A/N Well, Merry Christmas, everyone. Here's to almost the end of Snow White Snow Red. Two more chapters after this, and then we've finished. I probably won't post before Wednesday, so have a great day, everyone, I hope you all get everything you want.
Part Ten
"You are all useless!" Carlotta screamed at the assembled warlocks in her lavishly-hung Audience Chamber, her purple cloak snapping and billowing in the snow-scented breeze from the open window. "I have wanted her dead for the entirety of this year, and you all fail me! Get out of my sight! I shall take the task upon myself!"
They scuttled out through the great engraved doors like frightened insects and Carlotta sank upon her throne, her skirts splaying out in a great wave of colour. "Buquet," she groaned, and the said lecher appeared from the shadows, bowing with an air of righteous flamboyance. "Fetch me the strongest poison from the dungeons, and an appearance-changing potion. Oh," here she smiled, wicked. "And the brightest, ripest red apple in the kitchen stores."
Buquet hurried to do her bidding, and before long, one side of the apple was coated in this deadly poison, and Carlotta was dressed in rags taken from one of the scullery maids, shuddering in disgust at the feel of the holes and tatters against her smooth, perfect skin. She took the potion, eyeing the bubbling purple mixture cautiously before uncorking it and swallowing the whole lot down.
Strangely, it tasted of champagne.
In the little house in the woods, Christine was crying, great sobs that wracked her chest with their fury. Why had she made a sound, why had she been so shocked at the face the mask hid? It wasn't even bad! (In truth, Erik's disfigurement was horrendous, but a mind in love will warp things so that even a predicament as ugly as that was beautiful in the eye of the beholder.)
She loved him. She knew that now, now that he was far away in the woods. She loved him and she had lost him.
No, no, no.
She hunched over, into herself, the agony in her heart like a dagger, twisting and turning and pulling and…
She lurched to her feet, her eyes wild and her soul in shreds. Why not? Why not? Stumbling into the kitchen, she took the first knife that came to hand, took a breath. He was never coming back. There was no purpose to her without him – they were like two pieces of a puzzle, fitting perfectly together and without him she was nothing.
The knife made the first cut in the red of her dress, the sharp point pressing against her delicate skin, pain radiating across her ribs.
Then came a terrible coldness, settling over her like a shroud. And when she was just about to push the knife home, there came a knock at the door.
It might be Erik.
It did not once cross her mind that Erik would never have knocked upon the oaken door of his own home.
She dropped the knife with a clatter of silver against stone, gathered up her skirts and, not caring that her bodice was ripped, ran for the door, her dark hair falling about her face. He was back and she could hold him to her, and kiss his dear, twisted face and tell him that she loved him so much, so very much.
"Apples for sale? Sweet, red, crunchy apples…" The crone waiting at the door held out an apple, and Christine's heart plummeted. It was not him. Why? "You look troubled, my dear."
In her present state of mind, Christine could not have fathomed that the old hag was Carlotta. She merely nodded, fishing in her pocket for a coin. As soon as the old woman went away, she could go back to the kitchen and finish what she started.
"How much?" she asked, dully.
"Oh, nothing, my dear. Try one of my apples, they'll cheer you up. Especially grown in summer sunlight near Chandelier."
Christine took the apple in her slender white hand. May as well please her visitor. It wasn't like she'd ever taste an apple again.
She took a bite.
Swayed.
And fell.