by Jen Calonita
That’s all the man ever did—listen to Katherine’s suggestions.
It was sickening.
It was Katherine who suggested they open the palace gates to visitors every few weeks for a garden party, where the king could meet his subjects. It was she who suggested they expand the kingdom’s agricultural efforts so that the farmer and his wife could head up a marketplace in the village square where all subjects could afford fresh fruits and vegetables. She put time and resources into sprucing up the castle so that it could be revered by all and commissioning a ridiculous aviary in the garden where she could invite people to view the various birds that populated the kingdom.
There was no more price gouging—no charging people more for the loveliest apples in the orchard. Again, Ingrid thought the choice foolish. How would the kingdom make money if they didn’t take opportunities like that? She wouldn’t have allowed the kingdom to become so lax with its merchants or agreed to bartering and swapping goods with other kingdoms instead of keeping all the wealth here, where it belonged. She wouldn’t have allowed her betrothed to appear soft to his enemies. But Katherine wouldn’t be swayed. And Georg loved Katherine, not Ingrid, so he only listened to her. Katherine convinced Georg that being kind to his people was more important than being feared. Ingrid was certain the day would come when they would both rue that ideology, but it hadn’t come yet. The kingdom was thriving . . . as was their love.
“Just as the sky is blue and the grass is green, the king is set in his ways. He will only ever listen to his queen,” the mirror said when Ingrid lamented about the state of the kingdom.
A few months after the wedding, Katherine arrived at the shop with an entourage of guards around her.
Ingrid’s master fled his own shop when he saw the guards, but Ingrid stood her ground, staring at her sister. Katherine was wearing the finest silk the kingdom could find, a gown hand-made just for her. Her hair was now pulled back off her face in a pile of curls placed atop her head, where the tiara still looked too big, as though she were playing dress up.
“What do you want?” Ingrid said, liking how uncomfortable her sister was in her surroundings. Taking in the potions and the herbs and the spell books she didn’t understand, Katherine had the low ground. Ingrid couldn’t help preferring it that way. She didn’t care who Katherine thought she was now that she had a title. She was, and would always be, Ingrid’s younger sister.
Somehow, Katherine sensed that. She rushed forward and the guards followed closely behind. “I hate that I don’t see you every day anymore.”
“You left me,” Ingrid said flatly. “I never would have left you behind.”
“I got married,” Katherine said, the hurt registering on her face. “I didn’t leave you.”
“You did,” Ingrid said, looking away, her eyes drawn to the shop’s back room, where the mirror was waiting. Always waiting. “Did you think I’d survive staying at the farmer’s without you? I lasted a day before I remembered how
I wasn’t wanted. And now I sleep here, on my master’s cold shop floor.” Ingrid whirled around. Her eyes blazed as she stormed toward her sister. “Does that make you happy?”
She had taken one too many steps. The guards moved forward, shoving the edges of their swords in Ingrid’s face.
“You will not threaten the queen,” one guard barked, his voice gravelly.
Katherine put her hand up. “It’s all right. Please stand down.” The guards stepped back again.
It was comical, almost. Her sister had such power and she had no clue how to truly use it.
“I have offered you haven in the castle repeatedly since my wedding day, and yet you never accept it,” Katherine tried again.
“Because I don’t want your pity,” Ingrid said.
“It’s not pity!” Katherine insisted. “I don’t like the idea of you here alone, learning witchcraft all day and night.”
“It’s not witchcraft,” Ingrid said. They’d had this conversation too many times before.
“Well, whatever it is,” Katherine said, her tone starting to cool. She wrapped her cape more tightly around herself, as if to keep the chill from entering her bones. “I don’t like thinking of you here at night, all alone, when your master leaves. So if you won’t accept my invitation of a room, maybe you will accept a position on the king’s staff.”
“What?” Ingrid said in surprise.
Katherine smiled shyly now. “I already spoke to Georg. He said yes, of course. You’re my sister. My only family, really, and I want you close by. I want to take care of you the way you took care of me.”
