Straw into Gold

by Hilary McKay

“Only when she wanted a treat?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Oh, what a wonderful mirror,” sighed Sophie, chicken pox–speckled, fuzzy-haired, in a crumpled nightdress with raspberry-tart crumbs and a largish splash of tea down the front. “Don’t you wish you could look into it just once?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “It might say you were the prettiest grandmother!”

  “What if it did? Would that make me any better at making paper swans?”

  “Wouldn’t it make you happy?”

  “I already am happy! It wouldn’t make me happier. Isn’t it good that I remembered the cherry cake in time?”

  “You’re not being sensible,” said Sophie crossly.

  “If the mirror said I was the prettiest grandmother, would it make you love me more?”

  “No, of course not!” said Sophie.

  “Well then, who cares?” said her grandmother. “Now, watch!” She unfolded the swan and showed Sophie how to fold it again, following the creases. The first time, Sophie needed help; the second time, only the head and neck were difficult; the third time, she managed completely by herself.

  “I did it!” she exclaimed, delighted.

  “Good girl!”

  “Did your grandmother teach you to make things?” asked Sophie.

  “I never knew any of my grandparents.”

  “Poor you,” said Sophie, patting her hand.

  “Thank you. What shall we call the swan?”

  “Snow White,” said Sophie. “What happened to Snow White?”

  “Yes, let’s get on with the story,” agreed her grandmother. “An awful bit is coming and I should like to get past it. Snow White! Every year that she lived at the palace, the Witch Queen detested her more. And when the Witch Queen noticed her looking particularly pretty, she would go to her magic mirror. Those were anxious times in the palace! I should have mentioned, Sophie, that the mirror didn’t always reply straightaway. Often the Witch Queen would stand for a long while in front of it, waiting and listening, and sometimes the reply was very faint, I think because the mirror was so old.

  “Well, there came a day, when Snow White was seven years old, when the Witch Queen asked, and the mirror did not reply. Not for hours and hours, while her maids hovered and whispered, and the whole palace felt heavy and waiting. Like the feeling in the air before a thunderstorm breaks.

  “At last the mirror spoke, so loud the servants in the next room could hear it:

  “My Queen, you are still fair, ’tis true

  But Snow White is fairer far than you!

  “Then the Witch Queen, trembling, shaking, boiling with rage, went looking for Snow White.”

  “Is this the awful bit?” asked Sophie, nervously.

  “Yes.”

  “And is it all still true?”

  “Every word. If you are frightened, we can stop.”

  “No, no, no!” cried Sophie. “What did the Witch Queen do? Did she . . . did she . . . kill Snow White?”

  “Queens don’t kill people,” said Sophie’s grandmother. “They make other people do it for them. The Witch Queen called for her chief huntsman . . .”

  “Oh no!” groaned Sophie.

  “. . . and she said to him, ‘Take Snow White deep into the forest and kill her. And bring me back her heart afterward, as proof that you have truly done it.’ And so the huntsman went and found Snow White.”

  “Did Snow White know what was going to happen?” asked Sophie.

  “Yes, I’m afraid she did. She had never felt safe in her whole life, and she knew about the furs and the animals, and besides, she saw his knife.”

  Sophie shivered.

  “The huntsman rode away from the palace with Snow White bundled up in front of him on his horse. Now, the huntsman was not all bad. Although he was quite used to killing animals, he had never dreamed of killing a little girl. He didn’t want to either. So when Snow White begged him to spare her life, and promised she would never try to find the palace again, he let her go, although he was terrified of what would happen if the Witch Queen found out. Remember she had told him to bring back Snow White’s heart!”

  Sophie’s own heart was beating quite hard.

  “Well,” continued her grandmother, “just at the minute when he released Snow White, a young deer came running toward him. And I wish he hadn’t, but he killed it and cut out its heart, and that’s what he took back to the palace. Snow White saw it all, and then she turned and ran and ran, and when she couldn’t run any farther, she staggered and stumbled, desperate to get as far away from the palace as she could.

  “And at last, not far ahead, she saw evening sunshine slanting down, and then the trees opened out and she found herself in a garden! A garden in the middle of the forest, with sweet peas and onion beds and beans and currant bushes. There were small stone paths, and there were beehives and a henhouse and two white goats, and a well and a strawberry bed. And in the middle of the garden there was a little low house, with a roof so close to the ground that the hollyhocks looked down on it. The house had small windows and a chimney in the middle, like this . . .”

  With a pencil from her bag, and a piece of white paper, Sophie’s grandmother sketched the house in the forest so quickly and neatly that in less than a minute Sophie saw that the door was arched and set deep in the wall, and the windows were diamond-paned, and the roof had round tiles with moss growing over them. She also saw the spiral of smoke climbing from the chimney, and the gray cat asleep on the doorstep.

  “. . . and Snow White found that the door was unlocked,” continued Sophie’s grandmother, “and there was no one inside.”

  “Should Snow White have opened the door?” asked Sophie.

  “That’s a very good question, and I don’t know the answer,” said her grandmother. “All I know is that she did, and she found herself in a small white room, with a stone-flagged floor and a table in the middle. There were seven places set for supper at that table, with seven loaves on seven plates, seven pears, seven slices of yellow cheese, seven pats of butter, and seven glasses of pale gold wine.

