The Queen rose from her bed feeling better than she had in a long while. She felt strength, power—a surge of confidence. True, her dream proved that she was conflicted and that she had lost her way. But the memory of Snow as she looked in the dreams—sickly, pale, dead—stuck with her. But instead of warming her heart to rush to her daughter and embrace her, happy that she lived, the images served only to renew the Queen’s spirits.

How could such a child—one with hollow black eyes, one without a heart—possibly rival the Queen’s beauty?

She began to wonder how her mind could have been so plagued with such weakness and sentiment. She had been ill. Simple. She got up from her bed for the first time in many days, opened her curtains, and saw Snow White at the wishing well, scrubbing away in her rags. She was fair, no doubt. But nowhere near as fair as the Queen.

She called on her attendants to draw a bath, and was soon refreshed and outfitted in her finest gown. Her crown sat neatly upon her covered raven hair, and her favorite purple-and-black cape was fastened to her gown with a gold-and-ruby pendant.

She examined herself in the Magic Mirror and smiled. Truly, she had never looked more beautiful.

“Slave in the Magic Mirror,” she began, “come from the farthest space, through wind and darkness, I summon thee—speak! Let me see thy face!”

Flames filled the mirror, then subsided, revealing the face in the Magic Mirror.

“What wouldst thou know, my Queen?”

“Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”

“Famed is thy beauty, Majesty, but hold! A lovely maid I see! Rags cannot hide her gentle grace—alas, she is more fair than thee,” the Slave said.

“A lash for her!” the Queen shouted, incensed. Who could this woman be? “Reveal her name!” the Queen ordered.

“Lips as red as a rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow…”

The Queen felt faint. The room began to sway, and she nearly lost her footing. She clasped her hand around her brooch and recoiled in horror.

“Snow White!” she said.

She rushed to the window. Snow was still scrubbing away at the steps by the well. While she did this she sang and danced, and the Queen felt something very near hatred for the girl. Nothing, it seemed, could dampen Snow White’s spirits. How could the girl have recovered so well from the loss of her father? Did she not remember all the happy times they had had together? How could she find it in her heart to smile—to laugh and to sing?

To love?

The Queen noticed the young Prince step up beside Snow White. Snow quickly jumped up and ran from the Prince, no doubt fearing the wrath of the Queen, who warned her against cavorting with the boy. This satisfied the Queen briefly, until Snow White quickly reappeared on the balcony below her and began to sing along with the Prince, who was now sickeningly serenading her. Not only was the girl surpassing the Queen as the fairest in the land, but she had found herself in love. An insult to both her father and the Queen!

The Queen quickly closed the curtains and started when she turned to find the three sisters standing in her chamber.

“You three! How have you come to be here?”

“We have our ways, Majesty—” Lucinda said.

“And you have yours,” Ruby finished.

“What do you want?” the Queen asked bitterly.

“The question is—” Martha asked.

“What do you want?” Lucinda finished.

“I think you already know the answer, dears,” the Queen said.

The sisters began speaking, picking up one another’s sentences.

“The power is yours, Majesty—the answers you seek are in—the volumes we left here long ago—tomes on the Black Arts—poisons and potions—disguises. If you know where they reside—you will have your answer—after all—you come from a long line of witches—the power is not only in those books—it is in your blood—as it was in—your mother’s.’”

“Liars!” the Queen said, hurling a delicate vase at the sisters.

“Oh dear me,” Lucinda said.

“You’ve developed a temper,” Martha finished.

“That could come in handy in your current circumstance,” Lucinda said.

“See, there is an easier way to reclaim your post as fairest,” Ruby continued.

“And what would that be?” the Queen asked skeptically.

“Kill the girl,” the sisters said in tandem and broke into their sickly cackle.

“Kill Snow White? You are mad!” the Queen said. But part of her had already been contemplating the same fate for the girl.

The sisters continued their sniggering. “Madness is in the mind of the beholder, Queen.

“It is the only way. She must die either by your hand or someone else’s. Wouldn’t you want to be the apple of your father’s eye again? Do you not want to hear the Slave tell you that you are fairest?”

“Of course, but—”

“Your Uncle Marcus’s friend, the Huntsman. Order him—” Lucinda said.

“To do the deed,” Ruby finished. “Your husband—”

“Will be avenged of his daughter’s rebuking his memory for happiness with that other royal man, and you will again have your rightful—”

“Place as fairest in the lands.”

“And best of all, her blood won’t be on your hands.”

The sisters broke into a cackle again.

The Queen shook her head. It might have looked as though she were disagreeing with the sisters, but in truth, she was fighting the urge within herself to submit to their suggestion.

“It seems as if you need—” Lucinda said.

“A bit of help,” Ruby finished.

Martha opened her pouch and produced an empty teacup.

Lucinda said, “Metal and ore, goodness no more.”

She bent down and spat into the cup.

“Love and tenderness, flee; instead, here, have a piece of me,” Ruby said, leaning over Martha’s shoulder and also spitting into the cup.

“From a queen in pain, to a queen who reigns,” Martha said, lifting the cup to her shriveled lips and spitting in it as well.

The sisters then each waved a hand over the cup, and when the Queen could see it once again she noticed it was filled with steaming liquid.

“Drink, ” Lucinda said.

The Queen looked skeptical, but took the cup. If it would help strengthen her, which is what she gathered from the incantation, then she would happily accept it.

As the liquid moved down her throat into her body, she felt an unbelievable rage. But it was a strange, focused kind of rage that she felt could be wielded as a weapon. It seemed that her body had been completely taken over by the part of her she’d been fighting for so long. And she found that she loved it.

“Sisters…” the Queen said evilly, “leave me. Now. Or I will see to it that each of you is disemboweled and your entrails hung in the trees that flank this castle. The rest of your remains will be fed to the beasts in the castle moat.”

Lucinda smiled darkly, and Ruby and Martha followed suit.

“Call us if you need us, dear,” Lucinda said. And the three disappeared as mysteriously as they had arrived.