The Fairest of Them All

by Carolyn Turgeon

“What?”

  “You may be the fairest in this room, but Snow White is a thousand times more fair.”

  I stared at my face in the glass. Didn’t I look the same as I always did? My hair golden, the color of wheat and sun and daffodils, my eyes bright blue, like sapphires. I was a bit older, yes, I was over thirty now, but I had been careful. My figure was long and slender, my waist nipped in, my breasts high.

  I pressed my face against the glass.

  Her face loomed up at me like a reflection in water.

  She was so young, lush. Like a piece of fruit hanging from a tree, so full it was about to burst.

  Snow White.

  I slammed my fist against the glass, waiting to hear the cracking, but nothing happened.

  Snow White is a thousand times more fair.

  I ran from my room, from my chambers, to find her.

  “Where is the princess?” I asked a young maid scurrying past. “Tell me!”

  “She is bathing, I believe.”

  I ran to her chambers, pushed open the doors.

  “It is the queen, mademoiselle,” I could hear one of her ladies saying, rushing before me.

  She stood naked in the bath, her ladies positioned around her.

  “Your Highness,” she said.

  I took her in, the length of her body. She was shorter than I, and more rounded. Her breasts were full, her nipples a perfect pink. Her hips flared out from her waist, her sex a patch of dark. Her skin luminous, as white as milk. Those violet eyes, lined by thick lashes. Her black hair tumbled down to her shoulders, wet and curling.

  When had she become a woman? She was only fifteen, wasn’t she?

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Her voice was cold, hard.

  I stood there. Foolish, a witch queen, speechless in front of a bathing child.

  But what could I say?

  Two of her ladies stood on either side of her, their hands filled with wet cloths. Behind her, another was waiting to plait her hair, the way she always wore it now, braids lining her face.

  I turned and left. I started running, desperate to escape, to get as far from her as I could, far away from all of this.

  I rushed back to my rooms, and the mirror.

  I bent toward it, lowered my voice to a whisper. “Who is the fairest of them all?” I asked.

  It was like water after you throw a pebble across the surface.

  The voice came, unmistakably: She is.

  “Who is?” I asked.

  The answer came more quickly, with no hesitation.

  Snow White.

  “You are wrong,” I said, as the image of her naked, in the bath, flashed through my mind.

  For a moment, I imagined casting a spell around her body and changing her into a stag. I laughed as I thought of it: that perfect beauty metamorphosing, her lovely face growing a long snout, the black wet nose, the big soft eyes, antlers twisting from her head. Her hands dropping to the ground and becoming hooves. The way she would bound through the forest, her eyes glittering, speaking of enchantment. The consciousness she would have, knowing that she was a princess trapped in the body of a beast.

  The mirror rippled. The herbs smoked in their jars, with anticipation.

  “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” I asked. “Tell me. Will she marry? Will she be loved? Will she have many heirs?”

  A terrible pain seared through my chest as I asked the questions.

  What I saw in the glass made me cry in frustration, in grief.

  That night, I dreamed of the crane and the falcon. I was the falcon, flying above everything, weightless. Faster than any other creature as I moved through the sky, from the castle to that enchanted forest, the old tower, and back again. It was such a feeling of freedom, the way the air rushed toward me and then split in my wake. Below me, the ground was emerald green. I came upon a stake with a crane tied to it, and as I darted down from sky to earth, a hunger moving through me the way it had when his child had been growing inside me, the crane was her, Snow White, tied to the stake with her violet eyes sewn shut.

  Gilles walked up to her as she writhed there, her black hair tumbling down to her shoulders, her skin as pale as cream. I was ravenous. I would need two mouths to eat enough to fill me.

  Before I could move, he reached in and pulled out her heart. Bright red, like her lips, like the flowers that hung over my son’s grave, like the blossom Mathena had plucked from the stag’s remains. He held it in his hands and it burst into flames.

  And then everything shifted, and I was in the ballroom, perched on the back of a chair, and Snow White was in her father’s arms, naked and lush, red blood flowing from her open breast down her pale skin. There was a sickness in me as I watched, and I hated her for lying that way in her father’s arms, hated his hands on her skin, though she was dead and I knew I had killed her and all around them the courtiers wept.

  “My love,” he said, looking up at me, as my wings spanned out on either side. “Open your mouth.” He let her fall from his arms and walked toward me, lifting her flaming heart over my face.

  I woke, gagging, unable to breathe.

  A silver light moved through the room. My breath came in rasps. I clutched my chest. The window was open, and I could smell the faint perfume of flowers. Slowly, the room came into relief. The same bedposts and curtains, the same hulking wardrobe filled with colorful silk dresses.

  I sat up. In the clear quiet of night, everything seemed to make sense in a way it didn’t in the daylight. I thought of Snow White standing in the bath, staring brazenly at me with her head high, and my heart twisted in my chest. I hated her. In that moment I hated her so purely and fully that I felt it through my whole body, as powerfully as the desire I’d felt once that had brought the prince to the forest, when I was locked in the tower. It was a hatred made of light, of diamonds, shaped like an arrow moving from my heart to hers.

  Her heart in flames. I could almost taste it.