  “Snow White had had no food that day. So she took a little cheese from each place, and a little butter, and cut a little piece of bread from each loaf.”

  “What about the pears?” asked Sophie.

  “Snow White didn’t touch the pears because she didn’t want to cut them and leave them to go brown. Well, after her bread and cheese, she began to look around, and she saw that at the back of the room were seven beds in a row. Small wooden beds with snow-white pillows and snow-white covers, and this is probably something else she shouldn’t have done, Sophie, but she did. She climbed into one of them and went to sleep.”

  “In somebody else’s bed?” asked Sophie.

  “Yes.”

  “Dressed?”

  “Yes.”

  “With her shoes on?”

  “No, she took her shoes off.”

  “Who did the house belong to?” asked Sophie.

  “It belonged to seven dwarves, who worked all day in the silver mines deep in the mountains. When Snow White woke up, quite late in the night, there they were, standing in a circle looking at her.”

  “Were they cross?”

  “They were the kindest people Snow White had ever met.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Like this . . . ,” said Sophie’s grandmother, her pencil flickering over the paper again, and she drew seven little men all standing in a ring, just as Snow White might have seen them.

  “The tallest was smaller than Snow White herself,” she continued. “And they wore forest colors, brown and green, and they had large clever brown hands, and deep brown eyes. And they all had thick cream-colored woolen socks, which they had knitted themselves. When they saw Snow White’s eyes open they all spoke in turn:

  “ ‘Hush, hush!’

  “ ‘There, there!’

  “ ‘You’re quite safe!’

  “ ‘It
’s only us!’

  “ ‘Poor little girl.’

  “ ‘Don’t be frightened.’

  “ ‘Tell us where your home is and we will take you safely back as soon as it is morning.’

  “ ‘Oh no!’ cried Snow White, trembling. ‘Oh no! Oh please no! Let me stay! I’ll do anything if you let me stay! Sweep the floors and make the beds and c-c-cook the supper for when you come home!’

  “That made the seven dwarves smile, but when she told them about the Witch Queen and the huntsman and the poor deer with its heart cut out, they shook their heads at such wickedness. ‘What can we do to help her?’ they asked each other, with worried faces. But to Snow White they said, ‘Go to sleep again now. It’s late. Try not to worry. Things always seem better in the morning.’

  “So Snow White lay down again, and she was soon asleep once more, but all through her dreams she heard the murmuring of the seven dwarves, who had never met a little girl before, never mind had one arrive in their house and offer to cook their suppers.

  “However, by morning the dwarves had made up their minds. ‘Certainly you can stay with us, until we find something better,’ they said. ‘But you will often be alone, because for six days of the week we work in the silver mines, away in the mountains. What will you do all day?’

  “ ‘Oh,’ said Snow White eagerly, ‘lots of things! I can work hard, I promise I can. And I won’t be alone because of the cat!’

  “The seven dwarves looked at each other and nodded, and they told Snow White that she could sweep and make the beds as much as she liked, and that the cat was called Smoke and would be glad of the company. But, they added, she must stay inside. The garden and all the outdoor things would have to wait until they came home and could be sure she was safe.

  “That was how Snow White’s life with the dwarves began, and never did they let her know that they could sweep the floor themselves, with much less bumping, and make the beds as smooth as swan feathers, with much less huffing and puffing. And when she learned to cook, they never mentioned blackness or lumps or forgotten salt or sugar, and they tried not to leave her alone. In the first months, a dwarf often stayed home with her, while the others did his work at the silver mine, and on the seventh day they were all home.

  “Snow White had never been so happy. The dwarves were great teachers, and as time went on she learned many things: how to bake and plant seeds and the names of the birds and how to knit socks and carve wood and weave rushes into green mats. The dwarves were silversmiths as well as miners, and they taught Snow White a little of their craft, and she learned to use their hammers and polishing gear.

  “Years passed by—”

  “But but but,” interrupted Sophie, “you haven’t said what happened at the palace after the huntsman took Snow White! Didn’t anybody notice?”

  “Oh yes. They did. There were many whispers. Snow White was gone, and no one knew where. The Witch Queen was almost frightened of the way that the servants looked at her. She buried the deer heart in the garden, and not long afterward the huntsman disappeared. When he was gone the Witch Queen said, ‘I wonder if he was the reason we lost our dear Snow White.’

  “The servants had heard rumors of poison and a new grave at the edge of the forest. They looked at her sideways and did not reply.

  “It was many months before the Witch Queen uncovered her enchanted mirror and asked the old question. Then for a long time she waited, but the mirror did not reply. The Witch Queen thought its magic had faded at last.

  “Years passed at the palace too . . .

  “And then the Witch Queen tried one last time:

  “Mirror, mirror on the wall

  Who is the fairest of them all?

  “And straightaway came an answer, the worst answer of all:

  “My Lady Queen, you are fair, ’tis true

  But Snow White is fairer far than you.

  Snow White, who lives with the seven little men,

  Is as fair as you, and as fair again.

