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The apple blossom trees in the castle courtyard bloomed with the lightest of pink petals and sparkled with shimmering silver baubles, reflecting the sun brilliantly.
Garlands of wisteria and gardenia were draped over the stone well at the foot of the castle’s grand staircase, which was strewn with pink and red rose petals. One hundred attendants, fitted in the finest garments of deep blue edged in silver trim, stood along the castle’s main gate, ready to greet the royal wedding guests who were now starting to pour into the courtyard. It seemed the entire world was now assembled by the old well, waiting to see the king’s beautiful new bride—a distinguished beauty who seemed to magically appear from legend and myth, the beautiful daughter of the renowned maker of mirrors. The courtyard was bursting with royalty from neighboring kingdoms, all waiting for the wedding to commence.
The Queen stood alone in her chamber, staring at her reflection in the mirror—which looked back at her rather nervously. No woman could have her life so completely changed and not expect some level of anxiety. She was marrying the man she loved, becoming a mother to his daughter, and she was to be queen of these lands. Queen. She should be happy, but something about the mirror she was holding filled her with a horrid sense of dread that she could not account for.
Verona, the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, cleared her throat to announce her presence and then rushed into the chamber. Verona’s bright eyes, the color of the sky, beamed with happiness. The lady glowed with a light that seemed to come straight from her core, illuminating her fair skin and glinting off her milk-and-honey hair.
The Queen smiled weakly as Verona embraced her. The Queen had never been surrounded by such beauty. Nor had she known happiness. Not until she came to this court. And now, here was a woman she loved as a sister.
Snow White followed Verona into the Queen’s chambers. She was a lovely little creature of three or four with a joyous bounce in her step and an inextinguishable sparkle of happiness twinkling in her eyes. Her skin was fairer than a virgin snowfall, her tiny, pouty lips redder than the deepest ruby, with hair as black as a raven’s feathers. She was like a delicate porcelain doll come to life—especially this day, in her little red silk-velvet dress.
Verona held Snow by her tiny hand, hoping it would discourage the little girl from fidgeting with the beading on her delicate dress.
“Snow, my dear, stop pulling at your beads, you’ll ruin your dress before the wedding even commences.”
The Queen smiled and said, “Hello my pretty little bird of a girl; you look lovely today.”
Snow blushed and hid behind Verona’s skirts, peeking at her stepmother.
“Doesn’t your new mother look pretty today, Snow?” Verona said.
Snow nodded her head.
“Then tell her, dear,” coaxed Verona as she bent down, smiling at the coy little girl.
“You look very pretty too, Momma,” said Snow, melting the queen’s heart.
The Queen opened her arms to the child, and with Verona’s gentle encouragement, Snow moved forward to accept the Queen’s embrace. Snow was a little bird of a girl, such a lovely creature; it tugged at her stepmother’s heart, as if the child’s beauty hurt her deeply. As she took Snow into her arms, she was filled with a love she had never known. She thought the weight of that love might cause her heart to burst, and in a secret place buried deep within her heart she wished somehow she could absorb the beauty of this child, so she herself would truly be beautiful.
“You do look quite striking, my Queen,” Verona said, smiling knowingly, as if she had seen into the Queen’s insecure heart.
The Queen again examined herself in the mirror, and she saw something of her mother looking back at her. She remembered back to the day the King had remarked on their resemblance. Perhaps he was right. It was possible that she did look like her mother, but she had never seen it before now, standing there in the same wedding gown her mother had worn on her own wedding day.
The dress was of the deepest red, and somehow the years had done nothing to mute its brilliance. It was embroidered with a lavish pattern of blackbirds, and bejeweled with smoky black crystals that sparkled in the light. The Queen’s heart leaped, then quickly sank. How wonderful it would have been to have her mother here with her today. How wonderful it would have been to have had her there at all.
The Queen knew her mother only from the painting that decorated her father’s home. But as a child, she would stare at it, in awe of the woman’s beauty, deeply in love with her, and yearning for her embrace. She would imagine this mother she never knew taking her into her arms, dancing in circles, the jewels that adorned both their dresses catching the light while they laughed.
The Queen broke away from her reverie to look at Snow, who was playing with the tassels of the curtains at the far end of the room. For all the joy in her eyes and her heart, the Queen knew the poor child’s feelings of loss. There must have been an emptiness inside the girl, an inconsolable feeling.
The Queen frowned, knowing that there was nothing she could ever do to replace the King’s first wife. How could Snow possibly love another woman as much as she cared for her own mother? How, especially, could she care for someone like the Queen, whose life up till now had, at best, been a string of mediocre achievements surrounded by boredom and bleakness?
As the child played and Verona tended to her, the Queen’s mind drifted further, to the day she had met the King in her father’s mirror shop. Her father’s reputation as an expert craftsman had grown so wide, and his artisanship so well-respected, that the King himself felt it his duty to visit he who had been called the finest craftsman in all the lands.
After examining her father’s wares and being gifted a mirror of his own, he was ushered outside where the Queen was fetching a bucketful of water from an old well. The King ordered his attendants to halt.
“Who is this girl?” the King asked.
“The Mirror Maker’s daughter, Sire,” an attendant replied.
The King made his way over to her and took her hand. She gasped, and dropped the bucket at his feet, soaking his boots right through to his stockings.
The Queen looked up nervously, expecting a harsh rebuke, perhaps even imprisonment in his dungeons. But the King simply smiled. And then he spoke to her.
She thought he was teasing her when he told her how lovely she was. That of all her
father’s creations, she was the finest.
“Please, don’t say such things to me, Your Majesty,” she said awkwardly, performing something between a curtsy and a bow as she struggled to avoid his pale blue eyes.
