What Once Was Mine

A kingdom's queen is dying, and so is the child she carries. The townspeople search the land for the Sundrop flower, the one plant said to heal anything, but someone picks a Moondrop blossom by mistake. The queen recovers and gives birth to a healthy daughter, Rapunzel, whose hair is silver and gray like the moon.

The flower leaves a mark. Rapunzel's hair carries magic that can hurt rather than heal, and for the safety of the kingdom she is shut in a tower under the care of a powerful goodwife, Mother Gothel. She spends eighteen years there, taught that she must keep everyone safe from her own hair.

On her birthday, floating lights appear in the sky, and Rapunzel decides to leave the only home she has known to see them. Outside, she is swept into an adventure with two thieves: Gina, who wants to become an outlaw, and Flynn Rider, a rogue on the run.

This is a fairy-tale retelling that begins with a single changed detail and builds a different story from it. It reads as a fantasy adventure, with a young heroine stepping into a world she has only imagined, and it hints that her past and her magic hold secrets she has not been told.