Snow White was sitting in the morning room with a stack of books she had brought up from the library. She liked this room better than the others. What little light there was in the dead woods filtered through the windows, giving the room an almost cheerful glow. She felt sad that Gothel had never been able to truly appreciate the room the way she’d wanted to with her sisters. Snow couldn’t help remembering reading about the solstice party Gothel had thrown for her sisters, and about how much she’d wanted them to love living in this house together.

A voice interrupted her musings. “Snow, we have company.”

Snow looked up and saw Circe standing in the doorway with two beautiful young women. All three of them were holding stacks of papers and books.

“Primrose! Hazel!” Snow White stood up from her little window reading nook and rushed to the young witches, embracing them as if she had known them for many years and was not meeting them now for the first time.

Primrose smiled. “I knew you would be sweet,” she said as the witches put down the books and papers. “And so pretty. I hadn’t expected you to be quite so pretty.” Snow White blushed deeply, lowering her eyes. She was never comfortable with people commenting on her beauty. It wasn’t something that was important to Snow. It wasn’t where she got her self-worth. Watching her mother’s obsession with vanity, she had learned at a young age that a woman’s true virtue resided in her heart.

“Here, come sit down. I just made a pot of tea and there is plenty for all of us. I’ll just go get us some more cups.”

Hazel took Snow’s hand. “No, dear. I will have Jacob arrange for that.”

Snow looked around for the man she had read about. “Jacob? But where is he?”

Hazel looked toward the entryway. “He’s just out there. He was afraid his appearance would frighten you.”

Snow rushed to the entryway and found Jacob right around the corner. “Jacob, I am so happy to meet you.” She put her hands on the sides of his face. “You are just as beautiful as I imagined. It’s no wonder Manea was so in love with you.” Jacob didn’t say anything as Snow White led him into the morning room to sit with her and the witches. “Everyone, please sit down and have some tea.” Primrose laughed, and suddenly Snow felt foolish for acting as the hostess in the witches’ home. “I’m sorry, of course it’s your place to offer the tea. I didn’t mean—”

Hazel stopped Snow before she could continue. “No, Snow, you’re fine. We always imagined you would be a sweet woman, and we’re just pleased to see you in real life.” Snow White felt the same way. She was in awe of these witches, brought to life from the pages of Gothel’s story. To have just read about Hazel and Primrose, thinking she would never have the opportunity to meet them, and to be in their home speaking to them was the most magnificent thing she’d experienced in many years.

Jacob cleared his throat, drawing her attention. “I understand you were looking for some missing pages. May I inquire which story you were reading? I might be able to help.”

Snow White bit her lip, afraid to answer Jacob. She couldn’t bear to admit the story was about him. It didn’t seem proper to ask him to provide the story of his death. She didn’t want to hurt him. “Don’t be afraid, Snow. Jacob is here to help us. We could never imagine you hurting anyone on purpose,” Primrose said.

Snow White smiled and asked playfully, “So you can read my mind as well? Am I surrounded by mind readers, then?”

Primrose laughed. “We cannot read your mind, sweet Snow, but we can read Circe’s. And she can read yours. So I guess in a way we know what you were thinking. It’s all very strange, isn’t it? And it must be maddening. We’ll do our best not to drive you to distraction with it. I remember dreading others knowing how I was feeling or what I was thinking, and now I find it quite comforting.”

“I suppose it does make things easier,” Snow said with a laugh, then turned her attention back to Jacob. “Dear Jacob, I was reading a story involving you and Manea in the book of fairy tales. Her mother was threatening to kill you. The title of the story was ‘The Mourning Box.’”

Jacob became unsteady on his feet, losing his balance and almost falling. “Jacob! Please sit down.” Snow White rushed to help him to a seat and got him a cup of tea. “Here, dear man, drink this.” Snow White looked down at him as she handed him his tea. His eyes were beautiful, or at least she thought they might have been once upon a time when he was alive. She could almost see the man he once was, and her heart broke as she remembered the story “The Mourning Box.” Primrose and Hazel rushed to Jacob and sat on either side of him, each taking one of his hands. Snow could see Jacob wasn’t used to this sort of attention and it made him uncomfortable, but she could also see he was so happy to have the young witches back that he wasn’t about to protest.