Ingrid’s face soured. “I don’t need caring for.”
“I know that,” Katherine said quickly. “But I still do. There’s so much I have to learn and do, and I can’t do it without you. You know that. Please say yes.”
Say yes. She heard the voice in her head clearly. Go and ask for the rest. You know which title will be best.
Which title. Yes . . . “Okay,” Ingrid said. “I’ll come.” Katherine began to clap her hands excitedly. “But I want to be your lady-in-waiting.”
“Oh.” Katherine paused. “I was already assigned one of those.”
“Then give that person another position,” Ingrid insisted. If she was Katherine’s lady-in-waiting, she could be the voice of reason in her sister’s head. And if she was the voice of reason in Katherine’s head, she’d be the one in Georg’s, too.
You alone can infilitrate the head and the heart. Together, our wisdom you shall impart.
Katherine smiled. “Okay, I will. You’re my new lady-in-waiting. Come right now and leave all this behind.” She looked around the small shop in dismay.
“I need to gather my things,” Ingrid told her. “I’ll come tomorrow.” She had to find a way to get the mirror out of the shop without her master seeing. It wasn’t like he ever went looking for it or even remembered it. The old man was so senile he probably didn’t even realize it was there.
“Okay,” Katherine said again. She held out her hand. “Tomorrow, Sister, you’ll be mine again.”
Ingrid gave Katherine’s hand a squeeze. “Yes,” she said, even though both she and the mirror were thinking exactly the opposite.
Katherine did listen—on some things. But not the things that mattered. Ingrid would have her ear until she was interrupted for something inane like another garden party with the silly subjects. Moreover, Katherine wanted Ingrid to smile more at the servants in the castle. She expected Ingrid to be friendly and kind. Katherine still insisted pricing be fair for crops. She wouldn’t allow Georg to go to war with other kingdoms, as much as Ingrid wanted her to. Ingrid had hoped Georg would get himself killed so Katherine would become the sole ruler.
But it was moving the mirror into the castle that had come at the highest price by far. It had taken her weeks to find a way to smuggle it into the castle without Katherine knowing of its existence, but she eventually devised a plan: under cover of darkness, with the aid of two palace guards whom she would pay off (and threaten with their lives if they ever spoke of the outing), she would have the mirror moved to her chambers, putting it in a large dressing closet off her own room. She would keep it locked at all times and refuse to allow any servant in her room, even to dust. “I’m fine taking care of my own affairs,” she’d say. Who cared about cobwebs anyway? She had more important matters on her mind.
But when the night arrived and she led the guards to her master’s shop, she didn’t expect him to be waiting there for her.
“Master.” Ingrid had bowed in his presence, something she still did out of habit as much as she loathed it.
“I know why you are here,” he said, “and you cannot have what is not yours.”
“Master?” she said, her heart quickening. He couldn’t mean the mirror. She had been so careful with it, hiding it painstakingly whenever he wasn’t around. There was no way he could know she was communing with it. He probably didn’t even know he still possessed such an object. After
all, when she’d first found it, it was among the broken relics he was preparing to dispose of.
“I am no fool, Ingrid.” Her master’s voice vibrated with anger. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to under my roof? Do you think my eyes have failed me?”
“I am not sure what you mean,” she tried again. What if he thought she was coming to steal from him? But she wasn’t stealing. The mirror was hers. She had cared for it. She had fixed it. She had given herself over to it. It was part of her now. She wasn’t leaving without it. She stepped forward to enter the shop. Her master blocked her path.
Enough was enough. “Let me through, old man. I have things to collect.” Ingrid pushed past him.
Her master followed. So did the guards. “That mirror is not yours! It belongs to this shop, which makes it mine.” He stepped in front of her. “Who gave you permission to fix it? Did you not think there was a reason it was dying? Did you not wonder why I wouldn’t think of something to bring it back to life on my own? A mirror with power like that was meant to die. It is too dangerous for this world.”
