by Anita Valle
“Who?” Snowy asks. I give her a pointed look. Snowy looks at Beauty for a long moment and her eyes widen. “Oh my stars, it can’t be.”
“That’s why we’re locked up,” I say. “The queen knows who we are.”
Snowy steps closer to the door and stares at Beauty, who returns the gaze without shyness. Snowy presses a hand to her chest. “Look at you. Look at those eyes. It’s like seeing my father again.”
“Really?” Beauty says, surprisingly soft. “I look like my father?”
“Very much,” Snowy says. Now that they’re standing near each other, I see they both have the same narrow nose. This is getting creepy.
“Are you the Ice Witch?” Beauty asks. Snowy nods. “And I’m your sister. So is Rapunzel.”
“Her I met,” Beauty says. “Not to rush things, but… could you get us out, please? The queen wants to feed us to the Beast.”
Snowy sighs. “Amazing. Only one day out of her tower and Rapunzel gets herself thrown in prison and sentenced to death.” She shoots me a hard look.
I fold my arms. “I met a Dwarf in The Wood, too.”
“Then you’re lucky he didn’t kill you.” Snowy studies the padlock on Beauty’s door, touches the keyhole with her finger.
“And I saw my mother.”
Snowy’s eyelids falter for just a moment. She sets her jaw and cups her hand over the lock. I can’t see what she’s does but moments later, a thick shard of ice is sticking out of the keyhole. Snowy twists it to one side and the lock pops open.
She crosses to my door and picks up the padlock. When the lock springs open, she finally looks at me. “She’s never coming back, Rapunzel. Now get your hair and let’s go.”
I grab a piece of my braid but let the rest of it drag. “You should’ve told me,” I say. I march out of the cell to where Beauty is waiting.
“Is she coming with us?” I ask.
“I won’t leave her behind,” Snowy says. “We can take her as far as the well. Where do you live… girl?”
“My name is Beauty. And don’t worry, once I’m out, I’ll be fine.”
“Do we have to do it this way?” I ask Snowy. “Aren’t you angry they locked me up here? Don’t you think the queen should be taught a lesson?” I’m sorry but I hate the idea of sneaking out like scared children. The Snow Queen is here and gob dash it, I want an ice storm.
“Yes, I am,” Snowy says. “But they invited me here, which means they probably intend to threaten me in some way. That’s why I snuck in, I’m not walking into a trap.”
“They can’t trap you!” I cry.
“Even magic has limitations,” Snowy says. “I’m not going to push my luck.”
I stomp my foot. “Why? Why do you have to be like that? Always sneaking and hiding from everyone. You’re such a coward!”
Snowy grabs my arm. “Quiet! I don’t have to explain myself to you! Now march yourself up this hallway or I’ll….” She looks past me and her pale face goes paler. “Get behind me!” she hisses.
“Why?”
Snowy shoves me behind her and steps in front of me and Beauty. And then I see why: the king is here. I guess we didn’t hear him coming during our fight. Snowy throws out her arms and spreads her fingers.
“Easy, easy....” Cooper holds up his large hand. “It’s all right, Snowy. I thought I heard your voice.”
“Stay away from us,” Snowy says.
Cooper takes a casual step backward. “Just wanted to see you, that’s all. Been a long time, hasn’t it?”
Snowy keeps her hands raised. She doesn’t take her eyes off Cooper.
“Did you know I was king?” he asks.
Snowy nods. “I’ve heard the name.”
“You look the same as you used to,” Cooper says. “Only more sad. Where’ve you been?”
“Not far. I found a place to hide. Where are your brothers?”
“Here and there. We’ve spread out a bit. Barker is still at the cottage.”
“I see.” Snowy doesn’t relax her attack stance.
“Why’d you make it cold?” Cooper asks.
Snowy shrugs. “I was angry.”
“Still?”
“Aren’t you?”
Cooper surprises me by smiling. “Naw, not any more. It’s good to see you, Snowy.”
Snowy lowers her hands. A tiny smile pulls at her lips. “Thank you. I – I’ve missed you guys.”
Cooper beckons with a jerk of his head. “Come on upstairs! Meet the wife.”
“Oh, I don’t….”
