Snow Storm

"You must get rid of her," hissed the mirror. "She is a danger to everything we've striven for."

"But you yourself said I'm still the fairest in the land!" I protested, not wanting to believe my husband would indulge such... appetites, especially with me still at hand.

"Oh my queen, you are the fairest, but she is the youngest. If it were any man but the king, there would be no competition, even if she wasn't his blood. But he desires youth more than beauty, more than anything. Get rid of her before he gets rid of you."

The mirror was right, of course. She always was and I knew she always was, but how could I do such a thing? Murder a girl who looked to me as a mother, never mind that I was only four years her senior. I began to cry.

"Stop that at once!" The mirror commanded. "The last thing you need is to ruin your complexion with pointless weeping. No one says you have to murder the girl. I will tell you what you must do..."

I had never been with a man other than the king, but with the mirror's instruction I found it almost laughably easy to seduce the head huntsman's assistant, a young man only just one year my junior. Once he was in thrall to me, I gave him his orders- to take the young princess into the woods and slay her.

"And to prove you have done this, you must bring me her heart in this box," I said, keeping my voice even. I saw his eyes widen, and I knew he would protest, for he loved the girl (we all did, sweet thing that she was) but I told him this was the only way I would believe he loved me.

Men are stupid for love.

He did as I commanded, and brought the box back to me, smeared with crimson and betrayal. And then I killed him- for how could I allow such a monster to live? He who would murder a little girl for nothing more than a woman's favor...

The king mourned the mysterious loss of his daughter, and of his huntsman, and I gave him comfort, and quietly had any woman beneath the age of forty dismissed, and life returned to normal. But I did not talk to my mirror for a long time... I felt wrong about what we had done, although it was only what I had to do, to save my own life. I spent many hours meditating on the box, warm and heavy in my hands. At times I felt as though I could feel it pulsing, and sometimes at night I could make out a faint beating from the shelf where I kept it.

The moon had waxed and waned three times before I returned to my mirror. I was lonely, and I missed her companionship. I believed that she missed me, as well- but when I pulled the curtain back the look she fixed on me was one of fury.

"You fool," she spat. "You complete and utter idiot. Do you know what it is you spend your days mooning over? Do you know what is in that box?"

"A... a heart," I stammered. "My daughter's heart!" The mirror laughed unpleasantly.

"Oh it's a heart, alright, but not one that ever belonged to a human. That is the heart of a doe, and your so-called daughter's heart remains in her still-living chest!" At first I was filled with panic- still alive! But then I realized-

"What does it matter? She is far away from here, and no threat to me. I am glad she's not dead- although now I feel bad about killing the huntsman."

"Glad, are you?" She sneered. "Will you still be glad when she finds her way home, back into her father's loving arms?" I could not reply with words, could only shake my head in denial and grope for the heart box.

"We shall try again. And this time you cannot give the task to anyone else, for it's just as your father always told you- you cannot trust anyone but yourself."