The forest came alive; it was visceral and dangerous. It wanted Snow White’s life. The Queen’s rage penetrated the trees, bringing their leafless limbs to life. As if they were hands, the tree branches scratched and grabbed at Snow, entrapping her, pinning her to the ground. They wrapped themselves around her neck, choking her, and clawing at her chest for her heart. The forest would do what the Huntsman could not. Snow’s eyes filled with terror, she cried out, “Momma, please help me!” The Queen’s heart melted in that moment. The trees released Snow White from their clutches.
The girl ran deep into the forest, where the trees obscured the sky completely. She was in pure darkness, surrounded by glowing eyes peering at her menacingly. She was alone in fear, and she ran, not knowing if the path would take her to safety or to death. The Queen’s magic could not go where Snow wandered—she escaped out of the forest and out of the Queen’s view.
The Queen jolted awake. She felt a freezing chill and desired nothing but the warm comfort of her bed. She stayed there for days, conjuring only the energy to make a daily visit to the Magic Mirror, and an occasional walk to the window to make sure Snow White was scrubbing away at the castle, and avoiding that meddlesome Prince.
Even from afar, she noticed how beautiful Snow had become. Not only in outward appearance but, like her father, in her pure heart. It would not be long before…No, the Queen could not permit herself to think it.
She felt alone, forsaken by her husband, and now Snow was away from her as well. No, that was a dream. Or was it? Everything in her life seemed to be tangled up now—dreams and reality, fantasy and nightmares. She felt that she had become something other than human, something completely alien to herself. She wondered if her father had lived his days in such a state. These days she saw much of him within herself.
Late one night she woke with her nightdress soaked in sweat; she felt weak and every part of her ached. She got up and poured some water into her washing bowl to cool herself when she noticed something upon the floor. It was blood—pools of it—mingling with footprints, leading from the Queen’s bedside out her chamber door. The Queen took a torch for light and followed the bloody trail out the castle and into the forest.
The forest was blackened, as if ravaged by a fire; there was no light from the moon or stars. It was a dead place, ruined by her jealousy and hate. The only source of light was the torch she carried. The bloody trail finally ended. A heart was clasped within the clawlike branches of a dead tree, looking like a st
range, bleeding fruit, blood glistening on the branches in the torchlight. The Queen just stood there, feeling empty and alone, terror gripping her own heart.
“Momma?” The Queen turned with a start.
Standing there was Snow, a child once more. Her face whiter than death, her eyes black holes, and her white dress covered in blood. “Momma, can I please have my heart back?”
The Queen screamed. What had she done?
“Your Majesty, please wake up! You’re having a nightmare,” Tilley insisted.
“My little girl needs me. She came here last night…because she needs me! The forest took her heart!”
Her chambermaid just looked at her, bewildered.
“No, my Queen, Snow White is in the courtyard; she’s fine.”
“But the blood on the floor! It’s there, see!”
“You must have broken something in the night and stepped on the glass. Majesty, you’ve been ill.”
“No, it is Snow White’s blood. She came here in the night, I swear!”
“Look at your feet, Majesty, they’re filthy and bleeding. You’re sick, please go back to sleep, you need your rest.”
“Leave me alone, you idiotic wench.”
“But, Your Majesty, I should tend to your—”
“I said leave!”
The Queen stared at the blood and glass on her chamber floor. Snow had come to her in the night—she knew it! Her little girl was lost and alone and searching for her heart. Although she had been doing little more than sleeping these past few days, she passed out from exhaustion once more.
* * *
“You must kill Snow White if you want to survive, if you desire your beauty back.”
She would rather rid herself of the mirror and let herself die.
“If Snow White lives, it will be slow and painful, daughter. You would linger unto death for many years, your soul rotting away within you, withering your body to a husk; everyone will look upon you with pity and disgust. You will wish for death and feel no release even after they have buried you deep within the ground. The magic of the mirror—the spells of the sisters—will keep you alive even in the darkness. You will suffer for death, feel the need for it, want to seek it out, but your body will not be able to enforce your will. You will be trapped within yourself, alone and in agony.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’ve hated you from the day you came into this world.”
“All of this was lies then? Why?”