6. Poison

Hilda wondered what the queen was so worked up about, and for this time she really was about to throw something into the mirror as there was no sound.

There still was plenty of time in the day, so the wicked witch changed into her normal witchy clothes and headed out to Johan, the mirror-maker.

"Hey, silver-face," Hilda said as she came in, scaring Johan as well as two customers that were in his workshop.

Johan prevented a mirror from dropping on the floor. The two customers stared at Hilda, mumbled something and suddenly remembered they had pressing business elsewhere they had to attend to.

"How's things going?", Hilda asked.

Johan was smart enough not to take verbal offence to being called silver-face. He knew what he was bringing over himself in that case.

Johan held up his hand. "The finger is fine again, honourable witch," he said, "and the work on your new mirror is almost done. The last layer of varnish is drying as we speak, so in a few hours the mirror should be ready."

"Fantastic, mirror-maker. Can you make another one for me? No rush on this order."

"Of course, honourable witch, that is no problem at all," Johan said, bowing in thanks for the order.

"Shiny," Hilda said. She reached into one of her pockets and dug up a handful of golden coins. She looked at them, wondered and then took Johan's hand and slapped the money in it. "I guess that's enough?"

Johan looked at the coins. His eyes were too amazed to actually fall out of their sockets. "Oh, most certainly, honourable witch, for that money you can keep the spare mirror also!"

"Neat, thanks, but you can have that back. It has no sound."

"It has no-" Johan frowned. His mirrors never made sound, unless they fell and shattered, so her comment was somewhat unnerving. "-sound?"

"Nope."

"Oh." Johan hoped that it would pass without inflicting any damage to his thoughts.

Luckily for him, Hilda was not in the mood to pursue the subject. "So when you have the first one done, do call by the house and drop it off. I'm really in need of a good mirror."

Johan stealthily looked the witch up and down. "Oh, I can imagine that, honourable witch."

Back at the castle, the queen had regained most of her composure. She was near fuming from all orifices that Snow-White was still alive and was plotting a plan that would be sure to kill the girl once and for all. Then a memory came to her. There was some other thing to take care of. One that had obviously let her down in a very unfashionable manner. She went down to the large hall, sat down on her throne and ordered a servant to go and fetch the huntsman...

The huntsman entered the hall and in a constant bow moved forward as much as he dared. Which was not far. He preferred the vicinity of the door to being close to the mean queen.

"Right, huntsman. Or should I say... loser? Today I have gone through the woods myself. I went as far as past the hill, to the land where the dwarfs live."

The huntsman did not dare to look up.

"And there," the queen continued, her words lashing down on the hunter, "I saw that Snow-White, the same girl I ordered you to kill, was very much ALIVE!"

The big man cringed. Even holding on to the big knife did not make him feel better.

"Now... loser huntsman... I want to give you one more chance. Screw that up and you are, as we call it in the royal trade, phuqued for life."

"Oh, tell me, my queen, and I will follow your orders."

"Okay, loser huntsman. In the forest, where you neglected to kill Snow-White, there are a certain type of berries. They are poisonous. You know which ones I mean? The little blue ones, with the tiny yellow leaves around them?"

The huntsman nodded and now dared to face the queen. "Oh, I know, my queen, they are the blue ones, that never grow very high and all the animals don't eat them of course, and they are always near the red flowers that make you so sleepy when you sniff them-"

"SILENCE. You blabbering fool... Go to the forest and bring me a basket full of those berries. You basket-case..."

The huntsman was glad he got off this easily. He scurried backwards until he bumped into the guard that stood in front of the door, and then made his way out of the hall and through the long marble corridor as fast as he could.

The day carried on calmly in most other places. In the village the baker was sleeping, a young yellow witch was hiding in her room, women were weaving and talking, and the poets that had gotten away from the field were gathering in the pub and still attempting to drink away their sorrow.

The huntsman was stomping through the forest, muttering away as he was trying to fill the basket with berries. The berries were small and hard to find. The basket was large and hard to carry.

Quirrin the giant gnome was sitting in front of a wide birch and stared at the image that was imprinted in its bark. With a knife he had tried to make the figure look a bit more gnomish but it hadn't really worked out the way he had hoped. He'd also never seen a tree that had red stuff flowing out of it instead of the usual green-yellow sticky goo.

Hilda was already preparing everything to get the new mirror ready for its new purpose, to be a looking-glass over the kingdom and adjacent areas. The old mirror was on, as just no sound was still better than no anything.

There was a knock on the door.

"Who is it?", asked Hilda.

"If I tell you, will you paint me?", the house asked.

"You are getting on my nerves," Hilda grumbled as she stepped out of the magical room that she had been working in.

