by Various
This decided, and the room finally clean, Snow White hurried over to the door and closed it – there was no way of locking it, so she simply had to hope that no one would come. Snow White went over to the machine, and opened the panel in its side, just as she had seen the engineer do. She struggled to remember which of the controls he had used to activate the screen, but after some trial and error the screen glowed into life.
Snow White stared at the dark image of the room where the first key was concealed. There was little she could make out that was of any use – the shutters were closed, and there was hardly any light. From what the engineer had said, Snow White knew that the key was in the centre of the image – that meant it was inside a wooden trunk placed beside a table that was piled high with books and papers. But Snow White could not see anything which gave any clue as to where the room she was looking at might actually be.
Reminding herself that she needed only to find one of the keys, Snow White reached for the control she had seen the engineer use and brought the next key up on the screen. As she did so, though, she accidentally pressed another button. She pulled her hand away quickly, afraid of damaging something. For a moment, Snow White thought that nothing had happened – but then she noticed that the image seemed deeper and richer. It was now as though Snow White was looking at the room through a window, rather than seeing a picture of it on a screen.
Curious at the effect, she reached out and tapped the screen … and her hand passed through it. Alarmed, she pulled her hand back. She had felt nothing, though, and her hand seemed fine, so she reached out once more. Yet again, her hand went through the screen – in fact, her whole arm did. It was as if she had reached right into the room. Snow White withdrew her arm, trying to work out what this meant.
She went and got a chair from the other side of the room and placed it beside the machine. She then climbed up on to the chair, so that she was high enough to lean forward and push her head through the screen. Sure enough, she found she was indeed inside the room. She looked around, seeing parts of the room that had not been visible on the screen.
When she turned to look behind her, she found that, somewhat disconcertingly, her neck stopped at the point where it came through the screen – if there had been anyone else there in the room, they would have seen her disembodied head staring at them.
Snow White withdrew her head, climbed down off the chair and sat down to consider things. If she could get into each of the rooms through the screen then she did not need to know where they were; she could simply collect all seven keys and bring them back through the screen to the palace. There was just one problem: the screen was only wide enough for Snow White’s head to fit through it. There was no way that she would be able to climb through.
But Snow White had an idea. Carefully, she slid the panel back into place over the screen, being careful not to touch any of the controls. She would leave the screen as a window for now and return later, when everyone else in the palace was fast asleep – and she would not be alone.
Among the people who worked for Snow White’s father in the grounds of the palace was a group of seven minesmen. Their forefathers had worked in the mineral mines – their shorter stature and leaner bodies meant they could squeeze through gaps and into areas that no one else would ever manage. Snow White knew the minesmen who worked for her father well. They were friendly men, with long straggly beards that reached almost to their feet.
So, as darkness fell, Snow White made her way to the minesmen’s hut in the palace grounds, where she knew they would be about to have their supper of hot broth and oatmeal bread. The minesmen listened attentively as she told them what she had overheard and of the queen’s plan. When she had finished her story, Elgar, the oldest and wisest of the minesmen, nodded grimly.
‘We have each felt the queen’s wrath,’ he told Snow White. ‘She is forever finding fault with our work, or ordering us about in the rudest manner. I thought it was because we were minesmen, but from what you say she would like to treat everyone with as much contempt.’
The other minesmen nodded their agreement. Snow White told them her plan.
While they waited for the night to grow old, the minesmen shared their broth and bread with Snow White. Then, once the palace was cloaked in darkness, Snow White led the minesmen quietly across the grounds to the palace. They snuck in through a small side door that she had left unlocked. When they reached the Doomsday Machine, Snow White opened the panel – she was relieved to see that the window into the other room was still open. The room was even darker now, for night had fallen across all the seven provinces of Winter.
