The Forgotten Princess: A Snow White Tale

by R. L. Weeks

The guard shook his head. ‘This is your final warning. All appointments must be made through the Lo-’ he broke off as trumpets sounded. Both guards jumped back and straightened up as the doors opened. Eight guards marched out. Behind them, a woman with black hair walked with grace. On her head sat a glistening crown of metal roses. Her dress was tighter than anything Jasmine was accustomed too. She wondered how the woman could breathe.

  ‘The Queen of Hearts,’ a guard announced and everyone knelt on the hard floor. The Queen stopped and looked at Jasmine who was blocking their exit.

  ‘Who is this?’ the Queen screeched, making everyone jolt.

  The guard from the door stood up but kept his head bowed. ‘She was demanding to see you, your highness. She said her name is Princess Jasmine-.'

  ‘Of Agrabah,’ Jasmine interrupted and knelt on one knee. ‘Sorry for the intrusion, but I have come to Wonderland seeking your help as I have heard great stories of your Majesty and her kingdom.’ Jasmine knew that flattery was probably the best bet to get her way here, on hearing the stories of the Red Queen.

  The queen clenched her teeth and locked her gaze onto the chocolate pools of Jasmine’s eyes. ‘You have shown great disrespect to your queen.’

  Jasmine almost scoffed but stopped herself in time. ‘Majesty, I promise that no disrespect was intended. I simply am here to negotiate with you to help my country. There has been a great war and the monarchy crumbles as I stand here talking to you.’

  ‘You can consult with me after I attend to one of my prisoners,’ she looked at Jasmine then to the two guards at the door. ‘Take the princess to the banqueting hall to await my return.’

  The Queen walked out the doors and into the frosted night while Jasmine was escorted into the banqueting hall. Long tables squared the large room, and unlike Jasmine's court, there was no music, no laughing, and everyone looked miserable. They all sat in their small groups, ladies, dukes, and earls, and whispered to each other, looking around with bold paranoia. Each of them took in the exotically dressed woman but didn’t say a word. Jasmine was escorted to the top table which sat on a stone platform, overlooking the rest of the room. A red throne sat in the centre and twisted with the same metal roses that the queens crown was made from. On one of the chairs to the side of the throne, Aladdin sat. A playful smile danced on his lips as he watched the mysterious woman that he had seen at the gate approach him. She, however, didn’t say anything. She just looked at him. He was around twenty-five, with cinnamon skin and wide brown eyes. His ebony black hair reached down to the stop of his ears and his slim, yet athletic appearance drew Jasmine to him. He was clean shaven and had beautiful bone structure, giving his face a carved appearance. Unlike the other well-dressed people in the room, Aladdin had his sleeves rolled up scruffily and kept his feet propped up on the table. He ran his hand through his hair and arched his eyebrow at Jasmine. ‘Well, well,’ he said, taking his feet off the table and sat up straighter, ‘who are you?’

  Her chest heaved and breaths quickened. ‘Uhh,’ her cheeks flamed red, forgetting herself, she quickly forced a smile. ‘Princess Jasmine.’

  He smirked. ‘A princess eh? Ha, the queen would love you.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief and took the seat next to the alluring man. ‘She didn’t seem to, but I’m glad she respects royalty, it makes things easier for me…’ she paused, her fake smile stretched into a genuine one. ‘What’s your name?’

  He bowed his head. ‘Aladdin, M’lady, and I was being sarcastic. She hates anyone royal, apart from herself.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jasmine fell silent and frowned. ‘Well, she won’t be able to refuse my offer regardless of her feelings about my status.’

  Aladdin perked up and leaned in. ‘What offer?’

  Jasmine scoffed. ‘I’m not about to tell you.’

  He shrugged. ‘Fine, but trust me, you’re going to need an ally, and I can be quite resourceful.’

  His lips were almost touching her ear; she could feel his hot breath on her neck and felt goose bumps appear under her silk dress. ‘I’m after the magic lamp.’

