Mrs. Beast (10 page)

    
"Come in," Beauty answers to a knock at the door.
 
Her smile fades and her spine stiffens as Snow White appears in the doorway.
 
Snow stares at the floor, twisting a handkerchief between her fingers.
 
"They told me you're leaving tomorrow.
 
I hope you're not going on my account."

    
"No.
 
As I said before, I'm on a quest," Beauty states dispassionately.

    
"Don't be stupid. Women don't go on quests.
 
Women quest for peace and make order.
 
They learn how to better themselves.
 
You're going to have a child, and children need order.
 
You come from another country.
 
You don't know Grimm Land."
 
Her eyes dart about the room. "There's danger at every turn in the road, lurking behind every bush."

    
Beauty invites Snow White to sit on the bed.
 
She can afford to be generous; she's leaving in the morning.
 
Besides, she's too excited to sleep.
 
She tells Snow White, "Not so long ago, I journeyed into unknown country in order to spare the lives of my family, whom the Beast had threatened to devour.
 
My father said certain death awaited me; instead I found my heart's delight."

    
Snow White's icy blue eyes puddle. "You're brave as well as beautiful.
 
I haven't been kind to you.
 
I'm sorry. Change makes me nervous, and I dislike surprises.
 
I was afraid the dwarfs would like you more than me."

    
Uneasiness slithers over Beauty's ribs.
 
She's unaccustomed to teary, womanly apologies, which her sisters used only to trick her into lowering her guard.
 
So the two beauties sit on the bed, heads bent, the reticence between them thick as the fog shrouding the windows.
 
Finally Snow White asks, "When did your mother die?"

    
As Beauty relates her life story, Snow White nods and hums with empathy.
 
Beauty concludes by baring her tattoo as tangible proof of Runyon's despicable behavior and of the urgency to regain her princely Beast.

    
"I know exactly how you feel,” Snow White says. “ I ran away twice, and after you hear my tale of woe, you'll change your mind about this perilous quest."

    
Beauty believes there's nothing, short of death, that can keep her from her quest, but Snow White's story will help speed the hours until dawn.

    
"Like you, I never knew my mother; she died upon my birth.
 
I had neither brother nor sister, and Father gave my care over to the royal household.
 
A princess is born into a life of expectations, and there are people ready to teach you what's expected, either to gain royal favor or in fear of losing their heads.
 
My tutors were men who gave me candies when I answered correctly and patted my head indulgently when I didn't.
 
The Ladies of Protocol taught me to sit, stand, eat, dress, talk, and walk as a princess should."
 
Snow White twists her lower lip and emits a growling belch.

    
"Sigrid's schnitzel has been coming up on me too."
 
Beauty smiles, hoping her confession will lighten Snow White's countenance.
 
It doesn't.

    
"Princesses are not allowed to belch, scratch, chatter, gesture, or do dozens of other things on the Ladies of Protocol list.
 
How I despised those old crones with powdered faces, wigs, and corsets, pushing and prodding me.
 
For affection and solace, I turned to Frau Schaller, our head cook. She was a big woman with a round face and raisin eyes that disappeared when she smiled.
  
She was queen bee of the palace kitchen and the kitchen was a hive, buzzing with chatter, redolent with baking, golden and warm with the light of fires.
 
She was as generous with her affections as she was with her food.
 
My stepmother, Vanita, dismissed Frau Schaller when I was seven because Father had gained two stones."

    
Beauty recalls the hollow soot-smeared face at the window the night of Snow White's dinner party.
 
"Your stepmother is the queen in the iron shoes?"

    
"Yes, that horrid abomination," Snow White shudders.
 
She scratches her arm and edges closer to Beauty.
 
"Once she was glamorous, regal, and cold as a witch's teat.
 
She and I lived in the same castle for five years and I cannot recall her ever touching me.
 
Yet her hands were always gliding over Father, binding him with invisible threads.
 
Touching, touching, kissing his cheek, squeezing his thigh.
  
I wasn't even allowed into their wing of the palace," Snow White grumbles.

    
"By the time I was ten, Father was seldom there anyway.
 
Because of Vanita's demands, he had ignored his kingly obligations for too long and peasants were uprising.
 
To placate his subjects, he made goodwill expeditions throughout the kingdom.
 
If he left Vanita for more than three days, there was hell to pay when he returned!
 
Then one day a bow-legged, bent-backed, toothless old woman appeared at the palace with a magic mirror to sell."

    
"Did she wear a red scarf on her head?"
 
Beauty asks.

    
Snow White clicks her tongue impatiently.
 
"I don't know.
 
I was playing with my golden ball.
 
Father rode in after a weeklong absence, and the old woman rolled out from the privets like an agitated hedgehog.
 