Each of the minesmen was keen to help defeat Queen Salima’s wicked plan. As the most senior, Elgar insisted on going first. He climbed up on to the chair, and disappeared head first through the screen. The others watched as he tumbled into the room beyond. He hurried over to the trunk, and retrieved the key that was hidden inside. Snow White reached her arms through the screen, and helped Elgar to scramble back up and through it.
Then Snow White moved the image to the next location. Each of the minesmen took their turn tumbling through the window and returning with one of the Doomsday Machine’s keys. Finally, all seven of them had been retrieved.
‘What do we do now?’ Elgar asked.
‘We destroy them,’ Snow White said. ‘Break them into pieces.’ She placed six of the keys on the floor by her feet and held one in her hands, ready to try to snap it.
But, at exactly that moment, the door slammed open.
Queen Salima strode into the room. Her face was a grimace of rage as she stared at Snow White and the minesmen. Her eyes locked on the irreplaceable keys to her future power – laid out before Snow White, who held one in her grip, about to destroy it. The queen hurled herself at the girl.
But she wasn’t fast enough. Snow White bent the key in her hands with all her might, breaking it in two. At the exact moment the key snapped, Snow White was knocked aside by the queen. So it was that when the key exploded in a glittering orange and red fireball it was not Snow White who was engulfed by the flames – it was Queen Salima.
The queen’s screams echoed around the room. The other keys were caught in the blast and also exploded, one after another. Snow White huddled in the corner of the room, where she had been flung, sheltering her face from the flying debris with her arms. As the smoke cleared and the flames died down, she could see the crouched forms of the seven minesmen, who had taken refuge from the explosions in the other corners of the room and beneath the Doomsday Machine.
Snow White slowly got to her feet and the minesmen ran over to her. She smiled down at the men who had helped her to save Winter once again from tyranny. Then, together, they turned to look down at Queen Salima, who now lay dead among the charred remains of the seven keys to doomsday, and her broken dreams of power.
There was once a young girl called Rose who lived with her mother near a deep, dark wood. Rose’s father had died when she was a baby, and so her mother had brought her up on her own. Rose was brave, fearless and clever, and every bit as beautiful as the flower she had been named after. Her hair was like spun gold and shone in the sunlight, and her smile brought joy to all who saw it.
Rose loved her mother dearly, just as she did her grandmother, who lived in a cottage on the other side of the wood. Every week, Rose and her mother went to visit her grandmother. Rose enjoyed these visits, and always took some small gift for her grandmother, who would thank her and, in return, give Rose something delicious to eat and drink. Usually she would make tea, which was Rose’s favourite.
But one day Rose’s mother fell ill. She wrapped herself in a robe and lay down to rest. Rose looked after her mother and cooked her meals. She even baked her some shortbread as a special treat.
The next day Rose’s mother was much improved, but she was still not completely better. When Rose took her a cup of hot tea, her mother said, ‘You know that today is the day we should visit your grandmother, but I’m too poorly
to go out in the cold and walk all the way to her cottage.’
‘Won’t Grandma be worried if we don’t visit?’ Rose asked.
Her mother nodded sadly, taking a sip of her tea. ‘I’m afraid she will.’
‘Why don’t I visit Grandma on my own?’ Rose asked. ‘I know the way, and I can take her some of the shortbread I baked for you yesterday.’
Rose’s mother agreed that this was a good idea. ‘But promise me,’ she said, ‘that you will not stray from the path on the way. The woods can be dangerous, especially for young people travelling alone. Stick to the path all the way to the clearing on the other side of the woods where Grandma lives.’
This was a promise that Rose was more than happy to make. She found the woods creepy and unsettling even when she was with her mother; she had no intention of leaving the path. Rose wrapped some shortbread in a cloth and placed it in the basket her mother always used to carry food and other purchases. Then she put on her boots, as the path was often damp and muddy, and because it was cold outside she wore her long red coat – with its wide scarlet hood, it was like a cloak, wrapping her warm and safe for the journey.
