Far more quickly than she had anticipated, a rap was upon her door.
“Your Highness, Your Majesty…” said the timid, quivering young girl in the doorway. The Queen had not seen her before and realized she must have been a new servant.
“Calm down, dear, I am a Queen, not a witch,” the Queen said, smiling.
“Yes, well, this here”—the girl held out a large, wrapped package that was nearly as tall as she was—“this arrived for you here today. The guards have examined it, and it appears to pose no…no danger….”
The girl put the package down and stared at the Queen, who looked at the package skeptically.
“From whence does it come?” the Queen asked.
“It arrived with this note,” the girl said, holding out a rolled parchment, which twitched like a windblown leaf in the girl’s shaking hand. “I am not…not privy to what it says herein, and so I am not aware of its…its origins.”
The Queen quickly grabbed the parchment and unrolled it.
The parchment was much larger than necessary, and contained the note:
FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY
The Queen raised an eyebrow.
“You say you do not know what it contains?” the Queen asked.
“I do not, Your…Your Majesty,” the girl said quietly, “but the guards have confirmed that it is harmless,” she reminded the Queen.
The Queen paused for a moment, then continued, “Very well, then, bring it in.”
The girl struggled with the large package, which was wrapped unevenly in ragged linens, making it impossible to determine the actual shape or size of whatever was inside. A few men rushed over to assist her, and it took four of them to get the package into the Queen’s chamber.
“Will there be anything more, my…my Queen?” the girl asked.
The Queen shook her head, and the girl curtsied and quickly left the room, followed by the men.
The Queen paced before the package. It could have been from any one of the guests who attended the solstice celebration. A token of gratitude and good will. The guards had checked it, after all.
So why was she so hesitant to open it?
The Queen stared at the awkwardly wrapped gift. She reread the parchment. Then she steeled herself and tore the linens open at their seams.
“Good morning, my Queen,” the face in the mirror said, staring out at her from behind a cloak of frayed linen.
It smiled an evil, cunning grin.
The Queen screamed and recoiled from the mirror.
“You have been lonely,” the Slave said.
“What is it to you, demon?” the Queen responded.
“You have been thinking of your husband, wanting his company. But I am all you need, my Queen,” the Slave said.
“What could you offer me, evil one?” the Queen snapped.
“As I told you, I see all in the kingdom. I could tell you what your daughter’s favorite memories are, or your sister, Verona—I could reveal her deepest secrets to you. But it is your husband you have been thinking of mainly these days, is it not? I could tell you where he is, what he is doing. Let me do so.…Ah, yes, the most recently I can see him is a few days prior to this. Hmm…I wonder why that is so? He is aboard his steed. His sword is raised high in the air. Oh! An arrow has nearly hit his cheek. He looks to be grazed. Yes, there is blood, a great deal of it, dripping from his jawbone. And a great deal of noise. But he is proud and brave. A true warrior. He is bleeding, but he will continue to fight. He will be safe. They make quite a ruckus out there on the battlefield, do they not? Oh, now, what is this? A man with a lance, coming up right behind him. I say, I do not think your husband sees his attacker. If only we could warn him. If only we could somehow prevent the spear from entering his back and impaling him straight through so the weapon emerges from his chest…to prevent him from…”
“Fiend!” the Queen screamed. “Stop this at once! You speak these lies as if they are the immortal truth!”
The Slave smiled slightly and knowingly, then fixed his stare upon the Queen.
“No!” she cried, grabbing a nearby glass jar for oils and ointments and shattering it against the mirror. “Lies!” the Queen cried.
Verona rushed into her room. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was streaked with tears. “My Queen,” Verona said through a quavering voice. Then she flung her arms around the Queen and rocked on the floor with her. “You’ve heard the news then? The terrible, awful news?”
The Queen looked up into Verona’s tearful eyes.
Verona continued, “His body is in transport now.”
The Queen covered her mouth with her shaking hand, her eyes wide, staring at Verona in disbelief.
He couldn’t possibly be dead; she had just seen him a few short months ago. He was just injured; yes, injured and on his way back to mend his wounds. The Slave in the mirror was a liar! And the messages from the field were never reliable. Someone always got something wrong. He was hurt, but it was nothing serious. And he was returning to her. Here. Home. Now.
“No, he’s coming home! He’s coming home,” was all the Queen could say.
Verona shook her head. The Queen’s face, hair, and clothes were soaked with tears that belonged to both her and Verona. The pain in her chest tightened its grip as she slowly absorbed the reality of her husband’s death.
Gone!
She would never see him again, never hear his bright laugh, never again sit by the fire and watch him play dragons with Snow or tell her stories of the witches who lived in the forest.
“You may leave,” the Queen said to Verona with as much composure as she could gather.
Verona put her hands on the Queen’s shoulders.
“Please let me stay with you.”
“No, Verona, I need some time to myself.”
The moment Verona left the room the Queen felt the great weight of grief and anger. She could not breathe. Surely she wouldn’t survive this pain. One cannot hurt so profoundly and live on, she thought; it was unfathomable to spend the rest of her days in such agony, without her dearest love by her side.
It was better to die.
But then what of Snow White?
And how could she even face the child? Tell her such horrible news? It would crush her—clearly break her heart. The Queen stood up on weak knees, and, clutching the walls and railings, she made her way slowly down the stairs, which seemed to sway beneath her.
Out in the courtyard, Snow was sitting at the well. The Queen felt an unusually sharp pang upon seeing her now. Snow watched a little bluebird eat bread crumbs upon the well’s wall. She looked transfixed and in her own world, a world in which her father was away, but still alive.
The Queen was acutely aware that she would be changing this child’s life forever, shattering her world with a few words: your father is dead.
She played it in her mind as she approached the girl. Her daughter. She would now be all that Snow had in the world.
When she finally reached the child, she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud; if she did it would make it real, and she couldn’t face such a harsh reality. She wanted to be strong for Snow, but uttering such gut-wrenching words would cause her to break down completely.
So, she buried her grief deep within her. She choked on the words as she forced them from her throat.