Snow White hummed, nodding. “Yes, yes, of course, my little dwarves. Now come in! It’s time to eat!”
That’s odd. There was nothing on the table or the stove. No delicious scents of food filled the air. Snow White tied a cloth napkin around her neck and smiled as the hirsute boys filed in one by one. Then she licked her lips again, and closed the door.
Not too far from where we left the sounds of Snow White gleefully slurping her dinner, the queen found something troubling.
This was not the queen who was currently sitting on the burned rubble heap of her former castle. That queen would no sooner go searching in the darkest part of the forest than she would brush her own teeth without a servant’s help. Which was why she also had a serious toothache.
No, this queen was the queen who had married the king, who had been married to the queen, who had died, who had then died himself, but not before marrying this queen. (Royal marriage is complicated.) This was the queen who had sent the huntsman into the forest with Snow White. The queen who had tried to end Snow White’s precious little life once Snow White became the fairest in all the land.
That queen. (She looks very familiar! She and the stepmother could be the same person. WAIT. Oh, no wonder she’s so exhausted!)
She sighed as she picked up the empty sack Snow White had been in. This was not the middle of a sunny meadow. She looked around. I held my breath, waiting for her to find the huntsman where we had seen him lying motionless.
But there was nothing there. Whew! That was a relief.
“Hello,” the huntsman said from behind her.
“Aaaaaugh!” I screamed.
Fortunately, the queen was more used to terrifying things than I am. She was, after all, the stepmother of Snow White among many others. She calmly turned around. The huntsman loomed in the shadows beneath a tree. His eyes seemed to shine almost red in the midst of his unnaturally pale face. Two red dots on the side of his neck matched his eyes.
“There you are,” said the queen. “I take it you did not follow my instructions.”
“I’m thirsty,” said the huntsman. He ran his tongue along his teeth as he stared at the queen’s long, graceful throat.
“Of course you are.” The queen smiled. “Where is Snow White?”
“She said I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Of course not. You absolutely shouldn’t tell me that she went back to the castle and is living in the village.”
The huntsman frowned. “No, I’m not supposed to tell you that she’s in the darkest part of the woods, living in a cottage with seven hirsute children.”
“Right,” the queen said. “Of course. Is there anything else you weren’t supposed to do?”
The huntsman frowned, scratching his chin with his dirty fingernails. “I wasn’t supposed to give you any warning before I bit you?” His face fell. “I messed it up, didn’t I? She was so specific! And I don’t want to disappoint her. Beautiful Snow White. Good Snow White. Sweet Snow White.”
“Don’t worry! We don’t have to tell her. I have an idea. I’ll go stand in the middle of that meadow—the sunny one you were supposed to leave her in—and you can sneak up behind me there. That way you’ll be doing exactly what she told you to do.”
The huntsman smiled, showing his newly pointed teeth. “Gee, you’d do that for me?”
“It’s the least I can do to repay you for all your work.” The queen stalked back through the trees to the meadow. She stood in the middle. The brilliant sunshine was like a blanket around her. Then, after hearing a surprised shriek and poof sound, the queen turned around. She lifted her skirts and stepped over the huntsman-size pile of ash on the edge of the meadow.
Out of her bag, she pulled a cloak and some makeup. She drew lines on her face and attached a false nose. She drank lemon juice so her voice was tight and scratchy. If you hadn’t seen her do it, you would never have known that beneath that hooded cloak and weird makeup was the queen herself.
Leaning heavily on a long, sturdy stick, she slowly hobbled through the trees. “Apples!” she called. “Apples for sale!”
Deep in the darkest part of the forest, she found one of the poor little hirsute boys leaning against a tree. His eyes were dull, his lips pale. He was not yet fairer than she was, though. “Hello, little boy,” she said.
“You don’t think I’m a dwarf?” the boy asked.
“I think you grow a very fine beard for such a young child. You should be proud. Tell me, would anyone around here like to buy some fresh fruit?”
