She waits by the window, watching the sun set over the trees in the distance. She lays her sewing on the sill and rests her head on her chin. She can see the castle standing tall on the other edge of the forest.
She hears the sound of hooves. She leans out the window and sees the horse approaching the house. She runs downstairs and meets her father as he rides up the path. But his booming laugh and smiling face is not there to greet her. In fact, he looks anxious and a little bit..guilty.
"Father, what is the matter?" She asks, stepping back to allow him to dismount the horse.
He takes his time before answering, "Oh, Reinette darling, I have done something terrible." They walk into the house before he continues. "I was in the pub with the usual crowd. We were drinking and who should walk in but the King himself!" He shakes head before continuing. "Everyone knows he is looking for a new wife, so the conversation quickly turns to our daughters."
Reinette nods her head. Indeed, after the accident, the king had held ball after ball to find a woman who suited him. He must surely be getting desperate if he would listen to the ramblings of a bunch of drunken peasants.
Her father continues. "Well, I said, my daughter was the beautiful in the land. This seemed to interest him until they all told him that their daughters were the most fair. Then all claimed their girls were the smartest in the land. It became a competition," He says imploringly. "One man said his daughter could cook for a king, another swore his could sing like a bird. So I drunkenly boasted that my girl could spin straw into gold!"
Reinette listens, shaking her head. Her father often went into town an said ludicrous things to try and procure a husband for her. Making a fool of himself among other drunks was one thing, but in the presence of the king?
"Daddy, you must stop this. No man would be foolish enough to believe your stories and we are a joke in this town."
Her father is still upset. "Then I am afraid our kingdom is ruled by an imbecile, for he has requested your presence in his palace tomorrow morning."
She stands up. "Surely not."
"I'm afraid so."
She is restless the whole night. Rationality tells her that her must have called her by chance, but she has a twisted feeling in her stomach that says otherwise.
After a troubled sleep, she is woken by a loud rapping on the door. She throws on a dress and tries to see what's going on without drawing attention to herself.
Her father opens the door to find armed guards standing on their doorstep. Before he can speak, they push their way into the house and see her standing at the top of the stairs.
They take her to the palace in a carriage and as she watches her father and house fade into the distance she can't attempt to guess what will happen next. She enters the throne room and curtsies to the king.
He looks down his nose at her. "You are the miller's daughter?"
She crinkled her nose at this before remembering her place and replying. "Yes, your Highness."
He scrutinizes her for a moment, then addresses the guards on his right. "Take her up to the highest tower."
She is taken into a small room at the top of what must be several hundred steps. The first thing she notices about it is that it's full of straw save a small space where a spinning wheel sits. She turns to the king.
"Your Highness, I really can't-"
The king however, cuts her off. " You have until dawn tomorrow to spin this straw into gold. If you succeed, you will be rewarded." she opened her mouth to protest but he continues, "Should you fail, you will be killed at dawn."
With that he shuts the door and leaves her alone with the piles of straw that she has no clue what to do with. She looks around, and seeing nothing to help her complete her task, she becomes enraged. She takes a handful of the stuff and throws it. It does nothing to calm her rage as it floats to the ground, making her feel even more helpless.
Then suddenly, she hears a voice behind her.
"Hello dearie."
She spins around to see a man appear from behind a stack of hay. Looking closely she thinks that he is human, in the loosest definition of the word. He is grinning at her madly, but there a darkness in him that she can't quite place.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" she asks, wiping the tears of frustration from her face.
He dismisses these questions with a waves of his spindly fingers. "Not of importance. Now tell me dearie, what troubles you? Having a little trouble in the," he pauses by the spinning wheel and rests his head on it, "spinning department?"
She just stares at him. "Yes. The king says I must spin this into gold by dawn or I die. But of course it is impossible."
He straightens up and hold a finger in the air. "Ah, but nothing is impossible. All you need is a little magic!"
She straightens up. "Can you do it? Could you help me?"
His easygoing smile turns sinister. "For a price."
The smile slides off her face. "Please sir, I have no money. I need your help."
His grin never fades. "I said there was a price, I never said it was money."
"What then?" She asks suspiciously.
"Secrets."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll make you invisible. All you have to do is go out tonight and listen. Easy peasy," He adds in that singsong voice of his. "Then, you tell me what you've heard."
"If you can get me out of here, I don't need to spin this into gold." she pointed out.
He laughs. "Where are going to go? All the kingdoms are allied. The king will find you, you know that. And my price for escape would be much higher."
Grudgingly, she knows he's right. "Anyone in particular I have to spy on?" she asks drily.
"Oh, secrets are so hard to find." He grins. "You'll find something almost anywhere."
