footholds and handholds.

Eventually, we made it to the bottom. Our fingers and our feet were bleeding and scraped, but we had made it down.

"Where do we go now?" Noelle asked.

"Wherever we want," I said. "We're free now."

"As long as we get far enough away before Mother wakes up," Noelle added.

"Then we better get going," I said. I spun in a circle before taking off in a random direction, Noelle following.