A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Sixty-Three

Desdemona circled her private chambers over and over, dragging her fingernails against the stone walls. The skin around her nails were pink and bloody, but she didn't care. She was too furious to care. Furious because she had just learned from Striker that her plan to suffocate Charlotte with the cursed laces had failed. That the young princess still lived as the fairest beauty in the land.

"What did you do?!" She screeched at him, as they communicated through a small, magic hand mirror that she had given him. "How did you botch this one?!"

"I don't know. I did everything you told me."

"Did you give her the right lace?"

"Yes! I swear!"

"And you saw her tie it around her waist?"

"Yes! And I hid to watch what would happen. The lace turned into a snake, it was ready to squeeze the life out of her and then suddenly, it turned into a bird and flew away."

"You lie!"

"It's true!"

"Just admit that you gave her the wrong lace you idiot!"

"I didn't!"

"Yes you did! You had to of! Otherwise she would be dead! And the fact that you actually insult my intelligence by using such a stupid lie, just further enrages me! The lace turned into a bird?! Charlotte is not a witch! She has no power!"

"But-"

"Enough! The king and queen of Poland are set to arrive here in two days and you're trying my patience! I'm almost tempted to transport myself to wherever they are right now and tell the king all about your past failure!"

Striker hated having to deal with this insufferable woman. It was so demeaning, and it gave him the desire to tear out that loud mouth of hers and devour the rest of her. But he wasn't foolish enough to threaten a witch. Especially an unhinged one like Desdemona. So he remained calm and kept his mouth shut.

"I need to think of a new plan to deal with her!" She declared. "I'll inform you of our next move soon, in the meantime stay out of sight."

She dismissed his reflection and continued to rant and rave silently in her chambers.
The wretched queen could only think of Charlotte. She kept telling herself that she should have killed her stepdaughter years ago when she was a child. That she should have recognized how great of threat the girl's natural beauty would be to her in the future. That sun-gold hair, those sapphire-blue eyes, those apple blossom-pink cheeks, that snow-white skin. It drove the queen to madness.

She looked up on herself in the mirror and was mortified by what she saw. More of her black hair had turned grey and her smooth skin was getting more wrinkled. She was aging faster than she had feared. And all because Charlotte was still alive.

"Why is this happening to me?" She growled.

"All magic comes at a price." The spirit in the mirror answered. "And as your mother and myself warned you a long time ago, the more you use magic for dark and selfish reasons, the higher the price goes. The spell you use to consume the lives of young girls may increase your beauty but once the spell wears off, you age twice as fast."

"This never happened to Evangeline!"

"Evangeline only used magic once in her life. When you two cast that first spell of beauty years ago, and although she was amazed by the effects as you were, she never used magic or witchcraft again cause of her faith."

"Well this never happened to Mother either!"

"Your mother never used magic for selfish reasons nor did she ever use it to kill anyone without just cause. And your mother was always careful to limit how much she used. You on the other hand have always been so impulsive, using the craft to fix every problem and get you what you want. You've used too much. The clock is ticking."