“Nothing to worry about. Look, as I recall, you didn’t like Cinderella much. Neither did my wife, so you’ll get along great. Come on upstairs and talk to her, we just want to warm up the kingdom, that’s all. She’s a great girl.”
“She locked away my sisters,” Snowy says.
“And said she’s feeding us to the Beast!” Beauty cries.
Cooper waves a hand. “Aw, she gets like that when she’s worked up, doesn’t mean a word of it. You got nothing to worry about. Come on, Snowy, come up and have a mutton joint with us.”
Snowy is smiling. There’s a sparkle in her eyes I’m not used to seeing. I think she’s happy to see her friend. She clears her throat and tries to assume a serious face. “Very well. I will grant her a short audience.”
Beauty looks horrified but I’m ready to cheer. I know Lunilla by now. There’s no way this is going to go well.
~*~ 28 ~*~
Cooper takes us to a room I haven’t seen before. It has a long, shiny floor with a strip of purple rug running over it. Lunilla sits at the end of the rug, in a big chair. She’s speaking to a man who wears a greasy apron and I wonder if he works in the kitchen. When she sees us, she waves him off.
Lunilla stands as we approach. She doesn’t seem to notice anyone but Snowy and her normally smug face is quite serious. She lifts a hand and we stop about ten feet from her chair.
Cooper clears his throat. “My dear, this is Snow White. She’s come to talk peacefully.”
“Why – why are the girls here too?” Lunilla asks.
“She let them out,” Cooper says.
Lunilla looks at Snowy, who gives a nod. Carefully, Lunilla sinks back into her chair. I honestly think she’s scared of Snowy and is trying not to show it.
Snowy clasps her hands behind her back. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this room.” She glances at a tapestry of bright flowers that hangs on the wall behind Lunilla. “Your taste is better than Cinderella’s.”
Lunilla’s smirk begins to bloom. “Indeed. When I got here, most of the palace was dirt black. It needed some color.”
“It needed anything that wasn’t Cinderella,” Snowy says. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh my stars, you’re using that chair?”
I already noticed it. Lunilla’s chair looks like a giant piece of glass. It’s shiny and cut into flat sections, like a diamond, but I don’t think it’s a diamond. Just a big, transparent rock.
Lunilla smiles. “They told me it was Cinderella’s and that’s why I keep it. A reminder that I have her throne.”
I clench my teeth. I don’t like it that they’re trashing my mother. Beauty looks annoyed, too.
“So. You’re the Ice Witch?” Lunilla asks.
Snowy shrugs. “I suppose I am.”
“Why do you make it snow all the time? Nobody likes it, you know. Don’t you get tired of the cold?”
“It never bothered me,” Snowy says. “And it kept us safe, made our home harder to find.” She waves a hand at me and Beauty. “I came here to fetch my sister and the girl who is her twin. All I ask is that you let us leave. You have nothing to fear from me.”
Oh, I can’t stand her. What a wuss.
Lunilla sniffs. “That’s kind of hard to accept. At any time, one of you could raise an army against me.”
“I wouldn’t need an army,” Snowy says. There’s an edge to her voice and my hopes perk up. “I could have taken back the palace a long time ago, with my magic.
But I don’t want it, none of us do.”
“Speak for yourself,” I say.
Both Snowy and Lunilla give me savage glares.
“It’s my palace,” I say. “My father was King Edgar. There’s not a reason in the world why that lady should be queen.”
“Be quiet!” Snowy says. Lunilla’s face has gone red. Good! If she’s mad, maybe she’ll try to attack me. Or Snowy. And then Snowy can blast her with ice.
Beauty rolls her eyes. “Oh sure, like you’d be the queen. Let’s put the kingdom in the hands of a kitten, that’s a good idea.”
“I’m not a kitten!”
“Silence, both of you!” Snowy shouts. “We’re leaving! And none of us are ever coming back!”
“I can’t accept that,” Lunilla says.
“You’re hardly in a position to argue!” Snowy says.
“What, you think I’m powerless?” Lunilla says. “Tell me, can you really protect these girls? Every day, all the time? Perhaps you’ve forgotten about my precious pet. Believe me, sooner or later, he’ll find them.”
