by S R Nulton
It is at this point that I admit how scared I was. I didn’t know what to do! But I knew that if I ran off with his daughter, the king would attack my home and probably kill a lot of good people before they were able to mount a defense. What’s worse is he’d be totally within his rights to chase down his wife and child. No one would think twice before backing him up. I couldn’t risk that!
And I wasn’t left completely alone anyway. In addition to Snow White following me around, the servants were constantly watching me.
I couldn’t see a way out that wouldn’t result in tragedy and death. The only thing I could do was to stay and try to make the best of it.
Actually, minus the horrible homesickness and constant crushing fear, being married to an evil man wasn’t so bad. Mostly because he was never around.
Granted, when he was, everyone was incredibly nervous and cautious. The man was always on the lookout for betrayal and watched us very carefully. After watching what happened to a servant he believed had stolen from him...
Well, it was best to avoid him. Luckily, I was pretty much left to my own devices with the only real rules being to raise my new stepdaughter and stay on the castle grounds. And I was okay with that, really. I had been absolutely terrified of his expectations for the wedding night and was pleasantly surprised to not have one.
And Snow White was an amazing little girl who was easy to be with. Her mother had died when she was two and ever since, she’d been raised by an nanny. Her interactions with her father hadn’t instilled anything but fear in the girl, but it had also made her very polite. She wasn’t really old enough to be a daughter to me, but that didn’t seem to matter. In her mind, I was her mother and I did everything I could to live up to that expectation. Luckily, despite being an only child, I had a lot of younger cousins so I wasn’t completely clueless. Although…
Parenting was a lot like being blindfolded and then told to navigate your way out of a new cave system. And part of it was underwater. You hope that the tricks you learned from other people will work, but it’s really just a lot of trial and error. I am very proud of the woman that Snow became though, so I’m hoping that I did something right.
Actually, she was wonderfully easy to work with. Partly because she feared her father and partly because it was she had a naturally joyful spirit. She never let things upset her for too long and once she was comfortable with me, she was a bubbly little thing. She was so happy to be with me, to learn what I had to teach and to work to be a better person. I just had to be very careful not to give her my bad habits.
She was surrounded by enough bad examples, she didn’t need another.
The servants in the castle were mostly hostile toward us, particularly Bekins, the King’s butler. The man was vicious and spiteful toward both Snow and myself. It was to the point that once or twice I feared he would make an attempt on our lives. The rest of the workers, what few there were, took their cues from him. One or two were kind when no one was around, but those instances were few and far between. They became more sparse when one footman was caught helping Snow up after she fell and he was fired shortly thereafter.
They were usually happy to leave, though, and even the meanest were willing to pass messages on to my family. Apparently they all felt the need to spite Bekins before leaving.
Despite what my husband thought, I knew that my family would have come after me, even if I was legally married to the man. It was another difference between dwarves and humans. Humans believe that women are no longer a part of the family after they marry, that there is no going back. Dwarves have been known to rid themselves of troublesome in-laws by dropping them into a bottomless pit. Abuse was dealt with swiftly in my community and I worried that my family would try to get me back. A few letters slipped out with the departing servants ensured that they stayed away though. I made it very clear that there were more lives at stake than my own and the one letter that made it back let me know that they understood and would be ready to move whenever I asked for the help.
Things weren’t always so depressing, though. My favorite days were when Bekins left to help the king in the capital. Fessrel was far away and whenever he was gone, the rest of the servants would make themselves scarce. It allowed Snow and I to go wandering the woods. We never went far, but it was enough for us to escape for a little while. I taught my stepdaughter everything I knew about surviving in the forest and how to find somewhere safe to hide. I even took her out at night so she would get used to moving in darkness. Her father had already threatened her life once. I wasn’t about to let her become a pampered princess who was helpless. I didn’t want her to become as trapped as I had.
On days we couldn’t escape, I took her to the library. The servants all avoided it for some reason, so it was a fairly safe place to hide. It also helped me teach Snow White learn everything my second cousin’s sister-in-law said a queen needed to know. Economics, history, geography, the basics of farming and fishing, logging, and any other industry that Fretche’s citizens specialized in. On top of that, we spent time reading novels and examining cause and effect as it related to emotions. The poor thing was surrounded by generally angry, bitter people and she needed to understand that not everyone was that way and those who were usually had a reason. Not always a good one, but a reason nonetheless.
I highly doubted she’d ever get to use the knowledge, but if she did survive long enough to escape her father, she might need it. And that truly became my goal. As far as I was concerned, my life was over. I was never going to escape. Even if I didn’t go home, my husband would still destroy it to make an example. Snow was an unknown for him, though. I could help her escape, hide her trail, and distract her father until she was safe. I would probably be killed because of it, but I didn’t matter anymore.
I wasn’t a child anymore, despite my youth. I was a mother and there were lives depending on my choices. And that was possibly the most terrifying part of my new life.
