It was storming the night the mirror spoke true. No lightning, no thunder interrupted the continuous pounding of the water on the ground, nothing to interrupt the darkness that blanketed the forest.

Stony and deathly still, a massive castle of rough gray walls and soaring turrets broke through the roof of evergreen; hulking; a mountain by the hand of man. Drenched, ever-ready gargoyles dripped rainwater tears from the tallest heights of the towers.

The moon glimpsed the ground so briefly through the flowing clouds- streaming in intermittently through crystal windows and glass doors. Deep in the depths of the castle, the moonlight filtered through ivy-covered openings...and cast cold, cold light onto the face of a woman ruined by a lifelong search for beauty.

She stood as straight and tall as a pillar in the grand ballroom, clad in red silk and tulle. Her hands were long and thin, and her fine hair was straight.

Before her was propped an elegant oval mirror with glass as clear as thin air, reflecting not her own visage- but the face of a ghost...a man long-since cursed into the confines of lifeless wrought gold and gem-chipped flowers. His eyeless face was tight-lipped and sober as he faced the ordeal to come.

"My lady," he greeted her, solemn as a painting, as a sculpture.

"Mirror," she returned.

They contemplated each other, the weathered wisp of spirit in the mirror and the woman before him, all long limbs and classic features and eyes to numb a person's soul.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall..."

They had danced this tragic dance countless days before and could conceivably dance it countless days again. But tonight, the mirror...had a secret...

"...Who is the fairest of them all?"

She was stately, regal, with an air of forced calm. Darkness coiled in her stomach as she awaited his answer, as it always did with such an address.

Over the past days, weeks, years...his answers came slower, and with less conviction. And with each new breath it took him to reply, with each lost note of admiration, of enthusiasm...she felt something vital shrivel and curl inside her.

Today, the face of the ghost in the glass- said nothing. His sightless eyes looked at her for a long time, traveling her perfect features, her shining ebony hair and white skin. They traced her winged brows, her perfectly carved collarbones, drifted over the flames of madness in her colorless eyes.

"What have you to say in response to my query?" she whispered. No matter how she spoke, her voice always seemed so low...so gravelly. The voice of the damned. It felt as though it illuminated the ugly taint she bred in her heart.

HIS voice was low and smooth- the voice of a djinn, a lost soul, trapped forever and all time behind a plate of glass. Always looking in to out.

"My lady," he said. That was all.

The silence grew deafening.

"Speak." she ordered.

"SPEAK."

But he was quiet as the grave.

"SPEAK TO ME, DAMN YOU!" she screamed, all the fury roiling beneath the surface erupting to the forefront. Her clutching hands found his stand and gripped it with white knuckles.

"My lady Queen, you are no longer the fairest of them all. There are...there is one, the fairest now, who shall eclipse your vanity as surely as the sun casts shadows on the jealous, torrid moon- "

Her cry echoed throughout the vaulted ceiling. Bats lit, crows mantled wings of oil rainbows, the vines braided to the glass quivered with fear.

She cast the mirror to the floor in an act of wild defiance. The face in the glass shattered, skittering thousands of countenances over the icy marble floor.

She was no longer beautiful. She was a wretched, broken thing, a cast-off doll with tears in her eyes. She lost whatever humanity she had left; her dark thoughts turned black. They turned to murder.

"I'll kill her..." she hissed.

A pillar of onyx and alabaster, she stood tall and sylph-slim in the massive granite ballroom that was the heart of her castle.

"...Snow White."

As they say, ugly...is to the bone.