The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf

by Tia Nevitt

  “Damned coward.”

  “I was afraid when you fell into a swoon that you’d choke to death.”

  “I didn’t really faint. I just playacted.”

  Gretchen heaved a sigh of relief. “You’re pretty good at it.”

  “I’ve had a lifetime of practice.”

  Gretchen gulped around her parched throat. The flesh at the back of her mouth stuck together painfully, and she forced out a cough. “Was that—did you plan what you did in there?”

  “Oh, yes. I could tell something was going on, that she wouldn’t tolerate us for very long, so that’s why I went to the mirror as soon as I could, and took on the curse at my first opportunity.”

  “Was that when you almost fell of the chest?”

  “Yes—I wasn’t faking anything then. I felt this sudden dizziness that almost knocked me over.”

  “But I thought you were going to try to trick the queen.”

  “And so I have! I tricked her into releasing us all.” He grunted. “Or at least from the mirror.”

  “But now—she has access to all that knowledge!”

  “It won’t do her any good unless she uses the mirror to ask herself, and even then she will only be able to answer three questions in the morning, and three questions at night.”

  “But still!”

  “It’s better than anyone else being her slave. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Well, yes. I do agree with that.”

  They were silent for a long while. Then Lars said, “I hoped...I had this foolish fancy.”

  “A fancy?”

  “Yes. I envisioned the queen asking me who was fairest of them all. Then I would have been able to answer that you were.” He gave a rasp of a chuckle. “Imagine her reaction to that!”

  Gretchen felt a swelling in her throat that had nothing to do with thirst. It was as if all the emotions of her heart had filled her entire chest to the point where her ribs could not hold it in. “You—” she forced out. “You wanted to tell me that I’m the fairest?”

  “I wanted to say it through the mirror, so you would know it was the truth.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me through the mirror,” Gretchen said. “I would have believed you.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” he said. “I know you think you’re ugly.”

  “Oh, Lars,” she said. “You’ve made me feel beautiful for weeks.”

  “I...” his voice failed him.

  “I love you,” Gretchen said. “I came here hoping to find a man who wouldn’t be too ashamed to marry me. I didn’t expect...” Her voice failed her.

  “I know,” Lars said after a moment. “I didn’t expect it either.”

  They fell into a silence. Gretchen longed to touch him—even to just hold his hand. But his hand was the only part of him that she could even see, and then only if she strained her eyes to the left. Still, she felt that somehow, at some point deep in the night, they had touched not with flesh but with soul.

  * * *

  The queen summoned them before daybreak. They were taken, stiff-legged and bent-backed, to the throne room and thrust unceremoniously inside.

  The queen again stood before the mirror.

  “Get up here,” she said.

  They hobbled to the front of the room, leaning on each other for support.

  The queen looked at them through the mirror, which was now an ordinary reflective surface. Gretchen blinked at her. She looked haggard, as if she had not slept all night.

  “Have you learned anything?” Lars asked cheerfully, even as he groaned to straighten himself in a natural walking posture.

  “Yes. I learned that treachery can come in small packages.”

  He blinked innocently “Treachery?”

  “Yes. Now free me from this infernal mirror.”

  Gretchen and Lars exchanged a glance.

  “What do you mean,” Lars said, “free you?”

  “Place your hand on the mirror and activate it. It will free me.”

  Lars crossed his arms. “I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “If you’re trapped by the mirror, then I think that’s the way I want you.”

  “Release me at once!”

  “Not on your life!”

  She bared her teeth in frustration for a moment, and then with a visible attempt, she schooled her features into a smile that should have been pleasant but was made even more awful by the glint in her eye. “I can make you rich. Bags of coins—enough to fill two saddlebags—will be yours, all for placing your hand on the mirror.”

  “I’d rather be drawn and quartered.”

  Her eyes narrowed and then cut to Gretchen. “How about her? Would you like to see her drawn and quartered?”

  “No, but as long as you’re safely behind that mirror, you’ll hardly be able to do so.”

  “I’ll call for the guard!”

  “And have them find out about this trap you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  “Release me!” she screeched.

  “Never!”

  “I will free you,” a voice said.

  Gretchen turned toward the doorway. It was Ange.

  The queen’s face turned corpse pale.

  * * *

  Richard followed his wife with sword drawn, but no one stopped him. Not when he was with the Tattered Princess, now dressed in neat homespun but still recognized by great and humble. She walked over to her stepmother and stood beside her. Richard took a position on the other side of the queen.

  He looked at her, amazed. There was no trace of her former beauty. Age, which had not touched her just a few days ago, now crinkled the corners of her eyes, etched frown lines between her brows and drew down the corners of her mouth. Her flawless complexion now had spots of bright red low on her cheeks, and her entire face bordered on florid. But worst of all was the expression. All those fissures and creases were deepened by a scowl that seemed to use every muscle of her face, leaving behind none of the legendary beauty.

