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example of the faults of the parents being visited upon the children, nor will you be the last.”
    â€œThat’s comforting,” I said. “Thank you very much. What about my father?” I asked after a moment. “Where was he when all this was going on?”
    â€œYour father loves you as much as anything in the world,” Melisande replied. “But he could not interfere. He had done a thing that he should not have, and a bargain is a bargain.”
    â€œWhere are my parents? Will I ever see them again?”
    â€œThose are questions to which I do not know the answers. I am sorry, my Rapunzel.”
    Well that’s that,
I thought. I’d asked, and she had answered. Now I knew, and life would go on.
    â€œThat’s all right,” I said at last. “Perhaps I will go to look for them myself, for my father at least, when I am old enough. In the meantime, I think I will be content to remain what I have always been.”
    â€œAnd what is that?” Melisande asked.
    â€œJust what you have said I am. Your Rapunzel,” I replied.
    â€œMy Rapunzel,” Melisande said. And, for the first time that I could remember, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.
    â€œWhat on earth is that?” I suddenly said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat,” I said. “That sound.”
    The sorceress cocked her head. The air was filled with it now. A noise that sounded like a set of pots and pans, doing their best to impersonate a set of wind chimes.
    â€œI haven’t the faintest idea,” Melisande said. “Why don’t you go and find out?”
    â€œAt least we know one thing,” I said, as I got to my feet.
    â€œAnd what is that?”
    â€œWhoever it is, they haven’t come for sorcery. They’re at the front door.”
    The sound of Melisande’s laughter followed me all the way around the side of the house.

Four
    There was a wagon in our front yard, the likes of which I had never seen before. Behind the driver s seat was what looked for all the world like a house made of canvas. It had a pitched canvas roof and four sturdy canvas sides. One of them actually seemed to have a window cut out of it. Lashing ropes held the sides in place, but I thought I could see how they could be raised as well, causing the house to disappear entirely when the weather stayed fine.
    Along each of the sides dangled the strangest assortment of items I had ever seen. On the side nearest to me was a set of pots and pans, with a set of wind chimes right beside them.
Well that explains the sound,
I thought. Though why a wagon such as this should have arrived at our front door, I could not possibly imagine.
    â€œIf you’re looking for the town, you’re on the wrong road,” I said, then bit down hard on the tip of my tongue. There’s a reason you’re not supposed to say the very first thing that comes into your head. If you don’t take the time to think through your words, you end up being rude just as often as not.
    But the man in the wagon simply pushed the hatback on his head and looked me up and down. He had a round face with a pleasant expression, for all that it was deeply lined by the sun. A set of ginger whiskers just beginning to go gray sprouted from his chin. Hair the same color peeked out from under the brim of his hat. Beneath ginger eyebrows were eyes as black and lustrous as mine.
    At the moment they were blinking, rapidly, the way you do when you are trying not to cry, or you step outside on a summer’s day, then step right back again because the light out there was brighter than you thought.
    â€œI am not looking for the town,” the stranger finally replied, and I found that I liked the sound of his voice. It was low and warm, a good voice for storytelling, or so I suddenly thought. “But if I were, I would know where to find it,” he went on. “I am good at knowing how to get where I am going. You could say its a