“I have several animals.” Barney steadied the baby in one arm so he could point toward the kitchen. “They’re out in the barn behind the house.”
The king walked through the doorway that led into the kitchen and to the tattered side window that overlooked the barn. Before the old man could ask another question, before the princess even received a kiss good bye, the king retraced his steps, sending only a regretful glance to the bundle in Barney’s arms. With giant tears forming in his small, green eyes, King Fredrick hasted out the door, onto the horse, and away.
Nightfall approached as the king rode in no particular direction. It didn’t matter where he went from his uncle’s house, as long as he headed away from the princess and away from the queen.
Once a great distance from Barney’s house, Fredrick stopped at a stream to let the horse drink and rest. While the gelding stretched its neck toward the steady trickle of flowing water, a loud snapping sound came from behind Fredrick. He swirled around, and where before nothing but trees inhabited, a band of robbers stood ready to close in on him.
“We’ll be taking whatever riches you’re hiding there.” The cloth in which the princess had been wrapped still hung from the king’s neck.
“I don’t have anything but the clothes you see on my body and the horse beneath,” the king said, raising his hands in surrender.
Nearer they came, from every direction now, closing their circle to surround the king.
“Then we’ll be taking the clothes and the horse,” another robber said, leering.
One bandit shoved Fredrick from behind. Another pulled the horse away from him. Fredrick tried to rise to his feet, but the boot of yet another man caught him in the gut. Loud ripping sounds tore through the air as they rent his clothes, their laughter ringing out into the dusk. I will spare you the remainder of the bloody details, other than this: before dark, the king’s body became a feast to a pack of ravenous wolves. I couldn’t watch, knowing he’d sacrificed so much, wondering if the princess of Mayhem would ever know he’d given his life to save her.
King Fredrick’s death would give the kingdom reason to mourn, but perhaps it was a lucky misfortune. Three days later, the queen’s executioner happened upon the same stream. As he came upon the gore, he covered his nose and used the boot on his foot to inspect. Though Fredrick’s distorted body was beginning to decay, enough of his kind, genteel face, including his small features and green eyes, provided identification. The executioner reached down for something. A bloody cloth—empty and torn—remained strapped around the king’s neck.
He began his journey back to the castle, but the queen did not wait for him to return. She asked me to show her the king, and I obliged.
Living inside a small, magical mirror—a prisoner to Queen Radiance—I thought of King Fredrick. The image of his body appeared in the mirror for the queen to see—dried blood, surrounding forest. A screeching vulture landed in that moment to grab for final pickings. Its image is forever framed in my remembrance, for the queen and I saw the exact same thing when we looked through the surface of the mirror: oval glass, braided gold decorative trim, and a faded view of each other behind it all. I could barely see my own reflection with everything else before me; I looked tired, and needed a shave. I hoped she would not ask me specifically to show her the princess, knowing she lived and breathed and drank goat’s milk from a bottle.
“Are you sure it’s him?” she asked. The queen of Mayhem did not shudder or even flinch, which filled me with anger.
I narrowed in on Fredrick’s still eyes to answer, showing her the lifeless result of her cruel ways.
“And the princess?”
“She is gone as well.”
“Killed?”
I gave a yawn for added measure; I didn’t want to let her know I cared. “Eaten by wolves. I saw the whole thing.”
“Where were they?” she asked.
“In the forest beyond Mischief.”
“That worthless executioner.”
“If it’s any consolation, he did find them,” I reported. “He’s on his way back to Mayhem as we speak.”
Now, there’s one thing you need to know. The queen thought I did not have the ability to lie to her. When she cast the spell that locked me in the mirror, she attempted to require my truthfulness. But what the queen did not know is that spells are funny things. They choose carefully which words to obey and which to cast off to the wind. When a spell is born, it selects its own characteristics. I had learned over the years that I could lie to her—I lied almost every time I told her she looked beautiful—but it didn’t matter; she trusted no one, and almost always asked me to prove what I said. So when I lied, as I had just done about the princess, I always followed up with a bit of the truth, to serve as a hopeful distraction that would keep her from learning the secrets I kept. But this time, she soaked up every word. Her executioner would even live to take another life.
“And Jeffry?” she inquired. That was the name of her horse.
“Stolen.”
“Poor Jeffry,” she cried, slumping onto the cushioned bench in front of her vanity and producing a flow of tears. I resided inside the hand mirror atop the polished chestnut vanity, and watched as her tears descended toward me, some splashing against the mirror’s frame, some acting like tiny sprinkles of rain inside my prison cell. I hated that she showed such feeling for an animal and cared nothing about her own daughter and dead husband. I glared at her as she covered her eyes and sobbed. Only a moment later, she switched off her tears, stood up from her bench, and called for a servant to draw her bath.
