“And they lived happily ever after.” That was the fairytale ending she wanted. That was what she wished for after exchanging their wedding vows at the altar, dressed in a pearl white dress, crowned with a diamond tiara. She truly felt like the princess, no, the queen she was born to be. However, she soon realized that her dream castle was built on sand and was slowly slipping away. When she failed to produce an heir within a year into the marriage, whispers started, rumors grew. ‘The queen was a failure.’ Her husband grew cold, her chambers lonely, and her heart weary as the years passed with no sign of a royal heir. Locked up in her chambers, she took to sewing, her husband’s visits becoming increasingly less and less. Yet all changed on one winter morning.
She had pricked her finger with the needle as she took up her embroidery by the window. Three droplets of blood fell onto the snow settled on the windowpane. The three wine-red drops added color to her colorless world, and upon them she made a wish. A foolish wish, but a wish, nonetheless. She wished for a baby girl with snow white skin, charcoal black hair and blood red lips. How she did not expect the baby to look like a corpse with blood-stained lips is truly a mystery. Yet, despite everything, the fates were not so cruel. In fact, they were kind. She gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, named Snow White, who was everything she wished for and some more. She thought then, as she held her child cradled to her chest, perhaps her fairytale began now. However, it was not so. Not even two winters later, she left the mortal realm, her death covered up as a mystery. The kingdom never found out what had happened to the lonely queen. The king remarried not two months later, and she became but one of the many names in history, forgotten in the blink of an eye. Though some said that her spirit still lingered, watching over her precious daughter. They said that she haunted the castle as a ghost, seeking revenge on the man who betrayed her love. And some said she remained out of jealousy towards the new queen, both young and beautiful. Yet none knew what truly happened, and soon none cared.
In the new queen’s chambers, a mirror hung. A magic mirror which answered the queen’s incessant demand every day, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The mirror answered every day without fail, stating, “Snow White is the fairest of all.” It never wavered or hesitated even as the queen grew mad with jealousy, for within this mirror remained the spirit of the Late Queen, always watching over her beloved daughter. Little did she know that her words would lead to bloodshed and tragedy. Many moons passed, winter came and went. Snow White was now fourteen summers old. Beautiful like a delicate flower, to the point of foolishness and naïve to the dangers of the world. The king had long since lost interest in his daughter, whom he doubted was truly his. Not that it mattered, as the kingdom was on the cusp of war. He had little time to care for a bastard in his eyes, not when his sole attention was captivated by his beautiful queen, when he was not embroiled in his state affairs. Not that he was a dutiful king, as years of peace had dulled his intuition and strengthened his ego. ‘His kingdom would never fall. Certainly not when he had a witch queen, powerful and dangerous.’ A notion which might have changed, if only he knew where her strengths lay, in deception and in paltry witchcraft to maintain her beauty and youth. The witchcraft she could no longer be content with as Snow White continued to blossom while the queen withered away with jealousy, poisoned by the words of the magic mirror and her own pride.
The Late Queen could do nothing but watch as her own words watered the festering garden of jealousy in the queen’s mind. Yet she wished not to lie, for this was her daughter, her fairytale, her pinnacle of life. But, when the queen sent a huntsman to bring her Snow White’s heart, for the first time, her resolve cracked. ‘Had she condemned her daughter to a gruesome death?’ Her spirit wept as she could do nothing but wait. However, the huntsman returned with the heart of a wild animal. She could sense Snow White fleeing into the forest, shocked and afraid but alive and whole. Perhaps fate was on her side, she decided, and when the queen questioned her that evening, she answered again, “Snow White is the fairest of them all.”
The rage the queen flew into was unprecedented. One could not imagine how a beauty such as she could envy a girl less than half her age. Unable to entrust another with the task of ending the girl’s life, the queen took matters into her own hands. The Late Queen watched as she descended into madness after one failed attempt after another. A comb to poison, a ribbon to strangle, both attempts thwarted by the dwarves who took Snow White in, led the queen to desperate measures. As the Late Queen believed that her daughter was Destiny’s Beloved, protected by the ill will of a mad witch, she took pleasure in claiming her daughter as the fairest, time after time. However, all good things come to an end, she was coldly reminded when she felt her daughter’s last breath as the foolish girl took a bite from a poisonous apple. Loath as she was to admit it, when the queen returned, she could only speak the truth that, after long last, ‘she’ was the fairest of them all. Her fairytale had ended once more.
But what happens after the end of a fairytale? She soon found out that a nightmare begins. She felt a rush of unbridled joy when her daughter gasped for air once more, cheating death. Her joy and relief were much too short-lived though, as she looked upon her sweet child marrying a man more than twice her age, blinded by the deception called ‘love’. An invitation had come earlier from the neighboring kingdom, sending both the king and queen to the throes of rage, who considered it a mockery, each for their own reasons. She too, had raged, her anger directed to the deceitful cradle-robber, who had filled her naive child’s head with ridiculous lies like, “It was love at first sight.” ‘What man falls in love with a child? Much less a corpse of a child? Certainly not one with morals! Why was her daughter blinded by such stupidity?’, she lamented, never imagining what kind of monsters are made when fed with lies. Within a month of the marriage, the prince ascended the throne, and the newly crowned King and Queen Snow White lived happily ever after. Or so the tales tell. What they do not tell is the bloodbath that followed. War was declared, and the kingdom, which was once on the cusp of war, plummeted into the dark abyss of bloodshed. While the newly-crowned king declared that the war was to avenge the pain and suffering his sweet wife had gone through in the hands of her stepmother and neglectful father, all knew that the grand declaration was but an attempt to pull the wool over their eyes as the kingdom’s riches and magic had long garnered the attention and envy of the whole realm.
The Late Queen watched on as her kingdom burned, her daughter now a cruel and twisted queen with her mind warped by the poison of the world, accompanied in life by a man who took a fancy to a child. Her sorrow echoed within her soul, agony crushing her spirit, forever trapped within the magic mirror. Finally, after a long, harsh winter during which the enemy persisted, the castle walls were breached. The end was near. She saw the witch queen and her once-husband cut down by her son-in-law in front of her as the mirror was shattered by the next blow. Shards of the mirror littered the floor as the blood pooled around the dead. Finally, her spirit left the mortal realm, truly forgotten by history, weary and tortured.
‘Breaking a mirror brings forth seven years of bad luck. One can only wonder what the future held for Snow White. Did the ‘happy couple’ get their ‘happily ever after’? Or is there something more the tales do not tell?’
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