Ladle Rat Rotten Hut (2 page)
Read Ladle Rat Rotten Hut Online
Authors: Cameron Jace
Watching the snow from my bed that day, I
accidentally pricked my thumb while Snow White lay nestled in my arms. I don’t
know how I hurt myself, other than being distracted by her beauty and innocent
face. Those lovely doe eyes of hers were gleaming above her chubby cheeks,
curving like ocean waves whenever she smiled at me.
Sometimes, I listened to her, humming
melodies filled with words that did not make sense. It was a song, orchestrated
in her fragile mind. But it had rhythm. Its effect was so enchanting to her
that I found myself wiggling my toe. It was beautiful. In my mind’s eye, I
could imagine a singer’s voice seducing wooden instruments to bend and dance
with mirth and ecstasy, as if wood was once dead, now alive.
I don’t know how she possessed such beautiful doe
eyes. Neither the king nor I had them. Only one other man in my husband’s
family did. It was my husband’s vicious father, whom we did not speak of his
name. He had hunted us for years after we’d escaped him, crossing oceans and
continents, cursing us for creating our own kingdom in far away realms which he
had no access to. His doe eyes were far from beautiful, for they were blackened
with sorrow
.
Snow White wrapped her small, almost
boneless hands, finger by finger, around my pricked thumb. She did it so gently
that her touch took my breath away. I almost cried tears of joy. As hard as she
tried to press on my thumb, her skin felt like silk on my flesh, and I wished
that she’d never let go of me. It was true that I was her mother, and she
needed to hold on to me, but little did she know that I needed her more than
she needed me.
I laughed as her face knotted in evil
childish curves, staring at that stubborn thumb of mine, unable to pull it
closer. In her frustration, she reminded me of cats chasing balls of thread on
the castle’s floor.
Since I would have granted her any wish in
exchange for one of her fabulous smiles, I didn’t mind lending her my thumb,
which seemed to be of importance to her more than the milk in my breasts.
I wondered why.
I noticed a drop of blood on top of my
thumb where I had pricked it. When I tried pulling it away, her hands seemed
stronger suddenly, but not strong enough to pull my thumb against my will. It
was the unusual increase in her strength and determination in her eyes. I
thought I saw her veins surfacing momentarily on her almost-boneless neck.
However, it wasn’t alarming enough. Mothers
are blinded by their love for their daughters. I was enchanted by her, thinking
that if I died nurturing her, I would barely have noticed my own death. Only
after my responsibility toward her was fulfilled, would I allow death to take
hold of me.
I wasn’t gifted with immortality yet. I am
the Evil Queen, remember? Always the last one to be considered.
I gave in and loosened my thumb for Snow
White to pull it closer to her…
At first, she pulled my thumb to her
chest, staring at it. Her eyes had a sudden golden tinge to them. Then it
disappeared like a falling star you get to see only once.
“Are you alright, Shew?” I wondered, as I
preferred to call her by that name. I didn’t expect an answer since she hadn’t
learned to talk. But something told me that she understood my words, and I was
expecting her to nod or a blink.
But she didn’t.
She pulled my thumb up with both of her
tiny hands and sucked on it, which I found mesmerizing and cute, like when she
was sucking on her own thumb while asleep. Her sucking was ticklish. After all,
her teeth hadn’t grown yet.
My husband had warned me many times that
she should not suck on her thumb. He considered it a bad habit that was
inappropriate for princesses.
As she continued with my thumb in her
mouth, the golden tinge loomed back into her eyes. This time, it stayed.
Suddenly, I remembered the drop of blood
and tried to pull it away. Again, it wasn’t that she was stronger than me. In
fact, her weakness was her greatest power. It was that I found it strange that
she insisted to on lodging a pricked thumb with blood in her mouth.
Before I considered believing in the bad
omen the peasants talked about, a most beautiful smile landed on her face, the
way fluttering stars shine in the midnight skies.
Curving cheeks, dancing eyebrows, and a
single wiggling nose accompanied Snow White’s symphonic smile.
Finally, she let go of my thumb. I patted
her, hugged her, and told her a bedtime story. It was about a beautiful girl
who had been cursed by a witch to stay asleep forever until a most charming
prince came and kissed her awake, and how they lived happily ever after. Snow
White loved to fall asleep to this story. I wondered if she ever dreamed about
a prince when a sudden lightning struck outside, illuminating trees into crystal
Candelabra.
If I were to believe in the peasants’
superstitions, I would have claimed that Snow White’s sleep brought light to
the snowy night, and that the giant demon girl covered with snow was an
incarnation of my little Snow White.
As she went to sleep, I wiped a drop of
blood off her red lips, not knowing what the coming days had in store for my
kingdom and me.
The incident never happened again because
I didn't prick my thumb in front of her after. I did prick my thumb a lot in my
years, but not for her – and that was another story for another occasion. I was
alert enough to keep her away from the sight of blood.
Sometimes, she still stared dreamingly at
my thumb, like a girl standing next to her mother in the kitchen, tiptoeing to
see if she finished baking her favorite apple pie, so she could start eating
it. The eagerness was inescapable.
Seven years later, my concerns were
confirmed, and I knew that there was no way back…
It was a festive day. My husband and I
welcomed the king and queen of a neighboring kingdom called Red. Part of it was
celebration, and another part was joining forces in confronting the demons
trying to breach our borders and threaten our safety.
We were used to fighting demons in our
time, but those were darker ones like nothing we had ever seen before. They
were spreading a curse, causing the infected to lust for human blood. We were
told the infection had wiped out Europe, and it came to finish us as well.