“Maybe it was too dangerous for you, but it is not for me!” Ingrid thundered. “The mirror saw my potential and it called to me, therefore it is mine, and I am taking it now.”
She pushed him aside and went straight to the back room, where the mirror was waiting behind the curtain. Even without her presence, it had come alive, smoking and fogging up the room. A swift wind picked up even though they were indoors, and in the distance, she heard thunder. She picked up the mirror and prepared to carry it out to the carriage, where it would be well hidden. But her master blocked her path again. This time he held a potion in his hands.
“I’m warning you, Ingrid,” he said. “Put that mirror down or it will be the last thing you touch in this world.”
“You would really harm your own apprentice over a mirror?” she asked.
“I would to keep you from letting its darkness bury itself into your soul.” He prepared to drop the vial. She didn’t want to think of what poison it might possess.
“My lady?” one of the guards questioned.
“Stop him!” Ingrid commanded.
It all happened so quickly there was no time to stop it. Her words, which had seemed so simple, meant something more to the guards. What she’d thought was merely an instruction to restrain her master, the guards interpreted as an order to end his life. Moments later, the old man lay on the floor of his shop, blood pooling around the knife wound in his chest. He had died instantly. The potion bottle was still in his hand. The bile rose in her throat. Her master was dead because of her.
“We must go!” one of the guards said. “Quickly!” He reached for the mirror. Ingrid hesitated a second and then allowed him to take it. “Let’s go!”
She looked down at her master once more and stepped over his body. Then she stooped to grab the potion from his still-warm hand. After all, it would be a pity to waste it.
Ingrid walked out of the shop for the last time with her head up, knowing the mirror was truly hers at last.
She had given up a lot for that mirror. The memory of what had happened would haunt her all her days. And even now that she lived in the castle, her master buried and his disappearance barely noticed, it still bothered her that the mirror’s original vision for her future had been wrong. Hadn’t it shown her being crowned queen? Wasn’t she the one who was meant to reign?
“She has worn out her use; but if the queen is to live,” the mirror told her, “your future I cannot give.”
She came this close to throwing something at the mirror when it said that, but she didn’t dare. The small voice inside her that grew ever louder by the day told her doing something like that would be the death of her. She wasn’t sure if the voice meant figuratively or truly, but she wouldn’t chance it. She kept quiet, praying the outcome would change, until the day the mirror started to get more persistent.
Stop wasting time with chores! Fulfill your destiny. Take the crown if you want it to be yours.
Ingrid tried to ignore the mirror. This was her sister, and she drew the line at destroying the only person she’d ever truly loved. True, Katherine now loved someone else far more than she loved Ingrid, but Georg was just a nuisance. Someone she’d eventually be able to get rid of.
She never imagined she’d have to compete with yet another for Katherine’s attention . . . someone who wouldn’t be so easily done away with.
Seventeen years earlier
“Does she ever stop crying?” Ingrid asked, bouncing the baby on her hip as a team of women helped Katherine dress for the day.
Katherine laughed. “Yes! Coddle her, Ingrid. Babies need to be coddled and told all will be right with the world.”
Coddled? This baby was selfish.
Two years had passed since she had moved into the castle, and instead of Georg and Katherine’s love dimming, it only burned brighter with the addition of their firstborn child. The girl had gotten the very best qualities of both her parents, thank heavens. (Katherine might have found Georg handsome, but he reminded Ingrid of a toad.) They named her Snow White. With porcelain cheeks, the roundest eyes with gorgeous lashes, and thick black curls, the kingdom’s new princess was adored by all . . . except one.
When little Snow White stared into Ingrid’s eyes, she could swear the child knew the darkness of her soul. Every time she held her—which was plenty, seeing as how she was lady-in-waiting and the princess’s aunt—the child screamed.
Fat tears rolled down Snow’s cheeks as Ingrid tried to bounce her up and down and shush her. But no matter what she tried, the child could not be soothed in her arms.
