White Magic: A Tale Grimmly Told Read online

  Witch. Yes, the queen was certainly that. But she had also intended to be the most beautiful, the most beautiful, until death came for her and it no longer mattered. And if it turned out that it was not enough to sour the girl’s magic…well.

  She would dig out the root of the problem, cut it off at the quick.

  Death was already here, already inside her. It had come first for what mattered, the vanity she could not deny, but she would not sacrifice herself. Calm came with the necessary answer. The way out of the trap, the way to close the door the girl’s presence had opened.

  In a gown of gold with a train of red and royal purple, the queen went down from her tower to the throne room, sat in the high, gilded chair and looked down at the empty room past her own feet. Only a single lady in waiting stood by, eyes downcast and fearful.

  Now that her husband was gone, rumor had invaded the shadowed halls. The people knew they were ruled by a witch, and the queen had no reason to try to dissuade them. She flung a gesture at the waiting maid. “Bring the huntsman to me, and see that we are not disturbed here. You will be the one who suffers for any interruption.”

  “Yes, Majesty!” The woman stumbled from her presence, and the queen closed her eyes as faltering footsteps sped away. The girl was just too dangerous. Too deadly. A madness in the waiting, but one she thought she could take into herself. Was that not the purpose of her magic, the purpose of being a witch?

  It could not be allowed. The fairest. Without effort; without purpose; without need?

  The huntsman would take the girl away, bring back her heart and liver, and from them the queen could take whatever spirit, whatever beauty defied her. Own it herself, as she consumed it. As if the loveliness of the child were a demon, and she the body for it to possess.

  Chapter Two

  “You will be my weapon, my savior. You will be rewarded beyond the imagining of all other men.”

  The huntsman considered this reward, the promise of it, as he drove the cart he’d been given out of the castle gate, down through the town and into the spread of fields and narrow villages beyond. There was a place nearby that would be visible to no one, audible to no one. Beautiful, but he had a feeling that the loveliness of it would be vanished after this morning’s work was done.

  “You have the strength, I know, for this terrible but necessary task. You will be my weapon…”

  The voice of his queen sustained him through the jolting of the cart and the laughing observations of the princess in the back of it, sitting on soft blankets, amused by this strange outing.

  The huntsman had always known what his queen was—before she had become Your Majesty, when she had been only my lady instead. Even as a girl, she had been a witch and he had been her huntsman. A witch had needs that only a man like him could provide.

  Living beasts for sacrifices; the parts of others for burnt offerings; strange plants or the water of a certain river, the salt of a certain sea, the black dirt of a certain land.

  “You will find it easy to kill her, though perhaps your heart will want to stay your hand. You have the strength, I know…”

  But the more he considered, the more he worried—not for the girl beside him, but for his queen. His witch. What would it do to her if he succeeded? If he brought the organs of the princess to her… What would the price be? Would the sacrifice be enough? Would the magic do what she wanted?

  “Do not fear my anger, old friend, old servant. I have need of you—only you can help me now. You must bring me the heart of the princess, Snow White. You will find it easy to kill her.”

  The huntsman flicked his gaze back over his shoulder. The princess had a still and lovely surface, as black water showed perfectly the reflections all around it—like a cold lake beneath blossoming branches in early spring. But he sensed within her a dangerous lack, an emptiness. Not a natural cold, but the chill of a mirror, which showed only what was put before it.

  In a dark and empty space, the girl, like glass, would reflect nothing back. Death was such a darkness. What would the queen become, what would she take into herself, partaking of that emptiness?

  Fear not, old friend, old servant.

  The echo of the command remained, but he was afraid. Not of the queen he had served so long and so well, but for her.

  The more he thought, the more the huntsman thought the witch was making a terrible mistake. Whatever fury drove her, whatever the source of the hatred she could not defy, could not mask, this girl would be no use to her, would aid no magic, serve no spell.

  He had grown sensitive to the power of witchcraft, to the unearthly tingle of such enchantment, and the thing that beat in the girl was withered, and neither. A black space, this child. Yes. An emptiness.

  The princess spoke then, jostled in the back of the cart and finally too curious to be silent, though even her question was a void of light. “Sir, are you going to teach me to kill today? Is that why I’ve come out with you? Will we be hunting?”

  Innocent, her expression, but not naive. Silent shadows flickered around her, as undeniable as the impatient loveliness of her face. Unused to servants who did not give prompt and conciliatory answers, she scowled at his silence, but even her turned down mouth left her countenance too bright.

  The huntsman pulled the cart off the road and into a meadow, deep among the blossoms. For a moment, he turned and stared at the princess over his shoulder. “Perhaps my queen is right, after all. Yes, perhaps she is right, and it was your mother’s fault.”

  A single line of confusion wrinkled the icy smoothness of Snow White’s forehead. “Sir? Is something wrong?”

  Before he could second guess himself, the huntsman caught hold of her hair, drew the princess up over the edge of the cart, then tossed her to the ground. She stared up at him, unmoving, as if fear was a response that she was missing, until he took hold of the black tresses again and drew back her throat into a taut, hard line.