Snowy straightens her posture. Her face goes blank. I begin to hear little ticks of sound and feel something cold pecking my skin. Beads of ice drop and bounce off the floor – tiny hailstones. Within seconds, they grow to the size of fingertips and a clattering storm of hail rains down on the throne room, battering the marble floor and spraying us with droplets of water. Lunilla screams and Cooper throws himself on top of her. Beauty and I crouch and cover our heads. The rush of falling ice is deafening, the stones pummel my back and spine, but underneath it, my heart is cheering. Go Snowy! Crush them all!
The shower rattles to a stop. Slowly, we all stand up.
Snowy folds her arms. “That was a demonstration. I could’ve dropped boulders on your heads. Can’t release your precious pet if you’re dead, can you?”
Lunilla cowers in her chair, the hailstones sunk into the puffs and folds of her dress. “You – you don’t know where it lives.” She’s still trying to fight back. “I already gave it – it has the girls’ scents. It could find them on its own.”
“I want the Beast slain,” Snowy says. “At once. Bring it here and I’ll do it myself.”
“We can’t bring it,” Cooper says, brushing bits of ice off his sleeves. The floor has become a carpet of white stones, we can’t even move without kicking them. “We can barely control it as it is.”
“Then take me to it,” Snowy says.
“No!” Lunilla scrambles up from her chair. “Listen, just take away the cold weather. That’s all we want. And I’ll make sure the Beast doesn’t harm the girls. You wanted something peaceful, right?”
“Yeah, come on, Snowy,” Cooper says. “No need for this all to get ugly. We’ll leave the girls alone if you get rid of the snow. It’s that simple.”
“No, I want the Beast slain,” Snowy says.
“Or she’ll slay you all!” I say, grinning.
Snowy whirls around to glare at me but her eyes find something else. I turn and look. Kay has come into the throne room from a doorway near the front. He strides toward us, crunching hailstones under his books, and points at Snowy. “There she is!”
In a blink, Godnutter is next to him. Just appears on the spot. She thrusts out her arm and aims her pipe at Snowy. A stream of white sparkles shoots out of the tip and hits Snowy in the chest. She gasps. The sparkles seem to enter her body, her skin glows from inside like a lantern. She shrieks, arches back, and her hands are jerked outward. From each palm, the sparkles fly out again, but this time they’re blue. Like ribbons of light, they flow out of her and there’s a rush of icy wind as they pass me. The sparkles are sucked across the room and back into the tip of Godnutter’s pipe.
~*~ 29 ~*~
Snowy is hunched over, staring at her hands. She’s panting.
“What did you do?” I ask Godnutter.
“It’s gone,” Snowy whispers. “Oh my stars, it’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” I ask.
Godnutter cackles. “The Snow Queen is gone. She’s only Snow White now. Boring little Snow White.”
Lunilla’s eyes widen. “You took her magic?”
“Every last morsel of it.” Godnutter smirks. “Been meaning to do that for ages.”
“Why?” Snowy cries.
“It was your fault my Cindy got cursed,” Godnutter says. “I left you alone to raise her daughter - figured you needed the magic to keep her safe. But when smiley guy here discovered the girl, I decided the time had come to get even. He was good enough to cooperate with me.”
We all look at Kay. He looks tense but speaks in a quiet voice. “The Ice Witch had to be stopped. She made life harsh for everyone in the kingdom. The old fairy told me that if I got Zelly out and brought her to the palace, it would free her up to defeat the Ice Witch.”
“What?” I say.
Kay lifts his hands. “We’re still friends, Zelly. It was nothing against you. You weren’t happy living with Snow White, you told me that.”
“I don’t care!” I shout. “You can’t just do that!” I feel like he’s kicked me in the stomach. I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“Oh, but we did.” Godnutter snaps her fingers over the pipe and brings it to her lips. Little curls of gray rise out of the bowl. “I told the boy to bring the redhaired girl to the palace and then summon me when the Snow Brat came to fetch her. I wanted to do this in front of everyone.
Lunilla has begun to smile. “Well, look at you, Kay. That was pretty dark. I’m surprised at you; you never seemed to mind the cold weather so much.”
“No, but Beauty did,” Kay says.
I gasp. I honestly want to wring his neck. “This was all for HER?”
