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The evil-queen-to-be looked into the magic mirror and asked, “Am I beautiful?”
The mirror had not been addressed in many years, hanging like an island in the center of the iron chamber. The curtain was gone though. The room smelled of dust. There was light somewhere. Oh lords, there was light.
The mirror, a phantom outline on the glass, peered down. A girl stood. Crooked jaw, thin lips, dark hair the texture of crow’s feathers, and ruddy skin—both too pale and flushed all at once. She had teeth like overlapping piano keys and limbs gangly as a newborn calf. She wore the finest gown of deep purple, heavy and dragging on the dirty floor.
The child’s chin wobbled. There was a determined set to her gaze, though her cheeks were tear stained. Her eyes were the color of bloody daybreak—at least, the types of daybreak the mirror could still remember. The mirror tilted her head to the side, curious.
“Am I beautiful?” the girl repeated and stomped her foot, pinpricks of tears spilling out. There was a purpling welt across her right cheek, a bruise growing a yellow-tinted edge. She must be an island as well.
The mirror closed her eyes. She nodded. “You will be. You have been. You are.”
The girl’s eyes went large as entire skies, at least, the type of skies the mirror could still remember. “Promise?” It was a child’s whisper.
“I do not make promises,” the mirror replied, and the girl huffed.
“Fine.” The curtain returned.
#
“Am I beautiful?”
The evil-queen-to-be was taller. Growing into herself, hollow cheeks rounded and skin smoothed. Teeth straightened out through small spells, and then larger ones. The mirror had felt when she found that little black book, a moldy, stained thing, fleshy and dank. In those endless days, the mirror rarely spread her awareness out into the lives of men. It was always the same. But there was no ignoring the tremor through the air that night.
“Did you hear me?” The girl had returned, on the cusp of forgoing shorter hems and growing into the adult ones.
The mirror hummed. “You again. My girl.”
“You again, my mirror.” The girl sneered. She narrowed her eyes. “Do you even have a name?”
“No,” the mirror said. “Do you?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “I suppose you do not hear them yelling it through the hallways, Esme! Esme! Foolish, tricky girl.”
“I do not hear them. No.”
The girl blinked several times. “Oh.”
“Esme.” The mirror tried out the name.
“You may call me Lady Esme.” She sniffed and crossed her arms. “I’m nobility.”
“Of course, my lady.” The mirror inclined her head. “Ask your question.”
The girl considered her for a long moment. “Am I beautiful?”
“Have you not asked before?”
The girl flushed a deep red and glared at her shoes. “You’re just like everyone else.” She turned on her heel.
“Of course,” the mirror murmured. “You are beautiful.”
Esme glanced shyly over one shoulder. “Really?” She sucked in a breath. “You promise?”
“I do not make promises.”
The door slammed, but the curtain did not return.
#
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” the young woman sang and skipped. “Who should I poison at the ball?” She carried a flower in one hand and a small book tucked away at her side. The mirror had watched Esme fill the book with cramped handwriting. Pages and pages of coded numerology—secrets of the tomes she unearthed and more she made herself.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall,” she continued to sing, plucking out a petal. “Who should I poison with my comb?”
“You jest.” The mirror spoke slowly. “But if you must poison one, poison the only son of the Duke of Engles. He plans to bed a maid and will not be easily deterred.”
The evil-queen-to-be stopped in place. Her clever face and clever eyes were cold and sharp. She was older now. “Noted.” Esme plucked at the flower. Then, lifting her chin high, she faced the mirror. “This will be my first showing.”
“I know,” the mirror replied. “You will dance and make merry. Be careful of the wine, my lady.”
“How do you know so much?” Esme squinted and leaned forward. “What exactly do you know?”
“I know everything reflected in the world of men and more.” The mirror studied the mottled light spread across the floor. She still wasn’t facing the window, and how her chest ached for it.
“But how?” Esme insisted.
“I am old.” She indulged in a small smile.
“Well, I could have guessed that.”
“But ageless. Time cannot touch me, nor can I touch it. Yet, I can peer through its many threads into the greater tapestry.”
Esme tilted her head to the side, mind at work. “So,” she said with a catlike smirk. “I really will be beautiful.”
“You are. You have been. You will be.”
Her expression emptied for a moment, blank as unbroken water. The young woman swept to the door. “I must prepare for my debut on the market.” She tossed the flower aside, glancing over one shoulder and sprouting an edged grin. “And who should I marry there, my mirror?”
The mirror stared straight ahead. “The king.”
Esme’s eyes lost their mischief and she frowned, closing the door with a soft click.
#
“They’ll burn me, they’ll burn me!” Esme cried, pacing back and forth. She was still wearing a luscious green gown with bell-shaped sleeves. The hem torn in places, muddied. “Dammit, they know!”
A roar of voices came from below. The mirror knew the lady hadn’t meant to face the duke’s son and win. She hadn’t meant to use her secrets on a whim. But she had.
Esme tore at her hair. “This is it! They’ll tie me to the post for sure.”
