Once Upon a Time: The Villains (16 page)

Slowly I closed the door against the guard’s wide-eyed stare. My sadness instantly evaporated and was replaced by irritation. My father had failed. My birthday was ruined. Amid my mother’s weeping, I slowly climbed the stairs to my room and wondered how I would ever get my dress made now. “Please, Mother,” I snapped, “your crying is giving me a headache.”

My one desire had not been granted me. I grew obsessed with the thought of having a dress more beautiful than all others. I dropped hints to every visitor who called, and they, in turn, wished they could be the one to give me my desire, but none could manage such a feat.

During this time of mourning, my mother changed. Where before she would not dream of engaging me in conversation, she now asked about my day. Without my father’s constant adoration to feed upon, I confess I was pleased to relate to her every detail of my thoughts.

With Father gone, our lives were most unpleasant. Though I was able to charm the butcher into sharing some of his choicer meats, it was not enough. Mother didn’t complain when I ordered her to prepare the portion for me. Lest you think me completely heartless, I did allow her to make a broth with the fat she trimmed from the cuts, and I suspect she cut a generous amount of meat away during the trimming.

So it was a bit of a surprise, when on the day of my seventeenth birthday, my mother approached me. Her hands were raw from scrubbing the floor and doing the laundry. She’d taken in nearly half the town’s dirty clothes to keep us from starving, though she looked thinner than I’d ever seen her before. It was an improvement — sort of. When she just stood there, saying nothing, I looked up from my stitchery and gave her the attention she sought, though hardly pleased by the interruption.

“What do you want?” I said this gently, for gentle words are beautiful, but there was a touch of irritation in my tone I could never quite disguise.

“It is your birthday today.”

“Yes, and a more miserable one I’ve never had.” I returned to my needlepoint.

“I cannot give you the luxuries your father once did—”

“Do I need a reminder?”

“No, of course not, but I do have a gift.”

She’d finally caught my attention. My head snapped up at the sweet, four-letter word. “Gift? For me?”

She smiled. I cringed. It was not a pleasant experience receiving her show of happiness laced with rotting teeth. Her smile faded and she looked down, twisting her hands in the rag she wore as a dress. I could have given her one of my old gowns, but what would be the use? She’d only wear it into a rag, and she’d be right back to where she started.

“What gift?” I prodded.

“Well…it has recently come to my attention that I have no need of such a large bedroom. I was thinking, mayhap you would do better to have it.”

I’d rarely been inside my parents’ room. In fact, I couldn’t remember I time when I had ventured within. Honestly, why would I want to go there? But the idea intrigued me. I placed the needlepoint on the small table and rose. “Let me see.”

We crossed the room to the door, for my parents’ room was on the ground floor while mine was upstairs. It certainly would be easier retiring here at night than climbing the narrow stairs in the dark. Mother pushed open the door, and I stepped inside. Shades of gray met my eyes. Scurrying around me, she lit a lamp on the table by the bed, and turned the wick up. The warm glow encompassed the room. I gasped. Soft colors of blue and cream and yellow met my gaze. Silks, satins and richly textured brocades covered every surface in a lush palette, one I had no idea dwelled behind their door.

I slid a suspicious glance at my mother. How long had she lived in this opulence while I languished in mediocrity in the room upstairs? I moved about the room, touching this, caressing the fabric of that. “I suppose to some it is nice. I certainly would put it to better use than you.”

“Then you like my gift?”

“It’ll do.”

She nodded, and her eyes glistened with what I can only guess was glee at my acceptance. She touched the heavy door. “But I must insist we install a lock. I fear for your safety. What if someone were to break into our home? With me downstairs, I would fight to my death before I let anyone climb the stairs to find you. But now, I am the one above. A lock is our best defense. It is better to be safe than sorry.”

She had a point. I did not care to risk myself at the expense of a room, but a lock would erase that worry. So I agreed, for one could not be too careful with someone as special as me.

It was with some amount of pleasure, every night thereafter, that I claimed my bed downstairs and locked the door, while my mother claimed the one in the little room I used to call mine. Why had I, for all these years, overlooked this luxury right before my eyes? Reason escapes me. But now that I had it, I was content. For now.

