Snow White Blood Red (2 page)

In the coming few pages, I intend to clear a couple of misunderstandings …

There is a common lie that I am not her mother; that I am just some loony, jealous, and insecure stepmother who deceived a king into marrying her so she can share the throne and become queen. A queen obsessed with her long-gone beauty, being jealous of a young giddy and helpless brat. To be honest – and honesty is not my fairest charm –, I might have been worse. A lot worse. I might have danced with mischievous faeries too near to the dark side of the moon. I might have ushered young butterflies to the deceiving light of fire. I might have slaughtered and slithered, tortured and burned, laced and suffocated, combed and killed, poisoned tongues, ripped out hearts, and ate blood-apples topped with chocolate syrup and fluid milk. But you know what? I am not even half the evil that she is made of. Beautiful evil.

If I were not her mother, why do you think the Brothers Grimm altered the version of the tale between 1812 and 1857? In the first version of the so-called fairy tale, they addressed me as her mother, but fifty-five years later, the two German brothers changed my character to a stepmother. I know you’d call me a liar but why don’t you do yourself a favor and reread the books of history before you stone me to death and spit fire like dragons at the my majesty.

And, oh lord, then came out the Disney version of the tale, and they made a stereotypical puppet out of me; a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil, without soul, needs, or motives.

Did you know that the scene where I transform into that ugly witch was based on
Nosferatu
, the oldest vampire in German cinema?

I won’t waste my time with that fact right now – you’re not ready for the truth.

At least, the Brothers Grimm claimed that changing my character into a stepmother was to
tone down
the dark and violent tale. As much as I didn’t like it, I agreed with them. I understand why they altered and forged the Snow White tale. It had to be done for saving the world.

Still, the thought always crossed my mind:

If I swore on Books of Sand and Mirrors of pure enchanting light, would you believe me? Will you at least try to understand why I did what I did?

-- Which is not what you think I did.

Before I tell you about her and what she really is, let me tell you about the last time I met with Jacob Carl Grimm, the teller of the Snow White tale on December 16, 1859, in Steinau, Germany.

It was right before he died in a cottage in the middle of a forest. Even on his dying bed, he surrounded himself with elements of the tale. He spent the last days of his life isolated and alone, dealing with his demons and trying to solve the puzzle.

“Let me help you,” I offered, standing by his bed, stretching out my hand. “I could make you live forever.”

“Who wants to live forever?” He moaned in pain, lying on his back. For a mortal man, his words were kind of insulting. People who lived forever like me would love to believe that short-lived humans envy them, but Jacob didn’t. “And why would
you
want me to live forever? We’ve not been quite on the same side of the war.”

“Oh. Jacob. I am just afraid that when you die, the truth just dies with you
forever
.” I sat next to him, watching his face
dimming
under the candlelight. Even beneath the orange and yellow flicker, his face was expressionless and unreadable, keeping too many secrets from me. “Not that I want
all
of the truth to be revealed to the world,” I explained. “Just a little of it,” I said, narrowing my index and thumb fingers together while pursing lips teasingly. “I want them to know the part about Snow White. The real part.” I hissed.

Jacob didn’t reply.

“Ah, Jacob,” I sighed, looking at two mirror coins in the palm of my hand and fiddling with them. “Can’t you see what they have done to our tale? Did you hear about that Disney movie they are about to make the future? I saw it in a fortune telling Chrystal ball.”

“No,” Jacob coughed. “But I heard about how in the future they will have the tools to forge the best of tales. I wish I had those when I altered the fairy tales in my books.” Jacob said regretfully, not for he didn’t have the tools but somehow regretting he had altered the tales.

“I’ll be looking awful in that movie. How are they going to portray my beauty?” I said, rolling my eyes then breathing into my nails. “You know what a
movie
is, right?”

“Not really. I am not into caring about the future.”

“But of course. Why would you care about a future that you have forged its past?” I smirked at him but he didn’t get my message. “It’s a disgrace,” I elaborated. “Even Snow White is portrayed so wrong. What have they done to her? This is nowhere close to who she really is.
What she really is
. All but being a master of faking her clichéd innocence all the time. They call me the Evil Queen without even knowing my real name for mirror’s sake.”

“Don’t swear in the name of mirrors.” He warned me, unable to raise a finger from the pain.

“Why, Jacob?” I leaned a little forward, enchanted by the smell of death on his breath. Believe me, I know about the dying smell. I had it linger on my blood-bathed skin too many times for too many years. “Are you afraid of who is in my mirror? Are you afraid of her?” I wasn’t talking about Snow White. I was talking about the woman in the mirror. The woman I fear uttering her name sometimes.

“She is pure evil. You know that. And maybe if you have never met with her, things would have changed.”

“Can you say her name?” I leaned closer and closer, amused by the glimmer of fear in his eyes. Fear had that paradoxical quality in people’s eyes. It made the eyes glimmer and the hearts flutter, but for the wrong reasons. “Are you afraid to utter the name of the woman in my mirror, Jacob?” I laughed and leaned back as I knew he wouldn’t dare to say her name. “Don’t you wonder why they will never mention the name of the woman in the mirror in the Disney movie when it comes out?”

