Hindsight

By Alison Colwell

With four children under five, we already had more mouths than we could feed, so I sent my husband to collect bitter weeds from the wise woman’s garden to end it. The woman caught him, offered to trade: his thieving hand for the unborn child.
“Yes.”
Obviously.

She grew up locked in a high tower, spoiled and isolated. Grew up soft and beautiful. The wise woman tried to keep her safe.
It ended badly for Rapunzel. Exiled in search of her prince.
But if we’d kept her, she’d have little ones tugging at her skirts already.
A better life?

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Alison organizes community on a little island in the Salish Sea and writes in her spare moments.