“Sneak past the gathered mob. Take the body down to the pond,” the mirror instructed without inflection. “Color his beard with blue paste and say it was the Lady of the Lake.”
“What?” Esme turned, searching the mirror’s face.
“Slay the Lady with a sword, it will be easy, she is old. Call the king and tell him of how you were forced to take up arms,” the mirror continued. “Blame the magic of the hour on the water lady’s powers.”
Esme’s eyes were huge again, like skies, like a child’s. “You mean . . .” she whispered, stilted. “But where will I get a sword? How will I hide what I have done?”
“You know the answer, I’ve spoken true. Do not hesitate,” the mirror growled. “Go!”
#
The new queen carried a mirror under her arm. A long metal frame wrapped carefully in sheets and twine. She held it close to her body at an awkward angle and threatened any servant that drew too close. No, I don’t want help. I’ll be carrying this one myself. Don’t touch it, don’t breathe on it, don’t look. Gone with you!
The trip was long and jarring. The carriage rattled. The heat sweltered. Voices filtered in and out. The queen loosened the twine now and then and pressed a single finger to the glass. “We’re close,” she whispered. She hid her small books better now. “We’ve done it.”
The palace trumpets bellowed on the third day and Esme gasped. The mirror strained to see.
“Do you hear that?” Esme’s fingers lingered on the glass. “For us.”
The mirror exhaled one long breath. “Can you put me by a window?” she said slowly. “High up. Where I can see the sky.”
“Of course,” Esme said, gripping the frame. “Anything, anything at all.”
#
The queen’s tower was the tallest in the castle. She bargained for it with words and favors the mirror did not pry into. Windows surrounded a stone rotunda, left and right and behind. Enormous bays with their shutters pushed open and birds that landed on sills and pecked at the ground.
The mirror considered sending messages with the ravens, but there was no one left who knew her. No one left to break the glass and return her to any sort of life. Besides, it had been so long, she wasn’t sure she remembered how.
And there was the sky.
The queen visited her daily, bringing her scandalous gossip and political news. She was laughing now, and golden. No one slapped her within these walls, no one commented on her lopsided jaw or hair that wouldn’t smooth.
The mirror studied her. “You are becoming beautiful, my lady, as you have always been.”
“Ah, but no promises?” The queen winked and plopped a grape in her mouth. She was always peeling oranges, biting into apples now, sampling fresh fruits the castle provided.
The mirror smiled. “Exactly.” A bitterness lodged behind her tongue. “No promises.”
#
Thunder struck the earth and rain battered against the windowpanes. The mirror did not sleep, and storms reminded her of why she never wished to. She hummed an old and lovely song from her people. Lightning split the air and footsteps pounded down the hall.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall!” Esme burst into the room, chest heaving, eyes wild. “Mirror, my god, oh god . . . What is wrong with me?”
She was in her nightdress, hair wild down her back and cheeks flushed. Esme panted and clutched at her chest as if to wrench her heart out. Her eyes were sunken, her lips colored a bright and brilliant shade of blood.
The mirror bowed her head. “It’s been a while, my liege.”
The queen’s hands trembled as she reached for the mirror. “They haven’t let me visit.” Her lips curled back. “They are whispering.”
The mirror lowered her voice. “I can hear them. Many wicked things.”
The queen closed her eyes. “Tell me,” Esme said in a pained rush, “why does my belly not swell?” She twisted around, baring her teeth. “Why am I barren?”
The mirror stared at her impassively. “You will know children.”
The queen exhaled and stared down at the floor. Then she tensed again, every muscle growing taught. “Will they be of my body?” She always was too clever. “Will I bear them?”
“She will be beautiful,” the mirror replied, “this princess.”
The queen covered her face and shook with a violent silent laugh. “I see. And will I hurt her?” She tossed her head back. “Or will they kill me before I can?”
The mirror’s brow creased. Something pulsed inside her, a stirring not felt since she knew the taste of berries and sound of crunching leaves.
“There is a way,” she murmured. “Become what you are meant to be and give up everything.”
The queen shook her head, eyes shining with unshed tears. “No . . . No! Just tell me how to secure my place, to become with child.”
Ah, yes, they would banish her, wouldn’t they? Or worse. The mirror knew about being useful or else left to rot. And rot. The mirror went still, closing her eyes.
“There is no way.” The mirror knew this well too. “You are magic, my queen.”
“Demon! Wicked, traitorous thing!” Esme flew at her, fists balled, face twisted. She meant to break her, the mirror thought. She meant to shatter her to pieces small enough to swallow.
The queen shuddered to a stop, close enough to fog the glass. She stared into the mirror’s eyes—the last of her past self, blue and golden as her people were. “Mirror.” Esme collapsed against the surface and folded into herself. “Am I beautiful?”
“Always.” The mirror pressed a hand to her cage. “Always, my lady.”
Esme wept, sagging, and letting out raw animal whimpers. She did not stand again until the dawn fanned its rosy fingertips across the land. The queen wiped her face, got out her small book, and started scribbling.
