Everything she ever wanted was but a hex away from her grasp, even this prison called time. Her newest husband, a handsome widower who was a bit too docile and unbearably simple-minded, brought with him fortunes and estate greater than those who came before him—not that she was ever dissatisfied with the ones she’s had until now.
Seducing him was a trivial feat; she used enough charms and hexes to render him nothing more than a marionette that danced around her fingertips. The only burden that came with her windfall was the spawn from his previous engagement. She never did like the girl. From the moment she laid eyes on her, a sense of resentment and envy boiled from within the pits of her being.
Sixteen winters of age, the girl exuded beauty, charm, elegance, and innocence, traits every parent wished upon their daughters, all embodied by a child that one could mistake for a human doll. Yet the girl was also cursed with some peculiar maladies that made her seem fragile; the light of day would mar her flesh in the most grievous way, enough that the estate was constructed to accommodate her aversion. She also had quite the unusual appetite or lack thereof. During their meals, the girl’s plate was always bare—yet she was never malnourished.
Her husband never spoke of his daughter’s peculiarities. He dotes on her so, like one worships an angel. Atrocious. That little bitch was even blessed by a name that enamored all of her acquaintances—Elly.
“Mirror, mirror?” the woman asked the standing mirror by her bed. Her reflection looked back at her—a gorgeous stepmother unfazed by the wrinkles of age, whose statuesque feature was nurtured by endless hex and care. “Who is the fairest eternal, in the land?”
Her image dissolved, replaced by that of Elly reading a book in her windowless room, because that’s all the bitch ever did during the day hours if she were not sleeping.
What? The mirror chose this girl, over she who earned the right of fairest by devouring those fair before her? Fair? This girl’s fair surpassed her own? Deplorable.
Had that bitch not existed, she would have fancied staying married to her handsome dolt until he withered from age. Alas, she reached the limits of her jealousy after only three long winters. It was time to move on from this play of house. She needed to be rid of her husband and his spawn.
A hex to cause an unfortunate accident, leaving her a widow, was just the remedy for her woes. His fortune would become hers, or so she thought.
His will imparted that privilege to his pitiful daughter—that pitiful daughter who wept at his funeral, who her acquaintances showered with pity and affection, who still looked as lovely and unchanged as the day of their first encounter. All would be Elly’s until her death reunites father and child. This sheltered child, unable to experience life beneath the sun, trapped in the cage that is their estate—this living doll, claimed all that was hers! Such blasphemy would not stand.
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What a chore having to wait three weeks after her twelfth—or was it her sixteenth?—father’s death, for her mourning stepmother to finally enact her scheme, bless her heart.
The trek to the woods felt more exhilarating than her usual nightly strolls—being blindfolded and shoved around by an armed huntsman probably helped. Elly couldn’t help but smile at the recent turn of events. What did she do that caused her lovely stepmother to murder not once, but twice in the span of one season?
“Alright, that’s enough,” said the huntsman as he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around to face him.
Elly slowly opened her eyes as he removed her blindfold. They stopped at a clearing surrounded by an audience of malformed trees. The huntsman’s lantern illuminated the grove, though even without the light she could see just as well as any denizen of the dark. She knew exactly where she was. Her eyes flicked towards the huntsman setting down the lantern.
He stared at her like a ravenous predator. The twitch in his hands, the lick of his tongue, and the beat of his heart told her what kind of face he hoped for. Best not disappoint.
She gripped her dress, tightened her shoulders, and bent her knees together as she looked up at him with worry. “Why did you take me here?” she asked with trembling lips, her voice stammering with each word.
The huntsman arched his head back and pursed his lips in a smile as if breathing in her fear. “The lady filled my coin pouch to see you gutted,” he said. “She wants me to take back your lungs and liver, for God knows what.”
Elly covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. How exciting! Where should she take this next? The fellow seemed rather addle-tongued to keep a dialogue with. More answers would be nice, though Elly suspected much already. “Why? Why would she do such a thing?” she asked.
“Girl, I don’t know nor care for the why,” he answered. “She paid a right bounty on the deed so, here we are.” He set down his ax and knife and began to unfasten his breeches. “It’s a shame for a sweet lass such as yourself, who had never bed with a man, to be slain before getting that experience. But since I’m such a gentleman, I’ll do you the honors before the deed needs done.”
Elly crumpled to her knees and covered her face with her hands. “Spare me, please! I’ll run away into the forest, and never return again,” she said.
“Oh, give me more of that. Your voice kindles the fire within me.” Wisps of clouds billowed from his breath as he discarded the last of his clothing and approached her.
Elly trembled as she sobbed, though no tears fell.