  “Then the Witch Queen knew that the huntsman had deceived her, and that Snow White was still alive, and she could not bear it.”

  “That’s what was happening back at the palace, Sophie,” said her grandmother.

  “It was a good thing,” said Sophie thoughtfully, “that Snow White didn’t know.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I wonder what will happen next.”

  “Next,” said her grandmother, “you will have a bath with chamomile flowers in it to help stop the itching, and then a walk round the garden. You can pick a bunch of lavender and help me feed the chickens, and those things will help you sleep much better tonight.”

  All that day Sophie had not had one chance to look at her piece of crystal, but she hadn’t forgotten it. As soon as she was tucked up for the night, she got it out again. It lay in her hand, cold and cloudy as a piece of flint, and just as silent too. Sophie found herself apologizing to it, whispering, “I didn’t have any time. I’m sorry it’s too dark now. Don’t be angry! I thought you were on my side!”

  “You!” hissed the vicious voice of the neglected fragment of glass, just as she was falling asleep, and all through the night it whispered, “You you you!”

  It was the first thing she thought of in the morning.

  “Oh!” she cried, after the first, horrified stare. “Oh no! Oh no!”

  The glimpses of her face that she saw in the crystal that morning were absolutely hideous. Never ever had she dreamed she looked so bad. When her grandmother came in to see how she was feeling, she pulled the sheet over her head and wouldn’t come out.

  “I look awful!” Sophie sobbed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because you don’t look awful,” said her grandmother calmly. “You look exactly how a person with chicken pox is supposed to look!”

  “Have you ever seen anyone with chicken pox before?” asked Sophie.

  “Of course I have! When your mother was a little girl she had it, and so did both her sisters and all three of the boys and half the maids at the palace. They all had it together, and their friends came to visit, and they had it too.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They got completely better.”

  “I hate looking like a monster!”

  “You don’t look like a monster. You look like a talking sheet. In a very few days you will look like your own cheerful self again. Come and have breakfast in the garden.”

  “I’ll never have a chance to be the prettiest now,” said Sophie miserably.

  “Why would you, why would anyone, want to be prettiest?” asked her grandmother gently.

  “Because then people like them.”

  “People like you, Sophie, very much indeed. And love you too. And they would do just as much if you stayed covered in chicken pox forever. Think about the Witch Queen. She was so beautiful.”

  Sad sniffs came from under the sheet.

  “Did people love the Witch Queen?” asked Sophie’s grandmother.

  Sophie did not reply.

  “There’s not much you can do under a sheet,” said her grandmother, after waiting for a long while, “but at least you can listen to stories. Do you remember where we were up to? The Witch Queen had heard from the mirror that Snow White was still alive. And so she set out to find her. With magic and with evil spells she transformed herself into the form of an old peddler woman with a basket of trinkets to sell. Then she tracked down the house of the seven dwarves deep in the forest and she hid all through a night, watching and planning. The next morning she counted the dwarves out of the house as they set off to work.

  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! The dwarves came out of the little arched door, waving goodbye to Snow White and calling, ‘Now keep the house locked until we come back!’

  “ ‘I will, I will!’ replied Snow White, and so she did, even when the old peddler woman came knocking at the window.

  “ ‘Will you buy from my basket?’ asked the old
peddler woman. ‘Ribbons and laces! Brooches and bangles! Stockings and scarves of the finest silk!’

  “ ‘I mustn’t open the door,’ said Snow White.

  “ ‘But surely you can look through the window,’ said the old woman. ‘See, I have strings of beads, as blue as forget-me-nots!’

  “ ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Snow White, peeping out of the window, and quick as a flash the peddler woman looped the blue bead necklace over her head.

  “ ‘Tighten!’ she cried.

  “Then the necklace tightened and tightened around Snow White’s neck, until she crumpled to the ground and was still.

  “The peddler woman laughed when she saw her lying there, and hurried back to the palace before the dwarves got home.

  “They arrived in the evening as usual, weary from their long day, carrying their picks and spades.

  “ ‘No smoke from the chimney!’ said one, when the little house came in sight, and then they were suddenly alarmed and they dropped their tools and ran.

  “And there was Snow White, motionless on the floor, with her eyes wide open and her hands to her throat and not a breath moving her body, and the dwarves saw the beads.

  “ ‘Quick!’ they cried, and cut the necklace and carried Snow White into the cool garden air.

  “ ‘Snow White! Snow White!’ they called to her, and at last she blinked, gave a great breath and was alive, and the first thing she said was ‘Oh, tell me what happened!’

  “But the dwarves could not tell her, and Snow White herself could not remember one thing that had happened after waving them goodbye that morning. She had no memory of the old peddler woman, and she did not recognize the blue beads when the dwarves showed her them.

  “ ‘They are evil things,’ said the dwarves. ‘There are dark spells on them.’ And they took them away to make them safe in the mines in the mountains. ‘No magic is stronger than mountain magic,’ they told Snow White.

  “For a long time after this, there was an ugly black line on Snow White’s throat where the beads had pressed. Perhaps that was why it was so long before the Witch Queen found out that she was still alive.

  “But find out she did.