#
The mirror listened. The birds whispered to her from their perches, and she pushed her senses out into a vast ocean of things. She heard the people tell their tales of a woman who made milk curdle. A woman who studied devilry and brought the fires and the rain. A woman who did not feel love or pain. Beautiful, too beautiful, and vain.
The mirror listened. She inserted herself back into the world of men.
Her birds planted poison in the cups of guards, all those would-be assassins. She sent rumors of worse things if the cooks dared put glass in her meals. The mirror did not let the bishops speak of ordaining a royal separation. Did not let the mobs bring their torches or their manacles.
Esme visited more in those years. She sat beneath the mirror and asked her questions about life, the earth, and everything. A hungry creature, never satisfied, and attracted to the darkest things. She asked of monsters, storms, defying death, how to break prisons and escape any form of cage.
Every word the mirror said was printed out and added onto. The questions only kept coming.
“Are you good, mirror?” Esme asked one day, huddled on the floor and far too thin. The king was off securing his heir, a daughter from a previous wife. The disgraced first queen had graciously bowed into the night in the wake of an indecent scandal. She had no stomach for public hatred. They were allowed to retreat to the countryside, and the king thought nothing of the loss. Of course, he realized, too late, that no son would appear and went to fetch his first and only legitimate heir. Esme remained, scribbling.
“What do you say, my mirror, are you good?”
“I do not think so, no.” The mirror sorted through her foggy memory. “I am being”—she searched for the word—“punished? I was put here on purpose.”
“Why?” The queen’s brow furrowed.
The mirror shrugged in her way. “I was troublesome,” she admitted, finding herself oddly self-conscious after all this time.
Esme snorted. “Good.” She turned the page of her book. “I would not have you any other way. Can you imagine? I’d be so alone in this world if you were good.”
The mirror smiled and later that night she sent birds to pluck out the eyes of local soldiers. Young men come with poison daggers to kill a wicked queen and shatter the source of her power.
#
The story goes as it always does, the threads of the tapestry coming together. The princess and the apple. The weak hunter and the beauty with her heart still beating. A terrible sleep, a glass coffin, a kiss. Of course, it always goes differently than the way people write it down. A tapestry has many ways to catch the light.
The queen came to the mirror at last, crawling on her knees and whimpering. She smelled of smoke. “Can we leave now?” she begged. “Is it over?”
“It never ends," the mirror said without feeling. “I know that much.”
Esme looked up, eyes shining and a lightning burn across her cheek. She touched the mark lightly, unseeing. “I am not beautiful.”
The mirror reached for her, pressing her hand flat against her cage. “I would have you believe otherwise, my queen,” she breathed. “I would make promises.”
Esme staggered forward. She placed her palm against the mirror in turn. Their hands overlaid like kissing shadows, fingertips aligned with no hint of warmth or skin. “I love books, you know. And ugly things. I am crooked, cruel, and I have done so many things I am not proud of. Things I cannot take back.”
“Good,” the mirror hissed, “I would hate to be alone.”
Esme took out a flask that smelled of copper.
She always was too clever. She chanted in a hush, pouring blood against the surface and burning it away like mist. Within, something new happened. Icy needle-point teeth seemed to tear into the mirror’s lungs. Scalding heat coursed just beneath the skin. Time rushed back in, inch by inch, plunging its fingers into her reanimating flesh. The mirror pushed forward like a drowning sailor through storm-black waters.
“Is it enough? Please, let it be enough. I’ve done it. I’ve given up everything.” Esme reached and reached, pouring blood and pressing toward her. “Can you come out yet?”
In many ways, she did not expect anything. She did not expect it to work—much as you don’t expect an eclipse as surely the sun was permanent.
Stone scraped against her bare feet. She tasted of blood. The world pitched like a sinking ship all around her, seesawing into focus. Who could be making her face wet like that? Who was making those terrible noises? The hot spill of tears was the first shock. The second was the evil queen’s hand. Warm and firm. Their palms pressed together, and she couldn’t imagine anything more solid, and yet impossible. Surely, the universe couldn’t create something like that? Or the residents would do nothing all day but hold each other.
The third shock was the edgeless loveliness of her mouth.
The mirror knew infinity, the flatness of an unending line. It was all she knew within that cage, oh but this, this was the sky. The salt and tears mixed with that brilliant rush of soft lips against skin. The mirror shuddered, no longer the mirror. She tucked their shaking bodies together and felt a pattering heartbeat against her own.
“Can I ask you questions now?” the sybil rasped. Her. Perimede. Perimede, the last of the Oracles of the Northern Winds and first of the heretics. Esme tangled them together—the ends of shredded threads forming knots. Perimede held her gaze. “Can I make you promises?”
Esme laughed dryly, broken. “What can I possibly offer you? I know so very little.” The queen peppered kisses on her cheeks. “But I am yours to command, anything you wish.”
“Take me away,” the sybil pleaded. The evil queen kissed Perimede’s palm and pulled her toward the door.
“As you wish. Anywhere.”
Perimede never saw that room again. Not the tower, or the castle, or the princess now turned ruler. But she saw the sky, unfolding and unfailing, and in the woods beyond the lands of men, they took out rings and made promises.