I wrote this for university. We were asked to do a take on a fairytale or myth, so I chose to do a piece from the wicked stepmother's point of view in Snow White.
I wonder, as I sit here staring at this jaded reflection of myself, how different things might have been had it not been for her. Oh, how very different things would have been had it just been her father and I. Is that a crack I see below my left eye? How time has destroyed the beauty I once possessed. How I wish the mirror still lied to me, but no, it shows the deficiencies that she, in her youth, avoided entirely. It had all seemed so perfect, the day I fell in love with that man. He was all I had ever wanted and I, in my foolishness, did not imagine that he would ever set his eyes on anything more beautiful than that I saw in the mirror.
The first time I saw her, I knew. I knew how she would grow up to be, I knew she would always have a larger place in my husband’s heart than I did and how I hated her for it. How I still hate her for it, that little chit. I remember the first evening in my new home. She was six years old at the time, with black hair flying freely to her waist and skin as pale as sunlight on snow. Oh, she was charming enough to me in front of her father, but only a fool would have missed the hateful looks she cast upon me when he left the room. I could almost hear her telling me I would always be second best as long as she had her way. I will never forget the night she made that perfectly clear to me.
Her father and I were to go out to dinner to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. How happy I felt as I stood admiring the beautiful, blue satin dress he had laid out on our bed as a surprise. Holding it up to me, I twirled around the room, feeling young and spirited and as loved as any woman could wish to be. As I spun past my mirror, I caught sight of a small figure in the doorway and stopped, even as my dress slid through my fingers like air. Her greedy little eyes took in her father’s gift and she stood there for a few moments staring at it before coming in a few steps.
‘That’s not your dress. That’s mummy’s dress and daddy will always love me and mummy more than you.’
What could I do? In that moment, I don’t think I could have felt more hate for anyone than I did for that child. I wanted so much to slap her, but she would only have gone running to her father, the manipulative little b***h. Just to remember it makes me furious.
I tried hard to persuade her father to send her to boarding school when she was eleven, for by that time, I could not bear the sight of her. Of course, it was futile; he doted on her as if she was some helpless little puppy and she lapped it up. I remember his response to the suggestion very clearly, along with the horrified expression in his eyes.
‘How can you possibly expect me to do that? She is my child, and the only thing I have left off my first love. I will never send her away, as long as I live. This will always be her home.’
What could I say? His words were cruel to my heart, but I still loved him.
And so, life went on and as she hit her teens, she became ever more precocious and conceited towards me, taking every opportunity to undermine all I did. Much as I disliked her, I had to play the good Stepmother, if only to please her father, who was often working late, and keep a clear conscience. The greatest battles were when she wanted to go out with friends on a nightly basis. By now, she turned heads everywhere she went and not a day went by when I didn’t hear some comment on how she had turned into such a stunning young woman. Someone needed to bring the girl down a few notches, and I took the task in hand as often as I could.
‘What do you think you look like, going out like that? A common slut, that’s what you remind me of. You can get yourself back to your room and take that rubbish off. Your father doesn’t want you going to those places anyway’
She would throw back her usual line about how I was not her mother, spitting nails at me, but she never had a choice. I had made sure of that when I discovered her diary.
‘
I was quite happy for her to hate me as much as I abhorred her, but that small comfort was not to last. Many things changed in the year she was fifteen and my mirror no longer showed me the beautiful woman I once was. She was diagnosed with diabetes, a development I was entirely indifferent to, caring only in so much that it was hurting her father. The strain of seeing his precious girl so unhappy was too much and within months, he had suffered a heart attack that left him a shadow of the man he once had been. Of course, it was only then that she began to change towards me, crawling to me for comfort that I so easily witheld. Why would I comfort her? She had destroyed all I had and now she had caused the diminishment of her own father, the man I loved.
It was one dark winter afternoon that she wandered into the kitchen as I stood staring at my reflection in the filthy window. I did my best to ignore her in hopes that she would walk right back out, but it was not to be that time.
