The king asked me where I wanted to stay. I begged to be put in a convent near the capital. He responded with a reluctance I did not understand but agreed that was probably the wisest course of action.
I was very unhappy to find there were no openings in the abbey. Furthermore, after taking me aside to question, the mother superior shook her head.
“You are good and pious, yet you lack the calling to a cloistered life my child. Perhaps I am wrong. I will notify our father confessor and a few other nuns to pray about it.”
“Where should I go?”
“Sheep shearing has begun. There will be a lot of work at the castle. Can you spin and weave?” I nodded. “Good. Make yourself useful. Come back in the spring if you still wish to stay. Even non proselytes stay here on a temporary basis. And you may have the necessary traits for conventual life after all.”
I planned to return but didn’t.
King Hildebrand took me home and introduced me to the ladies of the court. I was surprised at how handsome and well-mannered the queen mother showed herself. Yet—at her frank admission—she was “common as they come.”
She took a great liking to me. I worked hard since I still might be rejected come spring. And I was grateful at the kindness shown me.
A week after my arrival Hildebrand told the story of how he found me in a glass coffin and I sat up. “As though raised from the dead. Thank God for reviving her or I would have killed her.”
As he took a sip of wine, I spoke up. “If his majesty had not moved my arms in trying to find signs of life and had his servants move me, the poison might not have come up in time. He is truly the hero of the piece.”
The king turned his smoldering dark eyes on me and smiled. I felt my cheeks grow warm and stared at my trencher of food.
From then on, I felt a confused mixture of embarrassment and delight in his presence. While he did not seem to follow me everywhere, whenever he did come near, he would remain for a while. Silently staring.
One day, in late autumn, I was spinning with the other women. Hildebrand only gazed briefly, then called to his queen mother. They talked quietly together in a corner of the courtyard.
Later that day, the queen seated herself beside me. “Eva, I was wondering what you think of my son.”
“He seems like a good wise monarch. And a good man too.”
“The king thinks very highly of you.” With a meaningful smile.
Before dinner, a servant knocked on my door saying the king wished to speak to me before the meal began. I grew afraid that he was going to tell me they no longer needed my services once the yarn was all spun.
To my surprise the king looked nervous once we were alone in the dining hall. Upon seeing me he quit pacing. The room seemed to go around. He got down on his knees before me. I had never seen him look so young and shy.
“Your majesty! No. Please don’t.”
“I don’t want you for a servant, Snowdrop. It’s not your services I desire, but your heart. I know you would not marry a man—not even a king—if you had no respect nor affection for him. Do you have either for me?”
He reached out and I surrendered my hands to him. Then I realized I had indeed fallen in love. I thought of the family I came from and broke down weeping.
Misunderstanding, he stood up and released my hands. “I’m sorry. I will speak of this no more. When you leave for the convent this spring, I will remain behind since you feel this way, Eva.” He bowed and turned to leave, looking so miserable, I cried out for him to wait.
We sat down and I began to share my horrible story. In the end, we had a private dinner in his apartments with the queen mother for a chaperone as I talked into the night. Sharing the drama of the House of Ignatius.
I ended with my mother poisoning me, so the gnomes put me in the glass coffin. “Then you found me.”
“Yes, I did. Well, I guess I fell in love with royalty and didn’t know it.” He laughed. “Why is this a reason for you not to marry me?”
“My family is evil and twisted. M-my mother…”
“How would she respond if you became my queen?”
“Uh, I guess she would be relieved to know I’d never have a reason to return. I doubt she’d start a war. She’d love to make a political alliance.”
“Yes. And she would know that you are under the protection of a more powerful monarch than herself.” Thus we became engaged.
Amid the Christmas festivities we celebrated our betrothal. Many complained of how long and harsh that winter was. But to Hildebrand—or Brand as he prefers to be called—it seemed brief and mild.
I began to put my trousseau together. He sent a message to my family about our nuptials.
In the spring, I put the finishing touches on my sewing. An answer arrived from mother. A formal letter expressing full approval of the arrangement and offering to lift tariffs from the borderlands between our kingdoms. She even offered the copper mines, which though surrounded by Forstenwald officially belonged to Grimm, as a wedding gift or dowry.
Neither of us thought to invite her. I wanted to invite Wilhelm for I missed my sweet brother and wanted to see him again, but feared he would bring our mother.
