Sneaky Snow White (Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series Book 2) (8 page)

I’m beginning to miss my father much less.

As for Cinderella, she’s well enough now to get out of bed. She wears a simple blue dress from the wardrobe of Hunter’s mother. It looks good on her. When the babies aren’t wailing, she tidies up the cottage, sweeping floors, even washing the dishes. And she looks
happy.
She begins to stitch tiny garments for the babies, and judging by the style, I think they’re both girls. I didn’t know Cinderella could sew.

She talks to Hunter an awful lot. Sometimes The Mirror lets me hear what they’re saying. Cinderella tells him about her wicked stepmother who treated her like a servant. Hunter speaks of his family and the shame he always felt in having brothers that were thieves. How he hopes one day they will follow his example and choose to work for a living.

He never told me that.

Then there’s one evening when Cinderella is sitting on her bed while the babies sleep beside her. Hunter comes in with a small cake of some kind. He rips it in two and gives half to Cinderella. A few crumbs drop onto his vest, so he brushes them off with his hand. As he does, the top button of his vest snaps off and bounces across the floor. Hunter laughs as he retrieves it, holds it up to show Cinderella, and slips the button onto a shelf.

Cinderella puts her cake aside. She gestures at the button and speaks with a sweet smile. Hunter stares at her, looking astonished. He removes his vest, grabs the button off the shelf, and takes them to her. She digs a needle and thread out of a drawer in her bedside table. And then she sits there, drawing the needle up and down, and sews the button back on.

Hunter’s face is strange as he watches her. He’s not smiling but his eyes are very soft. When she hands back the vest, he nods a thank-you and strokes the button with his thumb. Touched. He looks touched.

I blow the air out of my cheeks. There are definite disadvantages to having a sensitive man.

“Maybe I went about this the wrong way,” I say to The Mirror. “Hunter didn’t want to kill Cinderella. I wouldn’t listen and now he’s afraid to come back. I love Hunter. I shouldn’t have tried to make him do something against his nature. I’ll go to him and agree to his plan. Cinderella can be the queen again and keep her babies. And Hunter and I will go far away. So long as I’m with him, nothing else matters.”

The Mirror’s tone becomes sterner. I must be the queen. It is my destiny. I can’t give that up for the sake of a boy. Cinderella must be destroyed.

“Why should you want to kill Cinderella?” I ask hotly. “You loved her once and now you want her dead? You nearly killed
me
when I was a child! Just what are you, some kind of demon?”

I try to walk away but it holds me fast. It shows me another image of myself as queen but I squeeze my eyes shut. I won’t let it tell me who I am or what I do. I can feel The Mirror becoming angry.

Something grips my waist and I’m lifted off the floor. I hear a gruff voice but can’t tell what it’s saying. My head feels heavy and fogged. After a minute, I realize Cooper is carrying me down the stairs. He takes me to the white sitting room and drops me onto the chaise lounge.

“I heard you talking,” Cooper says. “When I looked in, your eyes were shut and you were shaking all over. You told me to drag you away if you did anything weird.”

“Thank you,” I say weakly. I lean my head into both of my hands. The sudden rip away from The Mirror has left me cold and sick. It wants me to come back, I can feel that from here.

“Cooper… will you please take me to your cottage? I need to see Hunter, it’s very important.”

Cooper pats my knee. “Rest a bit, little miss. That infernal thing has made you tired. We can go another day.”

I look at him, suddenly suspicious. “Why do you keep refusing me? Every time I ask to go to the cottage, you give me some excuse.”

Cooper shrugs. “Best if you stay here, I think.”

“Does this have anything to do with Hunter? Did he tell you to keep me away from him?”

“No.” That’s all he says. Too quick, too short.

I sit straighter. “I want to know what he said.”

“Fine, but you won’t like it. He spoke to Barker the night we sent him to check the cottage. Hunter thinks you and the queen should be kept apart. Says you might kill each other if you’re together. He asked us to keep you here at the castle, and he’s trying to keep the queen where she is. Just until things are settled.”

“How dare you!” I jump up from the lounge. “All this time I thought you were my friends!”

“We are, you little lunatic. You just don’t know what’s good for you.”

