by P. S. Wright
no such thing. That cat was acting a fool though, pacing back and forth like he was on guard and wouldn’t leave the stairs so we could get back down. “What’s got in to him?” Tuck whispered.
Just then we heard feet on the stairs. Me and Tuck ducked behind some crates and hoped like the dickens they wasn’t coming to discover the mirror. It was the bells again. I heard the bells before I saw her shadow dancing across the ceiling. She laughed and I heard a dong in my head, so loud I had to put my hands over my ears. Tuck looked at me like I was a madman. I couldn’t believe he couldn’t hear it too.
That Willow was with her. It was hard to hear them for the gonging in my head. That Willow stomped her foot and squealed, “You’ve done something to us. You cursed us! Mother saw something in a mirror the other day. Now I am wasting away no matter how much I eat. And the pigs! I am sick to death of eating pork. But I can’t stop. What have you done?”
She laughed and it sounded just like Miss Sweatspots the piano teacher running her finger across all the keys. “I gave you everything you asked for. These idiots adore you. You have a kingdom, a castle, all the food you can eat, and no natural enemies. My enchantments protect the forest paths. My endorsement provides you access to the highest levels of our society. All that you desired I have given you. What more do you want?”
Willow didn’t have sense enough to know about arguing with witches. I guess being born royal tends to make you think you can do stuff like that. “My mother looked in a mirror and saw the most hideous thing looking back. What have you done to her?”
“Your mother looked into the mirror of her soul and saw herself, that’s all. She should know better than to look into an enchanted mirror.”
Tootles was meowing loud enough to be heard above the din of bells ringing in my head. He was pacing back and to like a guard dog and carrying on so I thought they’d have to catch us out. “Tuck,” I whispered, “I’ll get the mirror soon as they go. You grab that cat and get it out of here for they catch us out.”
Tuck crept up on Tootles on hands and knees. Tootles wasn’t happy with that strange fellow approaching him like that and launched his self at Tuck’s face. Tuck let out a holler and jumped to his feet, trying to tear the crazed cat off his feet. “Ow, ow, ow, get it off! Get it off! Why you…”
The ladies had caught him out now, and no two ways about it. But I was still hiding and no intention of poking my head out to save Tuck. Tweren’t no way to help him anyhow. Willow squealed again, like she had a want to do. “What are you doing up here? Spying on us?”
“Don’t be silly, my girl.” She said, with a voice like low bells. “Obviously it was the cat he was after. Please get that beast out of here.”
“Yes, get it out, right now!” Willow said, just so everybody was clear who was in charge here.
Tuck was hopping around with the cat now attached to his lower leg. “Yes ma’am. But the little beastie’s got me by the leg.”
She said, “Then it should be easy enough to remove it, so long as it is attached.”
“Aye ma’am. I was just doing that. Yes ma’am.” And Tuck knew how to follow instructions from the upraising he’d had at his mam’s apron strings. He wasn’t fool enough to argue like that Willow girl. I heard him thumping down the ladder and cussing at every rung.
“And I don’t believe he was hunting that cat, either.” Willow just could not stop squealing. The girl just had a voice that would make any suitor run the other way quick.
“Of course not, my dear. He was obviously dallying with one of your maids and ran up here to hide when he heard us approach. Men are such… well, they are men.” I heard her swooshing in my direction. I didn’t actually hear her footsteps. I couldn’t picture her walking. But she moved toward where I was hiding and actually put her hand on the crate over my head where I could plainly see her long painted nails and sparkly rings.
“I’ll fire her! I won’t tolerate it.”
The Lady Who laughed. Oh how I wished those bells would stop. “You’ll be firing them all. Young women of their backgrounds like a bit of male attention. It’s harmless. But do as you like. This is your kingdom now. See? Haven’t I kept my word?” She stepped away from my hiding place and the greatest gong yet set my teeth on edge. The further away she got the greater the urge I was getting to take just the littlest peek. I don’t know whatever possessed me. It was sheer lunacy to stick my head out for a peek at the fine ladies. But I had to. The gonging and ringing was making me dizzy and I couldn’t think straight.
