by Anita Valle
I try to leave but The Mirror won’t let me. A thought sinks into my head.
You’re not ready.
“What?” I snap. “Just when do you think I’ll be ready? We don’t have much time. As soon as Cinderella feels better, she’ll come marching back here to reclaim her throne.”
The Mirror reminds me of the Dwarves.
“True,” I say. “The guards are gone. I have an army now and she doesn’t. But I can’t stay here forever. I don’t want to be the queen.”
The Mirror shows me a dazzling image in which I’m sitting in the crystal throne. I’m wearing an astonishing dress made entirely of white feathers. My hair has been piled high on my head, a bouquet of black swirls behind a diamond tiara. Blood red roses are dropped in my lap and sprinkled around me on the black marble floor. It’s a striking picture, though I don’t understand the point of the roses. But clearly, The Mirror wants me to be the queen.
The Mirror… wants.
I lift my eyes to the top of The Mirror. “What are you? Why do you have feelings like a person?”
The aura begins to recede from me.
“No, don’t you go away. I need to understand. You were nice to Cinderella once. And then you rejected her. Why? Was is really because you thought I was fairest? Why are you doing all this?”
Like before, a word slides into my thoughts.
Revenge.
And then the aura drops off me and I feel nothing more.
~*~ 25 ~*~
Revenge? That’s an interesting word. Especially coming from a thing that hangs on the wall. Why does a mirror want revenge?
I return to the scary lair and read the spell for the poisoned apple. It looks tricky. The spell must be begun at midnight and concocted in total darkness, with no light other than that of the fire below the cauldron. At first I’m worried because it calls for black rose petals which I didn’t think existed. Then I find a full jar of them on a shelf. You must boil the petals for three hours in a pot of new-fallen rain, stirring once an hour while chanting the name of your victim. Several other ingredients are added, one being ‘A Shriek of Despair’ which I’m not sure I can pull off. Perhaps if I remember how I felt when I lost my mother…. Finally, you must soak the apple until the following midnight. If done right, the apple turns a deep purple color. Not one poisonous ingredient goes into the brew. The poison comes from the hatred in your heart.
I try. The hardest part is getting the new-fallen rain, which is needed to give the spell potency. It takes a week before we have a good downfall. I follow the instructions with scrupulous care, reading every step three times over. But after the long simmer, my apple is nothing but a squishy brown lump.
I wait for more rain and try again. The second apple boils down to nothing but skin, limp as a dead leaf.
“Why?” I rage at The Mirror. “What am I doing wrong?” The response is simply to keep trying. But I’m losing patience. Hunter and I no longer meet at the well, I’ve heard nothing from him since Old Cinders had her babies. I look in on them a few times but all it does is make me angry. Cinderella is very weak, she can’t even stand without help. Hunter never leaves her side, often holding one baby while she tends the other. He smiles often but his face looks troubled. At night, while Cinderella sleeps, he sits by the fire with his eyes closed and his mouth pressed into his fist. I hope he is missing me terribly.
The Dwarves, meanwhile, are driving me nuts! They destroyed the palace with their mock battles, I honestly think they break things for the fun of it. And I’m getting awfully tired of having slabs of meat for supper. Sometimes they bring strange women to the palace, sometimes they light a fire and sing loud, bawdy songs while drinking tankards of ale. It’s like living with a barbarian horde.
“Cooper!” I say one sunny morning that promises no new rain for my spell. “Get your brothers and meet me in the throne room. It’s time to give you guys something constructive to do.”
When the Dwarves assemble, I don’t waste words. “This place has been Cinderella’s castle for too long. She may like empty rooms and black floors but I don’t. You want to break something? Fine. I want you to smash all of these marble floors. We’ll replace them with something more cheerful. And let’s get some new furniture, and some carpets too.”
“So the queen’s not coming back?” Cooper asks.
“Certainly not. I am the queen now.”
“I could make some furniture,” says one of the Dwarves. “I was trained as a carpenter.”
“And I’m a stone mason,” says another.
