Pale As Snow

(Image by lukaszdylka - Pixabay)

She’s jealous of me. She hates me, I know she does, I see it in her eyes. She says she loves me, but I don’t believe her. She thinks she can take him from me, all I have left. But I won’t let her. When she first came, I was so scared of her, but I’m older now. Everyone else has fallen under her spell, but she doesn’t fool me with her honeyed words.

I remember Mother’s warnings, even though I’d been so very young. “Never trust,” she’d said, “never trust any woman who tries to replace me.” I remember because she wrote them in my special book, the one meant only for me. I’ve kept it hidden; no one knows of it. It has all her knowledge there, all she wrote down for me. And I’ve been practising. Only I know the secret behind the lifeless small animals and birds found scattered about the gardens. Everyone thinks they’re dead, but they’re not. Are the creatures aware when they’re burned or buried, or does the spell deaden their mind as well as their bodies?

I hear the whispers of the court, praising my beauty. “Her skin,” they say, “so pale, like newly fallen snow. And her lips, so bloody and red.” Sometimes, I hear the fear in their whispers. “So unnatural… is she of this world?”

I pretend not to hear, but their jealousy is so obvious. How can they not be with their plain, everyday colouring? Sometimes, I hear her chastise them, telling them they’re blessed to have so pale a beauty for their princess, but she doesn’t fool me. I know what’s really in her heart.

Every day I look in Mother’s mirror. And every day, countless times, it tells me I’m the fairest in the land. I never thought it before, how like Mother it sounds.

I’ve begged Father, begged him so many times, but he has said he will never send her away. He says he loves her, and she loves him; she makes him happy. Don’t I make you happy, Father? He laughed, hugged me and said to be kind for she loves me too. He won’t listen, laughing when I try to tell him, but he won’t see the truth of who she really is.

And now there’s talk of sending me away. To some prince I don’t even care about. Father says I’m of an age now and many seek my hand. It’s her fault. She’s convinced Father to get rid of me so she can twist him into her plaything and take his power for her own. But she underestimates me. She thinks I’m powerless. She’s wrong.

I will save Father and our people. I will use the most innocent of things – an apple, a rosy red apple – to put an end to her evil ways. An apple infused with Mother’s favourite spell, the one she marked with a red heart in my book. The one I’ve perfected.