Page 20 of How To Survive This Fairytale

What might have happened, if you’d never gone checking the snares that morning?What might you have been, if you’d never been taken into the Fair Queen’s palace?What would your life be like if, at any point, you’d run away?Would the old huntsman have chased you, if you’d taken off into the woods, never to be seen again?Did he hope that you would?Was there ever a chance you could havebeen therewhen Favorite became human again?Is hehuman again?Did Gertrude succeed?You’ve heard nothing, and you know better than to ask the Fair Queen for a favor.

Only when Friend licks your face do you stop asking these questions.

It’s late.You need to sleep.

Remember: there was no other way for this story to go.Don’t bother withwhat if.There is nowhat could have been.There was only this one path.You never had choices.Why torture yourself pretending?

From your place on the bedroom floor, you stare out your window, into a darkness made turbulent by a blizzard.The snowflakes whirl like swan feathers, ripped from a pillow, falling off a bird made prince again…

* * *

In this way, seven more years go by.

23.

COVER YOUR MIRRORS.

Whenever you catchsight of yourself, you think,No!

Your barrel chest.Your biceps as big as a boy’s head.Your broad shoulders, the beard thick on your jaw.Muscled from your forearms to your calves.What would the witch in the gingerbread house think?

It shouldn’t matter what she would think, but her hunger follows you everywhere you go.If it wouldn’t invoke the Fair Queen’s ire, you doubt you’d eat at all.

So you cover your mirrors.You don’t need to see yourself.You don’t need to see the well-nourished body.You don’t need to think what a good meal you’d make.

24.

KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN,

AND DO AS YOUR QUEEN COMMANDS.

You learned this lesson long ago, but sometimes you need a reminder.

In the queen’s private library, you blend into the wall because you are part of the wall; you are another piece of furniture; you’re set design; you’re the queen’s violence given shape.You are at her command, no different from the oaken doors: they open and close at her leisure, just as you pluck the heart out of a maiden’s chest when she wills it.

“Mirror, mirror…” recites the Fair Queen, as always.And, as always—almost- always, excepting those rare, blissful occasions where another beauty has not yet ripened—the mirror responds that she is not the fairest in the land.

“Snow White is a thousand times fairer than thee,” says the mirror.

No.

Your bowels turn to water.Your organs slosh about inside you, unmoored, and the floor wobbles underfoot.With trembling fingers, the Fair Queen touches her reflection in the glass.

“My daughter?”she asks.“She’s only seven, how could she possibly…”

“Snow,” the mirror’s voice thunders through you, unyielding, “White.”

There is only one.

All the breath leaves her lungs.Her whole palm presses to the mirror; her forehead, too, as she surrenders to lean against it.

Let this be the end, you beg whatever forces may still listen to wishes, especially a wish made by a monster like you.Let this be what makes this horror stop.

The Fair Queen’s shoulders jostle with silent, private sobs.Moments pass.Then minutes.

“How could she do this to me?”she whispers.“My own daughter… my usurper.”

No, you beg the godmothers, the fairies, the Mothering Trees, but there are no godmothers, no fairies, no Mothering Trees in this room.There is only you.And you are not going to stop her.That’s not your story.That story belongs to someone else.