Hey, King
, she said,
buy this mirror for your queen and save the breakables
. Father reigned in his horse and said,
I beg your pardon, old mother?
 
She said,
Tell her to look in the mirror and ask: Looking glass upon the wall, who is fairest of us all?
 
It's rigged, it'll always answer: You are fairest of them all.
 
Trust me, she'll love it.

    
"Father bought the mirror, of course.
 
He threw a purse of coins to the old woman and it struck her nose.
 
She yelped . . . oh, what was it?
 
Brittle back . . . bric-a-brac . . . briquette black . . ."

    
"Bricklebrit?"
 
Couldn't be
, Beauty tells herself.

    
"Vanita more than loved it, she worshipped that mirror," Snow White fumes. "Whenever I sneaked into the royal chambers, she was preening before it: draping pearls in her hair, dipping her fingers into pots of cream and jars of paint, turning her face this way and that.
 
I was hiding behind a curtain on the very day the mirror spoke:
 
Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, but Snow White fairer is than you."
 
Snow White squeals and grabs Beauty's hand.

    
Beauty's reminded of the leeches and their clammy tenacity.
 
Snow White squeezes harder and she whoops, "Oh, her eyes!
 
She swiped her arm across the vanity, then ran from the room screaming for Horst the huntsman.
 
I scrambled out of there, went straight to the tower, and hid under my bed.
 
An hour later, I heard a voice call,
Princess Snow White, come to your window.

    
"I crawled out from under the bed, peered over the sill, and there stood Horst beneath my window.
 
He said,
I know where there's a den of little foxes.
 
Come quietly and take care no one sees you leave.
 
I'll meet you at the edge of the wood.

    
"I was very curious.
 
I'd never seen a live fox before and I'd never been into the wood.
 
Horst beckoned with a twinkle in his eye, as if we were conspirators in a secret game."

    
Snow White scratches her arm irritably. "When I reached the wood's edge, Horst whisked me to his side and hustled me down the trail.
 
I kept asking,
Where are the baby foxes?
And Horst would answer,
A bit farther
.
 
We walked for hours; the trail twisted and turned and trees closed in around us.
 
Finally he said,
See the mulberry bush yonder?
 
The fox den is in that bush.
 
You stay here and I'll go scare off the mother.

    
"Horst ducked behind the bush and shook the limbs, but no mother fox ran out.
 
He motioned for me to come closer and held a finger to his lips.
There's only one baby and he's so young, he has no fur
, he whispered.
 
I tried to see inside the bush, but the foliage was too dense.
 
Horst told me to reach through the center and my fingers would find the baby.
 
You can guess what my fingers found," Snow White sneers.

    
"It was hairless, soft and warm, and it twitched at my touch.
 
Horst said,
Pretty princess, he likes you; pet him again.
 
I did!
 
I believed him when he said it was frightened and to pet it faster.
 
Oh, I ache with shame after all these years." Snow White yanks her hair and hides her face in her hands.

    
Beauty grits her teeth and works her jaw. "You were a child; the shame belongs to the huntsman's, not you."

    
"I know that in my heart, but my head. . ." Snow White blurts.
 
"My head holds it in the closet of knife-edged memories.
 
They keep me safe by reminding me how foolish I was.
 
I told Horst we should go back to the castle, and his voice grew high and strange.
 
He said,
Princess Snow White, your skin is like spilled cream, your legs are like little lamb legs, your eyes are clear, frozen ponds, and your mouth, your mouth is
 
. . .
  
He leaned over the bush like this."
 
Snow White leans closer to Beauty and puckers her blood-red lips.
 
Beauty edges toward the headboard.

    
"I thought,
Good gracious, he's in love with me
.
 
This was my way out!
 
Horst and I would run away together.
 
I need never see Vanita again, and it would fix my father proper for neglecting me sorely.
 
I kissed Horst a courtly peck, and said,
Let's not return to the castle. We can run away and live happily ever after.
 
I love you too.
 
Horst stepped out from the bush and shouted,
In love with you!
 
Run away with you?
 
He spat on the ground,
The wife'd like that.
 
I don't love you, stupid twit.
 
Queen Vanita commanded me to cut out your bleedin' heart and bring it back to her.
 
With a heaving grunt, he drew his cutlass!"
 
Snow White raises an imaginary blade and snorts through widespread nostrils.
 
Beauty presses her back to the headboard.

    
"Have you known terror?" Snow White lowers her arm. "Rib-shaking, heart in your throat, struck-dumb terror?"
 
Beauty shakes her head; she wouldn't dream of interrupting.

    
"I did!
 
Too scared to run, and that despicable liar would have cut out my heart if his grunt hadn't been so authentically porcine that it flushed a boar.
 
While Horst drove his blade in the beast, I came to my senses and ran."