Fairest of All

by Disney Book Group

  “Please, forgive me, dear,” said the King. “You mentioned the battlefield earlier. You were correct, it does change you. It turns you into something more than a man…and at the same time something less. I was not myself.”

  The Queen saw this was true. She saw it in his eyes, and written on the scars on his face, and in the wildness of his unkempt hair.

  “I will go check on Snow,” the King said, clearly processing everything he had just learned of the Queen’s early life.

  “Of course, my darling, kiss her for me. I’m going to change for bed.”

  The King kissed the Queen, leaving her sitting on the edge of the massive four-poster bed. He kissed her again and went off to lay eyes on his sleeping girl, no doubt with the hope of easing his guilt-ridden conscience.

  The Queen was utterly spent. She lay back on the feather bed, without the energy to change into her nightclothes. She heaved a deep sigh, rubbing her temples.

  “Good evening, my Queen.”

  She sat bolt upright, expecting one of the guards with news of the sisters. But no one had entered the room, at least it didn’t seem so.

  “Over here, my Queen.”

  She directed her gaze to the opposite end of the room, where the voice seemed to be coming from.

  “Hello? Is someone there?”

  “Yes, my Queen.”

  “Show yourself then. And state your business, man.”

  She approached the hearth.

  “Up above you, my Queen. There is no need to fear, my Queen.”

  The Queen looked above her, all around the chamber, even within the fiery hearth, but she could not see anyone.

  “I am your slave,” the voice said.

  “My slave? This kingdom keeps no slaves.”

  “It is my duty to deliver you news of the kingdom, anything you wish to know; I see far, I can show you anything you desire.”

  “Can you?”

  “I see all, my Queen, into the hearts and minds of every last soul in the kingdom.”

  “Tell me then, where is the King?”

  “With his daughter.”

  “You just heard him say as much before he left the room. What is happening now?”

  “He is crying. He is deeply shamed by his treatment of the girl and how profoundly it hurt you.”

  The Queen felt dizzy.

  “What is this lame trickery? You must have been in the room the whole while. Heard everything the King was saying. Now show yourself!”

  “Please don’t be frightened, my Queen, I’m here to assist you in all things. I am not the man you perceive me to be in your dreams, I cannot hurt you.”

  “You know of my dreams?”

  “Indeed, my Queen. And though you have been looking all about the room, you have not looked in the one place where you know you can find me.”

  The Queen’s heart seemed to stop and all the blood in her body felt as if it were rushing to her head. She whipped around and tore the curtain from her father’s mirror. Though she already half expected what she would find there, she was not prepared for the shock of seeing a living, moving face, hovering before her in the mirror. Her eyes grew wide with terror, her mouth gaped. It was a petrifying apparition—a disembodied head that looked like some sort of grotesque mask. Plumes of mystical smoke whirled around its hollow eyes and its long drooping mouth; its macabre face seemed forlorn.

  “Who are you?” the Queen gasped.

  “Do you not recognize me? Dear, has it been so long? Have the years that separated us caused you to forget me…enchantress?”

  And in that moment, the Queen’s face blanched.

  She recognized the face in the mirror, promptly lost all ability to steady herself, and collapsed.

  But before she had fallen into blackness, she heard two final words ushered from the mouth of the visage in the mirror: “My daughter…”

  Hearing the crash, the King rushed to the Queen’s chamber. He found the Queen awake but shaken, lying on the cold stone floor. The Queen was trembling, clutching the curtain she had torn from the mirror.

  She looked up, but the man in the mirror was no longer there.

  The King reached out to her, but she recoiled in horror.

  “What is it, woman? Speak to me!”

  “I’m, so sorry…my love…I didn’t mean to…frighten you,” the Queen said groggily, attempting to catch her breath. “I just…I must have fainted.”

  The Queen was dizzy. She couldn’t find her own voice to further explain what had just happened, all she could manage was, “The mirror…”

  The King looked to the mantel.

