Chapter 1
Snow White had been increasingly uncomfortable. The queen radiated malice. Snow White did her best to keep out of the way, but she felt her panic growing. Young as she was, she was waiting for the queen to kill her. Every night she wondered if she would wake up in the morning. Snow White wanted to run away, but she wasn’t allowed to the leave the castle. Her days were miserable. Some of the servants were nice to her, and they did their best to shield her from the queen and do small things for her. They provided her only happiness.
Snow White knew most of the servants, but such was the queen’s power, that she could change them or control them somehow. Their personalities would change or get overridden or something. They became obedient and unexpressive. Snow White hated seeing them changed like that. She wondered what the queen made them do that required that state.
One day, Snow White tried to hide in the kitchen gardens. She had been sitting on a bench reading a book, when a figure loomed in front of her. She went rigid with panic until she looked up and saw it was Anthony, the huntsman. He had always been kind to her. She smiled at him, but he just stared at her, no recognition showing on his features. Her panic returned. He reached for her arm, and she flinched away from him. She backed away, but he grabbed her and pulled her against his body. He was huge, in comparison, and muscular. He was twenty and fully developed, and she was seventeen, nearly eighteen, and petite. She begged him to let her go, but he didn’t or couldn’t acknowledge her. He dragged her into the castle; she knew where he was taking her without being told. The queen was waiting for them impatiently.
“Take her to the woods and kill her!” she shrieked. The huntsman nodded obediently and dragged Snow White out of the room. “Bring me her heart!” the queen yelled after them.
The corridors were deserted as the huntsman forced Snow White before him—it was as if anyone who cared about her couldn’t bear to see her walk to her death, and yet all she wanted was to see one sympathetic face, someone who cared about her and would miss her. Without anyone, not even the huntsman, acknowledging her, she felt utterly insignificant, as if her life had never and would never have any meaning. She wept, but he drove her forward. They entered the woods. Snow White started talking again, reminding him about her parents, telling him about her childhood, describing all her memories of him. It was as if as long as she talked, he would keep walking, driving them forward. She begged once more for her life or for him to let her go. Finally, she had run out of things to tell him, and he stopped. He loosened his knife and grabbed her wrist, but instead of fighting him, she knelt on the ground before him, resigned to her fate. He stared at her and blinked. He shook his head in disbelief and stepped away from her. “Snow White,” he whispered, his face becoming ashen. He sheathed the knife.
“Run, Snow White,” he said, and she scrambled to her feet and ran away from him. She heard him take off in a different direction. Clearly, he was not returning to the castle or the queen. She thought for a moment of going with him, but she realized that the queen would hunt both of them now, and two paths would divert the guards the queen sent after them. He was providing them with a distraction, and she hurried on gratefully.
It was frightening in the woods alone, but this was what she had wanted for so long. She found trees to sleep in so as not be exposed to predators at night while she slept. She found wild berries and dandelion leaves and flowers to eat and fresh water easily enough, but she was very hungry. Still she pushed on into the woods. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she kept going.
After about a week, she saw a small plume of smoke and followed it to a small cottage. She knocked on the cottage door, unsure of what she would find. A beautiful blond-haired young woman about her own age, opened the door with a look of surprise on her face. Snow White knew that she looked a mess, her clothes were dirty and tattered from getting caught on branches.
“I am sorry,” she said haltingly. “I have nowhere else to go. I…I…was hoping to find shelter here. If…if…you…don’t mind?” she finished lamely.
The young woman looked her over, and her surprise changed to concern. She held out her hand to help Snow White into the cottage and called over her shoulder, “Aunts, we have company.” Snow White felt herself go weak in the knees, and she leaned on the young woman gratefully. The young woman steered her to the nearest chair. Seeing Snow White safely seated, the young woman turned and got her a glass of cool water. Handing her the water, the young woman introduced herself. “I am Aurora,” she said softly. Snow White closed her eyes, savoring the cool water, and when she opened them, she nearly choked in surprise, floating on one side of Aurora were three small fairies. They couldn’t be anything else. “These are the aunts, Nancy, Pansy, and Lavender,” Aurora said by way of explanation.