My husband and I paid in blood and tears
for a new life in the Kingdom of Sorrow. There was no way that we would give up
on our lands. If you only knew the sacrifices, I made to save my family and to
bring Snow White into this world, you would have sympathized with me.
But who was I to complain? In your eyes, I
was just an evil queen, who wanted to murder her daughter, jealous of her young
beauty. I have to admit that beauty does have a lot to do with this story, in
an ugly way.
After dinner with the Reds, I couldn’t
take my eyes off their nine-year-old prince. The boy was such a beauty. He
shook my hand with such nobility, and talked only when told to. He seemed bored
in the presence of the elders though. His beautiful eyes were scanning the
castle for the princess.
I summoned my daughter and introduced her
to the prince, wishing cupid would strike his arrow and bind their hearts.
Snow White came down the stairs, her black
hair waving behind her, her skin looking paler than usual. She wasn’t fond of
the sun, hiding behind the castle’s thick curtains and Corinthian columns.
Daylight was her worst enemy, and candles became her main source of light..
Still, she stood looking fabulous like a
princess should, licking her blood-red lips the moment she laid her eyes on the
beautiful prince. It was appetite at first sight.
When their eyes met, the elders murmured
about how beautiful the couple looked together. The sun splayed through the
curtains, pronouncing them stars of the gathering. Strangely enough, Snow White
didn’t mind the sunlight in the prince’s presence.
They danced and played together. The
prince started chasing her across the castle. Still, Snow White was smarter
than him, hiding in the right places, and manipulating him into searching in
the wrong directions. When he finally caught her, she distracted him with her
doe-eyed smile, and managed to run away again.
My eyes followed them in the castle. I was
worried when I learned that the prince had a restless appetite for girls.
However young the Reds were, their men had a reputation of being womanizers.
Their charms were irresistible to most girls and women.
Little did they know that Snow White had
an uncanny appetite for beautiful boys at such young age.
My worries came true when I caught the
prince seducing Snow White gently into a dark corner. God only knows what that
beautiful, mischievous, nine-year-old had in mind.
As I parted them, my husband ordered one
of his favorite huntsmen, a young boy who was about Snow White’s age. The king
trained young peasant boys to become huntsmen. Even though I opposed his
decision many times, he assured me that this boy was unique in ways I would
later understand. The huntsman boy was not a peasant, but from some far away
civilization that used to battle with the demons lurking outside our borders.
As the crowd hailed outside, we walked out
to the balcony, greeting them.
That was when we heard a most awful scream
behind us.
I tuned back, my heart racing, praying
that it wasn’t what I had feared. Sadly, it was, and I was too late.
I watched the young prince sink to his
knees on the floor, his hands glues to his sides. He looked at us for a moment
before he collapsed completely on the floor. He was shuddering helplessly as if
possessed by demonic spirits, looking like a fish flopping out of water. His
eyes turned all white, and he cringed and screamed in pain.
Then, I understood what was going on. I
saw two bite marks on his neck, and red blood trickling down onto the white
marble floor.
I looked for the huntsman boy, but he was
gone.
Tilting my head, I saw my daughter,
standing in the middle of the castle’s hall with blood dripping from her lips
and dress. She still looked as innocent as white doves, as if she had only
overdosed on red cherry-flavored ice cream – which was recently discovered in
Europe, and had its first entry as an English word in the Oxford dictionary
some years ago.
Running toward the prince, Snow White
seemed astonished by his fainting. It looked like she was wondering why he was
hurt when she bit him. As a child, considering her sinister nature, she thought
of it as a kiss or something.
She looked at me with her fangs drawn out,
asking me to wash the blood off her, just like any spoiled princess who spilled
tea on her dress. I froze in my place, puzzled with what to do. She pleaded as
if she was the victim, not the predator.
The queen of Red started screaming
hysterically when she saw Snow White’s fangs. She called my daughter a demon,
and flashed a cross at her. Snow White was not affected in any way. Then the
queen threw everything she could at her. My husband had to interfere, using his
magical powers to hypnotize the king and the queen of Red. Being a master of
the dark arts, he would erase their memories later.
“Take her away from here.” He growled at
me, pulling the prince into a private chamber. “I know how to save him.” He
locked himself alone with the boy in the room, not wanting us to know how he
will do it.
“What happened to him?” Snow White
wondered.
I pursed my lips shut, preventing myself
from screaming at her, and pulled her up the stairs. I had to rinse the blood
off her face and change her dress. She tastes the prince’s blood on her hand
the way children tongue-lick their dinner plates clean.
“You can’t do that.” I yelled.
I wasn’t surprised. I knew what she was a
long time ago. I just didn’t want to admit it. Still, my love for her stopped
me from raising her properly. I sounded as if I was teaching her dining
etiquettes, only mad because she dropped a plate or a spoon while eating.
“Can’t do
what
?” She sounded
confused.
“You can’t just bite anyone you want to.”
I gritted my teeth.
“But he’s so yummy mother,” she said, “so
yummy. Didn’t you see how cute he is?”
I rolled my eyes and held back a smile.
That must have been the demonic part in me, wanting to salute her and raise a
glass of champagne, for biting a cute prince. A prince she thought was yummy.
Don’t all of us girlies like to do that from time to time?
I struggled, commanding reason to win
over, and managed to knot my face, playing angry with her. “That’s no excuse to
do that, Shew.”
“Why?” She whined.
Don’t you hate when
children ask you why, and you don’t have a persuading answer?