  “Your father’s mirror. Of course. This is why you have had such an aversion to it. Had I known everything you just told me, I never would have brought it into our home.”

  The Queen struggled to speak again. “Break it, please,” she managed to mutter.

  Without hesitation the King tore the mirror from the wall and smashed it into the mantel. Shattered glass littered the chamber floor like stardust sprinkled over a moonless sky.

  The Queen sighed, relieved, though not entirely convinced that the mirror was destroyed for good. She gathered all her strength to speak.

  “Before the day I met you, my lord, I dreaded visiting my father in his workshop. Seeing my face reflected back at me again and again only reminded me of how unsightly I was—a fact of which I didn’t need reminding. A day of my childhood didn’t pass when my father didn’t tell me how unattractive I was, how ugly, and that is how I saw myself.

  “My mother was beautiful; I knew that from the portrait that hung in my father’s dingy little house. The one source of beauty in my life was that portrait, and I would stare at it for hours wondering why I wasn’t beautiful like her. I didn’t understand why my father was content to live in a rundown hovel of a house, when he could afford to live anywhere he desired. No matter how much I scrubbed, I couldn’t rid the house of its stale, musty scent. I couldn’t imagine my mother—so beautiful—living in that house, and I fancied that somehow the house, too, must have been mourning my mother’s death. I fancied that while she was alive it was probably a pleasant little cottage where birds would alight to feed on the windowsills, and flowers bloomed all around. But after her death, everything within the house was moldering and distressed, all except for my mother’s things, which my father kept locked away. Sometimes I would go through her trunks and adorn myself with her old dresses and jewelry. Lovely dresses with intricate beadwork and jewels that sparkled like the stars. She seemed to love beautiful, delicate things, and I wondered if she had lived, would she have loved me, too, ugly as I was?

  “Stories of my father’s love for my mother were known throughout the lands. Tales of the maker of mirrors and his beautiful wife were told throughout every kingdom like an ancient myth woven with strands of love and sorrow. My father made beautiful mirrors of all shapes and sizes, lovely mirrors that inspired the great kings and queens to travel over hill and dale just to purchase one of his gorgeous and enchanting treasures.

  “My mother loved the winter solstice, and my father would make the grandest spectacle of the occasion. He made tiny mirrors in the shapes of suns, moons, and stars and hung them in all the trees on their grounds. Candles, too, decorated the trees, casting the most magnificent light reflected in the mirrors, so that their home could be seen for miles around—a tiny magical city illuminated and glowing in a sea of wintry darkness. He was heard to remark upon the gorgeous glow he created around his home every winter, saying it was pale in comparison to the beauty of his wife: her raven hair, fair skin, and sparkling onyx eyes—the sort that tilt up at the corners, adding a catlike quality to them. How I wished someone would love me the way my father loved his wife; so inspired by her beauty, he created intricate treasures so she could see her grace reflected back at her. I thought I would never know that love, or know what it was to be beautiful. And then I met you in my father’s mirror shop.

  “When you ventured off promising to re
turn, leaving me alone and bewildered, my father’s reaction sent my heart racing into panic. ‘Clearly you have bewitched him, daughter. Soon enough he will see you for the vile hag you are,’ he told me. I attempted to convince him I was no witch. I knew no enchantments. But he persisted. ‘Do not think a man such as he would have you as a wife. You are too old, daughter, and unsightly; you are unremarkable in every way.’

  “My mother’s death was a result of my birth, and I am sure my father blamed me for it, seeing my resemblance to her as a taunting insult added to the injury of his loss. My father never talked about the night my mother died, but I heard tiny shards of the story and pieced them together in my imagination, like reflections in one of his broken mirrors.