“Beautiful,” I say. “Let’s fix up the castle and then we’ll have a coronation ceremony. You’ll all be rewarded for helping me.”
“What about Hunter?” Cooper asks.
I smile. “Hunter will be the king, of course.”
The Dwarves grin. They like that idea.
“That’ll make us princes!” Barker says.
“The women will come flocking,” says another Dwarf. “Maybe we’ll finally get some wives!”
“I want three!” Barker cries.
That makes me laugh. “Sure! Anything you want. Just fix up the palace for me. And please, no more battles.”
The Dwarves agree and talk about finding tools for the project. Cooper stays with me when they leave. He follows me out of the throne room and into the parlor. “Where are you going?” he asks.
“Up to The Mirror for a while.”
Cooper puts a hand on my shoulder and turns me around. “You were up there for five hours, yesterday. Give it a rest.”
“I just want to talk to it.”
“It’s changing you.”
“It’s teaching me things.”
“Not good things. You were nicer before.”
“I am exactly the same.”
Cooper points at me. “You want Hunter to like you, you gotta stay nice. You turn into some Evil Queen and he won’t want you no more.”
“I’m not turning into the Evil Queen! Besides, Hunter would love me no matter who I became.”
“He’s just a boy, not a hero. You gotta do your part.”
“And what is my part, oh wise one?”
Cooper leans down and scowls in my face. “Stay nice!”
~*~ 26 ~*~
My third attempt at the poisoned apple is a failure. This is exhausting. It’s not easy staying up all night, stirring a cauldron in the dark. I have to sleep until late afternoon to recover.
“Maybe I should try something else,” I say to The Mirror. I’m sitting on the floor in front of it, too exhausted to stand up. “I’m just not magical. This isn’t going to work.” I stare at my glum face in the glass and wait for The Mirror to respond.
It shows me a scene. A young woman, wearing a red hooded cloak, is walking through the palace garden. Snow has fallen around her, dusting the paths and dead flower beds in white. Her skin is pale, her hair is black, and at first I think the young woman is me. But as I continue to watch, I realize it’s my mother.
Oh! I rise onto my knees and press my hands against the glass. My mother! I want to sob at the sight of her elegant face. I never thought I’d see it again.
She looks unhappy. The Mirror makes me understand she is grieving because she can’t have a child. The first two died within her. She sits on a bench of black ebony wood, next to a bush stripped by winter to nothing but branches. Something catches her eye. A single rose blooms on this bush, red as a cherry, and sprinkled with snow. I can feel my mother’s thoughts. She doesn’t want the rose to die in the cold and so she tries to pluck it from the bush. But in doing so, she pricks her finger. Three drops of blood fall into the snow. My mother gazes at the beautiful red spots on their frosty carpet of white. The drops of blood glitter, bright as rubies, and my mother realizes her blood contains magic.
Carefully, my mother scoops up the droplets. Shutting her eyes, she closes her other hand over the blood and snow. “I wish I had a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, and lips as red as
blood.” When she opens her hands, the droplets are gone. My mother smiles, knowing that somehow, her wish will come true.
So that’s how I got my name. She never told me. More importantly, I know now that my mother possessed magic. It lived inside her blood. I wonder if the scary lair was once hers and if she added her blood to the spells to make them work. It makes sense. I doubt there’s magic in my blood, though. I have never seen it sparkle like that. But The Mirror’s message is clear. There is magic within me. I simply have to discover where it lives.
~*~ 27 ~*~
Three weeks pass without a hint of rain. It doesn’t matter. That curse won’t work until I find the magic within me. If it exists at all. Meanwhile, I’m happy with The Mirror’s company.
It shows me wonderful things. Scenes from my days as a small child when my father would kiss the tip of my nose. My mother stroking my hair and singing while I slept in her lap. Climbing into the lap of my grandfather and laughing when he tickled my face with his beard. I remember what it’s like to have a family. To feel complete.
But not everything I see is enjoyable. The Mirror shows me savage arguments between my mother and father. He wanted another child, a boy to rule the kingdom. My mother, who nearly died bringing me into this world, did not. She insisted I could rule the kingdom just as well. My father wouldn’t listen. He even grabbed her collar and shouted in her face. She would have a son or she would go to the devil! The crown had always passed to the male heir.