She looks around at the heaps of straw surrounding them. "Deal."
That night she learns about a little girl sneaking into the home of a bear family and stealing their food. She breaks some of their furniture as well, and Reinette makes sure to note her details as the girl crawls out of the window. As dawn breaks, she can feel herself being pulled away from the little cottage. She materializes in the tower, now filled with gold but the mysterious man is gone.
The door opens and the king walks in. He doesn't speak but inspects the gold. Finding it to be satisfactory, he addresses her.
"Well done." He leaves.
Suddenly she remembers her father at home. She stands up. "I need to go."
She is stopped by the guards. "You're not leaving. The king requests you spend stay at the palace."
She gets angry at this. They can't treat her like a guest after threatening to kill her. She tries to push past.
"You cannot leave." the guard repeats.
After dinner, the king brings her to another, bigger room. It is filled with straw again. He issues the same threat again and locks in the room.
She wastes no time searching for the curious little man from the night before.
"Looking for me, dearie?"
She turns around and gestures to the straw around her. "He wants more gold!"
"I can take care of that." he says smirking. "But first, what did you find out last night?"
She tells him about the little girl she saw the night before.
He listens and then replies. "Perfect. Now, time to get back to work." Next thing she knows, she's outside again.
Tonight she finds herself watching a tower, different from the one she is supposed to be trapped in. It stands alone in a clearing in the middle of a thick forest. A woman lowers herself down with a rope from a window near the top. Reinette hides in a cluster of trees as the woman passes. Not long after, another figure approaches the tower. It's a young man. He stands at the bottom and calls up, "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!"
What Reinette had previously believed to be a rope drops down from the window again. It is indeed the hair of a young girl, who leans out the window as the boy climbs up.
A short time later, the boy leaves the same way he came, climbing down the girl's hair. And not a moment too soon, because as soon as he disappears into the woods, the woman returns and enters the tower. The sun is peeking over the horizon now and Reinette is less startled as she materializes into her tower.
Once again, the odd man has kept his end of the deal. The king arrives and after inspecting the gold, lets her out.
That night she finds herself in an even larger room full of straw.
She sits on a pile and says out loud, "I know you're here."
He appears like he usually does, seemingly out of thin air. She recounts the strange scene she witnessed the night before but he does not reply, or move towards the spinning wheel. "What is the matter?" She asks indignantly. "That was perfectly good information."
"That it is." He agrees. "For yesterday's work. But tonight, it will not be enough."
She answers, "I told you, I have nothing to give you."
He seems unfazed by this. "It does appear that way, doesn't it? However my dear, you do have something I want. Or rather," he says, "you will."
She is confused until he continues. "I want your first born child."
She thinks he must have heard him wrong. "My what?"
"Your first child." he repeats, smirk never fading from his face.
She looks away. "Isn't there anything else?"
"No."
She looks around at the room full of straw. There's even more than both the other nights put together. The answer is clear. If she doesn't accept his offer, she won't live to have a child.
"Fine." This alliance of theirs has suddenly taken a sinister turn.
For the first night in so long, she finally gets to sleep. But the next morning, Reinette wakes up tired and angry. How many more times will the king put her through this? She wonders what would have happened had she not produced any gold the first day. Would the king have really killed her?
The door bursts open and the king thunders in. He takes longer to inspect the gold this time. He runs the strands through his hands, and brings them close to his face and stares at them.
He turns to his guards. "Take her to the guest wing."
Before she can get a word in edgewise, she is whisked back down the staircase and is brought into a lavish room. Inside are two maids, who bathe her with the sweetest perfumes and dresses her in the finest clothes she has ever seen. When they are done, Reinette can barely recognize herself. The dirt from the past three days is gone and her hair is set into dainty curls.
"Perfect. No one would ever guess you were a miller's daughter."
Her head whips around. The king is standing at her doorway. She walks up to him. "Your Highness, I would like to go home now. My father is very old and he needs me to-"
"You're not leaving, my dear." he says, firmly. "We shall get married. That was your father's intention, was it not?"
He takes her by the arm and guides her out of the room. "Preparations are underway as we speak." They walk down the hallway until they reach a door. The king knocks on it.
A young girl opens the door and steps out. She looks a few years younger than Reinette. She is beautiful, with dainty features and lips as red as roses. "Yes father?"
The king turns to Reinette and says proudly, "Meet my daughter, Snow White."
AN: So, what do you think? I know it's quite a popular theory that the EQ was the miller's daughter, but hopefully you'll like the twist I'll put on it. Thanks you so much to my beta, Bitch Goddess. All criticism and comments are welcome!