  “The Laws of the Mirror,” he said. “That’s what has you trapped now.”

  The queen narrowed her eyes at him through her reflection. “Laws?”

  “Law the first: never use the mirror to summon yourself. Otherwise, you become trapped by it.” He paused. “Do you remember when you found me here, days ago? I had trapped myself the same way. You freed me.”

  “As I free you now,” Ange said as she placed her hand upon the mirror.

  Richard watched his wife. He was struck by the lack of animosity on her face.

  “Slave of the magic mirror,” Ange said, “answer these questions.” She cocked her head. “How did my father die?”

  Sybelle’s eyes were wide as her voice responded without any regard to her will. “By poison,” came from her lips. The queen looked astonished at her own words. Richard gave a tight smile. It had taken him years to learn to hide his truth behind cryptic sentences.

  “And who ordered the poisoning that killed my father?”

  Richard looked at his wife in wonder. It was an excellently crafted, specific question, which Sybelle had no way around. “I did,” Sybelle said. She licked her lips, and her eyes darted all around.

  However, Ange did nothing. Her eyes flicked to the mirror beyond her. “And what three things did you learn from the mirror last night?”

  Anger distorted her face. “I asked it to teach me true magic—the magic of fairies. The mi
rror first told me how to open a rose in bloom. It was nonsense! I could have done the same thing with a watering can. So I told it to teach me something more powerful—to teach me how to control the weather. So it told me how to sweep the wind. But...” A perplexed frown creased her brow. “But I could understand nothing of it, so I asked it what I need to do to understand the magic and it told me...it told me that I must learn what true wisdom is.”

  “I see,” Ange said. “Very well. It is dawn. You now have three more questions. Go ahead and ask the mirror what true wisdom is.”

  Richard frowned. He found this idea ill-advised. Surely the last thing they should do was give the sorcerous queen access to even more forbidden wisdom. But still, he did not intervene. This was Ange’s fight.

  “What?” the queen asked.

  Ange smiled encouragingly. “Go ahead. At the very least, you should learn the answer to your question. Ask the mirror for the wisdom you need to understand the magic. I will free you afterward.”

  The queen turned toward the mirror and looked at Ange uncertainly. Ange again smiled. Hesitantly, the queen placed her hand on the mirror. After a moment of thought—perhaps about how to best word the question—she asked, “What is the wisdom that I need to understand the magic you taught me last night?”

  The mirror made no response that anyone could hear.

  Then the queen’s mouth dropped in an O of surprise. Both hands flew to her heart. All the harsh lines left her face, leaving only surprise, delight and then—without warning—tears.

  Sybelle began to cry—great, tearing gasps that her throat did not seem to want to release.

  Ange blinked at her stepmother in astonishment. Without a word, Richard reached over her shoulder and placed his hand on the mirror. Once released, the queen crumpled into her stepdaughter’s arms.

  Richard snapped his finger at a guard and made a gesture. The guard and Ange helped the sobbing queen to her throne.

  Richard looked at the mirror that for generations his family had used to gain an unfair advantage over their neighbors until, at last, one of their neighbors had used it to gain an unfair advantage over them. He was master of the mirror now, and its slave was the woman who had demanded the truth from him in all its damning exactitude for seven years. For a moment, he was tempted to use it, to demand torturous questions of her, to humiliate her with the truth.

  Before the feeling could overwhelm him, he raised his sword and smashed the pommel into the glass.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Angelika took the throne the way she did everything else—quietly and with no fuss. Her first act was to declare a general tax amnesty for a period of one year, during which time all new taxes instituted during the time of the Queen Regent would be reviewed. The day of the announcement became an unofficial holiday. Other than that, Ange became Queen Angelika with little fanfare.

  When Lars and Gretchen told her they were going to be married, she insisted upon throwing a betrothal party for them. All their friends from the farm came, along with the farmers of the Crossroads Market, and Johann. They emptied two kegs of beer and danced all night long. On the morning of the departure, Ange and Richard got up before dawn to see them off.

  “I can’t thank you two enough,” Ange said. “I know my stepmother promised to fill your saddlebags with coins if you released her, but—”

  “We didn’t release her, madam,” Lars said. “You did.”

  There was a pause. Gretchen thought of Sybelle. She now had the wisdom that she had asked for, and with it came the burden of conscience. She had wept for three days, after which time she suggested that she serve out a penance in a convent for the rest of her life. Ange was inclined to be merciful and agree, but Richard was not, so her fate was still undecided.