I’m beginning to miss my father much less.
As for Cinderella, she’s well enough now to get out of bed. She wears a simple blue dress from the wardrobe of Hunter’s mother. It looks good on her. When the babies aren’t wailing, she tidies up the cottage, sweeping floors, even washing the dishes. And she looks happy. She begins to stitch tiny garments for the babies, and judging by the style, I think they’re both girls. I didn’t know Cinderella could sew.
She talks to Hunter an awful lot. Sometimes The Mirror lets me hear what they’re saying. Cinderella tells him about her wicked stepmother who treated her like a servant. Hunter speaks of his family and the shame he always felt in having brothers that were thieves. How he hopes one day they will follow his example and choose to work for a living.
He never told me that.
Then there’s one evening when Cinderella is sitting on her bed while the babies sleep beside her. Hunter comes in with a small cake of some kind. He rips it in two and gives half to Cinderella. A few crumbs drop onto his vest, so he brushes them off with his hand. As he does, the top button of his vest snaps off and bounces across the floor. Hunter laughs as he retrieves it, holds it up to show Cinderella, and slips the button onto a shelf.
Cinderella puts her cake aside. She gestures at the button and speaks with a sweet smile. Hunter stares at her, looking astonished. He removes his vest, grabs the button off the shelf, and takes them to her. She digs a needle and thread out of a drawer in her bedside table. And then she sits there, drawing the needle up and down, and sews the button back on.
Hunter’s face is strange as he watches her. He’s not smiling but his eyes are very soft. When she hands back the vest, he nods a thank-you and strokes the button with his thumb. Touched. He looks touched.
I blow the air out of my cheeks. There are definite disadvantages to having a sensitive man.
“Maybe I went about this the wrong way,” I say to The Mirror. “Hunter didn’t want to kill Cinderella. I wouldn’t listen and now he’s afraid to come back. I love Hunter. I shouldn’t have tried to make him do something against his nature. I’ll go to him and agree to his plan. Cinderella can be the queen again and keep her babies. And Hunter and I will go far away. So long as I’m with him, nothing else matters.”
The Mirror’s tone becomes sterner. I must be the queen. It is my destiny. I can’t give that up for the sake of a boy. Cinderella must be destroyed.
“Why should you want to kill Cinderella?” I ask hotly. “You loved her once and now you want her dead? You nearly killed me when I was a child! Just what are you, some kind of demon?”
I try to walk away but it holds me fast. It shows me another image of myself as queen but I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t let it tell me who I am or what I do. I can feel The Mirror becoming angry.
Something grips my waist and I’m lifted off the floor. I hear a gruff voice but can’t tell what it’s saying. My head feels heavy and fogged. After a minute, I realize Cooper is carrying me down the stairs. He takes me to the white sitting room and drops me onto the chaise lounge.
“I heard you talking,” Cooper says. “When I looked in, your eyes were shut and you were shaking all over. You told me to drag you away if you did anything weird.”
“Thank you,” I say weakly. I lean my head into both of my hands. The sudden rip away from The Mirror has left me cold and sick. It wants me to come back, I can feel that from here.
“Cooper… will you please take me to your cottage? I need to see Hunter, it’s very important.”
Cooper pats my knee. “Rest a bit, little miss. That infernal thing has made you tired. We can go another day.”
I look at him, suddenly suspicious. “Why do you keep refusing me? Every time I ask to go to the cottage, you give me some excuse.”
Cooper shrugs. “Best if you stay here, I think.”
“Does this have anything to do with Hunter? Did he tell you to keep me away from him?”
“No.” That’s all he says. Too quick, too short.
I sit straighter. “I want to know what he said.”
“Fine, but you won’t like it. He spoke to Barker the night we sent him to check the cottage. Hunter thinks you and the queen should be kept apart. Says you might kill each other if you’re together. He asked us to keep you here at the castle, and he’s trying to keep the queen where she is. Just until things are settled.”
