The Fairest of Them All

When I was feeling strong enough to stand, I wrapped myself in a fur and went out to the mews to confront Gilles.

He was inside, feeding the hawks.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Where is she?”

His face registered the barest surprise, but the expression quickly disappeared. “I killed her in the forest, as you asked.”

I stepped toward him. “That was not her heart. It was something else.”

“You doubt my loyalty, my queen?”

I wanted to slap him across the face. “How dare you lie to me!” I said, spitting the words. “What was in that box? Tell me what it was!”

“A heart.”

“What heart? She lives! I know that Snow White still lives.”

He looked around, then strode over to me, placed his hand over my mouth. “Be careful, my queen,” he said into my ear. “You must not let anyone hear you speak of this.”

I struggled in his arms.

He continued. “You would have our kingdom go to war over your petty jealousies. She is the heir to the throne! She’s just a child! How could you have asked such a thing, and of me?”

My hair was tangling around my neck, pulling at my skin. He tightened his arms around me. I continued to struggle against him, furious to feel his love and worry pulsing through.

“Let me go!” I screamed, biting into his palm, and he released me suddenly, causing me to fall to the floor.

I stood up, my whole body alive with anger. I might have been a bolt of lightning, a storm.

“I could not kill her,” he said. “Not even for you.”

“Then where did you take her? Where is she?”

“I took her to where she would be safe from you.”

“In a house full of criminals?” I yelled. As I accused him, I realized how much it pained me, how much I hated the image of her being abused. I had loved Snow White like a mother once and I loved her still, despite everything. “I wanted her dead. I did not want her to be tortured.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She is in the forest, in a house of bandits.”

He did not seem to understand me. His confusion seemed genuine. “I did not kill her,” he said. “I took her into the forest, but I did not take her to a house of bandits. I made sure she was safe.”

“Then where is she?”

The room seemed to be spinning. The falcons and hawks became terrifying in their hoods.

He paused. “I took her to Mathena. She has promised to protect her.”

20

I stared at him in disbelief. And then I knew, suddenly, that I had to find her and fix what I’d done. I felt it, down to my blood and bones, the terrible mistake I’d made. I turned and ran to the stables and demanded a horse, and then I spurred my heels into its side and raced through the palace gates, past the soldiers’ encampments, the streets lined with houses.

“Go!” I cried, digging my spurs into the horse, and we flew through the kingdom.

Guards rushed to follow, but I was driven by passion, by magic, and soon I was out of their sight altogether.

Nothing made sense anymore. All I knew was that Snow White was in the house of bandits, and that Mathena had taken her there. I knew I had been the one to send Snow White to the forest, to ask for her heart, but I’d never meant to make her suffer the way she was suffering now.

When I was exhausted, I stopped, and made a camp for myself in the leaves. After feeding and watering my horse, I let down my hair and wrapped it around me like a blanket.

As I began to drift to sleep, I could see Mathena up in the tower, staring at the castle, imagining me as queen within it. She had known how much I would suffer, not being able to give the king an heir. Knew how much I would come to hate the child Snow White.

Seven years I’d spent in the kingdom, before she saved me. Seven years after my child died, I went back and became a queen. Now eight more years had passed.

The world was hazy around me.

I was half sleeping, half awake.

Suddenly I understood something. She had been lying in wait, hadn’t she, all these years? She’d been a favorite at the court for all that time, and then she was cast out. Her beloved, condemned to death. She’d tried to save him, but ended up giving him a fate that was worse than dying.

I knew then why she’d taken me into the forest all those years before, and why she’d spent all that time training me to be a witch.

I sat up, my heart hammering in my chest. All around me the forest moved, shifted, hiding its secrets.

I was her revenge. The one who would avenge her. I had already done it, hadn’t I? I had managed to marry the king and become his queen. I had tried to kill the kingdom’s sole heir. I had not been able to produce an heir of my own.

She had foreseen all of it, set all of it into motion.

At dawn, I rode through the forest, past the ancient trees and the twisted river until I saw the tower stretching through the trees, and soon afterward I reached the cottage.

The garden was spilling over with rotting vegetables. She had more bounty than she knew what to do with and could not tend to it all alone.

I pushed open the front door and walked in. My hair seemed to crackle around me as it swept over the dirt floor.

She sat on the couch by the fireplace, a pile of dried sage in front of her. Brune was perched on the mantel, spreading her wings. Loup lay curled in a ball in front of the fire. Stew heated over the embers, and I recognized the smell of cooking carrots, gravy, herbs, meat—a concoction I’d eaten countless times in my youth.

“Rapunzel,” she said, looking up at me, as if she’d been expecting me.

It was years earlier, suddenly, and nothing else had happened. I might have dreamed everything. She watched me, and I blinked, looked away. She was still a more powerful witch than I’d ever be.

“Come sit with me,” she said, making her voice warm, inviting.

I walked over to the chair across from her and sat down like any number of heartbroken souls had before. I had grown more powerful over the years. I could feel those souls, the clamor of their pain, their furtiveness as they entered the dark woods to consult with witches.

“You look wonderful,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. “You look just the same.” It was true. Her hair was still deep black, and her face was as I remembered. She had always been a stunning woman. “I could have been gone for one minute.”

“Perhaps you were,” she said, smiling.

I had a woozy feeling, wondering if I’d imagined everything. “Stop it.”

She went back to her sage, sorting it into bundles. “You’ve turned out just as I hoped you would.”

There was a pain in my gut, a sick feeling taking hold. “You did hope things would happen this way, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean, child?”

“You hate the kingdom. You hate everything about it.”