"Because you're not getting on a ladder to paint me," the house retorted.

Hilda rolled her eyes and opened the door. "Oh, hey, mirror-maker. That's it?"

"Honourable witch, it gives me great pleasure to-"

"Yeah, right, cut the crap and bring it in," Hilda snapped as she saw the package that contained her new mirror.

Johan cut the crap and carried the mirror into the house. "Where do you-"

"Over here," Hilda pointed, "and thanks for making it snappy."

Johan nodded and carefully put the mirror down. Then he unwrapped it, taking the strong ropes off it and removing the thick, soft cloth.

The new mirror shone and was really a masterpiece. Hilda bent over to look at it carefully, inspecting it for damages and irregularities.

Johan took the opportunity to look around in the room. It was not often one got to visit the house of a witch, so this was a treat. His eyes stopped moving as he saw the old mirror. Johan the mirror-maker blinked a few times, but the image of a girl with black hair and pale skin moving through a house remained on the mirror. He took a few steps so he could see more and then he said: "Isn't that-"

"What?" Hilda looked up. "Hey, no looking there! That's witchy business. Intelligence. Need to know only."

Johan jumped backwards. "I didn't see a thing, honourable witch, really! That girl doesn't resemble Snow-White in the least!"

"One word, mirror-maker," Hilda said, her wand under the man's nose, "any one word is fit to be your last, do you hear me?" Soft white light came from the wand and dazzled Johan. "You did not see anything. You delivered the mirror and we're all good friends and now you get the fuck out of here, right?"

"Yes, honourable witch good friend," Johan nodded sullenly, "I am getting the fuck out of here." With a smile he walked to the door and let himself out. As the door closed behind him, Johan suddenly wondered how he could be standing with his back to the door without a mirror as just a moment ago he had still been here, with a mirror, knocking on that very same door.

Hilda turned to the cracked mirror and looked at the imagery for a while. Her eyes became large.

The huntsman had managed to fill the basket with berries. After hauling all ninety lbs of them to the castle, the queen was delighted to see how well he had done. She devastated him by saying that a small basket would have done, she only needed about 200 grams.

The queen, mean as she was, then retreated with her berries, to her secret room.

Hilda watched the view of the dwarfish bathroom, where Snow-White had run a full bath for herself. Somehow, Hilda thought, this is odd. You'd expect seven small tubs instead of one big one. Perhaps there was something with these dwarfs that nobody knew. Snow-White hopped into the bath and started cleaning herself up.

Outside Hilda's view, in the dwarfish living room, five of the original inhabitants were fighting each other for a position at the keyhole of the door to the bathroom. Sleepy wasn't one of them, as he was doing what he did best: sleep. Doc, who had first right to the new, was reading the paper that had been brought to their house by arrow. He was so taken in by the news that he did not notice the suppressed uproar that happened near the door in question.

Hilda nodded and waved the mirror back to being a mirror. It was time for her to start working on the new mirror. It was a good thing, she thought, that the girl was raised well enough to insure her personal hygiene. She picked up the mirror.

A yawn made the five dwarfs look up and spread out rapidly, their cheeks red and each one of them fighting the battle of a specific bulge.

"Heya, guys... *yawn*... what's you all trying to do...", Sleepy said as he walked to the bathroom door. "We have a door, see, much better than trying to climb through a keyhole..." Sleepy shook his head and went into the bathroom. The smirking from five mouths never reached him, as the loud scream and a splash overruled the dwarfish pleasure.

Doc looked up. "What?" As there was no sensible reply, he turned back to the paper.

The five others sat on their beds, cooling down and counting the seconds before Sleepy would get out of the bathroom. But the seconds became minutes, and the minutes became fifteen minutes. The five looked at each other in wonder. Sleepy should have been out long ago, slapped over the head with the bath brush or something.

Finally, after about half an hour, the door opened and Sleepy came out of the bathroom. On his face, almost entirely pushing away the usual sleepy expression, was a smile. A grin two feet wide. He dragged his coat behind him. The buttons of his shirt were undone and he wore his pants backwards.

"Sleepy? What happened?"

The smile became even bigger. "I got to wash her back... And then she offered to wash mine... and then..." Sleepy fell face down in his bed and was off the world.

Only moments later Snow-White came out of the bathroom, looking all happy and refreshed, wrapped in a thick bathrobe. "Hi guys," she smiled, "it's all yours now..." With a very contented look she walked over to Sleepy and crawled on the bed, next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

A deadly silence started to flow through the room. Then, keeping the silence, the five dwarfs knew they had done the wrong thing by the keyhole. They got up, entirely sobered up and cooled off, and started doing the chores that still needed to be done...