In this version, I replaced the step-mother with a sister, Rose-Red. Who I deviously stole from another Snow-White fairy tale.
All hail the tragically frequent coma splices.
GLASS
a Mirror
a Reflection
Once upon a time there was a mirror, a little fire, and a doll.
Dawn. The morning star spreading its fiery wings before falling. I'm sure the smoky sunbeams were shining haphazardly on the roof. Red always told me that the manor looked beautiful in the summer. The thick ivy growing on the walls at the deepest shade of green, the Apple trees blossoming along the main road, the violets in the ebony flowerboxes.
But I didn't see it.
Red came prowling into her room, which is where my mirror is. She was livid. Her face was a lovely dark red, and I half wondered how all the water in her body hadn't boiled over yet. Then, to my ultimate displeasure, she decided to indulge me in a mad tirade about the rising cost of grain and wheat.
Which is very much like Red, the miser of misers. God forbid she spends a pretty penny.
Which is very much a good trait for a woman of business, and so she succeeded.
A servant knocked on the locked door, in very hesitant fashion. Red's rampages were never the….quietest things. Stopping mid-sentence, she snatched the iron key off the desk, and winked cheekily. I merely sighed, and watched her hurriedly chant the words to deactivate the mirror.
Within my mirror, there is my library. Please don't say nag me about how that works, because I can and will respond with, "Magic." Which very might be it, actually. Either way.
A library. An ancient, musty, dusty, absolutely wonderful library. Granted, it's also all I have, and so I also loathe it with my heart. We have a love-hate relationship. Even after all this time, there are things I still haven't read, because they books change. Again, Magic. The whole place smells like old leather and freshly printed pages, and maybe just a hint of vanilla. No idea where that comes from. The bookshelves are tall and wide and made of polished cedar wood, and there's a fluffy, raggedy little off-white couch. My couch.
Oh. And one lovely, omnipotent old book.
The shrimp of a maid strutted in, her arrogance making up for her small stature. No idea where the arrogance came from. She shot a hasty, curious glance at my mirror. I think at this point in time I was becoming a very popular urban legend. A few quick words were whispered in Red's ear, whose eyes narrowed. Although her rants could be annoying, they were fairly harmless, and sort of entertaining. But now Red was angry.
It was probably White.
Red muttered a dark curse under her breath, and left with the maid.
Meanwhile, I was left in the dark. No one ever tells me anything. So, I turned to my book.
It was White. She had locked herself up in her room. Again.
I decided to sketch a meadow for the next half an hour. It was quite relaxing, and the opposite of how Red would be when she returned. It was green and leafy, with assorted flora and fauna. It also had a red sky, with a hellhound eating a cute little bunny.
It was barely finished when Red opened the door. Softly, she paced back and forth, wringing her small hands furiously. The satin of her dress rustled sweetly against the marble floor.
"I get don't her." The look on Red's face was puzzled and irritated. "Every day I hear people talking about how sweet she is. How she's such a brave soul for locking herself up. But I swear, she's just being stubborn, a stubborn child. And they also talk about how she's so much prettier! God, they think she's an angel!" The flames in her eyes glowed and hissed. "Why do they like her more than me?"
The little fire thought long and hard, and stood there. It did not move.
"You know everything, don't you." It was not a question.
An eerie feeling began to work its way up my throat. "Red, don't."
The girl had a hungry look in her eye, a longing for truth. It was terrifying.
"Tell me. Do people like her more than me?" Her hand stretched towards the mirror, placing itself on the glass. The air thickened. This was silence was not golden. This silence was a ripe, ragged crimson. It was bleeding.
Time wasn't frozen. It was just dead.
"Red, I can't." I simply said. And knew. Knew that it wouldn't work.
"I said, tell me. I deserve to know. I need to run this estate properly!"
ShouldIshouldIshouldI?
The mirror told the little fire the truth. The little fire could not cry, for fear of putting itself out.
Summer passed, Autumn fell. Crackling leaves; waves of gold and rubies. Apples. Lots of Apples.
The tension was rising, but discreetly. Red pretended she was alright, and I pretended that I believed her. It was September, and soon to be White's birthday. The doll was almost seventeen, and, as Red put it, "her shallow beauty and innocence was every day more popular with the peasants, who wouldn't see superficiality if it shot them in the liver."
The night before That Day, Red sat beside me, and I read philosophy to her out loud. I didn't even care that she thought it was so boring, she used it to get to sleep. It was pleasant.
That Day.
Red hid out in her room. I didn't mind. Someone knocked politely on the door. Someone said Red's name, and the eerie feeling in my throat was back again. It was White.
"Red, please let me in?" Her voice was so weak sounding.
Rose-Red whirled on the marble, heels faintly clacking. Her fists and teeth were clenched like cold steel. "What do you want, Snow-White?" she spat, though I doubted the poison in her voice could be heard through the door.
"Let me in, please, and we'll talk."
The little fire sizzled and sparked. Then it let the doll in.
"Red, why aren't you downstairs? Everyone else is." White was trying desperately not to tick off Red, and was particularly polite. I almost laughed. Red walked stiffly to a small black chair, and sat down. Red was trying desperately not be ticked off.
"I have a lot of work, Snow-White," she lied smoothly. "I don't really have the time to party."
This didn't work very well on White. The girl wasn't stupid, and the lie was stupid.
"You hate me," she hissed, with too much rage for such a small voice. "You think I killed Mother, right?"
