Mirror, Mirror, Speak Your Lies

by

Danielle Elizabeth Werner

     Her only window into a world nearly forgotten was her mirror. It’s magic voice soothed her and her image distorted, showing her once again the woman she had been before the darkness of Thistlewood Manor had closed in on her. Only a mirror whose origins were so deeply rooted in power was able to change such a face as hers had become.

          “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” she asked wistfully, knowing deep within her heart that she was now only a fragment of her former self. But her imagination was strong enough for the mirror to draw power from, and so answered:

          “Countess, Countess, of the few, the fairest of the fair is you.”

          That lie let her live another day without plotting against her captor.

                                                                                                          ~

          He had come to her first when she was still beautiful, before her husband had soiled his hands upon her. In the beginning, she had turned him down, believing in the love she thought her husband would offer her, as she saw him offer his only daughter.

          But, alas, that was not meant to be, and the first day a blackened bruise graced her arm found her in the comforting arms of another.  The huntsman, despite his trade, was a kind and gentle man that would die protecting her from her husband’s flailing if only he could. But, he could not, and she begged him not to try.

          As her beauty faded with each fresh mar of her skin or sleepless night lost, the love between her and the huntsman only grew. He remained by her side, brushing back her hair that had lost it’s once glossy shine, and whispering words of forgetting into her ears.

          But, as her heart grew heavy with years of pain, her husband’s daughter thrived under his affections and grew into a lovely young woman with lips red as blood, hair black as ebony, and skin white as the snow. Although it was not her name, she became known as Snow White.

                                                                                                          ~ 

          As Snow White’s beauty grew, so did her imagination. Her stepmother, the Countess, was not the only woman trapped within the walls of their manor. Her dreams consisted of what was beyond the gates and the Countess’s mirror picked up on this, although for a long while, she did not.

                                                                                                          ~ 

          Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, a crimson color that her lips would never obtain. Her blue eyes were rimmed in pink from her tears and her cheek throbbed from the slap her husband had given her earlier in the day.

          But her face in the mirror was as serene as before, although she thought perhaps she saw a slight purple tinge to her left cheek. But her mirror had never failed her before and she trusted it now as a trick of the light.

          “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

          “Countess, Countess, dark bitter female, it is Snow White they now shall hail.”

          The Countess’s eyes narrowed and all at once the false image of herself dropped away, revealing beneath it the tattered and abused woman she now was. The mirror had strayed to a power far more immense than her own.

          The last control she had over her fury broke in the sight of her true reflection in her magic mirror and she screamed, letting every negative emotion she felt towards her husband break into her voice. A wooden box carved in intricate patterns lay beside her hand and, in a fit rage, she picked it up and flung it at the mirror. The glass splintered into a million tiny diamonds, then the shattered object fell from the wall. Even magic mirrors can be broken.

          The huntsman’s hands clasped her shoulders, but this time she was beyond his reach to calm. She spun away from him as if his touch stung.

          “I will destroy him!” she cried, her eyes flashing in the madness that had finally overtaken her. “He shall suffer as I have suffered!”

          “How?” the huntsman asked, attempting to save her, least her husband walk in. Such words would surely be her death.

          “His daughter. I shall strip him of the one thing that he holds dear and he will know the pain he has inflicted upon me.”

          “You cannot harm Snow White,” the huntsman replied.

          And even through her current state, she knew that he was right. So she instead bent, picking up the carved wooden box from amidst the shards of glass. Their sharp little edges bit into her skin, but she was accustomed to pain and did not even flinch. She held the box out towards the huntsman.

          “Bring me her heart.”

                                                                                                          ~ 

          “My lady,” her huntsman said, presenting her with the same wooden box that she had shoved into his hands. Only this time, it was heavy with the weight of a heart.

          Her husband would rage, but his pain would be worth even her death.

          She flipped the lid, only to find a small organ, not at all one the size for a young woman. Her eyes flashing, she turned to her huntsman for an answer.

          “You betrayed me,” she stated, the last of her humanity slipping away with her words.

          “No.” He hung his head, and she could hear the weight of his lie within his voice. “Yes,” he whispered. “I could not bring myself to-”

          “Kill her?” The Countess supplied, her voice devoid of any emotion left in her but anger.

          His brown eyes turned up to meet her cold blue ones. “Snow White should not suffer for her father’s ills. If you insist, I shall kill him for you, but not her.”

          The Countess shook her head. “Death is too easy for him. He must suffer, and he must live.”

          “Then hurt him some other way! Not the girl.”

          “No.” Again the Countess shook her head. “He cares only for her.”

          There was silence.

          “You are wicked, my lady,” the huntsman finally said. He stood and turned on his heel, walking away from her without looking back.

          “I am only a victim!” she cried after him, although she knew her voice fell on ears now deaf towards her plight. Snow White’s fall would now be her doing. And the girl must die. Her husband must suffer. If she could not accomplish this, then she would willingly dance upon hot coals before her own death.

 ~ fin ~