“But you’ve cursed us. We’re cursed. Admit it. None of us have been the same since we came here. What did my mother see when she looked in the mirror?”
“What did you see?” The lady asked. There was daggers in that question and no way I would have answered. No sir, there’s a time when the best answer is silence, so my mam always said.
But Willow didn’t have that sense. “Nothing. I saw nothing.”
“I don’t think that’s true, dear. Look again.” As she said it, the Lady Who lifted up the side of that sheet what was covering the mirror.
Oh I couldn’t contain myself. I knew I shouldn’t ought to look. I knew it. But the gonging was making me weak in the knees and I just had to peek. Twas the image of the fattest pig I had ever seen in my days long. I gawped and tried to peel my eyes off that mirror. But try as I might, I couldn’t look away. It were a pig in pink dress. Oh, but it was enormous and pink and brown.
Willow screamed. Not a little squeal like was her want but a full out, from the gut scream. “I am not a pig!”
The Enchantress laughed and laughed while Willow cried and squealed and made little piggy grunts. “But my dear, the mirror only shows your true self. What else could you expect to see?”
Finally Willow’s crying wound down to just a few little grunts here and there. She sniffled and asked, “If I am a pig, why am I losing weight?”
It were true, despite her piggy ways, her dress actually fit her now. She were a nice figure of a girl, with only them lumps and bumps a lass was supposed to have, instead of the extra ripples she’d had back at the island.
The Lady Who patted her shoulder, all nice like she wasn’t the one doing this to her. “You wanted to be beautiful and thin. Now you shall be. The more you eat, the thinner you will become, so long as you eat only pig.”
“But, but, I hate pork!” The poor girl wailed. And I really started to almost feel sorry for her.
“Well you should.” The Lady agreed. “But you should have thought about that before you joined the others at my dinner table. When you eat pigs, you are eating your own kind. But that is what you asked for and that is what I gave you. I can’t take it back now. You have to learn to live with it.”
Willow wailed again and then ran from the attic, sobbing and grunting.
The Lady Who turned around and called me out. “Time to stop hiding, you are not a mouse.” I came around and out, having been found out and expecting my just punishment. “Do you want to see what the mirror says about you, little man?”
No I did not. But the Lady waved me over, so I took me over to stand in front of the mirror. The Lady pulled back the sheet and showed me myself. I saw a plain old bumpkin with a crooked nose from where a horse kicked me when I was ten. I had zits mixed with the stubble on my chin and dung on the knees of my britches. But I weren’t no pig or no monster neither. I sighed.
“Are you happy with what you see, groom?” She could see from my face what I thought about that. “Some things are worse than being a pig, aren’t they?” And she laughed and laughed at her own joke.
She walked me back down to the courtyard and I went to fetch her coach. The bells kept ringing, but they wasn’t as loud anymore.
All the good folks in the village got used to the new royals. They wasn’t so bad, really. They was more snobbish than the old royals. But they didn’t make garlic illegal. They didn’t collect taxes. They kept to themselves and took care of the castle and grounds. The help got a day off ea
ch week for services and every holiday as well. Old Lady Dankslice even consented to come back and work for the family every other week, just to keep the younger lassies on their toes. If all the copies of The Three Little Pigs disappeared from the library, well, nobody thought to mention it. Mirrors was kept away from the castle. And mostly, everybody got along.
Sometimes, when folk came for a muckety-muck party, they didn’t go home and nobody ever saw them again. Those was the nights when the Hampires had a big feast. The number of lads and lassies working at the castle got cut right down to a bare handful. But them that stayed on was smart and obedient and was always home in bed before nightfall. So that was a plus, right there. There was some what gossiped. But I put them to rights. I can’t abide gossip. I best not, being her man and all.
The Lady Who has plans. She has plans and people to do them plans for her. When the next uprising happens, I want to get me the ladle to go with my tureen. I plan to give that tureen to my daughter when she weds. After that, maybe some nice table linens for my wife. Revolutions have a few benefits after all. The next one might happen any day, just as soon as we get that new bell installed in the church belfry. So nice of the Lady Who to donate it.
Well, of course we know the Lady Who is not going to