One night soon after, my contentment fled with the violence and the unpredictability of a storm which comes upon you at night.

I woke to the tight, angry words of my mother.

“You have destroyed my family. You have ruined my child.”

I sat up in my bed. What was my mother hissing at in the darkness? To whom would she speak thusly…and at this hour?

“I have made her the envy of all. The fairest in the land,” came the answer on a voice I did not recognize. “That was your request. Was it not?”

“Beauty without heart is a terrible thing.”

“Beauty
and
heart?” The woman laughed, an ugly, crackling laughter that sent shivers up my spine. “Have the two ever coincided in the same flesh? Only when God grants it. I am not God.”

“All I wanted was a loving, beautiful child. Though clothed in the radiance of your doing, you have given me a monster.”

Was she speaking of me? She couldn’t. I was no monster. I gave happiness and pleasure to everyone around me.

“I gave you that for which you asked. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“I charge you to lift the spell.”

My breath caught in my throat. Lift the spell? Was she saying my beauty wasn’t my own?

“I beg of you,” my mother said, “change her back into the child I should have born.”

If a spell of beauty cloaked me, what must I look like without it? My heart thudded within my breast. Would I favor my father — big, boney and loud? Or would I favor the weak looks of my mother? I cringed at both possibilities.

My mother’s voice shook with emotion. “You must lift the spell.”

Why would she ask this terrible thing? What evil was she concocting?

The woman laughed. “What’s done is done. There is no going back.”

I sighed. I was safe. My charm and beauty were forever mine.

“But…” the stranger teased.

That one word struck terror in my heart.

“Yes?” my mother’s soft question drifted in the inky blackness of the night like a ghost haunted by its own reflection.

“I can create a counter spell.”

I scrambled to the door and pressed my eye against the keyhole. The table sat directly in my view, and upon it lay the witch’s bag. An old crone, with hair the color of moonbeams and skin the texture of moldy leather, stippled and dry, faced my mother. The old woman’s bony chest rose and fell, her breath coming heavy and difficult as she scrounged around in the clutter she’d brought with her.

My mother placed her hand on the witch’s searching fingers. “Nay. I would not visit your enchantments on another soul. Innocence once lost is never regained.”

Good. My mother wasn’t completely stupid. She knew messing with magic was dangerous.

The witch stopped searching and shrugged. “I do what I am told. Was it my fault you were not specific in your request?” Her black eyes narrowed on my mother. “Do you know what I think? I think jealousy feeds your desire to break this spell.”

“Never!” my mother gasped. “I may not like my daughter, but I love her. Dearly. It pains me to see her this way.”

“I do not believe you. You do not wish for help, you wish for revenge.”

“Do not say so!” My mother clung to the old crone’s frail-looking arm. “You know I love her more than anything, it is why I called you.”

“Then let me help.”

“If only I could. But I will not gain my desire at the expense of another.”

“And if I can promise you no other will be harmed?”

My mother glanced in my direction. I could see the pain in her eyes, as if she fought some hidden demon. But it was no demon she was searching to destroy; it was me.

“Nay,” I whispered. My heart near thudded from my chest. “Don’t listen to her.”

She glanced back at the witch. No sound escaped her throat, but her lips mouthed the word that began my misery. Her consent rang in my ears as if she had shouted it.

“Nay!” I screamed, stunned at my mother’s betrayal. The old witch quickly pulled out a small packet from her bag and held it over a boiling pot of water. “When a young woman, beautiful of face
and
heart your daughter sees, the spell will crack just as you please. She will lose her charm, her beauty will fade, she will return to the form to which she was made.”

“Stop!” I twisted the doorknob, but it held firm as a locked door is wont to do. I pounded on the door to get their attention. “Please, mother. Don’t let her do it!”

Horror engulfed my being. They were about to erase my future. Destroy my beauty. I jumped to my feet and felt for the key. It was gone! But how? I raked at the door handle. No matter how hard I twisted and pulled, the door wouldn’t open. My mother had somehow locked me in. I pounded on the flat panel. “Nay!” I screamed. “Mother! Please! Stop!”

