Piper blinked, some clarity returning to her eyes.“In the drawer.By my bed.”
“I'll be right back,” Mom said, rising quickly and heading for the stairs.
Frank leaned forward.“Piper,” he said gently, “can you tell us more about what you saw in the woods?”
Piper's shivering had subsided slightly, but her voice was still shaky.“It was so cold.Snow everywhere.I was sitting by a window with a black frame—ebony, I think.I was sewing something.Then I pricked my finger, and the blood...it fell into the snow.Three perfect drops.”She swallowed hard.“It was beautiful, but then everything changed.There was a dark forest, and there was a man with a knife...”
She broke off as Mom returned, clutching something in her closed fist.
“Here,” Mom said to Piper.She opened her hand to reveal the brooch Jenna had found back in July—the ornate piece with its weathered metal and rounded opal face.“Hold this, sweetheart.”
Piper reached for the brooch.As soon as it touched her palm, she gasped softly.The change was immediate and striking—her shoulders relaxed, the shivering ceased, and color returned to her cheeks.She closed her fingers around the brooch.
“Better?”Mom asked, a knowing look in her eyes.
Piper gaze was clearer now.“Much better.How did you know?”
“Just a hunch,” Mom said, stroking Piper's hair.“That brooch has been through a lot with you.I thought maybe it might...ground you somehow.”
Jenna stared at her mother, impressed by her intuition.Led by one of her dreams, she had found that brooch herself in the well where Piper had hidden it during her time as “Emma.”It seemed to hold some power for her sister—a talisman of sorts.
“What was happening to me?”Piper asked, sitting up straighter and adjusting the quilt.
“You were describing images from the Snow White story,” Jenna explained.“The snow, the blood, the ebony sewing frame.”
Piper's brow furrowed in concentration.“I wasn't seeing the past, like with the voices of the dead.This felt...different.More immediate somehow.”
“Maybe something that hasn’t happened yet,” Jake said.“The killer might be planning something based on ‘Snow White’ next.”
Jenna suddenly remembered something.“Leith told us that the original uncensored text of the Grimm fairy tales is in the public domain now.Available online.”She turned to her mother.“Mom, do you have your laptop?We should look it up.”
“Of course,” Mom replied, already moving toward her small desk in the corner of the living room.“Here, let me get it for you.”
As Mom set up her laptop on the coffee table, Frank rose to his feet.“I'll make some tea,” he offered.“Could use something warm after all this cold talk.”
“And there are more cookies,” Mom added, following him toward the kitchen.“They should still be warm.”
Jenna pulled the laptop closer and navigated to a search engine.“Original uncensored Grimm fairy tales,” she typed, quickly finding a PDF of a translation.She opened it, then used the search function to find “Snow White.”
Jake moved to sit beside her on the sofa, their shoulders touching as they both leaned toward the screen.Piper shifted closer too, the brooch still held in her hand like a lifeline.
"There," Jenna said, finding the beginning of the story.She began to read aloud: "'Once upon a time in midwinter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood.As she sewed she looked up at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle.Three drops of blood fell into the snow.'
Piper's sharp intake of breath was audible.“That's exactly what I saw.Exactly.”
Jenna continued reading: “'The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought to herself, “If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.”Soon afterward she had a little daughter who was as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as ebony wood, and therefore they called her Little Snow-White.And as soon as the child was born, the queen died.'“
“Well, that's cheery,” Jake muttered.
"It gets worse with the new stepmother," Jenna said, skimming ahead.She found another passage and read: "'Then the evil queen summoned a huntsman and said to him, "Take Snow White out into the woods.I never want to see her again.Kill her, and as proof that she is dead bring her lungs and her liver back to me."Jenna paused, feeling her stomach turn at what came next."'Because Snow White was so beautiful the huntsman took pity on her, and he said, "Run away, you poor child."Just then a young boar came running by.The huntsman killed it, cut out its lungs and liver, and took them back to the queen as proof of Snow-White's death.The cook had to boil them with salt, and the wicked woman ate them, supposing that she had eaten Snow-White's lungs and liver.'"
“My God,” Jake whispered.
“She ate what she thought were a child's organs,” Mom said, her voice hollow.“These aren't the fairy tales I remember.”
“They've been sanitized over the years,” Frank said, returning with a tray of steaming mugs.“The originals were much darker.”
Jenna added, “Leith said they were meant as warnings, not bedtime stories.”
