Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The old woman cackled, then right before their eyes, she transformed into the evil queen as Snow fell to the ground.
“That will teach you girls to try to interfere with my plans. No one is smarter or more beautiful than I.” She laughed her sick, satisfying laugh. “I will always see to that. No one will get in my way, least of all stupid children like you!” She looked down at Snow’s lifeless body. “I’m so pleased your father is out of the way, as well. Now the kingdom is truly mine.” She turned to walk away. Just as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone.
“Valerie! The comb was poisoned, wasn’t it? What are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know. I should have known it was her. Why didn’t I think faster?” she cried as she knelt down by Snow. “I can’t think back to that story. What revived her?” Valerie strained to remember as she not-so-gently pounded her fists to her forehead.
Whistling and singing interrupted Valerie’s outburst. She stood, and hurried to follow the sounds. Flames from torches moving through the forest caught her sight…seven small torches. This was too good to be true.
“Quick, Samantha. It has to be the dwarves! Go get them! Hurry! I’ll stay with Snow.”
The dwarves were startled at the sight of Samantha frantically running toward them. Never before had they come across someone they weren’t expecting in their woods.
“Please! You have to help us,” Sam shouted as she got close to them.
“What it is, child? What’s the screaming about? What are you doing in the woods alone?”
“I’m not alone. Please, you have to help my friend. An evil witch poisoned her! Come now. Hurry!” She grabbed the first one in line by his arm and pulled him along. The rest hurried behind her. They reached Snow and Valerie in a few moments.
“I believe it’s the young princess,” the older dwarf said.
“Yes, it is. Now please, help her.”
One of the dwarves knelt by Snow. “Poisoned, you say? Would it be with this comb?”
“Yes, that’s it! Be careful!” Valerie warned them.
“My dear, that witch, as you called her, has no power over us. She should not have used stones from our mine in the crafting of this hairpiece. Now that we are with you, it no longer has powers over our little friend here, either.” He removed the comb from her hair and took a handkerchief from his pocket. After carefully wrapping it up, he handed it to another dwarf, who stored it in a pack on his back.
“Really? That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he assured them with a slight nod.
“Oh, my! Thank you!” They took turns hugging each of the little men. When they were done, they returned to Snow’s side and each took a hand. With all the excitement, Valerie still couldn’t remember what happened with Snow White and the poisoned comb in the story she'd read several years ago.
“Help us get her onto our cart. It would be best if you stayed with her. I’m sure the first things she’ll want to see when she awakens are your friendly faces, not our bearded ones. We’ll take her back to our cottage. Rest assured, she will be fine.”
The dwarves were wise to give the girls the task of taking care of Snow; they would have collapsed from over-excitement otherwise.
As the group traveled back to the cottage, Valerie asked how they knew who Snow was, when clearly Snow didn’t know about them.
“My darling girls, we know everything that goes on in the surrounding kingdoms, especially what is happening in our forest. A tree does not fall that we do not know about. Funny, considering no one knows where our cottage is, or our diamond mine. But you three managed to find our home before, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we did. I’m sorry,” Sam apologized. “We were tired and lost. We didn’t think anyone lived there. We didn’t do any damage. As a matter of fact, we cleaned up a bit.”
“We know, and thank you. I’m afraid we bachelors are not the tidiest men around. We do put in long days at our mine. We even stayed in it that night because of the dreadful storm. I’m afraid some gems have been washed down the stream. I hope they get washed further down until they are well away from us. We don’t want anyone else to come snooping around, discovering the jewels, then setting out to find the mine. Mind you, it is hidden very well and protected with a spell, so no one ever could.”
“Oh, we weren’t looking for your mine.” Sam felt guilty and offered them the ruby Snow handed her earlier. “We found this by chance in the stream, but we were really only following a possum.”
“I see. Her again, huh?”
“Her? Who is it?”
“You will find out when she’s ready for you to find out. She always has a reason for the things that she does. For now, let’s concentrate on the young princess.”
Valerie and Samantha wanted to go back to Wilhelm and Dorothea, but right now, Snow’s safety was the most important thing. They walked alongside the cart, each keeping a careful eye on her.
By the time they got back to the cottage, Snow was awake, although groggy. She was a little confused, since everything had happened so fast, but she recognized the cottage and felt safe. The dwarves put her in a bed, Valerie and Samantha stayed by her side all night. Exhaustion finally set in and they fell asleep, both curled up in the same small bed with Snow. Considering its size, that was quite a feat.
When Snow woke up the next morning, she said she felt great. “I feel like nothing happened at all. If you two weren’t here with me, I would have thought this was just a bad dream.”
Valerie and Samantha still didn’t want to leave her side. They sat at the table with the dwarves, Snow between them, and told the dwarves their tale. As their story went on, they got to know the names of the little men. Even though Valerie was more of a fairy tale fan than Sam, almost every child could probably name the Seven Dwarves.