  “It does not matter now, Princess. The choice has already been made and it is not mine.”

  “Oh—oh no.” It was breathless. Almost laughing. The scent of her was anxiety and amusement both, rising from her skin like he was used to the smell of terror rising from his prey.

  Curious, fixed, her stare focused steadily on the knife in his hand. The steel edge of the blade was another mirror, and the huntsman saw clearly when he turned the dagger that what he had thought was true. Snow White’s reflection was an accumulation of nothingness, one blank mirror reflected in another, breaking all the echoes within themselves.

  In the next instant, he flung the girl away from him, toward the edge of the forest, the far end of the field. “Go. Get out of here! My witch wants me to kill you, but it feels like you would be more dangerous dead. How is that, girl? Do you even know what it is I ask you?”

  But Snow White had focused, not on his question, but the words that came before it. “She’s my witch! Not yours! She was father’s and now she is mine. But I do not want to die—” And as if aware for the first time of the taste of the word, she said it again. “I do not want to die.”

  The huntsman glared at her. “Go, then. Go as I told you and run from here. Run far, and fast, and never come back. Live your life in peace some other place, in some other kingdom.”

  Her eyes were still looking, not at his face, but the blade of his knife. “But the witch told you to do it. Why won’t you? I will go, but I want to know why, first.”

  What was this? Why would she disobey his order, the fear he could see in her face, the urging of instinct? But he had no reason not to tell the girl his rationale. “The queen needs only one mirror in her life, one road to madness. She may have chosen me for this task, told me to do it, but now I am choosing. Now that I have seen what it is you are.”

  Loyalty was required of him. Honor had its purpose, paid its debts. He did not know what it was about the princess that was dangerous, but he sensed…something, and he would listen to his conscience. He would not do a thing he would come to re
gret. “It is for her sake, not for mine. There will be punishment for this, and no reward. But perhaps she knew me better than she thought when she chose me, for if this turns her from you, then I will have saved her, yes…it will have been me.”

  Snow White looked up into the huntsman’s bearded face and saw something resigned there, something neither angry nor afraid. Her awareness focused on the blank, shining edge of his whetted blade. On the sharpness, so gleaming, that wanted her life.

  Something quickened in her, not fear exactly but the awareness that fear awoke. Then she fled, stumbling over her skirts but running, away from the terrible promise of the knife and still, as she had been since he tossed her out of the cart, almost laughing. It was a game, she thought. A game, even as she ran away. Perhaps he would chase her?

  No sounds of pursuit came.

  The trees closed over her, around her, darker as she moved deeper into the forest. The wood was full of silences that murmured, and light gleamed through the canopy in narrow slices like the edge of the huntsman’s knife.

  The feeling that he had woken within her fed a hungry suspicion. Was she only now, for the first time in her life, coming fully awake? Before these moments, it was as if she had moved in a dull, dim dream.

  Now, something had changed. What would happen next? What would be beyond the next clearing, the next raven’s screech, the next vague, murky path dappled with shadow?

  The night came cold and fast around her, before Snow White even realized the sun was starting to set. Winds blew that were thin with autumn promise, as though the end of summer was a door that had shut at dusk.

  In a hollow of tangled roots, elm and pale, twisted yew, she hid from the wind and the sounds of the forest night. Watchful, she observed the moon rise, then dozed under the gaze of its narrow, waning eye.

  The princess woke to the startling brilliance of the early sun in her face. Beyond the roots was a hush of dawn activity in which she had never before shared.

  Insects crawled into lakes of dew, and birds dove after them. The shadows of soft, brown rabbit-bodies hopped hesitant from the shelter of the canopy into the light. A family of mice skittered through the roots at her feet, seeking something edible, and Snow White chewed her lip.

  For her there was neither food or water. Considering that this was so, she might defy the huntsman and die anyway… But the witch would never have her then, would she? And she would never have her witch.

  The princess pushed herself to her feet and chose the darkest direction, the deepest part of the wood. The game belonged to her and her witch, not to the huntsman. It would not be right if he won. He should not, in fact, have interfered, even if it had meant the witch was the victor.

  Decided, Snow White went on even as the morning became noon, then after. The forest seemed to go on forever, though gradually, the ground gained a bit of slope. There were mountains in the distance, which she had seen from the castle, and now she thought she was getting close to them.

  She was not yet even at their feet, only among the foothills, when she came across a little cottage that seemed a palace in her weariness. Dark, weathered wood stood out along the sides, and the roof was not low and thatched like the houses in the village below the castle, but a high point covered with narrow black slats.

  Snow White knocked, but the door opened at her touch, and silence greeted her beyond its opening creak. Gloom enshrouded, dingy, the interior showed the signs of much use by many men.

  Boots sat in an untidy pile, barely tucked to one side of the door. A half dozen capes hung on pegs above them, weather-stained and poorly mended but the fabrics rich, the embroidery thread-of-gold and the colors still intense.

  The mugs of a half dozen men stood on the table in the main room, and the unwashed dishes of a meal not long finished beside them. Snow White wandered past the main room into the kitchen, and saw a pile of dishes in the sink, smelled the sour odor of old beer.