“Here, let me show you,” Katherine said, scooping Snow up and holding the six-month-old in her arms. The swishing movement, combined with Katherine’s dynamic smile, soothed the child instantly. Within minutes, the baby was actually cooing. The rest of the room gathered round to watch.
“She’s a natural mother, our queen,” said a handmaiden Ingrid couldn’t stand.
Ingrid pushed the woman aside. “Katherine? Are you almost done here? We’re supposed to discuss adding more workers to the mines. Truthfully, I think we could just make those down there spend more hours working.” One of the handmaidens gave Ingrid a look of disdain. Ingrid didn’t care. “If they did that, we could double our diamond harvesting and our profit would be plentiful.”
Katherine ignored her for a moment, continuing to coo at Snow White, who lapped up the attention that should have been for Ingrid.
“Katherine?” Ingrid’s voice was sharper. “Our appointment time together is only for a half hour. You have a busy day ahead and we haven’t much time to discuss things.”
“Oh, Ingrid,” Katherine said, her eyes still on Snow. “The mines can wait for another day. Right now, come enjoy your niece with me.”
“But . . .” This was infuriating! The kingdom needed someone to take a firm hand and shake it alive. They could be drowning in riches and wealth if pathetic Georg would put his foot down! Spending longer hours in the mines, however unstable the miners claimed those conditions to be, would garner them riches like they’d never seen!
Now is the hour. Take thy dream. Seize the ultimate power.
“You keep saying that, but it isn’t possible,” Ingrid spat, and everyone looked at her. Had she just said that out loud?
Give yourself to me. Put thy hand on the glass. I’ll show what you fail to see.
So the mirror wanted more lifeblood. If she was honest, she hated touching the mirror. Every time she made direct contact with it, it seemed to glow brighter, while she felt tired and weak. The feeling had to be in her head. After all, it was just a mirror . . . a mirror that spoke to her soul. She’d done it several times already, and the bond between her and the magic had strengthened. She now knew spells she’d never heard of and had brilliant thoughts about fixing the kingdom. But she hated feeling so drained.
“Did you say something, Ingrid?” Katherine asked. Sh
e couldn’t even look up to ask the question. It was outrageous! That ridiculous baby took up all of Katherine’s time and attention. And royal duties took up the rest.
“No,” Ingrid muttered, even though she wanted to scream.
You know what must be done. A life for a crown . . . if you want this battle to be won, the mirror told Ingrid yet again.
But she still wasn’t ready to listen.
“I learned something today that could be of use,” Happy declared as the final dish was dried and put back in the cupboard.
The men and Snow looked up from their various positions around the cottage. Happy and Doc were on dish-drying duty, while Dopey and Bashful were sweeping the floor. Grumpy was starting the fire, and Snow, Sneezy, and Sleepy were cleaning up the kitchen.
For the last week, she had lived with the men, or the dwarfs, as she knew they referred to themselves, and she had quickly fallen into a new routine. The men wouldn’t hear of her cooking or cleaning for them (“You’re the princess!” they protested) so it was agreed they would share the housekeeping duties, with Snow prepping meals while they were at the mines. She didn’t leave the cottage during the day—Grumpy had made her promise. (“The queen has eyes everywhere! Don’t open the door for strangers!”) Instead, she tried to think of ways to thwart her aunt, of unexplored paths she could examine. But though she understood the reasoning behind it, she hated being cooped up all day. It reminded her of life spent trapped in the castle.
Dinner was a family affair. And oh, how she enjoyed it! Who knew there was so much to talk about each day? She loved when the men shared stories about their work in the mines, while she often regaled them with stories about life in the castle when she was a small child or about the types of birds she spotted from the window. And then there were the questions. She found she had many! After staying silent for so long, there was much she longed to know, and she was always interested in learning more about the men and their lives. She wanted to know who had carved the beautiful wooden doorways and furniture around the cottage, and why the deer and the birds seemed to linger at the kitchen window while she prepped meals.