Beauty shakes her head at Kay. “You’re crazy. You’re demented. Do you really think this is going to change anything?”
“But you said….” Kay rushes to her, scattering hailstones, and seizes her hands. “You said if I did something heroic, you’d take me seriously. The winter will end now, you can have your rose garden.”
“You didn’t do that!” Beauty yanks back her hands. “Godnutter did! Getting someone to do the work for you isn’t my idea of a hero.”
“Oh, come on, Beauty!” Kay cries.
“Nope, sorry. You’ll have to do better than that.” She strokes back her hair and turns away from Kay, a faint smile tweaking her lips. She’s enjoying his anguish.
Kay looks struck. He stares at her, pale and hopeless, arms hanging limp at his sides. Despite my anger at him, I’m now furious with Beauty. How could she refuse him? How could she hurt him like that? I would not have hurt him for the world.
“Go upstairs, Kay,” Lunilla says with false sweetness. “Have a talk with Mama if you think it will help.”
Kay leaves the ballroom without looking at me once. He looks miserable. I’m hurting for him. But I’m hurting even more for myself.
Snowy is still bent over, staring at her hands. Her black hair has slipped forward and hangs in her face. We all just stand there - watching her - and it feels very awkward. Cooper clears his throat.
“So, what happens now?” he says.
Godnutter blows out a gray cloud and smiles. “Now I throw you both out of the palace.”
Lunilla gasps.
Godnutter chuckles. “Oh, not yet, dumpling! Not yet. But listen!” She points her pipe at Lunilla like a scolding finger. “I disabled the Snow Queen for you. Now you owe me a favor. These girls are true princesses and they’ve been in exile. Now that they’re nearly of age, it’s time they returned to their rightful home at the palace.” Her voice hardens. “You will let them stay.”
Lunilla has a way of puffing up when she’s angry. That’s what she looks like now, a bird with its feathers all fluffed out. “I don’t have to honor that.”
“We can’t stay here!” Beauty cries. “She’ll feed us to the Beast, she said that!”
“Huh. Forgot about him.” Godnutter says it like the Beast is no big deal. “H
e’s probably gotten pretty feral by now, hasn’t he?”
Lunilla shrugs. “He does act… beastly.”
“Where you keeping him?” Godnutter asks.
“That’s my business,” Lunilla says.
Godnutter snorts and smoke bursts from her nostrils. “I bet you have him right here. In the palace.” Her eyes travel to the ceiling. “I could find him pretty quick, if I wanted to.”
“It’s not here,” Cooper says. “I’m being honest. Her sister didn’t want it here, she was afraid for Kay. And we have the baby. We told the guards not to let it near the palace.”
“So where is it?” Godnutter says.
“You really don’t know?” Beauty says.
“I’m a fairy, not some kind of goddess,” Godnutter says. “I don’t know everything. But you know what? I’m not worried.”
“Why?” Lunilla says.
“Well, you’re not smart, Loony, but you’re not too stupid either. If any harm came to these girls, I think you know what would happen.”
Lunilla turns red. “You’d come after me?”
Godnutter gives a snappy headshake. “Oh, not you, honeybun. Someone much smaller.”
Cooper growls. “She means Jack!”
“I know she means Jack!” Lunilla snaps. She folds her arms and turns back to Godnutter. Her face has begun to sweat. “All right, fine! The girls can stay.”
Godnutter nods. “And let me be clear, they’re not your prisoners. This is their home, now. You will give them a room and treat them fairly. The redhead will probably need a good education and definitely a haircut. And Beauty needs to learn how to be queen.”
“What?” Lunilla and Beauty cry.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you still think I’d let your beanie boy have the throne? Not a chance, baby doll. This is Cinderella’s castle and until her return, her daughter will serve as queen. It’s only right. But I’m willing to make a deal with you. Why don’t we marry your Kay to my Beauty? They’ll make a decent king and queen.”
This pretty much makes everyone furious. Lunilla refuses to give up the throne. Beauty refuses to marry Kay. And I’m completely ignored. I glower at Godnutter, waving her pipe around as she speaks. This isn’t fair. Just because she has magic doesn’t mean she can do whatever she wants. If someone took that pipe away, could she really boss us around like this?