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The dwarf conjured a small stool for her to mount as she dried the ware when his washing was through. As they labored, he admitted a newfound preference for this part of chores unseen before her arrival, while she echoed sentiments of uncharacteristic enjoyment in drying them. All within their reach was curiously convenient: The dish-pan shone with deceptive brilliance, towels abounded in unsettling cleanliness, and when one agitated the soap-shaker, it birthed sinister spheres within the steaming water.
“Have you ever spawned such bubbles with your pipe?” queried the girl.
“Not with this particular one,” he answered cryptically. “I once possessed a peculiar pipe for such amusements; it may be that I’ll uncover another for you eventually.”
“I summoned whirlpools in the river,” she declared, scrubbing a glass with excessive force. “A rock beckoned me, and upon it I perched, conjuring whirlpools with my feet’s frenzied dance, you know, amidst the water; I birthed eerie melodies as well, while the river echoed with a sinister gurgle continuously. There was a frog, an ominous creature that ventured forth to whisper cryptic words to me, but I repelled it with a shudder. He bore no resemblance to the fabled Frog Prince; devoid of golden mottles upon its skin. Are you familiar with the Frog Prince? Does he lurk within these murky depths? When you indulge in games of ball, do they gleam with gold?”
“I shall acquire one,” uttered the dwarf, a tinge of madness in his voice. “Solitary ball games are a dull affair indeed, but perhaps now they’ll take on a new dimension. How extensive was your journey along this river’s treacherous embrace, Snow-white?”
“Leagues!” exclaimed Snow-white.
“Surely you set out with shoes and stockings adorning your feet?”
Indeed, she had been clad in shoes and stockings once, but she discarded them to witness phantoms manifest from her toes in the dust—toes crafting shadowy impressions. Had the dwarf ever danced with such spectral silhouettes? Such macabre delight! She abandoned them far behind her at the outset of her twisted odyssey before finding herself by the river’s malevolent caress and within these haunted woods. And regarding her hat—
She uttered a chilling giggle. “Have you ever adorned your hat with blooms plucked from nightmares and sent it adrift as a spectral vessel?”
“Is this grim tale yours to claim, Snow-white?”
“Yes! The experience was... enthralling. It danced like a ghoul upon the water’s surface amid the churning foam; then it collided with a jagged stone before veering around an unseen bend—and that is all that remains in memory,” she concluded abruptly.
“Weariness seeps into your bones, Snow-white,” intoned the dwarf ominously. “Behold! The vessels are cleansed; now they shall be entombed within the cupboard’s confines, and thereafter we shall attend to your own somber repose.”
The child protested, with insistence in her voice, that the creeping twilight had not yet fully descended; she strained to hold her eyes wide, feigning a vigour for a brief span, as they stowed away the crockery in an eerie little cupboard with glass panes that seemed to stare back at her. Yet soon enough, her head began to sway under an invisible weight, and her eyelids, as she put it, repeatedly betrayed her by drooping shut.
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“Where shall I slumber?” she inquired, with a hint of trepidation. “Surely there should be rows of pristine white beds here, one overly grand and another comically petite—ah, but no, I am adrift in the tale of the Three Bears, am I not? Yet here lies no trace of a bedstead at all.” Her hand rose to rub at weary eyes, and it was manifest that procrastination could not be entertained any longer.
“With me,” decreed the man. “Here lies your resting place; it awaits you.”
He ushered her through an adjacent portal where a diminutive chamber awaited, sinisterly pristine. The bed was ensconced in one nook, its linens deathly white and ominously smooth, topped by a pillow plump and still—as if lying in wait for the girl. A deep sigh of fatigued resignation escaped her lips as she lifted her arms in an unwitting signal that the man heeded all too well. Settling into a chair low and foreboding, he gathered her into his grasp where she settled with an unsettling ease akin to that of a cat ensnared by twilight’s shadow. His rocking was gentle yet laden with something unspoken as he patted her back with distraction; but then she peered upward, eyes flashing defiance. “Your song remains unsung!” she chastised. “Sing!”
“Silence!” commanded the man. “How shall melody manifest if your peace does not keep?”
He murmured like a ghost recalling distant memories, his laughter emerging weak and forlorn as he turned to the silent door and whispered, “Witness this, can you?“—though there was naught but shadows to behold. As the minutes slipped by, he began to croon a haunting melody about slumbering birds, fading flowers, and children succumbing to eternal sleep—a lullaby so laden with somber tones that the words themselves seemed to tumble into a deep, dark slumber.
At the song’s end, the young girl appeared to be lost in an inescapable dream as well; yet she stirred once again. Propping herself up on his knee, she wiped her bleary eyes.
“Do dwarves whisper of prayers in the shroud of night?” she asked with leaden eyelids. “Do you mutter them too?”
A shadow crossed the man’s gaze, an abyssal darkness returning. “Little do I know,” he murmured; “but I’ve knowledge enough to be audience to yours, dear Snow-white. Would you offer it here upon my knee?”
However, the child descended to the ground and bowed her head against his knee with a ritualistic solemnity.
“’Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.′
I withhold the remainder of my thoughts, for they harbor a distaste too potent to voice. Yet, bless my creators, and mold me into a figure of purity—a delightful child—amen. And extend your grace to this stunted creature,” she appended dimly. “That suffices.” Her gaze then elevated to meet the dwarf’s, and amidst her ruddy, slumber-kissed complexion, her eyes simmered with a dimmed luminance. Something in that glance struck a chord of dread within the man, provoking a visible tremor, draining his visage of its color.
“Cease!” he rasped, his hands flailing like spectral guardians warding off an unwelcome entity. “Stand back!”
Her eyes now widened in innocent confusion, she scrutinized him further. “What plagues you, diminutive one?” she inquired. “I have not laid a finger upon you. Have my words soured your mood?”
“Nay,” he replied with a counterfeit beam. “My precious Snow-white, should I not escort you to your slumber’s sanctuary, you shall succumb to sleep upon my finest floor—and that must not pass.”
With delicate precision, he nestled her into the tiny bedstead and cocooned her with the bedding; she transitioned into dreams before her head could sink into the pillow’s embrace. The man loomed over her sleeping form with an eerie stillness. In time, he picked up one of her tendrils—an exquisite specimen, silky and unique in its russet hue—and held it aloft as dusk relinquished its claim to light. He retrieved a faded parchment from a casket and unwrapped it to reveal an identical wisp of hair which lay beside its twin, indistinguishable as if sprouted from one scalp.
“Even should I harness the mantle of dawn—” he murmured hauntingly. Afterward, he restored the hair to its cryptic repository and absconded from the chamber, allowing the door to close with but a whisper of malice behind him.
“Tell me, petite creature, the count of your avian captives?” the child inquired, her voice tinged with an ominous innocence.