  And then a sadness and pain broke open inside me, like a physical wound, as if it were my heart that had been pulled from my chest. Everyone loved her. All the court, all the lords and ladies and knights, the cooks and maidservants, the people in the villages and the countryside and even the East—all of them loved the daughter of the dead queen, with her glowing youth and her book learning and the pure love of God that moved through her. I, too, had loved her ferociously, loved watching her laugh in the garden as I showed her the magic hidden in plants, loved watching her ride next to me as we raced through the kingdom. Even now, thinking of those days, her scrunched-up little face, I wanted to cry out with grief and loss.

  But everything was different now. I’d felt her rage like a physical thing. I wanted to scream into that quiet night, that castle filled with black hearts. I, too, had been born with gifts beyond measure. I should have been loved, the way she was. I should have been happy and surrounded by heirs, the way she would one day. This was not what my life was supposed to be.

  I grabbed my head in my hands, trying to make the thoughts, the pain and rage, go away, but it was flowing through me like an angry river, and I felt suddenly like I wanted to die, I wanted to fall wounded onto the ground, let my body turn to plant, to roses.

  I’d killed the stag, I’d killed Teresa. The only child I’d birthed had been twisted and wrong, but I loved him, my twisted, dark heart, the blood-red flowers that grew from his grave.

  I was a witch. The girl in the mirror, wild and feral, her hair full of leaves. I was never the regal queen, even when I played the part well. I’d never belonged in the palace, only to the forest and wind.

  Something in me snapped. I pulled a dressing gown around me, grabbed a torch, and stalked out of my room and through the greeting room, into the hallway. A guard was sleeping outside and I stole past him, tears falling down my face.

  I slipped down the hallways and made my way to the west side of the castle, past sleeping guards and servants. I stormed down the hallway, pushed out into the night air. Overhead, the moon
light bathed my skin. I was weeping, my bare feet pressing into grass and earth.

  I could see the silhouettes of soldiers stationed at the castle walls and I started running then, without even knowing where my feet were taking me, stumbling over roots. Then I was at the mews, at his door, the one man who cared for me, my one solace.

  I walked into the mews, past the birds tied to their perches, and went back to the room where he slept.

  “Gilles,” I said.

  He was awake, hunched over his desk, reading by candlelight. The flame flickered, casting shadows against the wall.

  He turned to me as I entered the room. Even in the dim light, I could see his face fall open as he saw me.

  “Rapunzel,” he said.

  I stumbled to him, dropped to my knees.

  “My love, what is it?” he asked. His face was full of worry.

  “I need you to do something for me,” I said. “I want her heart.”

  “What?”

  “Her heart.”

  “Whose . . . ?”

  “Snow White’s.”

  The words hung in the air like a storm about to be unleashed. The thought, niggling in the back of my mind, had burst forth like an arrow to a stag’s throat. And once it had a shape and a presence, it became larger and larger, and it was everything I’d ever wanted, all my pain and grief, all the things I should have had in my life and didn’t.

  If she wouldn’t love me, if the people would love her and not me, if the king would lavish her with attention and love while I wilted away in my chambers, growing older and older and less and less beautiful with each passing year, if she would live instead of my son, then I would have her heart.

  He looked at me in horror. “Rapunzel, you are asking me to kill the king’s heir?”

  “Please, Gilles,” I said. “Do this for me.”

  I could see his horror and love, his fear and confusion, playing out over his face.

  “No one loves me but you,” I said. “I have nothing but you. Please help me.”

  I could feel the love coming off of him. I took it inside me as if it were a piece of warm bread he was offering. I focused in, made it into a point of light, used every bit of power I had to sway him, if his love for me was not enough. I leaned in and kissed him, letting it flow back from me to him.

  He looked back at me in horror. “How can you ask such a thing?” he said.

  I could feel him weakening under me. I slipped my arms around him and I was on top of him, straddling him on the chair, my feet bare and covered in grass and mud. “Bring me the heart of Snow White,” I whispered. I took his face in my hands, brought his lips to mine. “Will you do this for your queen?”

  His eyes glittered in the dim light. He didn’t have a choice.

  His voice cracked as he answered.

  “Yes.”

  When I woke up the next morning, the sun was falling through the open windows, streaming in like water. I sat up, and all the events from the night before came rushing back to me. My feet were scraped up, my nightgown wet and stained. A maidservant, who’d been hovering near the doorway waiting for me to wake, entered the room, casting her eyes down when she saw the state I was in.

  As soon as I was dressed, I went to Mass and to eat in the great hall, looking for Snow White all the while, wondering if I’d really asked Gilles to bring me her heart and if he was going to do as he’d promised. Snow White was not in her usual place next to the king. A shiver moved through me. Quietly, I ate my bread and meat, forcing myself to swallow.

  After, I went to see Gilles. I walked over the castle grounds to the mews, and the light was so strange and different, the sun behind a mass of silver clouds yet with rays of light streaming through them. It seemed a sign of some kind. A sign that things would change, finally, for me.

  I walked inside and rapped on the door to his private room. There was no answer. After a moment, I pushed the door. He wasn’t there. I stood, letting myself inhale his scents, his presence. I could almost feel his hands moving over me and his mouth on my skin.

