The pressure weighed on me, that I was not yet with child. But instead, I focused on my beauty, which was easier to control. I rarely ate, so that my waist would be more narrow. I used every spell I knew to make my skin smoother and my hair more lustrous, my eyes brighter. I had Clareta brush oils through my hair to make it shine.
I was not unaware of the irony, that I was starving myself and surrounded by riches when people were going hungry because they had no other choice, outside the castle walls.
But I was a queen.
I helped Snow White, too, as she selected a rose-colored silk for her dress, and fur to line the neck and wrists and hem. It was a great pleasure for me, giving myself over to such decadence, having this little girl and all my ladies to do it with.
I called Snow White to my chambers and stood her in front of my own mirror, lifting the silk to her chin. “Look at how pale your skin is, how red your lips.”
She beamed with delight. I smoothed my palms over her hair, sprinkling in some rosemary oil to ease her worries. I could feel, through my own hair dangling down and brushing her arm, how much happier she was, but there was still a deep grief in her I wished I could erase completely. Knowing I was responsible for it broke my heart.
The morning of the ball, I gathered Snow White and all my ladies and we spent the day preparing. The princess and I both took long baths in perfume, and Clareta washed my hair and sculpted it into an elaborate, towering pouf, weaving jewels and a large plume right in the center of it. I brushed Snow White’s hair myself, her luxurious black locks, as she squirmed with anticipation.
Finally, I stepped into the dress, which seemed to hang from my body like water sliding over rock. I stepped in front of my looking glass. My skin and hair glowed, like rays of the sun. My body shimmered from every angle.
I dismissed my ladies, who left my chambers in a flurry to get into their own dresses, pin up their own hair, leaving Snow White and me alone in the room.
In her rose-colored dress, Snow White was the most beautiful child I’d ever seen, a miniature woman, the silk wrapping around her slender body, her black hair piled on her head. Clareta had even made her lips more red with paint, her skin more pale. I loved watching Snow White’s delight as she caught sight of herself in the glass.
Outside, the sun dropped in the sky, and in the distance I could hear carriages, one after another, arriving at the palace.
The ladies all gathered in my chambers. Yolande, in particular, looked wonderful in a dark-gold-and-red- striped gown that displayed her breasts and made a swishing sound as she moved. Paint exaggerated her already pretty features, and her eyes shone and glimmered like stars.
“You might have to leave my service after tonight,” I said, “when a handsome nobleman claims you.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said with a sigh. She, like most of the ladies surrounding me, was wholly dependent on the court, and could only prosper at the side of a high-ranked noble.
On a whim, I grabbed a sachet of lavender and mint from my workroom. “For luck,” I said, handing it to her. She smiled gratefully.
When we were all ready, we swept to the ballroom.
Snow White walked next to me, her small hand in mine, her little heels clicking on the marble. I was brimming over with pride; I couldn’t wait for Josef to see her, for the whole court to see her. The sound of lutes and dulcimers greeted us, as we walked slowly through the hallways. The scents of bread and meat quickly followed. The whole palace was coming under the spell.
When we walked into the ballroom, Josef made a great show of admiring us, presenting us to the court, the kingdom’s queen and heir.
We basked in it.
He pulled Snow White onto the dance floor, lifted her in his arms, and twirled her around, her black hair coming undone and flying around them. She was more truly happy than I’d ever seen her and I watched them, my eyes filling with tears, with happiness.
“You will both dance with me!” he cried out.
He pulled me to him, too, grabbing my hand, holding Snow White in one arm, and the three of us danced, ignoring the learned steps and jumping about like fools.
Later, full of drink, after the nurse had led Snow White off to bed, Josef and I stumbled to my chambers. We collapsed onto my bed. He clawed my dress off of me, unclipped my hair, which wrapped around us, taking in all his joyfulness. I could feel some pain there, too, but it was too buried for me to understand and he himself was intent on ignoring it. The moon shone silver through the window as he moved in and out of me, one hand cupping my face and the other tightly clasping my hand. I couldn’t get close enough to him. I would have disappeared into him if I could have.
After, we lay there together, in each other’s arms. I watched him sleep, his body warming me as the cool early autumn air swept in through the window.
His discontent worried me, cutting through the haze of my own happiness.
I placed my hands over my flat belly. For months now I’d been drinking catnip and mugwort and casting spells to make me more fertile, and yet I was not with child. Josef had not said anything, but I knew he would soon.
As the hours passed and sleep evaded me, old anxieties began to creep in, too. I wondered if I was unable to have a child, if somehow what had happened before had rendered my body unfit, like a stalk of wheat with no grain. I thought of my twisted son, buried in the forest.
The old grief moved into me, and I threw off the covers and walked over to the mirror. My face loomed up in it, a white moon in the black night. I stepped back and looked at my naked body, my belly. My hair was like a storm raging on all sides of me.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” I whispered. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”
“Rapunzel is the fairest,” it responded, in a whisper to match my own.
“Will I have a child?” I asked. “Will I give birth to the king’s heir?”
The mirror rippled. I thought I heard a voice, very faint, but it did not seem to be coming from the glass.
I turned back to the bed. “Did you say something?” I asked.
“Hmm?” He opened his eyes.
“I thought you spoke to me. I’m sorry, go back to sleep.”
“Come to bed,” he mumbled, but was instantly asleep again, his breath loud and heavy.
I looked back at the mirror. For a moment I was sure my hair was wrapped around my throat, and I started with surprise.
13
As the air grew colder, and the rain did not stop falling, Snow White and I rode out into the kingdom nearly every afternoon with baskets of herbs mixed with bones and leaves, throwing handfuls of the mixture onto the gardens and wheat fields. We’d dismount our horses and run through the wet fields, sprinkling the mixture onto the ground, stomping it into the earth with our feet. I kept my hair pinned up, though I longed to let it loose over the soil, let the vibration of earth move into me. But we had a great task before us, and I could not endure the distractions.
It did not take long for the farmers and peasants to take note of our efforts, and they began watching and waiting, coming out of their houses to bow to us, running up to throw flowers or ask for alms.
One day a woman holding a sick child ran out of a rickety cottage with a sparse garden in front of it. My instinct was to shield Snow White from them, but to my surprise the princess stepped around me and walked right up to the infant.
