Snow White

The mother was sunk down into the cushions and wrapped around on each side by a child, the pajama’d boy yawning into sleep on her right shoulder and the wide awake girl, all pink and gauzy on her left. She wound a finger through her hair as she read the story, one she had recited at so many bedtimes that by now it came through her like a prayer, "...skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony..." Her voice was quiet so as not to wake the father, snoring in his underwear beside them on the couch. The little girl held her hands folded in her lap and her knees pressed closely together. Her lips whispered along with the words and her eyes wandered from the jeweled neck of the queen in the picture to the softened and creased throat of her mother. "Mirror mirror on the wall..."

The girl stared at the queen, her gown gushing about her like a fountain, golden and low and barely covering her breasts, and she watched her mother’s breath hush over the page, her chest rise and fall as the queen commanded the huntsman, "Take the child into the woods and cut out her heart." The mother’s breasts curved down into her slip, all smooth and white, and the child imagined the huntsman’s knife slicing through to the blood beneath, sliding his hand in and drawing it out. She wasn’t sure what the heart would look like but could see the red stain it would leave behind. She squeezed her thighs together tighter and pressed her body under the mother’s arm. "No sooner had she bitten the apple than she fell to the ground dead."

The child touched the lace on the front of her nightgown as she climbed the stairs to go to bed. In the hallway, she pretended to sweep the dwarves’ cottage, singing and sighing, "Oh, my..." and "If only..." She put her hand to her brow and then to her breast before fainting in a heap by the wishing well. "Please, wicked Queen," she gasped, staring up at the dark ceiling, "Have pity on me. I’m waiting for my prince." However, it was not the prince who rescued her that night, but the huntsman. The child watched as he took the queen into the forest and tied her to a great tree, then drew his knife and slowly cut open her dress. The evil queen cried and pleaded for mercy. But just as the huntsman raised his knife, he was startled by a deep voice in the doorway: "Hey, what’s all the noise? Sounds like someone wants to get spanked!"

The huntsman and the queen disappeared. Only the little girl remained. The father left to put down the sleeping boy and then returned to her room. He sat beside her and asked why she had been making so much noise. The girl stared at her fingernails and said nothing. "Hey," the father demanded, "I asked you a question." The girl heard his words but didn’t know what he meant. She heard the toilet flush and her mother’s shower running down below. "Bloody kid!" he snarled before taking her over his knee. "Bloody stubborn kid!" Within seconds her nighty was up and her panties down around her ankles. She clutched her chest, holding her heart, as his hand stung her bottom over and over. "Stop it! Stop it!" she cried, unable to bear her punishment as a real princess would. He set her on her feet in front of him, roughly arranged her clothing, and left the room without a word.

The little girl looked in the mirror. Her skin was red and ruined, her tears like vinegar down her face. She crossed the room, climbed under her covers, and vanished.

THE END

ãElizabeth Terry
8/3/1996