He shook his head sadly. But then his eyebrows drew low in thought. “Maybe,” he whispered, “maybe if we found her the right food …”
“Her?” the queen asked.
“Come on!” the hirsute boy said. He scrambled ahead of her, stumbling and tripping. He had to stop and rest a lot. The queen was impatient. But she was pretending to be an old woman, so she couldn’t very well tell him to go faster. Finally, they drew close to a quaint cottage. No smoke rose from the chimney.
“Don’t you get cold?” the queen asked. “You should light a fire.”
“Oh, no!” he squeaked. “No fires allowed!” He pushed her toward the cottage. “See if you can get her to eat something. Anything. Anything but …” He put a hand over the side of his neck and swallowed hard.
“Why don’t you run away?” the queen asked, crouching down to look him in the eyes. For a moment, she thought he would listen to her. Then his eyes went fuzzy again, like a television switched to the wrong channel. Nothing there but static.
“I would miss her too much,” he said. “Beautiful Snow White. Sweet Snow White.”
“Good Snow White. I know, I know.” Sighing, the queen stood up, straightening her cloak and bending her back. “A stepmother’s got to do what a stepmother’s got to do,” she muttered. “In other words, what literally no one else is willing to.”
She knocked her walking stick against the door.
The door slowly creaked open. “Yes?” Snow White said. (I should be smart like the queen and avoid looking directly into her eyes.)
The queen reached into her bag and withdrew the gleaming apple. It shone bright red. She held it out. “Apple, my dear?”
Snow White hissed, flinching away. “No! Never!”
Darn. I thought that was going to work! The queen dropped the apple back into her bag. She pulled out a banana. “Banana?” She was used to picky stepchildren.
Snow White made retching noises.
“Brussels sprout?”
“Does anyone actually like those?”
The queen shrugged, dropping it back in her bag. “It was worth a shot. Pea?”
“No, thank you, I just went to the bathroom.”
Biting back a growl of frustration, the queen pulled out one final item. Her last chance. “How about … a blood orange?”
If you were looking into Snow White’s eyes, you would have seen the black there gleam with a reddish, hungry light. “Did you say blood?”
The queen smiled. “Go on, try it. They’re very juicy.”
Snow White snatched the blood orange away. She peeled it in a frenzy, then opened her mouth and sank her fangs into it. Her black eyes went wide before rolling back into her head. She collapsed, unmoving, unbreathing.
The queen stared down sadly. The seven hirsute children gathered around her, crying. They wiped their eyes with their beards. “She was so beautiful!” they cried.
“And so good and so sweet, yes, I know.” The queen sighed.
“We should bury her!” one of the boys said.
“But then we would never get to see her again!”
“I know!” the tallest of the hirsute boys said. “I have a glass coffin.”
Everyone paused. “Why do you have a glass coffin?” the queen asked.
“I collect them. You know, like how some people collect baseball cards, or rocks shaped like hearts. I collect glass coffins.”
The queen frowned. “Well, at least your hobby i
sn’t arson. I suppose that—” But then she heard a strange rumbling. Looking up through a break in the trees, she saw, far in the distance, a very tall stalk going straight up into the clouds. And a very tiny figure—a suspiciously Jack-shaped figure—scrambling down it.
She looked the other direction, where black smoke was billowing up into the sky. It practically spelled out Cinderella. No … it actually spelled out Cinderella. She and her husband really were quite good with fire.
The queen looked back down at Snow White. “Glass coffin, you say? Sounds good. Put her inside and take her to the middle of the sunniest meadow you can find.”
The seven hirsute children nodded, sniffling and sobbing. The queen muttered, pointing back and forth between the beanstalk and the smoke. “One stepchild, two stepchild, three stepchild, four. Which rotten stepchild needs me more?” Sighing, she went off in the direction of the smoke.
The seven hirsute children slowly dragged the glass coffin toward the meadow. But it was hard work and they were only children, regardless of how much facial hair they had. By the time they got the coffin to the meadow, it was twilight. Everything was soft and purple and decidedly not-sunny.