“I’m leaving. Now! And you won’t stop me.” I stalk to the door but Cooper simply blocks me and folds his arms. “Well, that was easy.”

I grind my teeth. “So I’m a prisoner here?”

“Until Hunter says otherwise, yes. Now come on, little miss, don’t make a fuss. We did some good work on the castle, gave the throne room a nice granite floor. Barker is building you a new chair, I think you’ll like it. Just take a look and forget about Hunter for a while.”

I wish I could hurl him across the room. I
hate
being small and fragile like this, I have no power! And if I throw a fit he might lock me up in the dungeons. So I’ll have to play along. But no one, not even Hunter, gets to make me a prisoner. I will find a way to that cottage myself.

I’ll just have to be sneaky about it.

That night, my dreams are filled with Hunter. I remember the day I met him in The Wood. I released a rabbit that was caught in a trap and I heard someone laugh and say, “That’s my supper you just set free.” I was haughty to him at first, unaccustomed to friends of any kind. But when I left, he said, “Will you come back tomorrow?” And that changed everything.

A month later he kissed me for the first time. He told me the trees whispered secrets when the wind blew, and if I closed my eyes, I would hear them. To humor him, I closed my eyes. And then I felt his lips. His arms came next, closing us in a tight circle, and when we were through, he said, “The secret is that I love you, Snowy.”

I wake up with tears sliding into my pillow. Oh my Hunter! I will get you back!

I rise although the sun has not. I throw a dress over my head and strap on the belt and dagger. It’s a long, dark walk from my tower room to The Mirror’s chamber. But I have a plan that I think will work.

“Tell me where this cottage is,” I say to The Mirror. “I will go there and stab Cinderella in her sleep. Then I’ll bring Hunter back here with me. That way, both of us are getting what we want. But first I need to know where he lives.”

The Mirror doesn’t believe me. It can see through the lie, that I’m not really planning on killing Cinderella.

“I caaan’t!” I whine. “Hunter will never forgive me if I do. I know that for sure. I’m sorry, Mirror! But I love Hunter more than you.”

A scene opens before me. The Mirror holds me in place and makes me watch. I see my mother, my beautiful mother, standing before this very mirror. She tucks a few stray hairs into place and she is smiling. She wears a gown of garnet red that exposes her throat and shoulders. My father comes into the room behind her.

“Where is Snow White?” my father asks.

“Having her lessons,” my mother says, tugging down the sleeves of her dress. Her face and voice have turned cold. “I’m going out for a bit.”

“Hmm. I’d like you to stay,” my father says. He takes hold of my mother’s waist from behind and kisses the side of her neck. My mother stiffens. “There will be no other child, Edgar. You are wasting your time.”

My father meets her eyes in the mirror and his face has become strangely calm. “No, my dear. You have wasted
your
time in not providing a son for me. I have been patient. But I’m afraid your time is up.” His hands lift off my mother’s waist and wrap around her throat.

I gasp.

My mother gasps too and her hands fly to her neck. She tries to pry off his fingers, her mouth wide open, then she throws back her hands and claws at his face. My father shifts and bends over her, forcing her to crouch, and they sink to the floor while my mother makes little grunts and gasps, and her face darkens red as her dress. He presses her down, holding her with the weight of his body, while her feet scrape the floor and her hands reach for help with splayed fingers. One flying hand strikes the hard edge of the mirror’s frame and moments later I see blood on her palm. Her whole body jerks and shudders, her face squished up in a soundless scream. My father’s teeth are bared as he struggles to squeeze her throat. Suddenly, my mother turns her head and presses her bloody hand to the mirror. Her lips move like a fish out of water, but I can see she’s mouthing words. Then her hand slips downward, leaving a bloody streak on the glass. Her limbs stop quivering. My father waits another minute before walking away, leaving my dead mother in front of the mirror.

I crawl into a corner and throw up. Still sobbing, still shaking, I return to The Mirror and sit against it, leaning my head on the glass. Oh my poor, poor mother! I never knew! My father told me she died because of trouble with her lungs. I guess that was true. She couldn’t use her lungs when he was strangling her!

I press my cold, trembling hands to the glass and feel the love pour into me like warm syrup. She is here now. In her final moments, she managed a spell that transported her life essence. My mother
became
The Mirror. She’s been here all this time, waiting for me to grow up. Waiting to help me become the queen I was always meant to be.

