“I don’t think they wish to live in a world without their daughter.” Jacob stood up to look out the windows at the broken landscape. The ground was covered in rubble from the night creatures that had fallen to the ground the moment Circe took her own life. “She’s saved us all, you realize. The Fairylands, everyone in the many kingdoms, all with her sacrifice.”
Snow White stood up quite suddenly. Her face was ghastly pale, but she was almost elated. “The flowers! We can take her to the flowers!” Jacob and the witches said nothing. They just looked at Snow sadly. “Come on! We have to take her to Gothel’s old house! The flowers are there. We can bring her back to life!” Snow didn’t understand why no one was saying anything. Why no one saw this was the solution.
Primrose leaned down and put her arm around Snow. “We can’t, my darling. If we do, then Lucinda and her sisters will return to bedlam.” Snow White stood up, noticing the blood on her dress for the first time. She didn’t know which was Circe’s and which was her own, or what she found more revolting: being covered in the blood of her dearest friend or the idea that the odd sisters would live and Circe would not. She couldn’t let this be the end. She couldn’t lose Circe. Not now. She suddenly understood how the odd sisters had felt when they lost Circe years before. The sense of desperation to get her back was overwhelming. They had just found each other. They had just become friends.
“Then we kill the odd sisters!” Snow said, surprising herself.
“You are a witch’s daughter,” said Hazel. “But Circe has made her choice. She could have killed her mothers—she had the power to do so even if she didn’t know it herself—but she chose to sacrifice herself so they could live. She knew that taking her own life would restore their greatest virtues.”
“But it’s not fair! I can’t lose her, I can’t!”
Hazel smiled at Snow and said, “Everything you loved about Circe is now within her mothers. She was special because her mothers made her that way.”
Snow White was angrier than she’d ever been. “It shouldn’t have to be like this! I refuse to accept it! There has to be another way!”
Primrose took Snow by the hand. “You have to, my dear. Circe wanted this. She felt it was her fault that her mothers fell into delirium. This was Circe’s choice to make, and it was
foreseen by the ancestors. We have to honor that.”
Snow White shook her head. “Curse the ancestors! I can’t believe you’re okay with this! I thought you wanted to help Circe! I thought she had finally found a home and a family in you and in this place! I know that is how you felt as well! I could see it when you looked at her! Tell me you are okay with her choice, tell me you didn’t wish for things to be different, and I will drop this.”
Hazel sighed and joined them, putting her arm around Snow. “Of course we hoped things would go differently. We love Circe. We loved her long before we laid eyes on her, from the moment we first heard her voice in the place between. And yes, we wanted her to live here with us, to live out her life with us in the dead woods, and that was a path she could have taken. A path the ancestors hoped she would take. But that meant killing her mothers. And only Circe could make that choice. We couldn’t force that upon her.”
Snow White couldn’t help feeling there was another way. “I know in my heart this isn’t how it’s supposed to end. I know it! Why can’t any of you see that?”
The room became infused with light as a new voice echoed in the room. Calm and serene, it was the voice of the ancestors.
Snow White is right. This is not how it has to end.
“Gothel?” Primrose looked around the room, trying to find the source of the voice.
Gothel is with us, Primrose, and we speak as one, as the ancestors of the dead woods have always done.
The light in the room intensified.
Circe should not have to die for our mistakes. And neither should her mothers. The choice will be theirs to make together.
Snow felt strange talking to an invisible being, to this otherworldly voice, but she found her courage and asked, “But how? How will they make the choice?”
We will speak to them, Snow White. They will be given a choice. A choice only they can make. They will decide what to do, and we will honor it and use our powers to enforce their will. We promise you.
“I don’t understand! How will they know they have the choice? How will we know what they want?”
They are in the place between, and they are listening.
Circe and the odd sisters were sitting at their table in the kitchen in front of the large round window. Outside, they had a view of Maleficent’s crows perched peacefully in the apple tree.
Siting on the table was a magnificent birthday cake, and Mrs. Tiddlebottom was puttering around in the kitchen, making tea.
“Where are we?” Circe asked, confused.
Mrs. Tiddlebottom laughed. “I don’t know, dear. I thought you would tell me.”
“We’re in the place between,” said Lucinda.
Circe hadn’t thought it would look like this, the place between.
“It looks any way we wish, Daughter,” said Ruby, putting a saucer of milk on the floor for Pflanze.