“Hello!” a cheerful voice called.
The seven hirsute children stopped laying flowers on Snow White’s coffin. Approaching them was a nice-looking young man on top of a horse with no eyebrows. The young man, not the horse. The horse didn’t have eyebrows because she was a horse. The young man didn’t have eyebrows because he didn’t understand basic fire safety. A girl rode with her arms snug around his waist. They were both covered in soot and ashes and smelled like smoke.
“What happened here?” he asked, climbing off the horse and peering into the coffin. “She’s beautiful!”
“And sweet and good,” the hirsute children said, sobbing. One of them looked up hopefully. “Would you like to kiss her?”
“I—uh, wow, well. See. I don’t usually go around kissing dead girls in coffins. That’s a bit odd. Also I’m fairly sure it’s against the law. Besides, I’m married.” He smiled lovingly up at Cinderella. She blew him a kiss.
“But she isn’t dead,” one of the children said.
“She isn’t breathing,” Prince Charring said.
“Oh, she never breathes!”
“Have you checked her pulse?” the prince asked.
The children shook their heads. They were only kids. They didn’t understand anything about CPR. The prince pushed the lid off the glass coffin, lifting up Snow White’s wrist. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Try her neck!” Cinderella offered helpfully.
The prince couldn’t quite reach, so he gently lifted Snow White’s head. The piece of blood orange popped right out of her mouth. Her eyes fluttered open. Luckily for him, Prince Charring was looking at her neck, not her eyes.
The hirsute children shoved him out of the way. “Snow White!” they shouted. “Snow White! You’re alive!”
“Not exactly,” she said. She jumped out of the coffin, grabbing the first child and draining him of what little remained of his blood. He dropped to the ground.
“Oh no!” the prince said. But even as he watched, the child’s eyes went from glassy and dead to glowing and red. “Oh, no?” Prince Charring backed up as, one by one, the seven hirsute children were drained. They turned toward him, hissing and baring their sharp teeth. One ran forward, but he tripped on his long beard.
Cinderella grabbed Prince Charring’s hand and pulled him up onto the horse. Behind them were seven hirsute children and one beautiful, sweet, good girl chasing them.
And they all lived happily ever after!
Wait, no, sorry, wrong ending. Somehow I don’t think this one has a happy ending. Let’s jump to the next, instead!
Jack knew even less about sheep than he did about peas.
Well, that’s not quite true. He knew that you should never put sheep up your nose, at least.
After he finally got down from the beanstalk, he had stumbled into a village. The police were taking away a sobbing girl named Mary. “Hey, you!” a police officer had asked. “You go to school?”
“No?” Jack had answered. He attached a question mark because he didn’t know if “no” was the answer that got him arrested. Luckily for him, it was not.
“Good. You’ve got a new job.” The police officer had pointed at a flock of sheep on a hill. “You’re in charge. Whatever you do, don’t take those sheep to school!”
So now Jack had a job! Finally, a chance to redeem himself. He could totally do this. It couldn’t be much harder than taking care of a cow, and he did that for like forty whole minutes before screwing everything up.
But this was different. Better. He didn’t even go to school, so not taking sheep there was a piece of cake!
The sheep milled about, eating and drinking and doing other various sheepish things. Jack was excited. His stepmother would be so proud to hear he was a successful sheep … boy. Sheep person. Sheep-watcher? Sheep-sitter. He really should have asked for more details.
But no matter. He had a job! And he was great at it! All that sitting, watching, not taking the sheep to school. It was just great, super great, really …
He didn’t like looking at sheep, he realized. Their fluffy white wool reminded him too much of clouds. Horrible, bouncy, giant-filled clouds.
He didn’t like talking to the sheep, either. Sheep are terrible conversationalists. He asked how they liked being sheep. “Meh,” they answered. He asked if they liked eating grass. “Meh,” they answered. He asked if they liked him. That time, they didn’t even say anything. They just stared, slowly chewing their meh grass. Jerks.