  Aladdin laughed, showing off his laugh lines and crescent dimples. ‘She would never hand that over, not for all the gold in the world.’

  Jasmine half smiled and turned to face Aladdin. ‘I know what the queen desires and I can help her.’ She reached into her gold embroidered bag and pulled out a purple ring. ‘This would allow her to find souls for her sword. I have heard the stories, and it took me a long time to find this ring. It shows one what they desire. The lamp cannot grant one their most desired wishes, which is why I intend on having my servant make the wishes for me. He wouldn’t desire what I do, so it would work for him if I tell him what to wish for.’

  Aladdin smiled broadly. ‘Got this all figured out then?’ he ran his finger along the top of the purple jewel on the ring. ‘What if she takes the ring from you and locks you up here?’ he lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘She’s not known for her generosity, nor for keeping her word. They call her the Red Queen, the Queen of Hearts, for a reason.’

  Jasmine's eyes widened. ‘What would she do to me?’

  Aladdin sighed. ‘She would rip your heart out, so you’re incapable of love. You would not die while in Wonderland, but you could never leave, you can only leave with your true love.’

  Jasmine clenched her jaw. ‘What? I didn’t know… how will I get home?’ He hushed her and placed his hand on hers and when she looked down the ring was gone. ‘Give it back!’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m doing you a favour, Princess. Trust me. Just tell the queen that you require something else, anything else.’

  ‘She can’t kill me,’ Jasmine whispered, ignoring him. ‘I’m the Princess of Agrabah!’

  ‘That means nothing to her,’ he warned. ‘Your best bet is to stay on her good side, ask for something small, then remain in Wonderland until you find someone to fall in love with so you can leave. If you can’t then your best bet is to do what we’re all doing.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jasmine asked, leaning in until their arms were pressed against each other.

  Aladdin’s smirk disappeared. He looked at Jasmine gravely. ‘Wait until someone finds a way to kill the queen.’

  The trumpets sounded and Jasmine and Aladdin shot apart. Everyone stood up then knelt as the queen strode up the centre of the room on the red carpet which was littered with rose petals, and took her place on the throne. Everyone returned to their food and Queen Snow turned her attention to her new guest. ‘Princess Jasmine,’ she addressed.

  ‘Majesty,’ Jasmine said, bowing her head. She felt her dagger inside her sleeve and shook it down until the hilt was in her palm. ‘I have something to show you, a gift, which I believe would interest you greatly.’

  Snow nodded and held out her hand. ‘Well,’ she said, raising her eyebrows. Jasmine stood up and kneeled in front of the queen and with a flash, she pulled the dagger from her sleeve and plunged it into the queen’s heart.

  Jasmine breathed slowly as the crimson soaked the queen's dress. ‘Problem solved,’ Jasmine said.

  Aladdin shook his head with despair yet said nothing. The queen linked her fingers around Jasmine’s wrist and pushed her over the table, leaving Jasmine in a pile of cloth from the table and splattered food. The queen pulled out the dagger and tutted. ‘You ruined my favourite dress!’ The guards ran up to the platform and grabbed Jasmine's arms then looked to their queen for their orders. ‘Take her to the tower and rip out her heart!’

  ‘No! Please no!’ Jasmine screamed.

  The Queen laughed heartily. ‘I cannot die, none of us can! You silly girl! However, you will pay in other ways.’

  Aladdin looked down at the floor and refused to watch as Jasmine was dragged kicking and screaming from the room. ‘Welcome to the nightmare that is Wonderland,’ he said under his breath.