We were wed that summer. A year and a day after Brand brought me back to the land of the living. Out of that cold coffin.
As they were announcing the guests, I heard: “Queen Lilith the first of Grimm. And Prince Wilhelm the heir apparent.”
My brother had grown into a tall, handsome youth of sixteen. He looked like our father but strong and ruddy with health. His eyes were like our mother’s. Not only were they golden brown, narrow and tilted at the corners. They had the same proud, aloof expression. His face bore that arrogant look which becomes a man better than a woman. (Though Brand’s face combines strength with a lack of self-consciousness. And he the is handsomest of all men.)
Mother had changed the most. In just one short year she seemed to have aged twenty. Her once fair, smooth face was creased with lines of passion. Her once coal black hair had turned white. (Perhaps it was impossible to dye now.) Her tall slender frame had turned bony and bowed down with a dowager’s hump.
Wilhelm led her in like a good son. I greeted him as I had the other guests. If things had been less awkward my courtesies would have been warmer for I was glad to see him.
I gave the bare minimum of courtesies to the queen, letting her receive them by proxy through the heir. Yet we stared at one another.
As I turned to go, she spoke to me in the voice of a tired old woman. “So, Snowdrop, you are the fairest of them all now. Congratulations.”
Looking on her I felt only pity and sadness at the waste. “Thank you. But that never was my ultimate goal, Mother. Some day, I shall grow old and lose my current charms if I do not die first.”
“We never were that much alike. Matched in beauty but not strength or wits.” A flash of that hatred she had grown too tired and weak to sustain.
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘wits.’ I always had a hard time understanding your way of thinking as a child.”
“And you are a child no longer.”
“No. Now I can understand you.” I wish I couldn’t. Her shallow, banal soul is so easy to read. But her lack of love hurts less as I realize the witch queen had none to give.
Those were the final words we spoke to each other.
After the ceremony, Brand—who had been growing grimmer and more protective—asked me if I was all right. He offered to have the servants put my family out, but I reminded him of the political hazards of such a move.
Embracing me, he agreed. Then he rose to speak to my brother.
I didn’t hear what they said. But immediately after, Wilhelm addressed the room. “Her majesty is weary and we must begin the journey home while daylight remains. We regret that we cannot linger to enjoy the festivities. Just one cup of wine and one dance before we leave.”
My new husband nodded.
Wilhelm made a lovely toast and quaffed the wine. Mother did likewise.
The musicians struck up a tune. Wilhelm offered Mother his hand, but looked at her shoes. “Those aren’t right for dancing,” I heard him murmur.
I noticed then, that he had been wearing gloves the whole time. Warm as it was.
He ordered their attendant to bring the queen’s dancing shoes. Beautiful slippers of spun gold, embroidered with diamonds and rubies. They glowed as though illuminated by magic.
Still gloved, my brother put the slippers on our mother’s feet. Then he glanced up at me and winked.
Shortly after her feet were encased in these dainty slippers, the queen winced as though in pain. They did not look tight. But they definitely glowed.
My brother led her through the dance steps. The more she danced the brighter the shoes grew. And the more pained her expression.
Finally she screamed in pain. Wilhelm pulled away from her. Why was he smiling?
“Dance Mother. Dance. Such lovely dancing slippers,” he called out.
Her dance was a writhing and thrashing of torment. All of us could see the red hot shoes were consuming her flesh.
Horrific screams. More “dancing” as her flesh burned and melted off of her. Guests pulled away lest they perish too.
Finally she collapsed and twitched. And grew still. A charred skeleton remained on the floor.
“Poor Mother,” said Wilhelm. “She had many powerful enemies. I doubt we shall ever find who did this to her. Alas.
“Happily for Grimm, the Queen taught me well. I am still young, but ready and able to assume the throne.”
He turned to the retinue of accompanying servants. “The queen is dead. Long live the king!”
“Long live the king!”
This happened three years ago.
I sometimes relive this. And other scenes in my nightmares.
Just a few days ago, seven little men showed up at the castle. They played with two-year-old Brand and his infant sister Dawn. They presented us with beautiful gifts (“Since we missed out on the wedding,” Loamy explained.) And marvelous toys for the children.
My husband and I shared the story of the past four years. And we were supremely happy.
The shadows of my past linger. But I look to the morning. Every nightmare yields to daybreak in the end.