He stared forlornly down at the village, wishing someone would come visit him. It almost made him miss Jill and her stupid red cloak with its stupid red hood. He wondered what Jill was up to. He wondered what his stepmother was up to. He wondered what beautiful, sweet, good Snow White was up to. He missed her.
Jack flopped down onto his back, groaning in agony. He was so bored and so lonely! (I should note that, at this point, he had been watching the sheep for approximately seventeen minutes.) If only someone would come visit him.
He stood, looking down at the tiny figures in the village below. “Knock, knock!” he shouted.
No one answered.
“Who’s there?” Jack muttered to himself. “Ewe!” he said. “Ewe who? Well, yoo-hoo to you, too!”
“Meh,” a sheep said.
Jack threw a handful of grass at the sheep. “That was a great joke! I hope you get eaten by wolves!” he shouted.
“Wolves?” someone down at the village cried out. “Wolves? Wolves!”
Suddenly, the whole village was surging out of their homes, running up the hill toward him. He stood, thrilled. Finally some visitors! They arrived out of breath, holding knives, pitchforks, and one flamethrower. (That is not actually how you want visitors to show up. Unless you have a very different sort of party than I normally do.)
“Where is the wolf?” a burly man with a burly mustache asked.
“Yes, where?” a thin man with a thin mustache asked.
“Wolves?” Jack asked. “Who said anything about wolves?”
“You did!” a curvy woman with a curvy mustache shouted. (She, too, was hirsute. She won all the mustache contests. Everyone was jealous.)
“I was just trying to tell a knock-knock joke!”
The curvy woman smacked him in the side of the head. “Well, knock knock it off! I have pies in the oven.” Grumbling, she tromped back down the hill, followed by the rest of the villagers and possibly one of the sheep. I wasn’t paying attention. Neither was their sheep-sitter.
Jack rubbed the side of his head. It hurt from where that horrible woman with the wonderful mustache had hit him. Now he was bored AND his head hurt. He watched as she went back to the closest house at the bottom of the hill. Jack waited a few minutes, until he was sure her pies would be almost done. Then he stood and, cupping his hands around
his mouth, shouted, “WOLVES!”
Again, people swarmed out of their houses and raced up the hill. The mustachioed woman was wearing oven mitts and clutching a hatchet. “Where are the wolves?” she demanded.
Jack looked from side to side, faking innocence. “I could have sworn I saw one. Over there.” He pointed into the trees. She ran in, followed by several men. Jack sprinted down the hill to her house. On the table was a glorious apple pie. Jack didn’t know about vegetables, but when it came to fruit in pies, he was an expert. Though the pie was so hot it scalded his tongue, he shoved handfuls of it into his mouth.
Then he turned and ran back up the hill.
The villagers came out of the trees. Everyone was frowning. “There was no wolf. No footprints. Are you sure that’s what you saw?” the woman demanded.
“Oh, mmmmfff, mmhmm,” Jack mumbled, nodding. His mouth was still full of pie. But his belly wasn’t full yet. The villagers grumbled, walking slowly back down the hill. When the woman got to her door, Jack managed to swallow the rest of his mouthful.
“Wolf!” he screamed, pointing at the trees. They all ran back—much, much slower this time, because it was a lot of running up and down hills. (In fact, the woman who would go on to invent the tower-stair exercise method would also have a popular “Oh No, Wolf!” hill sprinting class. But she hired actual wolves to chase people up and down the hills for extra motivation. If you survived, you ended up in great shape!)
As soon as they were out of sight, Jack rolled down the hill and back to his pie. He ate the rest of it, and was still licking the crumbs off his fingers as he strolled back to his spot.
“No sign of any wolves,” the woman said. But then she stopped, her glorious mustache quivering in anger. She leaned close to Jack—closer—closer. His tongue darted out to lick a stray crumb. She reached out fast as lightning and grabbed his tongue. “Ah ha!” she shouted.
“Whuu ah oo ooing?” Jack said, because it is very hard to talk when someone is holding on to your tongue.