Page 17 of How To Survive This Fairytale

Her lower lip wobbles.Dewdrop tears glisten in her eyes.She does not look at you.Instead, she looks into the mirror, into the eyes of her own reflection.

I didn’t know she was a witch until it was too late, he said.If you ever meet a witch, Hansel, the best thing you can do is run away.

What did you do when you learned?

I did what I had to do to survive.

The truth won’t help you survive this, so you swallow it down.

“Did he finish his hunt?”Your voice scrapes out of your throat, a beaten, tear-strained thing.“Did he kill the beast?”

“He didn’t succeed,” she says.“But we must mourn him before we speak of such grisly things.”

“No, Your Majesty.I must finish this mission for him.”

Youmustprove your loyalty.Youmustprove your courage.You must flatter the Fair Queen, convince her she commands your entire life, your entireworld.If you ever want to see Gertrude and Favorite again,you must live.

“I have so many enemies, Hans,” she says, her voice small and soft, her entire demeanor reflecting the fragility of a rehearsed victim.“People all over this land who would usurp me.My mirror… My magic mirror shows them to me.”

Her knuckles caress the ornate frame of the upright, wall-length mirror.

“I sent the huntsman to kill them,” she says.“Now, I shall send you.”

* * *

She dies so easily, the washerwoman with red hair.One arrow to the chest, and she goes down no differently than a deer, dropping her basket of clean linens, soiling them with dirt and blood.How can a washerwoman be an enemy of the queen?you wonder, retrieving your arrow from her chest.You try not to look at her open eyes, but you can’t help it.Emerald, the same as the queen’s, butnatural—a thing born, not a thing made.Hunting knife in trembling hand, you carve through her breastbone, open her ribs—she’s a deer, she’s a deer, she’s a deer, she’s a deer—and cut out her heart as proof of the deed.

* * *

Upon your return, the Fair Queen holds the washerwoman’s heart in her hand, inspecting its curves, testing the give of its muscle with her thumb.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” she says, “who’s the fairest of them all?”

“You, my queen,” rumbles a voice inside the mirror, “are the fairest of all.”

A grin as wide as a wolf’s and delicate as blown glass opens across her face.

Then she sinks her teeth into the washerwoman’s heart and eats it like an apple.

11.

SURRENDER THE DREAM OF SEEING GERTRUDE AND FAVORITE AGAIN.

You will not subjectthem to what you have become.

12.

FORGET EACH FACE.

Each round jaw.Each angular jaw.Each sharp nose.Each wide nose.Each brown eye, blue eye, green eye, gray eye, hazel eye—short-lashed and long-lashed, thick-browed and slender-browed alike.Each braid, each bun, each red- brown- flaxen- black- straight- curly- wavy- long- short-haired head.All the pale tan brown dark light unblemished skin.Each (un)freckled cheek.Each plump lip.Thin lip.Each smile with a space between her teeth.Stop it.Stop.Don’t think of them.Don’t.

13.

FORGET EACH NAME.

You wishyou never knew the names.You wish you didn’thaveto know them.

You wish the magic mirror would not divulge it; you have other ways to track each maiden, eachfairest of them all, without knowing who she is.Deer don’t have names.Pheasants don’t have names.And if they do, their names belong to a world you can never be a part of, and so they cannot matter.