“How dare you!” I jump up from the lounge. “All this time I thought you were my friends!”
“We are, you little lunatic. You just don’t know what’s good for you.”
“I’m leaving. Now! And you won’t stop me.” I stalk to the door but Cooper simply blocks me and folds his arms. “Well, that was easy.”
I grind my teeth. “So I’m a prisoner here?”
“Until Hunter says otherwise, yes. Now come on, little miss, don’t make a fuss. We did some good work on the castle, gave the throne room a nice granite floor. Barker is building you a new chair, I think you’ll like it. Just take a look and forget about Hunter for a while.”
I wish I could hurl him across the room. I hate being small and fragile like this, I have no power! And if I throw a fit he might lock me up in the dungeons. So I’ll have to play along. But no one, not even Hunter, gets to make me a prisoner. I will find a way to that cottage myself.
I’ll just have to be sneaky about it.
~*~ 28 ~*~
That night, my dreams are filled with Hunter. I remember the day I met him in The Wood. I released a rabbit that was caught in a trap and I heard someone laugh and say, “That’s my supper you just set free.” I was haughty to him at first, unaccustomed to friends of any kind. But when I left, he said, “Will you come back tomorrow?” And that changed everything.
A month later he kissed me for the first time. He told me the trees whispered secrets when the wind blew, and if I closed my eyes, I would hear them. To humor him, I closed my eyes. And then I felt his lips. His arms came next, closing us in a tight circle, and when we were through, he said, “The secret is that I love you, Snowy.”
I wake up with tears sliding into my pillow. Oh my Hunter! I will get you back!
I rise although the sun has not. I throw a dress over my head and strap on the belt and dagger. It’s a long, dark walk from my tower room to The Mirror’s chamber. But I have a plan that I think will work.
“Tell me where this cottage is,” I say to The Mirror. “I will go there and stab Cinderella in her sleep. Then I’ll bring Hunter back here with me. That way,
both of us are getting what we want. But first I need to know where he lives.”
The Mirror doesn’t believe me. It can see through the lie, that I’m not really planning on killing Cinderella.
“I caaan’t!” I whine. “Hunter will never forgive me if I do. I know that for sure. I’m sorry, Mirror! But I love Hunter more than you.”
A scene opens before me. The Mirror holds me in place and makes me watch. I see my mother, my beautiful mother, standing before this very mirror. She tucks a few stray hairs into place and she is smiling. She wears a gown of garnet red that exposes her throat and shoulders. My father comes into the room behind her.
“Where is Snow White?” my father asks.
“Having her lessons,” my mother says, tugging down the sleeves of her dress. Her face and voice have turned cold. “I’m going out for a bit.”
“Hmm. I’d like you to stay,” my father says. He takes hold of my mother’s waist from behind and kisses the side of her neck. My mother stiffens. “There will be no other child, Edgar. You are wasting your time.”
My father meets her eyes in the mirror and his face has become strangely calm. “No, my dear. You have wasted your time in not providing a son for me. I have been patient. But I’m afraid your time is up.” His hands lift off my mother’s waist and wrap around her throat.
I gasp.
My mother gasps too and her hands fly to her neck. She tries to pry off his fingers, her mouth wide open, then she throws back her hands and claws at his face. My father shifts and bends over her, forcing her to crouch, and they sink to the floor while my mother makes little grunts and gasps, and her face darkens red as her dress. He presses her down, holding her with the weight of his body, while her feet scrape the floor and her hands reach for help with splayed fingers. One flying hand strikes the hard edge of the mirror’s frame and moments later I see blood on her palm. Her whole body jerks and shudders, her face squished up in a soundless scream. My father’s teeth are bared as he struggles to squeeze her throat. Suddenly, my mother turns her head and presses her bloody hand to the mirror. Her lips move like a fish out of water, but I can see she’s mouthing words. Then her hand slips downward, leaving a bloody streak on the glass. Her limbs stop quivering. My father waits another minute before walking away, leaving my dead mother in front of the mirror.