I am building a tower, stone by stone, a tower in the woods as high as it can be. I am building a tower without a door, to hide away and run away and never be found. I will fill it with everything beautiful, soft cushions, velvet gowns, books and paints and embroidery silk. It will be my tower with only one window that looks out to the sunrise and the birds. Away from the town with its ugly people and their bitter, sneering faces. The Men with their beady, wanting eyes, the Women with their jealous, pouting lips, the Children with whom I can no longer dance.

I am safe in my tower, it lets me forget. The smooth cold stone is my friend, it is peace and silence and strength. The birds are my friends also, I feed them crumbs of bread and seeds so they visit me at my window. Mother brings me fruits in a little basket, ties it to a golden rope so I may draw it up. Plums and pears and blueberries wild. I love sweet things, she knows this. Dear Mother who can not understand why I am here, but who brings me everything I need.

Here I belong to no one and nothing. I can lose myself in the pages of books, in the threads of tapestry and be whoever I dream of. My dreams are long, often they last all day. I imagine I see a Prince on a white horse beneath the tower. This pleases me, as he is only a dream. I forget many things, I forget what is real and what is not. I have friends that I can not see. They dance in a circle about my tower and play honey sweet music that lulls me to sleep. In the morning they have disappeared beneath the hill.

There are monsters too. They come in the night, when there are no stars and no moon to laugh with me. I cover my face with the blankets and sing little songs to block out their howls and their cries and in the morning they are gone and again there is Mother with the fruit and the birdsong.

Now there is a Man in the forest of my Tower. He is dark and bearded and real, not like the shining knight of my dream. Come down he calls, and sings of love, strumming poorly on a wooden instrument. I take a pair of scissors, bright, and cut the golden rope. I want only to be free, it is all I want and yet they do not understand that I can only be free here, locked in my tower. My mouth tastes bitter, like parsley.