Free From a High Tower by Mercedes Lackey Page A

doing her best to clear the path of things like fallen branches that could trip her up.
    At least concentrating on
that
left her unable to think about anything else but relief when she finally saw a dim, warm light shining through the trunks of the trees ahead.
    But it wasn’t until she saw the old woman waiting with a lantern held over her head to guide Giselle to what looked like a hermit’s cottage that Giselle suddenly felt the full effect of the evening hit her with a hammer-blow of exhaustion. As she came in through the open gate of a little yard, Lebkuchen whickering eagerly at the sight of a little shed with three goats tethered in it, Giselle stumbled and might have fallen if the old woman hadn’t been there in a trice, with a steadying hand on her elbow.
    â€œNot a word, Liebchen,” the old woman said in a firm voice that brooked absolutely no argument. “Your sylphs have told me everything. What you need now is a safe place to rest, and old Tante Gretchen is here to give it to you.”
    â€œBut—” Giselle began, her tongue feeling oddly thick with fatigue.
    â€œBut me no buts,” Tante Gretchen said, and took Lebkuchen’s reins from her nerveless fingers. “You go in that door and take the cot by the fire. I’ll see to your mare.”
    Giselle did not even bother to argue. She stumbled across the threshold into a warm cottage, sweet with the scent of woodsmoke and herbs, spotted a cot at the hearthside and all but fell into it. She didn’t even bother to take off her boots, and was dreamlessly asleep before she had even pulled the blanket over herself.

3

    G ISELLE woke to the smell of sizzling bacon, and her empty stomach reminded her that she hadn’t had anything but beer and a sausage and bread the entire previous day. Tante Gretchen was sitting at a stool on the hearth, turning over strips of bacon with a fork on a flat griddle atop some coals. She looked over at Giselle and smiled. “There’s sausages and flatcakes already done. Go help yourself while I finish these.”
    Giselle’s stomach growled loudly, and she pushed off the blanket to get up—
    And discovered that she also had to quickly comb her fingers through her hair and shove it back over her shoulders—because, as it always did when she was under stress, her hair had grown.
    Tante Gretchen blinked a little at that. “Does it always do that?” she asked, with keen interest. “Your hair, that is.”
    Giselle made a face. “When things are not going well, it can grow as much as a foot in a day. I don’t know why. Mother said she had never heard of anything like it, and the only thing she could think of was that the sylphs like to play in my hair, and when they do, they leave magic energy behind. So she thought that perhaps my hair grew fast when I was under stress to make sure I had extra power.”
    Tante Gretchen nodded. “That seems a reasonable explanation to me. Go get a plate of breakfast, Liebchen, and we can talk about your problems.”
    The thought of her problems—and the terrible thing she had done—almost killed her appetite. It probably would have succeeded if she hadn’t been nearly starving.
    The cottage was tiny. There was a loft, but it looked as if it wasn’t used for anything, which made perfect sense for someone Tante Gretchen’s age; she wouldn’t be wanting to scramble up and down ladders. Beneath the loft was a cupboard bed where Tante Gretchen obviously slept. There was a table with four chairs under a little window framed with white, starched curtains, two cupboards and a wardrobe against the walls, a counter with a porcelain bowl for a sink, the stool that Tante Gretchen was using and the cot Giselle had slept it. The floor was old, worn wood, and the walls were whitewashed plaster that had some small, dark pictures hanging on them. It was very pretty, if a bit claustrophobic for