The queen stares at me for a murderous moment, then closes her eyes. “Help me.” I didn’t think a whisper could sound so imperious.
“If I were begging for my life, I might add a question mark and a ‘please.’”
Her eyes remain tightly shut, as if she fears she will throttle me if she sees my face. “Help me, please.” She doesn’t quite manage the question mark.
I lean forward across the table, drawing out a long, vicious pause before I say, “Nah.”
The queen’s eyes fly open. Her face is so bloodless her lips look oversaturated, a little unreal. “Why?”
“Because I’m not setting an evil queen loose in the multiverse! Because somewhere in the woods right now there’s a little girl stuck in an enchanted sleep for no reason except your malice, your vanity.” I’m aware that I’m no longer playing it cool, that my voice is shaking with honest vitriol, but I can’t seem to stop. “She didn’t deserve it, she deserved to grow up, to meet a normal dude and live a normal life, to just live—”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard, but it’s too late. The queen’s eyes are alight, her smile small and red. “Oh, Little Brier-Rose, you feel sorry for her. Poor Snow White, so pretty, so pure.” She shakes her head, mock-pity on her face. “You think this is her story.”
The queen leans closer over the table, her lips peeling away from her teeth. “You know nothing, Zinnia Gray of Ohio.”
The first wobbly notes of mockingbird-song are rising and I’m getting ready to flip the food tray in her lap and make a run for it when there’s a hard knock at the door.
The huntsman’s voice comes clear and cheerful. “My Queen, a messenger has come from across our borders. You are invited to a royal wedding this very evening!”
* * *
THE ROOM GOES very still, except for the shallow sound of the queen’s breathing, the tick of her pulse in her throat. The two of us sit like awkward statuary until the huntsman prompts doubtfully, “My Queen?”
Her throat makes a small, dry rasp as she swallows. “A wedding,” she repeats.
“Yes, Majesty. This very evening!” The huntsman is afflicted with exclamation points too. “Shall I give the messenger your answer to his invitation?”
“Not … yet.” The queen is paling, wilting before my eyes. She looks suddenly much younger, and it occurs to me for the first time that every queen was once a princess.
“Oh.” A scuffing sound on the other side of the door, like a large man shuffling his feet. “It’s just, he’s waiting in the great hall now, and he brought so many guards with him to escort you, and—”
The queen summons enough regality to say, firmly, “Offer them food and drink while I make myself ready.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
When there are no subsequent boot steps, she adds, “That will be all, Berthold.”
“Yes, Majesty.” He clomps dutifully down the hall.
The queen still hasn’t moved. Her skin is the grayish-white of last week’s snow, or cheap dentures. She could almost be mistaken for the protagonist of this story if it weren’t for the cold metal crown on her brow. I could almost feel sorry for her if she hadn’t poisoned a child and shackled me to a wall.
“Berthold, huh?” I slouch back in my chair, ankles crossed, eyebrows up. “He seems bright.”
She answers absently, one shoulder twitching in a shrug. “He has his uses.”
“Oh, it’s like that?”
I’m being a dick on purpose, maybe trying to provoke her into anything other than this congealed panic, but her expression barely flickers. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a lover who isn’t angling for the throne? He was…” Her lip curls, and I can’t tell if it’s the huntsman or herself she disdains more. “Kind.”
It doesn’t seem very helpful to remind her that he betrayed her and let Snow White live, so I don’t say anything.
Eventually the queen gathers herself, blinking twice and exhaling sharply. If she were a knight, I imagine she would lower her visor, but since she’s an evil queen, she stands and stalks to her workbench.
It takes less than a second for her to whirl back to face me. “Where is it? What have you done with it?”
A brief, hissed exchange follows, wherein I try and fail to deflect her accusations （“Where’s what?” “You know what, you thieving pustule!” “Okay, calm your tits, it’s in my backpack.” “Calm my what?”）， and then she’s clutching the tarnished frame of her mirror, whispering to it. I can’t hear the words, but I don’t have to. Maybe it’s in the original German, or maybe it’s the Grimms’ translation: Mirror, mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?