“Don’t be scared, girl. I’ll send you off the right wa—”
A large wolf leaped from the shadows and clamped its maw around his throat. The huntsman didn’t have time to flail as his neck snapped from the wolf’s thrashing.
Elly parted her fingers to peek and saw the wolf tear through the huntsman’s flesh right in front of her. She stood and then took a step back, sighing. Droplets of blood splattered over her face as the wolf gorged on its prey. Her fear-stricken visage melted into that of annoyance as she wiped her face with the huntsman’s shirt.
“How unpleasant,” she said. “This is why your kind keeps to the woods. You’ve no sense of grace.” She stared at the wolf’s feast. Oh, what a waste. Her friend wolf could have at least waited until she killed him herself and finished feeding on his blood. “Now what will become of my meal?” Truly, these beasts needed lessons in civility. Perhaps she’d make a hound out of them in the future.
The wolf busied itself as Elly picked up the huntsman’s affects. What should she do, now that she has been ousted from the estate? Her poor, wicked stepmother would be heartbroken to find not her lungs nor liver delivered in the morning. She pondered until the wolf finished its meal. It stared at her briefly, licking its lips, before leaving. Elly smiled and waved her goodbye. Ah, that gave her an idea. Elly skipped along, following a trail that led to a cottage smelling of gingerbread that had a high chance of having a spare child’s lung and liver or two that she could barter for.
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At last, the bitch would trouble her no more. The stepmother cackled as she glanced at the jars containing the lungs and liver she received at her doorstep a few days ago. They would make for exquisite components to prolong her youthful appearance. Eternal beauty was only fit for someone of her stature, not some sun-cursed albino.
“Mirror, mirror?” she asked the standing mirror that loomed at her side. “Now tell me, who is the fairest, eternal, in the land?”
Her reflection rippled, eventually being replaced by the image of Elly, draped in her usual red dress, chest rising and falling, laying down on a bed inside a cabin room lit only by candlelight.
The stepmother nearly choked on her own surprise as she scampered towards the mirror to look closer. Surely, she was mistaken. No. Perhaps the mirror was mistaken. No. The mirror was truth, such was how it was formed. The bitch was alive. The bitch deceived her. That, she would not stand. Her face contorted in maleficence.
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Elly sighed as she stared blankly at the dining room ceiling. She never expected that living with seven dwarven men could be so dreadfully boring—well, living with four now, actually. Three met their unfortunate end, one-by-one, at the fangs of their wolven neighbors while they were out at night gathering berries with frail little Elly. What were the odds that three of them met their demise in the exact same manner, in the exact same circumstance, within the span of three weeks? The remaining dwarves buried their suspicion and worries under the rubble they often dug up, after some honeyed words of encouragement from her, of course. The paternal instincts of good men looking after a cherished child, never got old. But all of this waiting became boresome. When will another stranger—though they were all her stepmother in disguise—visit her and attempt at her life? Despite whatever glamor her stepmother witched herself to become, the tell-tale twitch of her eye, that careful half-step she was prone to have, that slight inflection of her voice at every plea, that scratch behind her ear whenever she became irritated, all of that woman's usual quirks were plain to see.
The first time, a middle-aged traveling seamstress offered the most exquisite, silky, laced bodice. The woman laced her up so tightly that she would have fainted and died from asphyxiation. Of course, that was what the woman wanted, so Elly happily obliged and put on the act. All the practiced breathing that she kept up over the years helped make her act all the more believable.
The second time, a venerable woman dressed as a farmer came by and offered an apple of the most crimson kind. That woman schemed the most magnificent reason as to why Elly should eat a slice. Elly resisted the urge to applaud her stepmother’s performance. Oh, a witch her stepmother was, but beneath the charms and hexes, she was still as human as the rest—and humans, Elly knew too well.
Nonetheless, she humored her stepmother’s efforts because something succulent roused Elly's craving for the apple, something other food could never do. Blood. Resourceful stepmother began to suspect her true nature. Clever girl. Elly ate the apple and almost squealed at its deliciousness, half-noticing the poison that shared space with the blood within the fruit—poison that would have rendered her innards asunder if she still had any that worked as humans should. But she was a master at dying a thousand ways, and the death that reflected on that elderly guise was the one Elly showed.
The old woman had inspected her like any other would inspect a human’s death—no breathing, no heartbeat. She inspected again, and again until she was satisfied before leaving.
No doubt her stepmother would have seeked the praise of that mirror of hers shortly afterwards. Alas, she would have been disappointed once more of the results.
Now Elly waited once more. The third time was the charm, as some hopefuls would proclaim.