Jacob stared with appalled eyes at me. She really scared him, that woman in my mirror whom I love and hate equally. “No one cares anymore,” I sighed. “It’s all about Snow White, and the rest are merely second-hand actors in a bedtime tale. That woman in the mirror played a pivotal role in the story, Jacob. Let me utter her name, only once. I promise I will not utter it three times.” I teased him again. It really made me feel good when I teased the dying on their bed. You have to admit that I am more entertaining than that Grim Reaper. I’d like to consider myself the
Grimm
Reaper.

“Not in my house,” Jacob said finally. “Don’t you ever dare mentioning her in my house.”

“Wow. The cottage is
your
house now? You know whose house it is, Jacob. It’s their house—”

I couldn’t finish my sentence as he finally managed to raise an old and stiff finger at me. For a mortal, Jacob could be intimidating sometimes.

“Ok. As if we really know who the seven of them are.”

“I figured out three of them.” Jacob teased me now, for he knew how I’d die to know the identities of those we call the Lost Seven whom Jacob and his brother turned into dwarfs in the book – dwarves my fairy butt. And what really bugged me is that people believed it.

“You can’t handle not knowing who they are, can you?” Jacob grinned at me. I still liked it when the dying grinned. Cute. “Besides, we don’t want anyone to know your real name,” Jacob eyed me daringly, even on his bed of death. “Don’t you agree?”

I nodded. Why would I want the world to know my name after all these years? Leave my name alone. Let it pass by their reading-eyes whenever they come upon it in books or hear it in movies without them knowing that
she
is me. I didn’t see those movies myself by then, but the fact that world will advance was foretold to us.

“I agree. Look at what happened to Rumpelstiltskin when they knew his real name,” I sighed. “Which reminds me, Jacob. Why didn’t you alter Rumpelstiltskin’s story? The idea that knowing one’s real name can kill him might have drawn suspicions and conclusions that the fairy tales were forged.”

“That was my brother Wilhelm’s idea.”

“I am not following,” I shook my head. “Why would he want to tell a story as it really is while all the rest was forged?”

“You know him. He was big on giving hints in the books,” Jacob explained. “Wilhelm was never sure that forging the fairy tales was the right thing to do, so he left hints and clues intentionally for it might help if there was ever someone who would read between the lines and uncover the truth.”

“And what kind of hint did Rumpelstiltskin’s story give?”

“Can’t you get it?”

“Sorry. I am a queen. I am spoiled. I am evil. I am bad. And I am dumb and an airhead. Spit it out, Jacob.” I played with my mirror coins.

“The fact that Rumpelstiltskin is not called something like an evil troll like you were called the Evil Queen should make one the reader question why the names of the characters were never mentioned in fairy tales – true tales have true names. Since in the story, if someone had known Rumpelstiltskin’s name, he would be exposed, Wilhelm thought this would make the readers think about the real names of the characters. There was a time when he wanted to mention the Faerie Godmother’s real name but I persuaded him otherwise.”

“Gah! Don’t even mention her to me. I hate her guts, that silly giggling woman.”

“She hates you as well, you silly evil queen.” For a dying man, Jacob’s humor was as bitter as the taste of the afterlife on his tongue.

The white of Jacob’s eyes looked reddened with vein-like spirals of red blood, curving underneath cinder-blackened eyebrows. A perfect white, red, and black scene. It made me wonder about how long I was destined to stay cursed and hunted by those three colors. Sometimes, I thought I could only see in blooded black and white.

I looked at the cinder on the floor next to the fireplace, wondering why Jacob’s forehead was smeared with it. For all I knew, Jacob could hardly walk at this stage of his illness. The cinder let me suspect that he had found Cinderella. There was no point in asking him. If he did find her, he wouldn’t tell me where she was.

“So since you’re dying, Jacob, I have a confession to make. But first, I have to ask you something, for no one will able to answer me after you die.”

I shook my head and breathed onto my manicured, long fingernails to puff the suspicious thoughts away. It was only minutes before he was gone anyway. “Do you think I am evil, Jacob?” I finally asked.

Jacob looked the other way.

“Look at me. It shouldn’t be that hard to answer. You know what happened. You know what I have done … and what she has done … and what she is capable of.”

“In my book, you’re the evil of all evil,” he whispered. “But when it comes to logic, I get confused sometimes. Many nights, I sat wondering about this but I never got a straight answer,” he turned his head back to me. “All I know is that evil is a point of view, to both: the reader and the protagonist, the predator and the prey, the dreamer and the Dreamhunter. People love me when I retell the stories they have collected. If I retell the story as it really happened, they blame and accuse me of telling a bad story, because readers expect stories to be logical, to have a linear plot, and to have plain good and bad characters, to have a hero and have a villain. That’s the difference between fact and fiction. A great writer is an excellent liar. And I am an excellent writer.”

“Are you saying that this is why you altered the tales?” I laughed mockingly.

“You know damn well why I altered the tales,” If Jacob had fangs, he would be snarling at me now.

I nodded at his words of wisdom and tapped his hands gently as an apology. Although we’ve been enemies all along, I admired the man and his brother who brought tales and bedtimes stories to the children of the world. Tales that they shouldn’t have told, at least not to children. But they did a great job in forging them and making them believable.

I lowered my head and looked him closer in the eyes again. My eyes have sunk huntsmen to their knees and girls to their glass coffins, so he should have feared me.