A heart-wrenching sorrow came over me, and anger swelled inside me; I wanted to spit in her face. I could see everything whilst inside the mirror, for that is its magic charm. But being stuck inside the mirror was a curse put upon me by the queen herself, a way to entrap me in her servitude forever. I hated the queen of Mayhem, and when I saw what she did to her own daughter, and how the king of Mayhem died to save the princess, I chanted a spell for the first time in ages. I had stopped trying to create spells to get me out of the mirror; nothing had worked so far. And my limited strength prevented me from attempting spells for anything else. But the princess needed protection, and I was desperate to help her. The words came directly from my heart, slow and low; I uttered them with great feeling.
“Winter wind chilling
Frightening and thrilling
Place your veil with care.
Mayhem’s queen reigns
Severe and insane
A challenge, if you dare:
The kingdom’s lone daughter
Avoided death’s slaughter
But may again need grace.
If danger should find her
Let it not bind her
With snow, cover her face.”
I felt cold after; a cool breeze came inside my stagnant existence and swept across my face, forcing a shuddering chill. I hoped that meant my spell was taking life—that despite being trapped, despite my lack of strength and practice, despite the fact that the queen’s superior powers held me bound, I could still create a spell to save the princess. A spell that would actually work. And from that day forward, I kept watch over the beloved child, the princess of Mayhem, whose name was Katiyana. In the language of the forefathers of Mayhem, it means . . . Snow.
Blindness
It is a strange thing, being a part of so many lives while being apart from them. I’ve watched many lives over the years, but none so frequently as Katiyana. I knew her perhaps even better than she knew herself. I didn’t mind her ignorance of me, but I hoped that someday we would meet face to out-of-mirror face. And I always watched her with great care, cautious not to raise any suspicion in Queen Radiance. Keeping the princess a secret was vital to her safety.
Barney filled his role well. He fed the princess, changed the princess, and bathed the pr
incess.
“Dear little one,” he said as he rocked her in the chair he had made with his own hands just days after she first came. I believed he adored the princess’s company, small as it was. How he rambled on. “Kat is no name for a little girl, but that is what your father called you, so it will have to do. And my family name is Whyte, the same as your father’s mother. So we will call you Whyte as well. Kat Whyte. There, it suits you.”
Although Barney may have called her Kat, and indeed she grew up knowing no other name, in my mind I preferred to call her by her full name, Katiyana. I never forgot her true identity, that she was the princess of Mayhem.
He introduced her to the animals before she could walk. Her first word was a shaky “Baaaaaaaaa.” She began learning milking techniques soon after that. Such a bright thing!
Katiyana toddled after Barney as he walked about the orchard preparing for the fall harvest. But when it came time to take the apples to market, Barney remembered his duty to King Fredrick. “You can’t come with me, Kat.”
As an infant, she had waited in her little basket at the foot of Barney’s bed. The closest window looked out the back of the house onto much of the orchard, but Katiyana didn’t know that. She played with her toes, cooed to herself, and sucked at the bottle Barney had left close by.
A walking toddler caused a bit more of a stir, and the year after Katiyana had come to him, Barney came home from the market several times to tipped-over chairs, crumbs all over the table and floor, and blankets and pillows spread about the house.
By the time Katiyana turned four years old, Barney moved her to the tiny upstairs room where she slept on a lumpy mattress under an intricate but faded quilt. She began to protest when Barney left her alone while he went to the market. “Why can’t I come?” she asked with pouted lips, standing beside the rocking chair. Babyhood lingered in her pudgy fingers and facial features. Her hair had grown so long already, and dark like her mother’s, though not as coiled. But unlike her mother, she had soft blue eyes.
“Now don’t fret, Kat.” Barney knelt in front of her, peering into her eyes, his shirt coming untucked in the back as it always did. “You know you can’t come to the market with me. If you come with me, who will look after the orchard? I need you to stay here.”
“But, Uncle, you need me to go with you. I could help steer the cart. Or I could watch the apples while you try to sell them. Or I could just stay hidden and look at everything from under a blanket.” She spoke so eloquently for a child, a credit to her uncle. I wondered if he’d been considered nobility at one point, like Fredrick.
“I’m so sorry, Kat. I know you only want to help your old uncle, but I will not budge. Not this time. Not when it comes to the market. I need you to stay here and take care of the orchard.”
She bowed her head. “Okay, Uncle.” Then she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she said.
Barney returned her hug and patted her on the head. He chuckled softly. “I love you too, my little kitten.” He stood up in preparation to leave. “Be a good girl,” he said, pointing straight at the princess’s nose.
“I will,” she said back. She swayed back and forth with her hands clasped behind her back as she watched Barney turn to leave.
And she kept her word. Katiyana went out to the barn and pulled down a pruning saw. I cringed, worried she might cut herself on its long, sharp teeth, but she dropped it on top of the hay-covered ground without a scratch. She hefted the ladder and looked up as it came crashing down. I covered my eyes, afraid the weight would crush her, but worrying for such a capable little girl proved folly. She got out of the way just in time for it to slam on top of the saw. Still carefree and confident, Katiyana dragged both to the nearest apple tree with great difficulty. She even scraped up her legs in the process, but refrained from crying or complaining. Such a determined thing!