The door opened slowly. Elly glanced behind her. Her wrathful stepmother’s shadow encroached upon her, guided by the searing light from behind.
“I should drag you outside and watch you burn under the sun’s blaze, monster,” said her stepmother. No glamor veiled her true visage now. Those beautiful, sharp features sculpted by decades of witchcraft was something that Elly admired ever since the first time they met.
“I can only ask for your mercy.” Elly stood up to face her, arms held up in surrender. Her lips trembled, but she still offered a soft smile towards her. “No matter what you did, I still love you, just as I loved my father.”
“Can you even love?” her stepmother asked. “The other coven spoke of creatures like you. Beasts in the masquerade of man. Your depravity surpasses my own. Beauty is wasted on something so evil. I will not stand for it.”
Elly flashed a warm smile, and her stepmother recoiled.
Crackling magic of purple and black sprang forth from her stepmother’s hands, striking Elly and knocking her back against the far wall. An eerie heaviness caused her to slump on the floor as if struck by sudden slumber. She struggled to force her eyes open, still looking towards her witch of a stepmother.
“I don’t think I have strength to force you outside,” said her stepmother, “but I’ve finally crafted a hex powerful enough to encase your kind in a tomb which you will never wake from.”
The dark energies that coiled around Elly began to coalesce into a translucent crystal, slowly expanding until it formed a coffin around her body.
This wasn’t good, at all. Definitely not the outcome she expected. The Beast was moments away from frenzy, but it was her turn to embrace and whisper words of quiet. Everything will be okay. Her mind settled, her eyes closed, and she smiled once more.
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She did it. She finally won against that bitch. Hah! She admired her work from the doorway. The vampire was trapped inside that cocoon of a hex that could only be broken by true love. It took some time in creating it; she had to ask favors from covens outside her own. Now all that was left was to bury her somewhere where no one would ever find her.
Noise drew her senses towards the distance. Damnation! The dwarves have returned. She only brought enough hex to deal with that bitch. She’ll have to finish her work that night when they slumber. She closed the door and fled, back to her estate.
Oh yes, she would finish this tonight, and in the morning, she was to meet with a charming young Duke visiting from Brighton.
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Elly watched her wicked stepmother dragged by the soldiers of her darling rescuer. She heard her shrieks and wails as she thrashed about like a madwoman.
“It should be you! You’re the monster! You deserve death! I deserve life!” Her stepmother rampaged, but the soldiers held firm.
“Take the witch and imprison her. She will be burned at my wedding to my beloved,” said Elly’s prince charming.
Elly reproduced the smile that won his heart and earned her freedom.
“I’d feel safer if you personally see to her imprisonment,” she said.
“Oh, of course,” he said. “I’ll do so. Anything to ease your worry. Stay here, my love, and wait for my return.” He followed the men as they departed from the estate.
Elly watched from the window of her stepmother’s room. The carriage left for the closest town, leaving her alone once more in the manor that gave her so much joy and entertainment over the years she lived as a daughter to a widower, and stepchild to a witch.
Humans like them never gave her a dull moment—humans of character. She opened the window and closed her eyes. Memories bloomed from the breeze offered by the moonlight; all the precious moments, she would treasure forever.
Her eyes slowly opened as she consumed every image of her vain, clever, hopeful, resourceful, vengeful, pitiful, wicked stepmother in her mind. Such a lovely character she was. How would she act again? Ah, yes. Elly’s eyes twitched just like hers would whenever she thought of a scheme, make that half-step whenever doubt crept in her mind, hum with that inflection in her voice, scratch her ear as she did before telling a lie, and smile in that haughty way like a child prying off that last loaf of bread from their younger sibling’s clutches right before eating it in front of them.
Her eyes flicked across the room.
Ah. That oh, so cherished mirror stood by the bed, as if waiting to serve. She walked towards it, almost floating the way its previous owner would whenever in her most jubilant moment—as Elly was now.
“Mirror, mirror,” she said. “Would you kindly tell me? Who is the fairest, for all eternal?”
The mirror trembled at Elly’s gaze. It creaked and moaned, as if crying, as its surface buckled and cracked into a thousand pieces, yet still somehow held itself together.
Elly’s eyes widened as she stared at the thousand that looked back at her, each sporting a different reflection of herself in their eyes, and each one reflected further, of the girl that was the whole—those countless that laughed, cried, hated, loved, lived, and died. They all stared back at her from the darkness, the cradle shared by her Beast where, little-by-little, they filled up her eternity. Not an ounce of loneliness, or isolation, fit in that space—only endless consumption. She admired the truth so eloquently displayed. Her grin spanned from ear to ear.
“Lovely.”