As Snow grew older, more and more servants started to disappear, making it necessary to teach her more common things, like chores. I refused to live in a dirty home. Dwarves were very particular about that sort of things.
By the time she was seven, Snow was cleaning her room by herself. When she was 10, she knew how to plant and harvest a garden, from start to finish, as well as the basics of cooking and canning. I grew up in an underground city that took vegetables very seriously. Every dwarf city has a hidden garden that is grown with the use of mirrors and beehives with special enchantments so they can be moved up to the surface for most of the year. Dwarves consider vegetables to be delicacies the way that wealthy humans consider certain types of fish to be.
Not that I understood the appeal of fancy fish. I’d basically lived off of cave fish for most of my life, so they weren’t that exciting to me.
And my husband? Well, I only saw him about twice a year. That was quite enough though. While my Wraith blood allowed me to hide some of my less human traits, I had a nasty suspicion Blue Beard could see through my trick if he was around me enough. Usually he scheduled his visits, though, so I had plenty of time to prepare to avoid notice. Bekins would loudly inform us that we should make ourselves presentable so we didn’t upset the king when he arrived the following day. And we did, more or less, because it made things run more smoothly and made the king leave sooner if he couldn’t find things to complain about.
The first time he broke that habit was when Snow turned 13. He actually came back for her birthday for the first time since we’d married, but neither of us girls were ready because it was unannounced. Luckily, we’d just changed after working in the garden. Somehow I didn’t think speaking to him while covered in dirt was a smart idea. Fortune favored us, though, and we were both clean and wearing nicer gowns than normal, on account of it being laundry day.
“Hello, child,” he’d greeted her when he found us in the library. “Happy birthday.”
Snow jumped to her feet and curtsied, using the movement to help her
compose herself. “Thank you, Father. How was your journey?”
“Tedious.” He sat heavily in an armchair before addressing her again. “I wanted to be here to congratulate you on your transition into womanhood. It looks good on you.”
And it did. Her face had begun to lose some of it’s roundness, showing off the heart shape that had been hidden underneath. She’d had a growth spurt and had finally reached my height, though she was still in the gangly, coltish phase and was skinny as a sapling. Still, it was easy to see the beauty that she was quickly growing into.
The fact that he noticed was more than a bit worrisome though.
“Perhaps it’s time to arrange some introductions. I think the king of Crechel is looking for another wife,” he mused.
Snow’s hand clenched as she tried to control her fear. It was time for me to step in.
“She’s a little young for that,” I said calmly. “No one is married off that early anymore.”
My husband’s attention was finally off my daughter, but that meant I was in his sights. It wasn’t comfortable. He always seemed to look at me like I was food, but not in the way I’d seen other men look at women. No, he didn’t look at me but through me.
“True,” he acquiesced. “But there’s no harm in trying. I’m sure someone will be more than happy to take her off my hands.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I stayed silent, all the while coming up with a plan to get her out of his grasp before he could do anything.
“Or maybe I’ll just keep her here. In case I need an heir…” He went silent for a bit before rising and leaving the room. We didn’t see him for the rest of the day, but it effectively ruined Snow’s birthday.
The next day, though, I was unpleasantly surprised to find my husband waiting for me in the entry hall.
“Come here, girl,” he said. Hoping to get him out of there quickly, I obeyed. As soon as I was close, he handed me a key. “Here. This opens the door under the stairs. No matter what happens or what you hear, don’t go down there. Do you understand?”
I nodded, silently pocketing the key. Without another word, the king left and the castle’s atmosphere lightened once again.
I blame his confusing actions for not noticing that Snow was gone until late that afternoon. The girl had needed some space after basically being told that her father was going to hand her off to someone to marry so he didn’t have to think about her anymore. When I hadn’t seen her for lunch, I began to search the castle. It took hours to realize that she wasn’t hiding, she was gone! And I couldn’t tell anyone. The best case would have been no one helping me search. The worst would be my husband coming back for her. There was no telling what he might do as punishment. The one consolation was that I’d already thrown out the idea of him bringing her with him. He wouldn’t have taken her without her clothes and the only ones missing were her foresting gear.
That was one of the worst nights of my life. I didn’t sleep, hoping that she would sneak back in but knowing she wouldn’t. My only consolation was that Bekins had left with the king and wouldn’t be back for another week at least. It would give me enough time to search the forest and make sure she was safe.
When she didn’t come back by midnight, I changed into my own gear and headed out to track her down. One of the best parts of being part dwarf is that you don’t need much light to see by and the stars and moon gave me plenty.
It was almost ten o’clock by the time I found her, being escorted by the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Then again, I hadn’t seen many Fey, so I couldn’t really tell if he was anything unusual or not. His glittering blonde hair was hanging down his back in a straight sheet, his sky blue eyes were shining in the morning sun, and his golden skin fairly glowed with good health.
