Mirrored Snow [short story]

The Old Woman

I managed to avoid the queen for the rest of the night. She danced to her victory and didn't go to bed until the early hours of the morning, too drunk on success to remember me. But when she did wake, she was all too eager to hear those magic words. 

I first felt the tug of her summons in the tingling of my fingers. I tried to ignore it, but it spread to an ache in my stomach, and then a throbbing pain in my head. And before I could try to fight it anymore, my eyes were beginning to close. When I opened them again I was stood before the queen. Trying to hide my nerves, I feigned a yawn. "This again, really? Look, I was up late last night and I could really do with a rest."

"Mirrors don't sleep. Stop wasting my time and answer the question." 

"The current fairest in all the land is... Well..."

"Mirror?" She had arched an eyebrow. Her lips were pursed dangerously. I wouldn't say it. I could beat it. This time I would be strong enough. It didn't matter that I felt sick, or that my head was spinning, or even that my lips were forcing themselves open. No. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I-

"Snowdon. Snowdon is still the fairest."

She paled. "But you're a really, really close second. How about we call that a victory? You are still the most beautiful woman in the land. And that's all they matters really, right?"

She ignored my rambling, cutting across me with an icy glare. "Where is he?" 

I shrugged. "Not a clue. I was at the ball all night." Be calm. Keep your breathing controlled. I stared at my nails, inspecting them for imaginary mirror-world dirt. 

"Sometimes, I think you are more hassle than you are worth, Mirror. Never mind. I don't need you to find him. She went over to the set of drawers by her bed, the train of her crimson dress trailing behind her. I knew those drawers well. Nothing good ever came out of them. 

The top one creaked when she opened it. She reached inside at pulled out a bottle of vermilion powder. The one below it screamed, the high pitched and terrified wail of a newborn child. From it, she took a vial of cerulean liquid. The bottom was the worst. A piercing wail full of a grief so profound my heart ached just to hear it. From this drawer she took a bowl of blackest night. The mirrored surface inside shone, tauntingly, at me. I had never tried to appear in the bowl. 

She placed these items on the dressing table in front of me and then went over to the bookcase, returning with a thick, leather bound tome which she opened up on a map of the kingdom. 

The powder and liquid went into the bowl, combining as she swirled it in her right hand, muttering lyrical words under her breath so that I couldn't hear. After a minute of incantation, she placed the bowl back on the table and drew a small dagger from within the folds of her dress, which she drew across her palm in an action which eerily echoed her step-son's. Drops of crimson fell into the bowl below with a hiss. A violet vapour was released from it immediately and hovered in the air before us. "Show me the prince," her voice was a low, loving caress and the vapour drifted over the map, eager to obey. It collected over the woods in a spiral, winding together in a point which extended slowly downward until it pinpointed what must have been the location of the dwarfs' cottage. "Show me more!" She demanded, forceful this time and the vapour transformed into a spiralling vortex, swirling faster and faster until it cleared suddenly, leaving a window where the faded pages of the map should have been. A window into the dwarfs' cottage.