“Mirror Mirror on the wall, how do we make the wretched Snow White fall?“
“Send a hunter to tear her limb from limb, with a dagger and heart twice as grim. She will never suspect the man faceless under his brim, to carve out her face. “
“So you, my Queen, can wear her hollow grin, and smile as she regrets being the mortal Sin.”
And so went the evil stepmother to summon the entity of the Hunter to her throne room, impatiently tapping her black claws against the wooden arm of her chair. She pulled back the splinters of wood and chuckled when they would catch and prick her skin.
When the Hunter entered, she resumed composure and rose with grace, her black cloak gliding against the red marble floor. The Evil Queen hated waiting, when he bowed to kiss her signet ring, she gripped his chin into her hands, and dug her nails into his flesh, grinning as the surface wounds receded into his face, and the rotted skin pieces fell to the floor. The Queen peered down and stepped on them, and remarked:
“You shall take the girl into the woods and dispose of her. Be wise to bring me her face, and you shall have your wish.” The Hunter croaked and slithered into the cracks of the tile shrouding the floor in noir.
And so the Hunter went, and carefully placed Snow White’s skin into an engraved black box, and the adorned brass snakes on the lock intertwined and snapped shut. Immediately, the Hunter resurfaced in the corridor of the Queen’s chambers, landing as the floor creaked and the torches flickered.
The Evil Queen entered carefully, her nightdress opening when she reached for the engraved box. Her hands trembled as the snakes receded into the curved grooves of wood, and she lifted the lid slowly. Her lips curled into a smile, and from her scaled lips escaped a muffled chuckle.
With pace, she walked to the throne room without her attendants or guards, threw herself on her knees, pressing them into the cold marble to ground herself, and lifted the sacrificial box to her mirror. She screamed “Magic Mirror on the wall, take this skin and answer my call!”
The huntsman lurked behind and staggered back when the mirror flickered. It’s green light perforated every inch and corner of the room.
The bright rays of light startled the Evil Queen, who then dropped the box and scrambled to pick up the skin of Snow White’s face and pressed it over hers, collapsing to the floor, and screeching in agony.
Without pause, the room fell silent. When the torches finally flickered back on, the hunter ran to his Queen, but her frame was eerily delicate. He peeled her face off the floor and brushed her frizzed tendrils behind her ears, but she did not have the appearance of The Queen.
What remained was a mosaic of skin grafts cemented together in black ooze. With horror, he dropped his majesty and realized she had been tricked, and he would not receive his wish. For her greed, she would spend centuries wearing porcelain masks, all painted with the vigor and youth of The dead Snow White.
This is horrifying. You took one of snow white’s most defining physical characteristics and tore it from her. After reading this, I wonder which side the mirror is on? Like what its agenda is? I also really like your short rhyming lines at the beginning that tell where the story is going. It makes it easier to follow along. There is one description I did not get; when the hunter returns he rattles the floors. What is he? He slithered before, so maybe some type of serpent?
A thoroughly unsettling piece, brought vividly to life through rich language and interspersed poetic form. As Dylan mentioned, your usage of Snow White’s most famous characteristic as the central point of horror serves the story quite well. It’s also interesting to see how you’ve expanded and complicated the character of the Huntsman of Snow White, making the story as a whole much more ‘black magic’ deal with the devil-esque.
The one main point is the image that you used. It’s wonderfully uncanny, and perfectly encapsulates the story, however it feels like it should come at the end of the tale. Placed at the start, it sort of gives away what the end result of the Queen’s scheming will be–a grotesque monstrosity of a visage. If placed at the end, it could serve as a chillingly horrific final image that lingers in the mind of the reader. I do quite like how the text wraps around the image though.