Barney came home to find a clean house this time—completely untouched. “Kat, I’m home,” he called out after tying up the tired horse and walking up the steps to the house. He opened the creaking door and his eyes took in the stillness and cleanliness before him. The setting sun provided little light, but he immediately noticed Katiyana wasn’t in sight.
Barney searched under his bed and in the kitchen. “Are you hiding?” he sang playfully as he crept about. (I must say, playing Hide and Seek is no fun when you live inside a mirror and know where everyone is.) After finding her room empty, his search took him outdoors. “Kat!” he called again and again, but he could not see the child. “Oh, forgive me Fredrick,” he muttered. Then, as he passed the barn, he saw the ladder underneath a tree; a little body lay at its side. “Kat?”
It did no good to call her name. Princess Katiyana had worn herself out trying to get the ladder set up and would not wake. Barney lifted her sweaty body into his arms with a broad smile on his face. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “You’ll know everything about taking care of an orchard in no time.”
And his prophecy became reality. At age five she picked her first barrel of apples.
“Careful up the ladder now,” Barney said. “Steady.”
But while her uncle worried, Katiyana marched up the ladder as if she’d done it a thousand times before. At age six she pruned her first tree. And at age seven, Barney began teaching her to read letters and numbers, soon giving her charge of recording their harvest, earnings, and expenses.
Year after year she begged to go to the market, giving reasons upon reasons, such as needing a new dress and not trusting Barney to choose the right color or size. Barney Whyte remained steadfast, refusing to let the child venture outside the orchard. “I know you wanted to come to the market with me, Kat. But I’ve brought you something,” Barney persuaded as he waved a story book in front of the princess, who sat in the corner sulking.
Katiyana looked up at him. “What’s that?”
“It’s a book.”
“I’ve seen a book before,” Katiyana said. “You’ve got seven of them on your desk.”
“Not like this one. Those are for keeping records so I know how many apples we collect and sell each year. This one is especially for little girls.” He opened it and Katiyana lifted her chin further. “It has pictures. And a story, like the ones I tell you at bedtime.”
“But your stories never make any sense.” She folded her arms in a huff and scowled.
“It has pictures,” he sang.
Katiyana got up on her knees for a better view as Barney approached. He sat in the rocking chair and beckoned her to climb on his lap. Together, they read a fine tale about a milk maiden who dreamed of traveling to the stars.
From then on Barney could not keep enough books in the house. Katiyana began writing the stories herself; she even drew the pictures. But the books Barney brought were her favorites. They were, after all, her only view of anything other than life on an apple orchard.
What an irony—that I had a view of everything, and she had a view of almost nothing. I engaged myself in her life, eager to see what would happen to her. Would she remain with Barney forever? Would the queen ever discover her? Would she stay happy?
I took great delight in watching her grow. Such a happy thing—never complaining. And she really could talk Barney into anything, even picnics atop the roof on summer afternoons.
The only thing her charming manipulation did not work for was her strong desire to go to the market each fall. Every year she begged, reasoned, and bribed with the promise of doing extra chores or baking a sugar cake. On this, however, Barney always remained firm. Fredrick truly had chosen wisely in trusting Katiyana to his tender care.
When Katiyana was eleven years old, she woke one foggy winter morning, lingered in the warmth of her covers for a time with a book, and then sped down the stairs in time to feed the animals. Barney lay in bed.
“Uncle? Are you still sleeping?”
He breathed in a quick b
reath and let it out slow.
Katiyana reached out her arm and softly touched his shoulder. “Uncle?”
Barney jerked and opened his eyes, propping himself up on one elbow. He blinked once and then again.
“Are you all right, Uncle?” she asked. “I’m just going out to feed the animals. Would you like me to make you some breakfast first?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine.”
Katiyana hesitated, observing her uncle for another moment before looping the handle of a basket around her arm and walking out the door.
Barney tried to get up, using his arms to feel the air all around him. When Katiyana returned, he still sat on his bed.
“Uncle, are you sure you’re well? Maybe you’ve got a cold.” She took off her brown, fuzzy knitted gloves and placed them on the table. Then she began putting wood in the fireplace.
“I’m blind,” he said softly.
Katiyana walked over to her uncle and grasped his hand, holding onto it as she pulled it up to the height of her waist. “What did you say? Are you not feeling well?” She stooped slightly to look into his face.
“I’m blind.”
“I’m sure you just need some more rest,” she said, shaking her head. She began patting his pillow and pushing on his shoulder. “Lie down and close your eyes.”
Barney jerked away from her. He pushed against the bed, finally rising to his feet, and tottered toward the door, constantly checking his balance. He tripped on a crack in a floorboard and nearly fell forward into the rocking chair before correcting his balance. Katiyana tried to steer him, but he only pushed her away.
Barney stumbled down the porch steps and to the barn. He felt for the horse and mounted it bareback.
“Uncle, where are you going?”
“To the market,” he grunted. “Stay here.”
Snow Whyte and the Queen of Mayhem Page 2