Not the Villain - The Evil Queen's Retelling of Snow White

22 Years, 11 Months and Seven Days Ago

22 years, 11 months and seven days ago:

I stared out the window at the darkening sky. Veneficia was gone, and she had taken Onyx with her. Long shadows were drawn across the room so that it was just a dark, gloomy haze, but I didn't feel like lighting a candle. I felt at home in the darkness, wrapping around myself like a blanket.

I think I had never felt so lonely in my life.

Thrusting a hand into the pocket of my dress, my fingers brushed something small and cold. I took it out. Rolling over in my hand, I realised it was my lucky charm. I had almost forgotten it was there. Because who would believe in such a thing as luck when their world felt like a pit of hell? The lucky charm was an apple made of porcelain, crimson with yellow flecks painted on with nimble fingers. I closed my fist around it.

Casimir gave me this lucky charm, a long time ago. And as he gave it to me he said I was sweeter than an apple, and he said that he wanted to dance with me a thousand times under the sun until the day we died.

"I will love you forever." He had said.

"I will give up anything for you. If I was given the choice I would give up the world just to be by your side."

"I want to cradle you in my arms every night, and hold you tightly against me so I know you won't ever leave. I want to drift off into sleep with the last voice in my mind being yours, whispering 'good night' to me. I want to wake up every morning and see your smiling face lit up by the faint sunlight peeking through the curtains, and kiss your lips knowing that for me home is wherever you are."

"Remember me every time you rub the apple, and I'll know in my heart that you're thinking about me. Don't ever forget me. I will never forget you."

"I will never betray you."

"I will never abandon you."

"I will always love you, Amethyst."

I was remembering, alright. I was remembering and remembering and it was killing me slowly on the inside. As a despairing cry left my lips I threw the lucky charm at the wall, where it exploded into a million crumbs and fell to the ground. I curled into a ball and wept.

Stop caring. Stop hurting. I can't. Stop caring.

Why did he make those promises if he couldn't keep them?

22 years, nine months and 30 days ago:

I lay still on my mat. Was I awake or dreaming? Or a mix of both?

My mother had a voice of liquid moonlight. She would tell me stories at night and her voice would lull me to sleep.

Emerald had a laugh that sounded like wind chimes. She used to laugh all the time, as if laughing itself was a joy to savour.

The day Emerald and I made snow angels on the hills, and twice we sank in the deep, fluffy snow. When our fingers got cold Mother admonished us but we could tell she was having fun as well because she was laughing, and she blew on them to warm them up.

The day Ronnie and I laughed together at the mess of hair as she conducted a hairstyle experiment on me. She would tell me stories of all the other duchesses and maids and in exchange I would tell her stories I read from books. She loved romance stories the most, and even though I didn't like them as much I would read some just so I could tell it to her.

The day Casimir and I picnicked. He and I were both young then, and he was supposed to be in a lesson. He didn't want to go, so I grabbed his hand and we slipped into the kitchen, and we stole a pie. And with his hand still in mine I dragged him out into the garden and we laughed and ate with jam all over our mouths and the sun shining in our faces.

The day my Mother, Emerald and I were dancing in the rain, twirling around and around to the rumbles of thunder, a fierce, beautiful war in the sky.

I could see their faces, smiling. I could join them. I could just reach out and join them. But my finger passed through them, they were only ghosts of fragmented memories. They dissolved into dust, and suddenly they were shadows pulling me down. I was drowning, drowning in the sea of memories...

21 years, one month and 12 days ago:

Rumours.

Even in the distant haven of Veneficia's hut, I heard them. It was as if the wind itself whispered it, chasing distorted words into every pair of ears. They were deceitful, they were crafty, and yet they each held a degree of undeniable truth in them.

Rumours of more feasts for the nobles, and as a result less and less food being handed out to the peasants this year, and the years after this one.

Rumours of the Upper class enlisting any suitable person to serve them, willing or otherwise. Rumours of the Walters' daughter, sweet Elizabeth, being kidnapped, and her father being beaten for trying to stop them. And young Ben Kaestner, the baker's son, who had been whisked away in the night.

And others. Young people mostly, disappearing. At the same time that Casimir, under Evelyn's influence, reopened the slave trade that his father had outlawed, people started disappearing. The Queen's guards started roaming the peasant villages. Rumours of their wagons, which was covered by canvas to hide its contents, which actually held cages stacked upon cages to put the abducted people.

Rumours of a new act banishing all the dwarves from the kingdom. Rumours of the Queen organising her army to exile them forcibly because a dwarf shaman-- or fraud, in the Queen's words-- predicted that the Queen was a barren woman. He was executed.

Rumours of a rebellion, the incentive being their hate for the Queen. The dwarves were assembling, as well as the families who lost their children to the nobles. They wanted change. And they wanted revenge.

Rumours of the Queen feeding lies into our King: twisted, distorted truths brewed up to control him.

Rumours whispering, suggesting, declaring that the beautiful Queen Evelyn was a witch.