  “I imagined my mother writhing in terrible agony. In my mind I saw her clutching her bulging stomach in pain, crying out to her husband for help as the midwife tended to her. My father helpless, his face white and ghastly, filled with fear as my mother lay there lifeless after giving birth, and his eyes filled with revulsion when he looked upon the little creature that ripped his dearest love from his life. My father must have hated me from that day. Whenever he looked upon my face, it was with disgust.

  “Once—I must have been five or six years of age—I was standing in our yard, the sun streaming through the canopy of trees. I was holding a bunch of wildflowers when my father came upon me.

  ‘What are you doing with those flowers, girl?’ he asked; his face was screwed up in controlled anger. I told him that I wanted to bring the flowers to my mother. He stared at me blankly and cruelly. ‘You didn’t even know her! Why would she want flowers from you?’ I remember being too sad, too shocked, to cry as I responded, ‘She was my momma, and I love her.’

  “He just looked at me in that way I had become accustomed to—that way that told me if I said anything more he would strike me. Sometimes he would strike me even if I remained silent. That day, I just stood there and held out the flowers, looking up at him with my lip quivering, my eyes on the verge of tears, but too overcome with so many different emotions to express them by crying outright. He tore the flowers from my tiny hand. Then he turned his back on me and walked out of the courtyard. I hoped that he would place the flowers on my mother’s grave, but I am all but certain he never did.

  “I promised myself I wouldn’t let my father’s demons taint my soul. I swore that I was starting a new life with you. I wanted to forget him and be happy with you and my beautiful little bird. I vowed I would make Snow my own daughter and love her the way I wished my father had loved me—that I would tell Snow White how beautiful she was every day of her life, and we would dance together and laugh. And unlike my father, I would take Snow to visit her mother’s grave and use the letters you entrusted me with to tell her what her mother was like.

  “I resolved to never think of the maker of mirrors ever again. He belongs to the darkness now. The day my father died it was as if my life was set ablaze, as if his descent into darkness brought me into a shining world where I was finally able to find love and happiness. That very hour, I brought every one of his mirrors outside our home and hung them from a giant tree on the grounds. It was the most remarkable spectacle I’d ever seen, the mirrors swaying in the breeze, catching the sunlight and reflecting it in the most magnificent way. The sight of it took my breath away. The townsfolk thought it was beautiful too. They believed it was a tribute to my father, and I let them believe that. They needn’t know what a horrible man he was, they needn’t know I was for the first time coming out into the light, that I was no longer lingering in darkness and in doubt. That was the true reason I had celebrated.

  “No one knew how much he hated me, how cruel and utterly inhuman his soul was. A soul—ha! I wonder if he ever had one. He must have at some point. His love for my mother was so great. Perhaps his soul died with her the night she left this world.

  “Still, whatever was left of him was pure evil. I had sat by his deathbed, caring for him, trying to keep him alive because, in my heart of hearts, I knew that it was right—to treat the blood of your blood that way. Still, he had nothing but hatred and bitter words for me, ‘He will never come for you, you know. You’ve always been an ugly child. What would a king want with the likes of you?’ I was there as he left this world. Right by his side. Holding on to his hand so that he would not need to journey into that great unknown alone. And the moment before he died, his near-lifeless eyes looked up at me. I was full of folly, ready to believe that he was going to thank me. Instead he said ‘I have never loved you, daughter.’ And then he closed his eyes and left this world.”

  The King sat silently. He rested his chin on his folded hands as he rocked back and forth, contemplating all he had just learned. Then he knelt down next to the Queen and took her into his arms.

  “I wish he were alive today,” the King said, “so I could slay him with my own hands for all he has done.”

  The Queen looked up at her husband, who she had known only to be filled with love. To love even his enemies. Did he truly care for her so much that he would even betray his own beliefs?

  This was the man she loved above all others. She touched his hand, callous with battle scars and the weight of artillery and wielding of swords. She locked her hands in his, crawled into his arms, then kissed him lightly on the lips. His once-soft mouth was now chapped and chafed from exposure to the elements. He tasted like sweat and, the Queen thought, blood.

