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After he had sated their hunger and wrapped them in grim affection while murmuring secrets only they could fathom, he raised a hand signal. The cloud of gray ominousness lifted with discordant shrieks and dissipated into the brooding forest’s shadows. The child appeared without warning. “How do you wield such power?” she demanded fiercely. “Who divulged these arcane secrets to you? Why can’t I summon them as you do? Name these creatures that heed your call! Why do you ignore my questions?”
“Snow-white,” murmured the man, his voice an ominous echo in the twilight, “the queries you laid before me last eve remain unanswered, as do those born with dawn’s first light.”
“Yet you shall reveal their secrets to me?” the child implored with a haunting fervor.
“Indeed, every enigma shall be unraveled in due course, granted the sands of time are generous.”
“For knowledge must be mine!” the child exclaimed, her voice tinged with both desperation and relief.
“Aye, it is a thirst that must be quenched. But ere we proceed, I have my own riddles for you, Snow-white. Approach and nestle into the briar’s gnarled roots; see how they conspire to cradle you in a sylvan throne.”
The child advanced with deliberate steps and settled into her designated perch. Yet even as she was cradled by nature’s hand, a shadow loomed upon her countenance.
“I take no pleasure in being the quarry of questions,” she decreed. “It is the chase after answers that enchants me.”
“Nevertheless,” the man intoned, “the scales of jest demand equilibrium. It would rob me of sport should you hoard all joy for yourself.”
“It is truth you speak. Thus, I shall indulge your curiosity but sparingly, dark imp; excess is not a burden for one so young. Knowledge need not be innate; it is sufficient to quest for its beginnings.”
“Snow-white, whence comes your need to flee from what was once sanctuary?”
“You were audience to that tale on yester eve, dark imp. A tune was born from it as well. Listen as I cast its melody into the night.”
With a grave stillness settling over her, she knit her fingers together, eyes sealed shut as if warding off unseen specters, and her song rose - a defiant cry piercing through the encroaching gloom.
“And I comed away,
And I runned away,
And I said I thought I did not
Want to stay;
And they tore their hair,
And they made despair.
And I said I thought perhaps
I did not care.”
“Are you enamored with that melody?” she inquired, her eyes widening ominously as she peered at the man.
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Indeed, the tune pleased him greatly, yet her query hung unanswered in the air like a specter.
“I rendered the song thus - in the manner of Miss Tyler. She seals her vision, gapes like a chasm beneath the eclipse, and emits ghastly shrieks; but my voice soars, it does not shriek. Truthfully I sing. Wouldn’t you mistake me for a siren were your gaze to fail you? Tell me, diminutive one.”
The dwarf professed he’d indulge no further interrogations. The child writhed upon her perch, exhaled a breath of vexation, branded him obtuse, and succumbed to her fate.
“I unveiled that secret under the cloak of night!” she protested anew. “My progenitors ventured to New York’s shadow-laden streets, abandoning me despite my pleadings—pleadings which they disregarded. I forewarned them of consequences dire; their neglect would spur my defiance. Thus they acted, and so did I.”
A fleeting glimmer of intrigue flashed in her eyes as she cast another glance at the man; he contorted and gasped as if ensnared by unseen talons.
“What plagues you?” inquired the girl, her brief innocence giving way to morbid curiosity. “Is it a throb of torment within? Here?” Her finger hovered as if she could touch his pain. “I’ve been its captive myself; an affliction gnawing from within. One might seek solace in remedies or heat’s tender embrace to banish it swiftly. It is the curse of unripe harvests,” she nodded gravely. “Neither dwarfs nor offspring should dare partake of their forbidden fruit. But where does such a tree reside?”
The man’s silence was his only retort; he bore the semblance of grappling with an invisible foe within himself, sitting broodingly with his gaze anchored to the earth. At length—
“The moniker of your maternal figure?” he demanded; it became evident that he had hoisted his burden.
“Evelyn,” the child disclosed.
“Ah, verily!” His affirmation bore a tone laced with something other than revelation.
“Tell me why you utter such?” probed the girl. “Has your path ever crossed hers?”
“Has your gaze ever caught a toad brandishing triune tails?” he countered cryptically.
“Do you fancy yourself a comedian?” she sneered, eyeing the lone figure before her. “Tell me, has humor always been a staple among your kind? Is there truly no one else like you? Have they ceased to exist entirely? Where did they vanish to, and what forsaken fate has led you to linger in this desolate place?” Her questions spilled out as she nestled into her seat, gazing expectantly at the brooding man who appeared to wrestle with an unseen torment.
“Would the absence of your mother cause her despair beyond measure, should she return to find you gone, my dear Snow-white?” he inquired with a touch of foreboding.
The child’s eyes widened with surprise. “Oh, she’d be utterly unhinged, but she shan’t return—not for an age,” Snow-white declared defiantly. “Thus I ventured forth. I fled from that place. And I wonder—is that gaunt visage truly yours, dwarf?”
“It seems it is my duty to send you back from whence you came,” he began solemnly. “It is only proper you return home this day, is it not?”
His words hung heavy in the air as imminent sorrow took hold; Snow-white’s mouth trembled on the verge of tears, her gaze crystalline like the edge of a blade.
“Hold back your tears,” he urged quickly. “Resist them. The legendary Snow-white never let such weakness show.”
A sob caught in her throat. “But those dwarfs you speak of never treated their Snow-white with such coldness,” she retorted bitterly. “They embraced her presence—valued her contributions—and yet here I am, without even a scrap to dry my eyes.”
He offered her a swath of linen, delicate as spider silk, and watched as she wiped away the gathering tears. “I’ve not known of dwarfs to cast out the innocent,” she murmured darkly. “Perhaps your heart does not belong to one rightfully called dwarf. Do you even bear a name? Surely every creature is granted that much.”
“I fear I do possess something akin to a name,” he conceded gloomily. “But it is of little consequence—you may refer to me as Mark if it pleases you.”
“That is no true name—it is but something scrawled with a pencil’s lead,” she retorted sharply. “And still, I cannot help but wonder... Are you indeed whimsical or simply cursed with such a peculiar identity?”
Yet the man confessed he had wandered off the path amidst the inquisition. “The morning’s queries remain untouched,” he bemoaned, “and now you besiege me with tomorrow’s enigmas, Snow-white. But first, we must attend to the cleaning of these dishes, after which I shall reveal to you my clandestine resting place from yesternight. You put forth that inquiry at dawn, and yet there has been no respite sufficient for me to disclose it.”