“Are you serious? Did you hit your head?”
“No, I know who it is, but—” The queen swallows, her eyes fixed on the unsettling white of the girl’s face. “That’s notmySnow White.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” I tuck both hands in my pockets, squinting around at the scenery. “Your world was a little more Gothic, but this place has a ‘now-in-Technicolor’ vibe.” I can tell she doesn’t understand, so I say meanly, “Congratulations, you made it to a different world! But you’re still in the same story.”
The queen looks dazed, staring down at Snow White with the beginnings of revulsion creeping into her eyes. “Why is the light like this?” She reaches her hand tentatively into the sunbeam. Something violet drifts into her palm. “Are thereflower petalsfalling over her?”
I don’t answer because I’m busy sidling behind her. I snatch the mirror out of the queen’s hand and fling it sideways at the trunk of a tree. I’m hoping for a dramatic shatter of glass, but the frame justthwumps disappointingly against the bark and falls to the ground, perfectly whole. There’s a half second’s held breath before both of us dive for the mirror.
The queen shoves past me and I tackle her around the waist. It devolves quickly into a wrestling match, our clothes streaked with moss and dirt, our breath coming fast.
The queen is stronger and meaner than me. “No,” she pants. “Iam—not”—she pins me between her knees and lunges for the mirror—“staying here!”
I try to slap the mirror out of her grip but she turns the glass to meet my hand, and it flies through it, passing back into that cold nowhere.
The last thing I hear is the queen laughing.
THIS TIME WEland somewhere dim and damp, like one of those basements that never quite dries out. Opening my eyes takes more effort than it should, and I can’t tell whether it’s the GRM or the unwilling trips through nowheresville.
The first thing I see is a stranger’s face smiling down at me. It’s a cute face: freckled and gap-toothed, framed by tangled hair the color of coal. Her lips aren’t red as blood and her skin has seen too much sun to be compared to snow, but I know a protagonist when I see one. “Hi,” I rasp.
“Good morning!” God save me from princesses and their exclamation points.
“Morning. Where’s—” I sit up abruptly, blinking the room into focus. But it’s not a room. It’s a cave, with a sandy floor and tidy fire pit.
The girl—woman, really, she’s got at least a decade on the cherubic kid in the coffin—settles cross-legged beside me. “Your angry woman?” She has a burbling, throaty sort of accent.
“She’s not my—yeah, her.”
She gestures with her chin toward the entrance of the cave, where more than a dozen men are struggling against a tall, dark-haired figure. There seems to be a lot of swearing from all parties.
“Who are those guys?”
The stranger smiles fondly at them. “Mine. They took me in when my mother tried to murder me, and I’ve been here ever since.” She confides this without much concern, as if attempted filicide is one of life’s little misfortunes.
“Ah.” My brains feel like hot cheez whiz, but I distantly remember versions of Snow White where she’s adopted by robbers or brigands rather than dwarves. Spanish, maybe? Or Flemish? Either way, I’m pretty sure her mom takes another shot at her, and she deserves a heads up. “Listen, Snow White,” I begin.
“Sneeuwwitje.”
“Listen, Sneeuwwitje—”
The queen shrieks from the cave entrance. “Zinnia! Tell these ruffians to unhand me!”
I shout back without turning, “Tie her up tight, boys, she’s super dangerous.” There are muffled sounds of fury in response, a definite uptick in swear words.
I try again. “You might already know this, Sneeuwwitje, but your mom is definitely going to try to kill you again. So if anybody shows up with an apple, or a comb, or whatever, just say no.”
Sneeuwwitje nods solemnly. “She gave me a demon’s ring, which sent me into a deep sleep. How did you know?”
I squint at the stained leather of her clothing, the calluses across her palms. “If she already put you to sleep… how come you aren’t married to a prince right now?”
“Oh, I told him no. I have seventeen husbands already.” An extremely compelling dimple appears, presenting a convincing argument that a man might share one-seventeenth of this woman and count himself lucky. “Eighteen just seemed greedy.”
“Sure, yeah,” I say faintly, making a distant mental note that not all princesses need saving.
Someone shouts a warning. Footsteps pound across the sand. The queen’s fingers close around my ankle and she grins fiercely up at me, a doubled trail of blood leaking from her nose and a mirror in her hand.
I have time to say, “Oh, for fuck’s sa—” before the world dissolves again.