  I walked over to his bed and spread myself out, letting myself linger though I knew it was dangerous for me to be here. I needed to stay away from Gilles, in case anyone had seen him and the princess and realized what had been done. But for one moment, just this one, I let myself remember the days when the three of us had gone riding in the kingdom, when Snow White petted a falcon as if it were a cat, when her face showed such joy seeing the flourishing crops throughout the countryside.

  I shook the memories away. Those days were long past. I concentrated on this moment now, whispering a simple protection spell over him. That he should meet no obstacles in his path and return unharmed.

  I forced myself to leave his room and enter the mews. Without him there, it was eerier than it’d ever been before. I thought of my dream then, which flashed before me, and how she’d been tied like the crane. I imagined her, suddenly, with jesses around her ankles, bells tinkling when she moved, her face covered in a black hood.

  I looked out the door, into the daylight. The perches outside were empty.

  “Who’s there?” A voice cut through the empty air. “Your Highness?”

  I whirled around, expecting to see Gilles, but it was one of his assistants, who bowed to me.

  “Yes,” I said, collecting myself. “Hello. Is your master here?”

  “He has gone into the woods.”

  “He has?”

  “He said he heard news of a young gyrfalcon, and so he left this morning.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Well, that is wonderful news.”

  “Perhaps I can assist you?” he asked.

  “I wanted to speak to Gilles about a matter involving the king. I suppose he will not be back before nightfall.”

  “I expect he will be gone a few days,” he said.

  I nodded. “Very well, then.”

  He bowed once again before me.

  I turned to leave and then thought to ask him one more thing.

  “You have not seen the princess today, have you? I was hoping she’d join me for cards.”

  He shook his head, but I could not help but notice with annoyance the blush that crept into his cheek, thinking of her. “I have not,” he said.

  I turned away, nearly stumbling out of the mews and onto the soft grass. I hurried back to my chambers, as quickly as I could.

  “Your Highness!” a lady called out as I rushed by her, but I did not stop. I wanted to go to my mirror, and see if it was done.

  “Queen Rapunzel . . . ” one of my ladies began.

  I ignored her, pushed into my bedroom just as tears started running down my face. There was so much happening inside me that I could not understand, so many feelings running through me at once.

  But my room was not the refuge I had expected. My husband was there waiting for me, standing in his robe and crown. I closed the door and we were alone.

  “Josef!”

  “Rapunzel,” he said, his voice soft. “My queen. What is the matter?”

  “I . . . ”

  He moved forward, took me into his arms. It had been nearly a year since he’d visited my bedchamber. For a moment, my heart froze in my breast. Did he know? Could Gilles have betrayed me? Suddenly I was certain of it: that Gilles had gone straight to him and told him what I’d asked. And now the king was in my bedroom. They would have me hanged for treason.

  “How are you, my lord?” I asked, my voice catching. “I did not expect you.”

  “I was just at a council meeting,” he said. “And then I came to see you.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “Has something happened?” I braced myself, tried to get my wits together and have some control over what would happen next. I had brought Josef to me once and made him love me. Surely I could defend myself against him now.

  He brought one hand to my face, the other to my breast. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

  I forced my body not to tense up, but to melt into him the way it would h
ave done once, when I loved him. I watched him, as he bent down and kissed my neck, murmuring into my skin.

  “And that’s why you’re here?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, lifting up his face to look at me. I studied him for a moment, expecting to find something angry in his expression. Instead, I saw that same glazed look in his eyes, that mist of longing and desire. He was still enchanted, after all these years, despite all the other women.

  The thought hit me: that he had come to say good-bye to me, before they took me away. He leaned down and kissed me, his mouth soft and warm. I forced myself to kiss him back, though my insides were twisting. I was sick with fear.

  As he held me, I reached up and unloosed my hair, let it fall around him. Immediately his desire overwhelmed me, as it passed between us. I looked at him, trying to figure out what he knew, what was buried in his heart, but there was so much worry and war there already that I could not see past it, and so, for the first time in almost a year, I lay with him, let him pull off my dress and move inside me, though I could not enjoy this coupling.

  I closed my eyes but could not block out the horrible scenarios flashing before me, what they would do if they found out that I’d tried to have the princess killed. I saw myself hanging from the gibbet, my hair extended like snakes on the ground below me, or bent over with an ax at my neck, the iron cold against my skin. I could feel my feet encased in hot iron shoes, forcing me to dance and dance as everyone screamed with laughter and delight.

  After, he fell asleep in my bed, with his arms around me. I lay awake beside him. When I could see he was in a deep slumber, I unwrapped him from me, gently, and went to the mirror.

  I stared right into it.

  “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” I said. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”

  At first nothing happened. My own face stared back at me.

  Just when I was about to ask it again, the answer came:

  “She is. Snow White.”

  Her image flashed across the glass but it was different now, darker. I tried to focus, just as it faded out of view, revealing, once again, my own face.

  I nearly cried out with pain and frustration. She was alive yet. Perhaps sitting in the great hall this very moment, next to Gilles and the council.