  Even so, there were loaves on the counter, water in a pail by the door, and milk in a half-covered bucket on the little table tucked into the corner of the western wall. Hunger gnawed at her, but she was a princess still.

  She would not sit and eat in the middle of such a mess.

  Sighing, soothed by the promise of something to do even as she began with aggravation, Snow White tidied the mess of the kitchen. Then she cleaned off the table in the main room, before she sat down with bread and cheese, milk and water, which she thought well earned.

  With her belly full, the princess returned to the kitchen and sat in the chair by the stove. It was warm there, comfortingly so, and she wondered, as she began to doze, why the chair was so small. So small, when it seemed so many men lived here. Why, it was just her size…

  Voices woke her, and the tramping of heavy, booted feet in the other room. The girl was awake in a moment, on her feet in the next, then standing by the back door. Whoever they were, the people who lived here, she had not intended them to find her thus. Slowly, heart beating strong and fast, she backed toward her escape, until she stood with one hand on the knob and one foot over the threshold.

  A dark, bearded face appeared in the space of the door to the next room as it opened. Bright eyes picked her out, standing in the kitchen’s shadows. “I’ve found the one who’s done it, brothers—”

  The voice was gruff and deep, dark as the forest and the hills. For a moment, they stared at each other, and she was aware of the strangeness of the moment. It was a dwarf who stared at her, with the black dust of the mine still on his face, and she knew herself to be a girl more lovely than a living star.

  Then he took a step forward, and Snow White fled out the door and into the forest night. The hue and cry followed her into the wild of the wood’s edge, where the shadows blistered with blackness. The dwarves moved in circles, calling as they beat the bushes, seeking whatever intruder had invaded their home.

  The princess sat in the underbrush, crouched motionless and silent, listening to the sounds of the dwarves and the movements of other life. A rabbit, near her. A squirrel that ran away.

  The rabbit, though. Soft, warm, small, it came closer to her and closer. Its approach was a rustling in her hiding place that she could not abide. It would give her away. Snow White grabbed hold of it, snapped its neck without a pause, and in the same moment was discovered anyway.

  The dwarves peered down at her in something like shocked silence, seven faces in a circle around the narrow space they held open in the branches over her. They stared, and she stared back. Perhaps, she thought, they were not worth running from after all.

  The eldest held out a hand to her, and Snow White came willingly from the needles, graceful, with a regal motion, turning her gaze on them one at a time. “Hello, then. I am sorry I was in your house without asking. Am I in trouble?”

  As if she had stolen a sweet; as if they were human; as if her pretty face would save her. Perhaps it might. She petted the rabbit she had killed with idle fingers as they asked her name. “Snow White,” she told them. “And my stepmother is a witch, and a queen, and wants my life. Will you protect me from her? Can you keep me safe?”

  The seven brothers exchanged one glance, came to share one expression. The oldest-looking, wrinkled and white-bearded, answered her, smiling so all his teeth showed in a jagged row. “Aye, lass. Pretty darkling. Wouldn’t be the first witch we’d slain.”

  If they noticed her frown, they said nothing, but she was annoyed. She would have to watch them, if they thought killing her witch was the only way to keep her safe.

  “Come now, away home with us. You keep the house, go on as you began, and we will guarantee you a protected place.”

  It was dark in the wood that bordered their doorway. The moon was a hangnail, and the milky way reflected in seven pairs of eyes. “All right then.” Fearless, she followed them, as if she had never run.

  They opened the door, then closed it behind her, and the night, too, seemed to blink open and shut.

  Chapter Three
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  Time passed, lead-weighted and empty days from which Snow White had no escape. The dwarves’ house had become her house, but not her home. The princess was aware of individual moments, of her own growth and the passing seasons, but despite that she felt like she was only waiting. No longer alive.

  Not until a year had passed did she encounter again the stunning sensation of wakefulness that had driven her into the wood. She knew when she did so that the huntsman had failed in his personal quest.

  The queen had come for her.

  The smell of her witch’s magic was clear to Snow White from the first moment, and she saw its source when an old woman appeared at the edge of the wood. It meant, of course, that it could not be an old woman. My witch. The princess’s heartbeat flared with excitement.

  Snow White stared from the window in silence until the old woman was near enough to see her, near enough to stare back. The shivering of the witch’s hair was still visible through her glamor; the princess caught the fragrance of those writhing coils. A violet shimmer glittered in the back of the aged eyes, and the parting of the old woman’s lips, the way she wet them with her tongue, was a familiar and covetous gesture.

  The princess almost said, “Hello, stepmother,” but that would have given away the game, and there was no one with her, not even one of the seven brothers. Alone, she was not yet a match for her witch.

  For the first time since the huntsman had brought her out to the wood, Snow White thought she was really breathing, that she was alive. She had been waiting for this, but now that the moment had arrived, she was…uncertain. What now?

  The old woman was talking, but the princess did not care. Snow White breathed in the feeling of her own wakefulness, the subtle shiver leashed beneath her skin. Stayed silent. Stared, knowing and saying nothing, until the old woman took a step closer to the window, suspicion glittering in the same space in her eyes as that hint of violet.