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“Oh, we already know the story,” said Primrose. “And I daresay Jacob couldn’t forget it if he tried.”
Snow White blushed and handed the book to Circe, who immediately became engrossed in the story. “Of course he couldn’t. My heart has been filled with dread ever since I read it. But I wonder, who tore those pages out?”
“I did, sweet majesty,” Jacob said. “I was trying to protect my poor little witch, Gothel. I promised her mother I would keep her secrets. And now, well, it seems I may have caused more harm by keeping them.”
“You did right to try to protect her, Jacob. Truly. Please don’t blame yourself.” Snow held back a tear. “I always thought the fairy tale book belonged to the odd sisters. How did you come to have it?”
Jacob’s face contorted into a strange smile. “And so it does. But it wasn’t always so.” Snow thought she understood what he meant. Everything had been leading her and Circe here, to the dead woods. Everything she had suspected since she read Gothel’s story was now playing out.
Circe gasped. She looked as if some invisible creature had stolen the life from her. She looked like a ghost, her eyes wide with terror.
“Circe, what’s wrong?” asked Snow. “Did you read the story?” Circe nodded, unable to speak, taking everything in.
Snow went to her side, putting her arm around her cousin. “Shall we read the rest together, then, dear cousin? Don’t be afraid. I will be right here.”
M anea was crumpled in a heap over Jacob’s dead body. Her mother had slashed his throat. Manea was weeping so hard she couldn’t catch her breath.
She had made her choice and lost her dearest love.
“Mother…please…don’t take…my baby!” She could hardly get the words out. She felt like she was choking on them along with her overwhelming grief. She felt as if she were trapped in a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. All she could do was weep. She was helpless. Her mother was too powerful and would do anything she wanted with her daughter. Manea looked up at Nestis with pleading eyes. “Mother, please.”
Nestis put her hand on her daughter’s head, patting her like a broken and neglected child or a beloved pet. “My darling girl, please stop crying. I promise you will be happy with your daughters.”
Manea felt the ruin of her life crashing down on her. She had betrayed her dearest love to try to save her daughter, and her mother was going to do with her what she willed anyway. Manea didn’t dare try to use what little powers she possessed against her mother. She knew she wasn’t strong enough. Her mother could kill with a single look if she desired.
“My sweet, confused daughter, this was your choice. You could have had Jacob and your daughters, but you chose to stand against me and suffered the consequences.”
Manea cried even harder, sobbing into Jacob’s chest. “My dearest love, I am so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Oh, please forgive me.”
Nestis lost her patience with Manea and sent her crashing violently across the room with a wave of her hand. “Stop this nonsense at once, Manea! I won’t have a daughter of mine degrading herself over a human!” She cradled the baby girl in her arms. “Now compose yourself at once, and start conducting yourself as the future queen of these lands! Do you understand?” She didn’t wait for Manea’s reply. She turned and exited the room with the child, leaving Manea alone.
With Jacob’s body.
Manea’s hands and dress were covered in his blood from her trying to stop the bleeding. She sat there crying over the loss of him, and over the loss of the relationship she’d thought she had with her mother.
And over the loss of her daughter. Her darling girl.
What would she do?
She didn’t know how to contact the ancestors without the mourning box. Her mother had destroyed it.
They had promised all would be well. They had promised they wouldn’t let it go too far.
She had to trust them. Trust they wouldn’t let anything happen to her daughter.
As she sat there, wondering what was to come, her mother’s skeletal minions came into the room, their bones rattling and scraping along the stone floor. She had grown up with these silent, morose creatures skulking about the house. Her mother used them like servants. They were always about, ready to do her mother’s bidding. Manea couldn’t stand the sight of them. When she was queen of these lands, she would have them shut away so she wouldn’t have to feel their empty, hollow eye sockets always watching her. Without ceremony, the skeletal grotesqueries gathered up Jacob’s body. “Where are you taking him?” Manea cried. But they didn’t answer. They never did. She couldn’t stand their silence. It was worse than the cacophony of a thousand harpies and, to Manea, more deadly. She felt like she could drown in the absence of their words.
Manea sat huddled in the corner, covered in her lover’s blood, as she watched the skeletal minions take him away.
She looked at the empty crow’s nest cradle, where her daughter should have been, and felt numb. She had no choice other than to wait and see what happened. Her mother was too strong. She was queen of these lands. And the ancestors would do nothing beyond making sure her mother didn’t try to extend her reach past the forest of the dead. She had never felt so alone, so afraid, and so filled with dread.
Outside, the sky was turning lilac. It seemed like another world outside the nursery windows, and she was afraid to face it. Afraid to live in a world without Jacob. Afraid to live in a world with a mother who would do this to her. So she sat alone, waiting for her mother to return. Waiting for her to bring her daughter back to her. Her daughters, she reminded herself. Soon she would have three. Would she be able to tell her own daughter from the abominations her mother was creating? Would she know which one she had brought into the world herself and which were created by magic?
“They are all your daughters, my darling girl. Each of them. And I know you will love them all equally.”
Nestis stood in the doorway between two of her skeletal minions. Each of them was holding a baby. Manea’s head spun and the room swayed; everything was going in and out of focus as she desperately tried to pick her own daughter out of the three before her.
“Behold your daughters, Manea.” Her mother was beaming as she and the minions put the babies into the crow’s nest cradle. “Look at them, my love. They’re perfect.”