“Mama!” cried Snow as she launched herself at me. She was sniffling, trying to hold her tears in and gripping me like I was the only thing keeping her from falling off a cliff.
“Sshhh, little light. It’s okay. I’m here.” I rubbed her back gently, but I was just as relieved as she was. When she’d calmed a bit, I looked up at the stranger. “Thank you for helping my daughter.”
He cocked his head to one side and stared at us. “How odd… she is, but she isn’t. I love it!” His smile was slightly dazzling and made me a bit angry, though I couldn’t figure out why. “How did someone with your heritage come to be? And why are you the mother of a girl whose mother was murdered?”
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Snow froze as well before turning to look at the man. “What?” we asked in unison.
He blinked. “Which part?”
“Both.” Again, in unison. It was odd, but had happened before, so the Fey was more surprised by our synchronization than we were.
“Well, the little one has red lips, which is a symbol from the Lake people to signify a family member murdered by another. It’s an ancient symbol so the child won’t be returned to a killer. She had to have magic to pull it off though. It’s actually a fascinating bit of magic that…” He shook his head and put on a whimsical smile. “And you, miss pretend mommy, have such an interesting mix of magic. I see bits of human, dwarf, Wraith, and Fey… you have quite the family, breaking so many stigmas. Well, I’ve returned her, so I’ll be off.”
I watched in confusion as he started to leave, wondering how he knew my bloodline. It wasn’t common and we hid it for exactly that reason.
Suddenly, the man stopped and sighed. “Here,” he said as he tossed something to me. It was a set of carved stone doves. “For your letters.” And then he disappeared. As in, completely gone, leaving me holding my daughter and some odd paperweights infused with some magic.
“He found me in the woods and helped me find my way home,” Snow said. “He had a little girl with him for a little bit, but he sent her somewhere before we started walking.”
“Why did you run?” I asked her.
She started crying again. “I don’t want him to marry me off! I don’t want anything to do with him. I thought if I ran away, he would forget about me again.”
I sighed and turned us back toward the castle. “We’ll figure something out before then. But promise me that you won’t run away like that again. The only reason to leave without a plan or preparing is if you don’t have another option, and you did. That was foolish!”
“Yes, Mama.”
I lectured her on the safe way to prepare for a journey the entire way home.
CHAPTER 2: LIFE AFTER DEATH
SNOW WHITE
I don’t remember much from before I got my new mama and what I do recall, I wish that I didn’t. There were people who watched me, but no one that stands out in my memory. They were too bland, too cautious, and all so similar. Their job was to keep me quiet and out of my father’s way whenever he happened to be around. Being that I was an energetic child, their task usually ended in failure, both of us getting punished in new and inventive ways, and a string of new watchers.
No one really knew what happened to the people that were sent away, but I could guess based on my own experience. It wasn’t pleasant, disappointing him. I spoke disrespectfully to my father when I was four. Once. Pain like that lingers in your mind, even when your body is healed and you are too young to really have strong memories.
Not that that was the only time he hurt me. It was just the only time I was rude to him. He was not the kindest of teachers. I had the scars to prove it. The months leading up to Mama showing up were the worst because Father was there all the time and I didn’t have a minder anymore. I learned to be inconspicuous and silent at all times. I became afraid of being noticed because nothing good ever came from it.
In the end, it didn’t really matter to me what came before. That was before, a time of horror and fear and loneliness. All that ever mattered to me was that I had someone who loved me. And I never had a doubt that Mama loved me.
She might call me her little light, but she was the one who brought light into my life.
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“Mama, where are all the servants going?” I asked.
She looked up from the book she was reading and stared at me, her hazel eyes completely blank as she tried to figure out what I was asking.
I loved our time in the library for many reasons. It was the place where I learned about the world outside the castle, a place where people were kind and worked hard to help their families and communities. As the years rolled by, I discovered that most of my questions could be answered if I could only find the correct book, including my father’s mysterious past. It was in a dark, dusty and disused portion of our shelves that we found my father's old journals and discovered who he was. The diaries weren't always very clear or comprehensive, but they certainly helped us learn what not to talk to him about. We’d experienced his displeasure over certain topics in the past and it helped to know what to avoid. In the end, no one outside the two of us knew that he was a minor noble who'd stolen everything he had from the many wives he had outlived.
The library was also the only place that Mama let go of the disguise she always wore. Normally she appeared to be a stunning blonde with a perfect complexion and figure. Not that she wasn’t beautiful when she stopped hiding, but… her natural looks were more unusual. Humans don’t have iridescent skin or slightly pointed ears. They also don’t have hair that shifts colors randomly to match her surroundings or such big eyes and pupils. She should look unnatural and creepy, but it works somehow. Every little quirky bit combines to create something unique and stunning. Something she had to hide from everyone else.
“What do you mean, little light?” I loved when she used that phrase for me. It was something from her home, a common term of endearment among the dwarves, or so she claimed. The caves were so dark that a little light might be the difference between life and death.
