Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,40

again?

“I just need more time. More time to understand what it is I’m meant to do.” Her yellow hair fluttered around her face.

I decided. “I can pull you up. Is the rope strong?”

“I think so.” Her face seemed calmer now. At least, she smiled. “And there is a fire in the fireplace. You could get warm and allow your clothes to dry.”

“If I help you, can I come back to see you again?” One of the trees by the tower, its branches weighed down with snow, was shaped like a dragon, its green head crooked toward me, staring. A dragon to be slain.

“I would count on it,” she said. “But you have not told me your name.”

“Wyatt.”

She gazed at me. The sun was fully out now, and her eyes were the color of the sky. “Prince Wyatt,” she said.

21

Rachel

Wyatt first attempted to show me how to climb up. He told me that everyone learned to climb a rope in something called gym class at school. I knew about school because of schools in books—David Copperfield, Jane Eyre, Little Women . . . even Ebenezer Scrooge went away to school. Yet, none of the books I read made the slightest mention of rope climbing as a skill learned there. Clearly, this was another instance, one of many, in which my education had been deficient.

After several failed attempts, I said, “Wyatt, I wish, more than you can imagine, that I had gone to your school and learned how to climb a rope. However, it seems that this is not the skill of a day, particularly a frigidly cold day such as this one. Is there perhaps another way you could get me up there?” I was growing worried, not to mention cold. I needed to be in my tower, after all, to keep me free from the dangers of the world. I had managed to persuade myself that Wyatt was safe. After all, he probably hadn’t even been alive when my mother was murdered. And he had kind eyes. But what if someone else came? What if someone had followed him? What if Mama came earlier than usual and saw me on the ground?

“Yeah, I was thinking it wasn’t going to work,” he admitted. “You’re not really dressed for it.”

I smiled at his attempt to make me feel better. “Yes, I am certain it is merely my apparel that is preventing me from scaling the height!”

“Well, that could be part of it. Anyway, girls as pretty as you don’t usually have massive biceps, and I’d like to get to that fire.” He shivered.

I smiled a bit more at his comment on my beauty, for it was similar to my thoughts about his. But when he mentioned the cold, I realized he was right. He was wet and cold, and it certainly wouldn’t do for him to freeze to death, right when I had just rescued him. Rescuing him was the first definitive thing I had done in years.

Besides, I liked him.

“Perhaps you could climb the tower yourself, then hoist me up?”

“Do you think you could hang on that long?”

I nodded. I felt a bit inadequate about not being able to climb, but just holding on seemed safer. “I hope so.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t have to hang. There are a lot of footholds on the way up, those shingles. Watch me as I go up. Plus, I have leather gloves on. I could throw them down when I’m up. They might help you grip.” He examined the rope. “What kind of rope is this? It’s really static.”

“Oh, that.” I looked down, not knowing what he meant. “It is hair.”

His eyes widened, somewhat comically. “Your hair?”

“Um, yes. I have been here a long time. It grew; I cut it. One makes do with what one has. Do you not think we should try to climb instead of talking? I’m cold.” Probably, the less said about my hair, the better. He probably thought I was so strange. I was strange. I could not believe I was actually here, talking to someone, a man, anyone other than Mama. I knew I should be afraid of him. Yet, I was certain he would not hurt me, no matter what Mama would think.

“Sure,” he said. “It’s just . . .”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just . . . cool. And, man, your hair is . . . something.”

“Thank you.” I thought that was a compliment.

“And it will hold you?” He stared at it.

“It held me, when I