My words fell on deaf ears, yet my ears could not avoid what was going on. I heard the witch speak an ancient chant of unknown dialect, and when the last word spilled from her dry, cracked lips, I heard a soft plop as she dropped the packet into the pot.

“Mother!” I pummeled the door, again and again; its dry wood splintering into my palms. A noxious odor crawled beneath the door on the wisp of yellow smoke, and wrapped me in its vapor. I batted the cloying mist away. Desperate, I dropped to my knees and pressed my eye to the keyhole once again, sobbing for mercy. As the old crone muttered, she threw a pinch of something into the pot and green smoke curled over the rim. She opened her eyes. “When the vapor reaches your daughter, it will be done.”

I pounded on the door again, pressing the splinters deeper into my palms until my blood stained the wood red. “Please, Mother. Stop! Please!” I watched the smoke curl toward my room. I cried out, so long and so loud that I grew instantly hoarse. Neither woman acted as if they heard me. Mother and the witch watched the smoke slither across the floor toward my door.

I leapt up and vaulted upon my bed where I collapsed and curled into a ball. My hair slipped over my arms in a dark veil, blocking out everything from my vision. Yet I couldn’t stop from peeking between a few strands. I shivered and whimpered as the smoke slowly slipped under my door. I closed my eyes and buried my head against my knees. But as small as I tried to make myself, the smoke found me, wrapped its vaporous arms around me and spoiled my future.

I hid behind my door, cursing the witch and my mother. I refused to let anyone in. What if I met her? The one who would break my enchantment? I couldn’t risk it. So I stayed within the confines of my room, only peeking through the shutters now and again to see the world rush by. I was truly in mourning now, but not for my father.

Months passed. More than I cared to count. Though Mother begged me to understand, how could I? She was determined to take away the only thing I had of value. Then one day, when nightfall hovered around the edge of the village, Mother called the old crone to our home once again, and with desperation in her voice, pleaded for help. Against the chill of the night, and the faint glow of the embers dying in the fireplace, I wrapped a quilt about my shoulders and tiptoed to the door. I pressed my eye to the keyhole and watched what mischief they planned.

Shaking her head, the witch procured a large mirror. A gilded frame housed the reflective surface. It didn’t look particularly impressive, and I was at a loss as to how a mirror could help me. Without saying a word, the old crone handed my mother a parchment, instructing her on how to use the mirror and quickly left with the warning some mistakes could never be righted.

I spat on the ground. Good riddance. May the old crone trip over a loose cobble onto the road and be trampled by a carriage. I scurried away from the door and sat on my bed. In less than a minute, a soft rap sounded on my door.

I would not open it.

“I know you are awake. She could see your eye staring at us.”

I hated witches. They were so sneaky.

“Open the door,” Mother insisted.

I don’t know why I did it, but I unlocked the door and pulled it open until I could just make out her form. “A mirror?” I said with a snort. “How can a mirror help me, now? You have ruined my life.”

She held up the paper. “She left instructions.”

I moved away, giving her more than enough space as she pushed her way into the room. Carefully, she placed the mirror on the table by the windows. “There. That should do it.”

It was actually quite attractive there. If I lay on my bed, I was sure I could see myself. And what better view could I have than myself reclining gracefully upon my bed? But I would not let her see I was pleased. “Do what?”

“This says to stand in front of the mirror and let it know your desires.”

She held the paper out to me. Dare I trust her? She had brought on my misery and now she claimed to want to help. I was no fool. I could see jealousy hiding behind her eyes.

I snatched the paper from her. “And then what? Grow old before my time by way of another of that witch’s cruel spells? I think not.” I crumpled the instructions and threw it at the fire. But my aim went astray and the paper only bounced off the mantle and rolled to the side. Fear and anger and an all consuming hatred boiled over. Harsh words were dredged up from my very being. “You have said your last lie to me. I have only wanted to bring happiness to others and your jealousy has ruined me. I hate you, do you hear? I wish you had died instead of Father. I wish you would die now.” I flounced upon my bed and cried a thousand tears of self pity.