Red's head shot up in a startled, agitated way. Curly strands of auburn hair had fallen out of her bun, and she looked half-mad. She relaxed after a moment, and began to rub her temples. "You did nothing wrong…" the woman murmured.
The eyes of the pale, fragile girl looked watery, and I wondered if she would cry. I didn't expect the next thing she said.
"You're jealous of me," she said, voice wavering, but stubborn. "Because I'm better than you. Because I'm prettier, or kinder, or I actually talk to the people. All you ever do is think about "improving the manor", or shut yourself up in this room with that stupid mirror! My God, why can't actually spend time with me, and not some hunk of metal!" White stopped, shakily, for a breath. "…it's no wonder Mother wanted me more-"
"Don't you dare." Red was on her feet, and for the first time, I started to become worried. This point had never been breached before. She was being consumed by something very dark, and very frightening. She wasn't Red anymore.
"You stupid, shallow, ungrateful brat! You think it's been easy living in your pathetic shadow for the last seventeen years? You think it was easy watching my mother wither away for nine months, always talking about how perfect this new child was going to be, and then die? That it was painless watching my beloved father devote himself to you?"
Bloody, ragged silence.
Neither knew quite else what to do. White's lips trembled like a child's.
But then, she was one.
The face looked more like death than snow.
A mouth opened. The doll spoke.
"Red-"
"I wish you had died along with Mama."
Red's voice was hate. White-hot, burning-crimson hate.
The doll broke.
The next day, we learned that Snow-White had run away during the night.
Days passed, and with them went Red. Each new morning brought a new shred of gossip, and a new wisp of insanity.
Did you hear that the Lady of the Manor forced Snow-White out of her home?
Red started losing sleep after that one.
Did you hear that the Lady of the Manor tried to kill Snow-White?
She started spending most of her time in her room, burying herself in work.
Did you hear that the Lady of the Manor tried to eat Snow-White's heart?
She stopped sleeping, and I was very, very scared.
I had already told her where White was, before the craziness started. I knew. I had looked in my book. The girl had somehow found a den of children (probably young thieves) in the nearby forest. She was safe.
For now.
It was morning. Late October. A cold mist. Red was up to something. From around two in the morning to six, she had left the room, something she hadn't done in a while. When daybreak came, she returned; panting and wheezing at the door. In her arms was a large, straw basket of Apples. Her face had the cheerful, terrifying grin of utter madness.
"I have a marvelous idea," she slurred giddily, and I stared.
"I'm guessing it includes apples…?"
Winking, she nodded, walked a bit closer to my mirror.
"I need a recipe for poison. A deadly, deadly poison, to coat an apple in!"
The black, clawed hand of alarm scratched me lightly. I tried to smile.
"And just what do you need some poison for…?" My tone was light, lighter than it should have been.
Red laughed. "To kill Snow-White, of course!"
Oh God.
"Red, you're out of your mind."
The joyful grin soured and corrupted, and Red advanced towards me.
"You're telling me no?"
Swallow, just swallow. Don't-
"If you don't tell me how to make it, I'll leave you forever. And you'll be all, all alone."
I don't want to be forgotten.
The mirror told the fire its secrets, and the fire tried with all its might to burn the doll.
But secretly, the doll wasn't destroyed, and one day it opened its glass eyes.
Rose-Red slowly sipped the glass of bloody wine. It was quiet, and Red looked so, so tired.
"You said," she finally stammered, ragged and hoarse. "That she would die."
Cold, glassy tears flowed down my face. "I lied," I said softly.
She looked like a child; her eyes downtrodden, and her shoulders slumped.
"I'm sorry….I am so, so sorry….," Whispered the child.
All I wanted to do was hug her tightly, wrap her in a blanket, and take her far, far away.
Two figures. One living; one dead.
A fire and a mirror.
I was a stature. What could I say. How could I say anything. Each second curled away, time slowly killing itself.
Red was barely holding back her tears.
Why couldn't she just cry?
"Mama said…Mama said that if she didn't make it, I was supposed to a good big sister, and protected Snow-White."
Dry sobs.
"Oh God, how I've failed…"
Word arrived that White had been found, almost dead, by a nearby estate. I had heard of these neighbors before.
Their son, the finder, had decided that marrying White might be a good idea. A smart idea, business-wise. Red was invited to the wedding. I deemed her well enough to go, although I advised against it.
She left in the morning.
I hate mornings.
I told her to be careful.
She grinned, and winked at me.
"Goodbye, little mirror!"
I checked every bit of her journey in my book. She was decently received, and hadn't run into any trouble. The party lasted for a week, and apparently there was a lot of dancing.
On the last night of the celebrations, Red danced her way out of the son's manor house. She danced to the icy river.
Danced her way off the bridge.
Goodbye, Red.
The little fire cried, and put itself out with its own tears.
The doll was put on a shelf, and was forgotten.
Being forgotten is cold.
Not knowing when the next time someone will speak to you.
It could be centuries.
I trembled in my solitary white chair.
The mirror stood there, taunting me. The glass glimmered maliciously.
Reflecting a world that wasn't mine.
Glass.
I was Glass.
Glass can be broken.
I was broken
already.
I was ready to risk it.
I picked up the book. The damned, all-powerful book, heavy with all its tempting knowledge. Closing my eyes tightly, I threw.
The mirror shattered.
The ground was strewn with little shards of diamond. I slowly walked to the former mirror.
Now it was a door,
and I stepped
out
side