‘Why do you hate me so much? I know I haven’t always been nice to you, but all kids are like that, aren’t they? I mean, I’m trying to make up for it now, aren’t I?’
My reflection rippled as the rain fell steadily outside and a voice inside me yelled at her to shut her mouth. How dare her put me on a guilt trip. It was my right to hate her for stealing my beauty.
‘Please, mum, can’t you even try? I’m scared.’
Her voice sounded pathetic and I had no regrets as her whimpers faded into the distance. After all, my words were true. Why would I ever want to be mother to a daughter who had caused her own father so much misery?
I lost myself in my mirror as she reached sixteen and started mixing with a group of rowdy drug users. Her friends, she called them, and who was I to argue? There were seven of them, as I recall. Oh, they didn’t use anything heavy, just the trusty marijuana. I could smell it on her clothes each time she waltzed through the house totally oblivious to the pain in her father’s eyes as she waved off his concerns. For a time, she looked happier then I had ever seen her and my God, but I hated her for it. She escaped into her pot. I had only my mirror to escape into, and that no longer offered me any solace. It was I who watched the effects of her shenanigans on the man I still loved and it was I who listened when he spoke of the situation early one morning.
‘Why is she doing this to us? I don’t understand, she was always such a good girl and now she’s high as a kite all the time. Where did I go wrong?’
The look in his eyes could have broken a thousand hearts, but it was mine they broke.
I did not visit the hospital when she accidentally overdosed. I was only disappointed that she had survived the experience. She had turned to harder drugs just before her seventeenth birthday, ignoring any advice offered by her little group of pot-heads. She had grown thin and paler still, but this seemed only to add a certain mystery to her beauty and she still turned heads on the occasions when she ventured out of the house. One of the doctors involved in her resurrection began to visit the house in the hope he could be the one to save her. He sickened me with his calm and gentle way of speaking as he asked us about her childhood and polished his suit of armour.
By her eighteenth birthday, she had blossomed and rebuilt her relationship with her father. At first, I was relieved to see his happiness, but it wasn’t me who had given it. It was her, just as it had always been her. I had been able to do nothing in his darkest moments yet here it was; the one who had bought him all the misery was the only one to make him happy. When he wasn’t at work, he was taking her out to this place or that and singing her praises to me
‘Each time I look at her, I cannot believe how blessed I am. I knew she would come back to us. Doesn’t she look wonderful in that dress?’
I always agreed as best as I could, turning away before he could see the cracks in my eyes.
I had been married to him for thirteen years when I smashed the mirror. Drink had become my friend as I watched her waltz in and out of the house with the love of her life while I sat alone night in and night out. Her father had been spending more and more time away from the house on business, but I knew the truth. My reflection told me the truth well enough. It was one day in September I decided to kill her. I say it so easily, don’t I? Well, it was easy once she had spoken the magic words. I was only singing one of those old Elvis Presley songs, that is all, when she came down to get a coffee for her knight. She had sneered at me in disgust. I had never seen such a look of disgust on anyone’s face before that day.
‘Just look at yourself. No wonder my father cannot bear to come home anymore. You embarrass him as much as you embarrass me. I won’t even tell you what Richard says about you.’
The knife slid through her t-shirt and her soft, pale skin easily enough; there was nothing to it really. It was easier than slicing up a joint of meat, that is for sure. I didn’t even hear her screams or see the blood that covered my hands as I was roughly pulled away. I didn’t fight. There was nothing left to fight for.
I have been here eight years now. The men in white coats didn’t hesitate to certify me off my trolley and suggest I be kept away from society. To tell the truth, I am quite happy here and they let me have my mirror, as you can see. The snow is falling outside and it always reminds me of her, the girl who destroyed my beauty. I didn’t kill her, you know. She had her beloved knight to see her through and she was out of hospital within months. I missed her heart by half an inch. I am still surprised they actually found one. He had a pet name for her, you know, the man who was once my husband. Snow White. He thought her pure, but I know different. Oh yes, I know different.
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I am diagnosed as a human being.
25 Mar 2007, 10:49 pm