I ask why she nearly killed me when I looked in The Mirror as a child. She helped me understand that she needed Cinderella then, drew power from her constant worship. Cinderella thought The Mirror loved only her and so it had to look as if The Mirror didn’t want me. But she would not have let me harm myself. She summoned my father to pull me off the window sill. He was unaware my mother still lived in the mirror and so she could manipulate him in small ways.

On my sixteenth birthday, The Mirror rejected Cinderella. It threw out a force of hate so strong that Cinderella was knocked on her back and across the floor. She went wild with grief as she realized The Mirror would never want her again. Cinderella never knew who The Mirror truly was. Only that it was something that made her feel loved.

I cry until I have strength for no more. I nearly fall asleep on the floor but The Mirror reminds me I have a job to do. I get up and wipe my swollen eyes. Of course I will kill Cinderella. She had no right to take my mother’s place. I will avenge my dear mother and become the next queen. Hunter will have to understand.

Finally, The Mirror shows me the Dwarves’ cottage. It sits in a distant part of The Wood, segregated from the nearest village. The cottage looks like the Dwarves, big and rustic. It’s got two floors, a timber frame and stone walls, and a thatched roof like a hood of messy hair. The shutters are crooked and one window is broken, but otherwise it all looks sturdy and solid. The Mirror tells me which roads I must take to get there.

I return to my little tower room to fetch a shawl. Then I tiptoe down through the dark palace, holding my breath whenever I pass a snoring Dwarf. The Mirror assured me it could hold them in sleep for a little while. I sure hope they won’t come after me when they wake up, especially Cooper. Hopefully, he won’t realize I’m gone and just assume I’m with The Mirror.

I slip out of the palace through a side door because the big ones in front are too groany. The sky is deep-water blue but the edges are paling. I unfold my shawl of white wool, drape it over my head, and hug it to my body. The hanging folds conceal the jeweled dagger on my hip. I must look like a ghost as I cross the palace grounds and weave between the trees of The Wood. I walk slowly and methodically, without looking back. Today I am an angel of death. I will return Cinderella to the ashes from which she came.

It’s a long, lonely walk. Far past the cave that leads to my tower. Someday, I’ll go back there, at least for a while. It’s good to have a secret place where the horrible world can’t find you.

I’m still sickened by the memory of my mother’s murder. Devastated to learn my father was such a monster. Did he even think about what he was taking from me? Why do some parents think their own children don’t matter, that their feelings are somehow inferior? Whatever that assassin lady did to my father, he deserved much worse. I hope she beat him to death with a hot poker.

Speaking of hot pokers, the sky has become a nice fiery orange. The sleepy silence of The Wood has been replaced by chirpy birds. I’m moving through a patch of forest with stripes of slender birch trees when I see the cottage at last. Suddenly, all of this becomes very real.

I hover behind the trees, afraid to be seen. The cottage looks so peaceful and warm, glowing in the buttery light of morning. I clutch the dagger beneath my shawl and try to calm my stomping heart. It’s not easy to just walk into someone’s house and stab them with a knife. This is bound to give me some scarring memories.

“Hello, brat.”

I shriek and whirl around. The old lady is back! She’s wearing a heavy brown cloak with a hood around her face and the pipe pokes out of the hollow. She grins and her stained, yellow teeth are disgusting.

“Up early today, aren’t you?” she says.

I drop my hand from my mouth to my chest and lean against the nearest birch tree. “Oh my stars, you
scared
me! Where did you come from?”

“I followed you. Looked like you were up to no good and I see I’m right. That knife’s not for cutting a birthday cake, is it?”

I draw out the dagger and hold it up for her to see. “No, it isn’t. And you better leave now before you become the cake.”

“Ha!” Her sudden laugh blows a gust of smoke in my face. I cough and swat at the air while the old lady cackles. I really wish I had the power to scare people.

“Nice try, pumpkin-pie. Now listen up! I’ve come to make a bargain with you.”

“What bargain is that?”

The old lady draws something out from under her cloak and holds it before my face. It’s an apple, plump and pretty, and pink as a carnation. “Leave my Cindy alone,” she says. “And you can have this.”