  Gretchen’s eyes slid to Richard, where he stood beyond Ange, dressed all in black, as was his habit now. She thought of him as her guardian angel. His face was somber, but his brown eyes were warm, and his mouth curved in a half smile as she met his gaze.

  “Well, in any case, you’ll find two bags of coin among your possessions.”

  Ange embraced Gretchen and placed her hand on Lars’s shoulder. Richard shook both their hands. They mounted their ponies. As they exited the castle, they passed Rudolph in his position in the stocks. He had been sentenced to remain there until Lars and Gretchen were three days on their journey. Initially, he had been placed in the more merciful feet stocks, but since he had taken to throwing the offal back at his tormenters, he had been relocated to the head-and-hand stocks for the morning. He had only been there for an hour, but already he was covered with substances too grisly for Gretchen to contemplate.

  “There they go—Stump and Stumpy!” he yelled after them, his temper not yet fully tamed.

  An egg splatted into his hair, and yolk ran down his face.

  * * *

  They made the trip to Gretchen’s home town without incident. As rode their ponies through town on the way to her father’s Einhaus, young Fritz came loping up beside her with a grin.

  “Gretchen! You’re back!”

  She smiled down at him. “It’s good to see you, Fritz.”

  His eyes slid to Lars. “Who is this?”

  “This is Herr Lars Stumpf,” she said. After some discussion, they had decided to take Lars’s old nickname as a surname. Gretchen had been against the idea at first, but Lars pointed out that his own father had given him the name when he became a fool at the royal court.

  “But you were going to leave that nickname behind forever,” Gretchen pointed out.

  “It will no longer be a nickname. It will be my name.”

  “I don’t see the difference.”

  He paused for a moment and then said, “Minstrels and fools often take on names that might have otherwise been used as an insult. A man with a large nose calls himself Beak. Or a man with a limp calls himself Gimpy. My own father’s voice gave out early, and later in life he went by Frog. If we adopt a name that can be taken for an insult, then people will believe we are above being insulted.”

  She thought about Marta and Dieter Klein. She recalled wondering if someone had named them that as a joke. She now knew that they had chosen it for themselves.

  She had a wicked thought. “I had another nickname for you,” she said. She blushed furiously as she said, “Nibelung.”

  He cocked his head at her. “Why would you call me something like that?”

  She grinned. “I’ll tell you after our marriage.”

  So now, Lars said, “And this is soon to be Frau Stumpf.”

  Fritz’s eyes widened. He pumped Lars’s hand enthusiastically, said congratulations and went running down the street to yell that Gretchen was getting married. By the time they reached the road to her father’s house, a large and enthusiastic crowd followed them, and children gathered wildflowers along the way to strew in their path—just as they once had hurled dirt clods.

  Gretchen tried to suppress such thoughts—and she succeeded. By the time they passed Gisela’s house, she was able to wave cheerily.

  Her mother saw them coming, and she ran to the road to meet them. “Gretchen!” she said, picking her up and spinning her around in a way that Gretchen was secretly glad she never outgrew. “I feared never to see you again!” She looked around at the assembly. “What’s all this?”

  “A betrothal cavalcade, I suppose. Mami—I’ve brought a man home who I’d like to marry, just as I hoped.”

  “Indeed?”
She eyed Lars.

  Her father rushed up, and once again, Gretchen enjoyed a dizzying twirl.

  “Here is my dowry back, Vater.”

  He hefted it with a frown. “Why, it doesn’t feel like you’ve spent any of it.”

  “I replenished it from our reward,” she said with a glance to Lars.

  “Reward?”

  She smiled. “It’s a long story. Vater, I want you to meet Lars Stumpf, my future husband.”

  Gretchen watched as her father eyed her betrothed. “Lars, eh?” her father said. “What’s your profession?”

  “Profession?” He glanced at Gretchen and she met his eye. Then he looked back at her father. “Why, I’m a farmer, of course.”

  * * * * *

  Looking for another charming fairy tale retelling by Tia Nevitt? Check out the first book in the Accidental Enchantments series, available now!

  The Sevenfold Spell

  Have you ever wondered what happens to the other people in the fairy tale?

  Things look grim for Talia and her mother. By royal proclamation, the constables and those annoying “good” fairies have taken away their livelihood by confiscating their spinning wheel. Something to do with a curse on the princess, they said.

  Not every young lady has a fairy godmother rushing to her rescue.

  Without the promise of an income from spinning, Talia’s prospects for marriage disappear, and she and her mother face destitution. Past caring about breaking an arbitrary and cruel law, rebellious Talia determines to build a new spinning wheel, the only one in the nation—which plays right into the evil fairy’s diabolical plan. Talia discovers that finding a happy ending requires sacrifice. But is it a sacrifice she’s willing to make?

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