  Why, she wondered, must things change? Why could she not have frozen time the day she was married, lived happily ever after with Snow and the King? Why could she not create peace on earth so that her husband would not ever need to leave her again?

  She wondered this very thing for the next month, while she still had the King with her. But on the twenty-third day of January, the King left again.

  “Papa, I’m going to miss you,” said Snow.

  “I promise to come home to you soon, my Snow. I always do, don’t I?”

  The little girl nodded.

  “I love you, and I will miss you, dear,” the King said with a deep sigh.

  “I love you too, Papa!”

  The King kissed his daughter and spun her around, which made her giggle. “I will miss you both with all my heart. You’ll both be with me.”

  The Queen and Snow stood in the courtyard and watched as the King and his men ventured over snow-covered mountains on horseback. Their torches glowed in the dark winter afternoon, and the air was the kind of cold that glassed your eyes over—a type of cold you can practically see. The King’s army grew smaller and smaller, like ants climbing piles of sugar.

  Then they dipped below the horizon and the King was gone.

  To the Queen the days felt like months and the weeks like years while the King was away. The castle was so quiet. She missed the days when it was filled with Snow’s joyful laughter as she was chased by her growling father, who was pretending to be a dragon or a warlock.

  Soon, she told herself, soon he will return and with him life will once again fill the stone walls of the castle.

  But for now, the castle might as well have been lifeless. The Queen sat in a comfortable throne alongside the fireplace in her chamber, lost in one of her favorite manuscripts, The Song of Roland. But everything about it reminded her of the King, and so she set it aside and called upon her servants to draw a bath for her.

  Far more quickly than she had anticipated, a rap was upon her door.

  “Your Highness, Your Majesty…” said the timid, quivering young girl in the doorway. The Queen had not seen her before and realized she must have been a new servant.

  “Calm down, dear, I am a Queen, not a witch,” the Queen said, smiling.

  “Yes, well, this here”—the girl held out a large, wrapped package that was nearly as tall as she was—“this arrived for you here today. The guards have examined it, and it appears to pose no…no danger….”

  The girl put the package down and stared at the Queen, who looked at the package skeptica
lly.

  “From whence does it come?” the Queen asked.

  “It arrived with this note,” the girl said, holding out a rolled parchment, which twitched like a windblown leaf in the girl’s shaking hand. “I am not…not privy to what it says herein, and so I am not aware of its…its origins.”

  The Queen quickly grabbed the parchment and unrolled it.

  The parchment was much larger than necessary, and contained the note:

  FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY

  The Queen raised an eyebrow.

  “You say you do not know what it contains?” the Queen asked.

  “I do not, Your…Your Majesty,” the girl said quietly, “but the guards have confirmed that it is harmless,” she reminded the Queen.

  The Queen paused for a moment, then continued, “Very well, then, bring it in.”

  The girl struggled with the large package, which was wrapped unevenly in ragged linens, making it impossible to determine the actual shape or size of whatever was inside. A few men rushed over to assist her, and it took four of them to get the package into the Queen’s chamber.

  “Will there be anything more, my…my Queen?” the girl asked.

  The Queen shook her head, and the girl curtsied and quickly left the room, followed by the men.

  The Queen paced before the package. It could have been from any one of the guests who attended the solstice celebration. A token of gratitude and good will. The guards had checked it, after all.

  So why was she so hesitant to open it?

  The Queen stared at the awkwardly wrapped gift. She reread the parchment. Then she steeled herself and tore the linens open at their seams.

  “Good morning, my Queen,” the face in the mirror said, staring out at her from behind a cloak of frayed linen.

  It smiled an evil, cunning grin.

  The Queen screamed and recoiled from the mirror.

  “You have been lonely,” the Slave said.

  “What is it to you, demon?” the Queen responded.

  “You have been thinking of your husband, wanting his company. But I am all you need, my Queen,” the Slave said.