“Sleepy” lived up to his name. He sat at the table with his head propped on his fist for most of the conversation as he nodded in and out. His head often slid off it, jerking himself awake. His name was actually Leon.
“Dopey” was the funniest one, as they expected he’d be. Always after a laugh, he was constantly crossing his eyes, juggling something, or pretending he was falling. He went by Toby.
“Grumpy” wasn’t as bad as they expected. Although definitely the gruffest of the bunch, he still showed concern for their safety and carried on the most about the queen entering their forest.
“This is inexcusable,” he said, slamming his hands on the table. “We’ll need to get the cloaking spell recast and made more powerful. We need to expand a larger part of the forest. If she thinks for a minute that this child is alive, she’ll be back.”
“We’ll get working on that, Grady. First things first,” the one they knew as “Doc” said. His nickname was actually Doc. That made Val and Sam giggle. He wore glasses, just like his cartoon character and was the obvious leader. He was also the one that tended to Snow the most. They figured he was the caretaker of the group and earned that name.
A loud, “Ahhhh Chooooo” was heard from the corner.
“Bless you, Sneezy,” Sam said. “I mean, Simon.”
“Thank you.”
“This darn hay fever. I can’t wait until winter,” he said with a sniffle.
Toby laughed. “Sneezy. I like that.” He faked a sneeze; Simon promptly threw a wooden spoon at him. Catching it, Toby walked around the room, balancing it on his hand. “So what now, Doc?”
“You two girls must go home,” Doc said to Valerie and Samantha.
“I know, but can’t we at least go see Wilhelm and Dorothea first?” Valerie begged. “They’ll be very worried about us, and we really want to say goodbye to them.”
The one Val and Sam wanted to call “Happy” placed a plate of warm buns and jam in front of them. He’d worn a smile since they met him. Even when he was concerned for Snow, he smiled and repeated, “She’ll be just fine.” His name was Henry, but he went by Hank.
“Eat up,” he said. “You
aren’t going anywhere without full stomachs. Sorry I burned them. Just scrape off the black parts, they’ll be fine. I’ll get some tea going.”
“I’m already on it,” a shy voice came from the stove. The girls barely heard him.
Valerie grinned and nudged Samantha as she spoke. “You’re awfully bashful over there.”
Toby leaned in. “Girls scare Billy. He doesn’t get out much.”
Another spoon was tossed at Toby. He chuckled as he caught it and wandered away, juggling the two of them. “Toss me a third one, Grady.”
Grady did, only it hit him in the head. Toby just laughed as he picked it up and walked around, juggling the three spoons as if they were juggling pins.
Doc continued. “You girls will not be safe alone.” He paced and rubbed his chin as he tried to come up with a plan. “We’ll go with you to their cottage so you can say goodbye. If the queen found you before, she could find you again. With us, she cannot find you. Like the spell on our mine and our cottage, you will be invisible to her mirrors if you stay with us.”
Sam was confused. “But wait. We found your cottage on our own.”
“Did you, now?” Doc turned away with a grin.
The journey went a lot quicker with the dwarves leading the way. The girls were sure they didn’t take the most direct route when they were on their own; especially considering when they left the cottage for the first time, they didn’t exactly have a destination picked out. When they finally reached where Wilhelm and Dorothea’s cottage should have been, their hearts filled with fear.
“What happened?” cried Samantha. “Look at this. Who would have done this?”
“I know who.” Snow fell to her knees and cried. “I knew I would bring them trouble. I knew it!” she shouted as she slammed her fists to the ground.
Hank tried to be of comfort while the other six inspected the ruins. Within a few minutes, Doc came back to report there was no sign of any people in the fire. “A pile of ash and rubble is all that is left of their home. I assure you there are no bodies to be found. They escaped unharmed.”
“There you have it,” said Hank. “They’re fine. Do you know of anywhere else they would go? Somewhere they might go to be safe?”
“The prince!” Valerie brightened up. “He told Wilhelm to go back anytime he wanted. Maybe they went to Sequoia Kingdom for help. Can we go? Please? We have to make sure before we leave.”
“I agree that would be the best option,” Hank said. “Although we originally set out just to let the girls say goodbye, I’m now also concerned for the couple’s safety.”
“I agree” and “Of course”, was repeated among the little men.
“We’ll go to Sequoia Kingdom with them as long as Leon can stay awake.” Hank laughed hard as he jabbed Billy in the ribs. “You may run into a girl there, Billy. Think you can handle it?”
Billy gave him a shove as his cheeks reddened.
As the dwarves prepared for the journey by filling their goatskin canteens with water from the creek, everyone jumped at the sound of what had to be at least a hundred horses heading toward them.
“It could be the queen. Everyone, quick, into the forest and hide!” yelled Hank. They each found a place to hide and were as still as they could be, waiting with great fear and anticipation of who would be approaching. Simon sneezed, and Val jumped.
“Shh! Sorry, I know you couldn’t help it,” she whispered. He nodded and they waited, eyes focused on the house as the horses approached.
Chapter 17