  ♡ ♡ ♡

  The next morning Aladdin paced the pews in the church and laughed aloud. Each window was stained with images o
f the red queen who, of course, fancied herself as a goddess and expected all of those who had come to Wonderland to pray to her, to worship her. What made it more hilarious was the simple fact that everyone willingly did. They were all mad here, all of them. Aladdin remembered back to his memory of coming to Wonderland, and like so many others he believed it to be the world where dreams came true and one could just be themselves. He was wrong and was surprised at his ability to stay somehow sane amongst all the chaos. He left the church and took the collection plate with him, as was his job. The coins were favours to the queen, to forgive them for their sins, which he knew was just to keep their hearts in their chest. Nobody wanted their hearts to be ripped out, without the ability to love they could never leave Wonderland. The mirror let only ones leave who were with their true loves, he was told it was a spell done by a woman that the queen had killed as a punishment. The queen never spoke about why, but Aladdin figured it must either be that the queen is that unlovable, or that perhaps she had found her true love and something had happened to him. Either way, Aladdin craved to find out. The queen trusted him, he had appealed to her mad and ambitious side and offered complete allegiance and to be the eyes and ears of the kingdom. As a skilled thief, he could stay out of sight when he wanted too.

  The only one he had to watch out for was Lord Dain, one of the queen’s advisors and the keeper of the Ruby. He was as cunning as a snake, as sane as Aladdin, and as charming as a prince. Lord Dain hated Aladdin, for many reasons, one being that the woman that Jarar wanted liked Aladdin, she always had. What annoyed Lord Dain more was that Aladdin dropped then picked Felicia up when it suited him. She was being used by Aladdin when Lord Dain could give her everything. Aladdin always made a show of it too, and once called Felicia used goods and winked at Dain to which he replied that Aladdin should be glad that no one could die in Wonderland unless they were taken to Willow Woods, and Aladdin was not stupid enough to go there. A giant once lived there, and those that had died there had remained dead. Wonderland was built on top of the Fountain of Youth, yet Willow Woods stayed on top of a particular spot in the fountain where the water ran poisoned, supposedly from a curse, meaning anything could happen. The queen had sent traitors there to die, but even she did so sparingly. Mad, yet a bright woman. She knew the threat of woods alone was enough to make people behave and now and again she would have someone executed there as an example. When he thought about it, it had been a while since anyone was sent there and Aladdin’s thoughts drifted to the poor princess Jasmine locked in the tower. The queen was hot and cold and was known to believe one thing at sunrise and believe the opposite by sunset.

  Walking through the small village of Pan, one named by the queen because of its youth, he shoved the coins and plate into his satchel. He glanced at the old white house, five stories, all wonky and flaky, the windows were all different shapes, some circles, some squares, and so on. In the garden in front of the house, he saw Crone and lowered his head. Poor Crone. The queen had once favoured him until around four months after Aladdin came to Wonderland the Queen had instilled a punishment to Crone, or as everyone called him, The Mad Hatter. He had mentioned someone’s name during an argument; no one knows who, yet it annoyed the Queen so much that she took his valuable time from him. Everyone knew that Crone loved having tea with his friends and knew everything there was to know about different types of tea. She made it, so it was always ten minutes to tea time, never quite there, though. The only way it could be broken was if that person’s name was mentioned to him again, he was tongue-tied never to say it, and no one knew the name. Aladdin sighed and peeked over the fence.

  The Hatter looked down at his teacup glumly. The rest of the Lost Boys had had their memories wiped by Snow when they arrived into Wonderland, leaving Crone without many friends, except for a dormouse that could talk and Hook, the rabbit, who had taken to coming and sitting with him once a week around midday.

  The rabbit jumped onto the chair and nodded at Crone. ‘Surely you must know it,’ Crone asked as he always did and as always, Hook shook his head.

  ‘You know the Queen has forbidden me to say his name.’

  Aladdin listened in intently, if there was anything worth hearing, he wanted to be the first to listen. Anything that he could use, whether it was to hatch a plot, use a bribe, use as leverage, was worth it.

  Crone slammed his hands down on the table, making his hat drop down, so it looked even more lopsided. ‘You are the only one who knows his name except for her!’