Snow White laughed quietly to herself. The poor man was besieged by witches. Circe kneeled down in front of him and put her hand on his knee.

“Jacob, are you quite all right? Is there something I can do for you? I’m so sorry if our coming here has upset you.”

“No, my little witch. You are more than welcome here. I have been expecting you for a very long time. Your coming was foretold by the ancestors.” Circe’s face was full of confusion. “I think you’d better read this.” Jacob handed Circe the stack of papers he had been holding. It looked like they had been torn out of a book.

“‘The Mourning Box’! This is the story Snow was reading?”

Snow took the pages from Circe, her heart racing. “It is.” She went to her stack of books, took the fairy tale book from the pile, and handed it to Circe. “I really should have told you about this before now, but I wanted to be sure I wasn’t jumping to wild conclusions before I did.”

“Your conclusions are far from wild,” said Primrose, smiling at Snow White.

“Here, I think you should all read this first,” Snow said, showing them the book of fairy tales, which was open to “The Mourning Box.”

“Oh, we already know the story,” said Primrose. “And I daresay Jacob couldn’t forget it if he tried.”

Snow White blushed and handed the book to Circe, who immediately became engrossed in the story. “Of course he couldn’t. My heart has been filled with dread ever since I read it. But I wonder, who tore those pages out?”

“I did, sweet majesty,” Jacob said. “I was trying to protect my poor little witch, Gothel. I promised her mother I would keep her secrets. And now, well, it seems I may have caused more harm by keeping them.”

“You did right to try to protect her, Jacob. Truly. Please don’t blame yourself.” Snow held back a tear. “I always thought the fairy tale book belonged to the odd sisters. How did you come to have it?”

Jacob’s face contorted into a strange smile. “And so it does. But it wasn’t always so.” Snow thought she understood what he meant. Everything had been leading her and Circe here, to the dead woods. Everything she had suspected since she read Gothel’s story was now playing out.

Circe gasped. She looked as if some invisible creature had stolen the life from her. She looked like a ghost, her eyes wide with terror.

“Circe, what’s wrong?” asked Snow. “Did you read the story?” Circe nodded, unable to speak, taking everything in.

Snow went to her side, putting her arm around her cousin. “Shall we read the rest together, then, dear cousin? Don’t be afraid. I will be right here.”

M anea was crumpled in a heap over Jacob’s dead body. Her mother had slashed his throat. Manea was weeping so hard she couldn’t catch her breath.

She had made her choice and lost her dearest love.

“Mother…please…don’t take…my baby!” She could hardly get the words out. She felt like she was choking on them along with her overwhelming grief. She felt as if she were trapped in a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. All she could do was weep. She was helpless. Her mother was too powerful and would do anything she wanted with her daughter. Manea looked up at Nestis with pleading eyes. “Mother, please.”

Nestis put her hand on her daughter’s head, patting her like a broken and neglected child or a beloved pet. “My darling girl, please stop crying. I promise you will be happy with your daughters.”

Manea felt the ruin of her life crashing down on her. She had betrayed her dearest love to try to save her daughter, and her mother was going to do with her what she willed anyway. Manea didn’t dare try to use what little powers she possessed against her mother. She knew she wasn’t strong enough. Her mother could kill with a single look if she desired.

“My sweet, confused daughter, this was your choice. You could have had Jacob and your daughters, but you chose to stand against me and suffered the consequences.”

Manea cried even harder, sobbing into Jacob’s chest. “My dearest love, I am so sorry. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Oh, please forgive me.”

Nestis lost her patience with Manea and sent her crashing violently across the room with a wave of her hand. “Stop this nonsense at once, Manea! I won’t have a daughter of mine degrading herself over a human!” She cradled the baby girl in her arms. “Now compose yourself at once, and start conducting yourself as the future queen of these lands! Do you understand?” She didn’t wait for Manea’s reply. She turned and exited the room with the child, leaving Manea alone.