Rose kissed her mother goodbye and set off into the chill of the autumn morning. The sun was pale, filtered by the hazy clouds. When Rose entered the wood, the light faded even more and she found herself in a twilight world. Fortunately, for the first part of her journey, the path was wide and easy to follow. On either side, the trees stood tall and dark. Their leafless branches were like skeletal arms reaching towards the path, their twigs bony fingers twitching in the breeze.
But soon, as Rose made her way through the dimly lit woods, the path narrowed. In places it was barely wide enough for Rose and her mother to walk side by side when they came this way together. Rose had to peer into the shadows at her feet to make sure she was still on the path. Although she knew the route and had travelled this way a great many times, she felt nervous. She had heard the stories they told about the Bad Wolf – she had seen its name scrawled across walls and daubed on pavements in the town. She had seen ‘Bad Wolf’ written in the most unlikely of places, and here in the gathering gloom of the woods, she imagined the creature hiding behind every tree, ready to pounce.
So it was not at all surprising that, even though she was usually so brave and fearless, Rose cried out in alarm when a dark figure stepped on to the path in front of her. She had been staring down at the ground, being careful of where she stepped so as to make certain she did not stray from the path, when the figure appeared. She very nearly walked right into him.
As soon as she had cried out and lifted her hand to her mouth in horror, though, she realised that the figure was only a man – tall, slim and wearing a dark jacket. The man seemed as surprised as Rose was, but he smiled politely and stepped to one side. He did not, it seemed, worry about stepping off the path. Perhaps he did not know about the Bad Wolf.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said. ‘You startled me.’
‘No,’ the man replied. ‘I’m sorry. I should look where I’m going. Always putting my foot in it – in more ways than one.’ He tilted his head slightly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen –’ he began, but then he stopped and smiled again. ‘No, you wouldn’t have done, or you’d have run off long ago.’
‘Seen what?’ Rose asked.
‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Don’t let me keep you,’ he said.
‘Who are you?’ Rose asked, pausing as she walked past him.
The man stared beyond her into the trees. ‘I suppose I’m a sort of woodcutter,’ he said. ‘I cut out the dead wood and keep the forest healthy. I weed out the poisonous, strangling vines.’
Rose tried to remember what she knew about woodcutters. ‘Do you have a shed?’ she asked at last.
‘Oh, yes.’ The man’s smile was now a wide grin. ‘I have a shed. And you know what? It’s fantastic.’ He raised a hand and gave her a quick wave. ‘Bye then.’ He turned and walked quickly off into the shadows, never once looking back.
It seemed to Rose as she continued walking that the woods were closing in on her. The path got narrower, and the trees grew nearer to the path. The glimpses of the sky that she saw through the dense branches above became fewer and farther between. Perhaps it was her imagination, but Rose fancied she could hear something close behind her. Not on the path, but nearby, in the trees; something that followed and watched her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled beneath the red hood, which she had pulled up over her head.
She stopped suddenly several times, listening. Was that someone close by, or just the echoing trace of her own last footstep? She peered into the deepest shadows, but she did not dare to step off the path. Once, she was sure she caught a glimpse of something – a hunched, misshapen figure moving quickly out of sight behind the broad trunk of a large tree. But, although she watched carefully for a full minute, there was nothing – no movement, no figure, no sound. Nothing.
The further she went, the more certain Rose became that it was not her imagination playing tricks on her. There really was someone – or something – following close behind her. She called out, her voice trembling: ‘Hello? Who’s there? Is that you, woodcutter?’
But there was no reply – just the rustling of the branches in the cold, biting wind.
With relief, Rose recognised a sharp turn in the path ahead. She was not far from the clearing where her grandmother’s cottage stood. Just a few more minutes and she would be safe inside, laughing with Grandma about how silly she had been to imagine all sorts of horrors in the woods. Her grandmother would tell her that she was fine and safe, and that there was no such thing as the Bad Wolf; that it was just a story people told to scare children.