  ‘Exactly,’ Hook hissed. ‘She would know it was me. As always Crone, if you wish to have this argument with me every week then I will stop coming for tea.’

  Crone scoffed. ‘What tea? What life? I am stuck in a perpetual time loop with no hope of an escape, except for you.’

  ‘As always,’ Hook replied, ‘I will say that it’s each man for himself.’

  ‘You are a rabbit!’

  Hook shrugged. ‘The Queen likes rabbits.’

  ‘Is that why she turned you into one? You were once a fearsome pirate, now look at you!’

  Hook looked down at his watch, not that it made a difference. While in the garden, his watch was always stuck at ten to two. ‘If I betray her then she will release my one true love from that chest and take her to Willow Woods where she will be killed. I cannot risk her existence for you, no matter how much of a good friend you have been to me.’

  Crone's big blue eyes widened and sparkled with madness. ‘Then steal the chest and bring it to me. Or at the least, let it slip to Aladdin. He would steal it and you know he would get away with it. He’s a skilled thief; we could all get out of her.’

  Aladdin pressed his ear over the hole in the fence. A chest, what chest?

  Hook shook his head’ ‘I know not of where she keeps it, and Aladdin is happy to be her right-hand man, he was nothing back in the land he was from. I cannot risk it; Aladdin may report back to the Queen…’ Hook paused and sighed. ‘I must go to check the mirror as I do every day. I will see you next week.’

  ‘And I,’ Crone said with annoyance, ‘will think about who my real friends are in that week.’

  Hook hopped away into the forest at the back of the garden just as Wendy, his little dormouse friend scurried up to the table. She pulled out her small sword and stepped onto the empty cake stand, knocking over a teapot. ‘I was victorious,’ she squeaked.

  ‘Did you find him?’ Crone asked, referring to the man she had been in love with since Wonderland, hell, since Neverland. Wendy was made into a mouse, the thing that the Pied Piper hated, and he was then banished to the island of the white queen.

  ‘No,’ Wendy replied sadly, ‘but I did find out some news that you will find most pleasing.’ Crone leaned in and Wendy ran over to his hand, jumping up on it, he brought her up to his ear, and she whispered, ‘a princess arrived, Jasmine. The queen has her in the tower and plans to take her heart. Aladdin was quite taken with her, and she brought with her a ring, one that shows one what they desire most.’

  ‘How did you find this out?’

  Wendy giggled. ‘I know everything that happens in court. Anyway, listen,’ she whispered. ‘I know someone who could bring down Wonderland, someone I believe to desire to come to this world more than anything. If Aladdin could use the ring to draw her here, I think we could all be saved.’

  ‘Make it happen,’ Crone hissed.

  Wendy nodded. ‘I’m going to talk to the genie in the lamp so he would suggest to Aladdin to do that and have the lamp placed in sight of Aladdin. Jasmine mentioned it, and I think he would steal it if the opportunity arises… and it will.’

  Aladdin stood back up and slid away from the Hatter’s fence and down a cobbled street. Wendy wouldn’t need to suggest anything. If there was someone who could be brought to Wonderland, who could help them escape, then he was going to draw them here! First, however, he would need to steal the lamp and make a wish.

  R. l. Weeks lives in Bradworthy, a small, charming village in North
Devon. When she's not writing, she's designing covers, shopping, or reading.

  Her Haunting Fairytales Series, published by Vamptasy, was voted Best Fairytale Books 2016 by Reality Bites Magazine. Books 1, 2 & 3 are available on Kindle and Amazon now.

  As well as writing Fairytales, R. l. Weeks enjoys writing horror, with Stephen King being her inspiration. You can find her gripping horror stories on Kindle.

  She enjoys writing in anthologies and her stories can be found in The Unforgiven Anthology, Once Upon a Cursed Time, and Christmas Nightmares.

  R. l is also one of the six Graveyard Writers. www.graveyardwriters.com

  Want to find out more? Go to her website

  www.authorrlweeks.com

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