With Jacob’s body.

Manea’s hands and dress were covered in his blood from her trying to stop the bleeding. She sat there crying over the loss of him, and over the loss of the relationship she’d thought she had with her mother.

And over the loss of her daughter. Her darling girl.

What would she do?

She didn’t know how to contact the ancestors without the mourning box. Her mother had destroyed it.

They had promised all would be well. They had promised they wouldn’t let it go too far.

She had to trust them. Trust they wouldn’t let anything happen to her daughter.

As she sat there, wondering what was to come, her mother’s skeletal minions came into the room, their bones rattling and scraping along the stone floor. She had grown up with these silent, morose creatures skulking about the house. Her mother used them like servants. They were always about, ready to do her mother’s bidding. Manea couldn’t stand the sight of them. When she was queen of these lands, she would have them shut away so she wouldn’t have to feel their empty, hollow eye sockets always watching her. Without ceremony, the skeletal grotesqueries gathered up Jacob’s body. “Where are you taking him?” Manea cried. But they didn’t answer. They never did. She couldn’t stand their silence. It was worse than the cacophony of a thousand harpies and, to Manea, more deadly. She felt like she could drown in the absence of their words.

Manea sat huddled in the corner, covered in her lover’s blood, as she watched the skeletal minions take him away.

She looked at the empty crow’s nest cradle, where her daughter should have been, and felt numb. She had no choice other than to wait and see what happened. Her mother was too strong. She was queen of these lands. And the ancestors would do nothing beyond making sure her mother didn’t try to extend her reach past the forest of the dead. She had never felt so alone, so afraid, and so filled with dread.

Outside, the sky was turning lilac. It seemed like another world outside the nursery windows, and she was afraid to face it. Afraid to live in a world without Jacob. Afraid to live in a world with a mother who would do this to her. So she sat alone, waiting for her mother to return. Waiting for her to bring her daughter back to her. Her daughters, she reminded herself. Soon she would have three. Would she be able to tell her own daughter from the abominations her mother was creating? Would she know which one she had brought into the world herself and which were created by magic?

“They are all your daughters, my darling girl. Each of them. And I know you will love them all equally.”

Nestis stood in the doorway between two of her skeletal minions. Each of them was holding a baby. Manea’s head spun and the room swayed; everything was going in and out of focus as she desperately tried to pick her own daughter out of the three before her.

“Behold your daughters, Manea.” Her mother was beaming as she and the minions put the babies into the crow’s nest cradle. “Look at them, my love. They’re perfect.”

Manea got up slowly. She felt as if she were treading water. This must be a nightmare. It couldn’t really be happening. But there they were, all three of them, perfect, beautiful, and unharmed.

“They will be the most powerful witches this land has ever seen! Mark my words, Manea. Your daughters will be the ruin of all our enemies!”

“What have you done? What will my daughters become?”

Nestis laughed in a way Manea had never heard her mother laugh before; it sounded wicked and cruel, and full of madness and contempt. “They will bring darkness to the world, my sweet. Their murder ballads will be heard in every kingdom!”

Manea looked at her daughters and couldn’t tell one from the others. The three were identical, mirror images of each other. “Which one is mine?” she asked, but her mother just laughed harder.

“They are all your daughters, Manea.”

“But which of them is Lucinda?” she screamed, making all the babies but one cry. And then she knew. Something within her told her this one was Lucinda. Her true daughter. The first.

“They are all Lucinda. They will always be Lucinda. They are one,” said Manea’s mother. “But give them their own names. Give them their own power. Give them your love and guidance. They are yours. All of them.”

Nestis left Manea alone in the nursery with her daughters. Manea picked up Lucinda, looking down on the other two.

“Ruby,” she christened one. “And Martha,” she said, looking down on the innocent babies in their nest. “Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha.

“But always, always Lucinda.”