Rose reached the sharp bend. And, from close behind her, there came the sound of a branch breaking as though someone had stood on it. Rose froze. Slowly, hardly daring to move for fear of what she might discover, she turned her head to see where the sound had come from. A dark shape rose up from the ground beside the path. Rose caught a confused glimpse of its hunched body, of skin gnarled like an old tree and deep-set eyes gleaming in a face on a bulbous, neckless head.
A glimpse, no more. Then Rose was running. Her heart pounded in her chest at the same frantic beat as her feet pounded on the path. She dared not look back; she could only run. Before she knew it, she was among the trees. Somehow she had left the path. Somehow she was running through the thickest part of the woods, with no idea which way to go. She skidded to a halt, turning in a full circle, trying to get her bearings, desperate to find the gap in the trees where the path must be. But there was no sign of it. She was not even sure which way she had come.
Rose did the only thing she could: she kept running, hoping that soon she would find the path again or her grandmother’s house on the edge of the woods. She stared into the distance, hoping to find a spot where the light was brighter and the trees thinned.
Finally, almost sobbing with relief, Rose saw light. She ran towards it, stumbling as her foot caught on a tree root. She was breathing so hard she couldn’t hear if she was still being followed. She expected a hand or claw or paw to slam down on her shoulder at any moment and drag her back into the darkness. But she reached the edge of the trees and saw that she had arrived at the clearing where her grandmother’s cottage stood. The path snaked in from the other side, and the light she had seen shone from one of the windows.
Rose half ran, half staggered to the front door. It was rarely locked – although perhaps, she thought, it should be.
Sure enough, the door opened easily and Rose practically fell inside. As soon as she had caught her breath she called for her grandmother. The old lady appeared at the end of the hall. She seemed less frail and bent than Rose remembered, but Rose was so relieved to see her that she thought nothing of it. A few minutes later Rose was sitting on an old, threadbare seat in the living room, and her grandmother sat nearby in her usual, equally threadbare armchair.
Once Rose had recovered and got her breat
h back, she explained that her mother was ill. She told her grandmother about her journey through the wood, and about how she had glimpsed the misshapen figure coming after her.
Grandma smiled thinly. Was it Rose’s imagination, or were the old lady’s teeth a little whiter and straighter than she remembered?
‘I’m sure it’s all in your imagination, dear,’ her grandmother said, as if sensing Rose’s thoughts. ‘We see all sorts of things in the dark and shadows that turn out to not be there at all.’
Feeling better now that she was out of the woods and safe in the cottage, Rose offered to make tea. Unusually, instead of fussing around Rose and helping, Grandma stayed sitting in her chair. Rose put the shortbread she had brought with her out on a plate – she was glad she had not dropped the basket in her haste through the woods.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ Grandma said, as Rose set a cup of tea down on the small table beside her.
‘Would you like some shortbread?’ Rose asked. ‘I made it myself.’
‘Perhaps in a minute.’ Grandma nodded slowly. Usually she drank her tea hot, as soon as it was ready, but today she let it stand and cool while Rose talked about all the things she had done in the last week.
‘It sounds very exciting, my dear,’ Grandma said when Rose was done. She still had not touched her tea.
It struck Rose as odd that her grandmother had not once called her by name. Grandma did seem different today: colder, a little harsher, less interested, not as talkative. And her teeth were definitely whiter – perhaps even sharper too. Rose excused herself, saying she wanted another cup of tea.
As she left the room, Rose looked back at her grandmother sitting in her favourite chair. She could see the old woman’s reflection in a mirror on the other side of the room. For the briefest moment, as she glanced at the mirror, it seemed to Rose that the reflection was not that of an old woman but of a gnarled, hunched creature with deep-set eyes and no neck, covered in suckers. Just for an instant, then it was Grandma again. Perhaps the journey through the woods had unsettled Rose even more than she realised.
