Snow White and the Hunter
Eight year old Margaret Blanchard had been missing for three days. Detective Eugene Grasset hadn't had much hope left for the recovery of the girl. Stereotypically, if a child was not recovered within the first twenty-four hours... Well, the odds had gotten worse and worse as time wore on. Peoria, Illinois wasn't so big that they had a lot of kidnappings; but he had been on more than one where things ended bad. He still had nightmares about them.
So when he got the phone call from St. Joseph's hospital that a certain little girl had been dropped off, no one was more stunned than him.
Of course, no one was more ecstatically overjoyed than her parents, but still.
After the check up and the tears of joy and the family hugging each other like they would never let each other go, they finally asked the questions Detective Grasset very much wanted to hear the answer to.
"Baby, where have you been?"
"A dungeon, Mommy," Maggie sniffled. "The monster kidnapped me and locked me in a dungeon!"
"A monster?" her dad asked, looking sick. Clearly, the statement caused all kinds of terrifying scenarios running through his head.
Detective Grasset could relate. Mr. Blanchard only had his imagination. Eugene had all too much real world understanding of what could have happened.
"Oh, honey, how did you get away from that monster?" Mrs. Blanchard
"The bravest guy from Snow White rescued me!" Maggie trilled. The standing tears in her eyes dried as excitement grew on her face.
"Prince Florian rescued you, honey?" Mrs. Blanchard asked, stroking her daughter's hair. Of everyone there, the mother was probably the only one who actually knew the name of the prince from the Disney movie.
The girl scoffed with the scorn that only a child came summon when confronted with the dumbest of adults. "I sa-a-id the bravest guy from Snow White, Mommy!"
"Isn't that usually the prince who rescued the princess?" Detective Grasset wondered out loud.
The former kidnapping victim rolled her eyes, trauma temporarily forgotten in the face of such clueless human beings. "The prince had it easy! All he had to do was smooch a corpse."
"Maggie!" Mrs. Blanchard exclaimed in shock. The word 'corpse' was new to her precious eight year old girl.
"Its what HE said, mommy."
"Who said?"
"The Hunter from Snow White! HE'S the bravest guy in the whole movie. Like I said, all Prince Florian did was wake up the dead chick. The Hunter had to sneak her out the back door and then go back to the scariest bitch-"
"Maggie!" Mr. Blanchard gaped, but the little girl could not be derailed.
"-in all the land and lie through his teeth to her face! The Wicked Stepmother could have killed him any time for any reason, and the Hunter did it any way. But he did it anyway. That makes him the bravest in all the land." Maggie finished with the air of a lawyer who had closed all loopholes on her case.
"The Huntsman from Snow White rescued you?" Detective Grasset asked, reminding everyone why they were all here.
Maggie's little face scrunched. "He said 'huntsman' sounded weird. He was a Hunter. And he said he rescues little girl princesses all the time from scary monsters."
"How did he know where to find you?" Detective Grasset asked. Good Samaritans existed, sure, but they rarely moved in the same circles as child kidnappers.
"He's a Hunter! That's what they DO!"
Right. The detective tried another tac. "Why didn't he stay with you at the hospital? So we could thank him? Don't heroes and hunts- hunters deserve thank yous?"
"I wanted him to," the girl sniffled. "I was still so scared. But he said that there was an evil witch, like Snow White's evil stepmother, that cast a spell to make the whole world think he's a criminal. So if he stayed, he'd be arrested. I didn't want him arrested. Daddy, they won't arrest him will they?" She turned her tear-stained face up to her father for confirmation.
Mr. Blanchard hugged his daughter tight. "If they try, I'll hire him the best lawyer in all the land, Sweetheart."
Detective Eugene Grasset asked a lot more questions that night. What did the monster look like? What did the Hunter look like? Do you know where they kept you? Do remember any of the streets when the Hunter drove you to the hospital? How did the monster take you to the dungeon, a car? What kind of car did the Hunter drive?
Little Maggie Blanchard told him everything he could ever want to know about a monster called a Rawhead, and how she wanted a tazer. How the monster didn't have a car but carried her in a smelly old sack. How she could her the river from the dungeon but no fast traffic so no bridges nearby.
But she absolutely refused to offer any details about the Hunter. Not what he looked like, not what kind of car he drove, not if there was actually more than one Hunter (Grasset got the feeling there were two). Nothing, except a new point of view on a Disney movie and a running commentary on the general worthlessness of Disney princes in general.
As frustrating as that was, at the end of the last three days, Detective Eugene Grasset was content with the fact that he was filling out the paperwork for a recovered child instead of a dead one. And if he had to type it up officially that the Hunter from Snow White was the bravest hero in all the land... well, maybe his two daughters at home would come to the station and help him argue about it with his boss.