Chapter 24
KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN,
AND DO AS YOUR QUEEN COMMANDS.
You learned this lesson long ago, but sometimes you need a reminder.
In the queen’s private library, you blend into the wall because you are part of the wall; you are another piece of furniture; you’re set design; you’re the queen’s violence given shape.
You are at her command, no different from the oaken doors: they open and close at her leisure, just as you pluck the heart out of a maiden’s chest when she wills it.
“Mirror, mirror…” recites the Fair Queen, as always. And, as always—almost- always, excepting those rare, blissful occasions where another beauty has not yet ripened—the mirror responds that she is not the fairest in the land.
“Snow White is a thousand times fairer than thee,” says the mirror.
No.
Your bowels turn to water. Your organs slosh about inside you, unmoored, and the floor wobbles underfoot. With trembling fingers, the Fair Queen touches her reflection in the glass.
“My daughter?” she asks. “She’s only seven, how could she possibly…”
“Snow,” the mirror’s voice thunders through you, unyielding, “White.”
There is only one.
All the breath leaves her lungs. Her whole palm presses to the mirror; her forehead, too, as she surrenders to lean against it.
Let this be the end, you beg whatever forces may still listen to wishes, especially a wish made by a monster like you. Let this be what makes this horror stop.
The Fair Queen’s shoulders jostle with silent, private sobs. Moments pass. Then minutes.
“How could she do this to me?” she whispers. “My own daughter… my usurper.”
No, you beg the godmothers, the fairies, the Mothering Trees, but there are no godmothers, no fairies, no Mothering Trees in this room. There is only you. And you are not going to stop her. That’s not your story. That story belongs to someone else.
“So be it,” says the Fair Queen, voice trembling as she finds her resolve.
“Hans, you know what to do.”
Wild-eyed, broken-hearted, she turns to you. “Bring me Snow White’s heart.”