11. The black queen

The day ended.

The dwarfs had been very excited, finding the watercontainer all filled up. Snow-White had confessed that she had enlisted the aid of the handsome young man, but did emphasised that she had not touched the man except for the quick kiss on the cheek.

"That is good," Doc agreed. "If someone is useful, that is good. As long as they don't try to sell you something, because that's bad. You never know what junk they have. Or, in your case, in what way they will try to kill you."

Snow-White had trembled a bit after hearing that, knowing Doc was right, but as the dwarf had hugged and patted her in that special way, she felt better.

Dinner was a very cheerful affair, and to celebrate the fact that the watercontainer was full again, the dwarfs broke out their special brew of beer, and that was when the party really started.

The night came. It worried about the noise in the house of the dwarfs and the things that were going on in there. It was for sure a good thing that the seven dwarfs had no neighbours.

The night left, after a successful session around the rest of the kingdom, and then the sun came back to do the day-shift.

Sleepy had competition that morning. Nobody in the small house of the seven dwarfs was eager to get up, and once they'd achieved the upright state, there were only slow movements and whispers going around. The brothers got ready to spend another day at the mine, whispered their goodbye's to Snow-White and then trotted off. Instead of their usual song of 'hi-ho, hi-ho', only Happy was able to hum the tune for a few yards. A slap over the painful head later he also continued walking in silence.

Snow-White waved at them until they were out of sight. Then she held her head. "What did I do...", she asked herself. The girl dragged herself back to her bed and carefully lay down. Then she smiled. "And what did they do..."

King Walt was up early and enjoying his usual breakfast when the mean queen came into the breakfast room.

"Oh. You're here," was her cold comment.

"Yes, I'm here. Come, sit down, plenty of space," Walt offered from behind his plate of chicken. His face glistened from the fat.

The queen eyed the table and what was on it and repressed the revulsion. She was mean but her stomach was tender. She could barely stand the sight of this flabbergasting amount of food, nor the smell of it, so early in the morning.

She gave in though. "Very well." She slumped down with a sigh. The servants brought her water, her yoghurt and the oats and raisins that she usually had for breakfast.

Walt looked at the skimpy assortment of edibles on her side of the table. "Is that all you eat?"

"Yes, dear. That is all I eat. Why?"

"Now I know why you're so skinny," Walt said, charging another piece of chicken.

The queen snorted, but the sound went unnoticed by the king. "Why are you out of bed so early?", she asked the man with the sticky fingers, ignoring the assault on her figure that she was so proud of..

"Oh, I am going to get you a few nice surprises," Walt said. "A bit of things to cheer you up, and to thank you."

The queen froze. "Thank me? For what do you want to thank me?" Her mind raced, trying to find anything, even the slightest, smallest and most insignificant thing that might have given him reason for this. She liked surprises, but she would be damned if she wasn't going to find out what they were for.

Walt got up and walked over to her. He put his grubby, fatty hands on the expensive table and leaned over to her. The queen instinctively leaned back. "For the things you've done for Snow-White."

The mean queen's defenses shot up, as did her eyebrows. "I did nothing for Snow-White!"

Walt shook his head, on his face an expression that showed what he hoped would be a caring and loving smile. "You are so good. You really don't want anyone to know, do you?" His heart swelled with pride over his wifey. Going out of her way to find the girl, and not making any deal of it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said the mean queen, "and I hope you will not bring this up again. I have to go. I have things to do." She pushed her chair back and ran out of the room, her breakfast mostly untouched.

Hilda was up and at work early. She was on her third cup of tea already, the goldfish not commenting on anything they saw and heard. The flopping sound of the bunny-slippers on the floor was the only thing that occasionally interrupted her humming, muttering and giggling.

Babs and she had come up with a bundle of great things to manifest at the witches meeting on Scary Mountain, and she had dedicated this entire morning to preparations. The crystal ball was on her worktop, the connection to the house of Baba Yaga open. That way it was easy for them to exchange ideas, recipes and gossip.

A knock on the door made Hilda grunt. "Babs, hang for a while, someone at the door."

Gruesome cackling laughter came from the crystal sphere as Hilda shuffled to the door.

Johan the mirror-maker almost lost his big package as he saw Hilda in the door-opening. "Uhm... good morning... uhm... honourable witch." He had serious trouble finding the word 'honourable' this time. Bunny-slippers, a house-coat with pictures of beheaded geese and a tea-cup with moving goldfish on it was a bit too much for an honest mirror-maker on this early morning.

"Hi, silver-face, what's that?", Hilda pointed.

"This is your second mirror. The one you ordered?" Johan was very careful. A wrong word could trigger the wrong thing. And with Hilda, wrong always had a very explicit meaning.

"Oh. Right. Ehm, come in and put it down somewhere." She stepped aside and slurped from the cup as Johan came in.

The mirror-maker found the nearest spot where he could put down the heavy mirror. Then he turned to Hilda and waited, with a smile.

"What're you smirking at?", Hilda asked, hoping that he would scoot off fast so she could go on with the festive preparations.

"Well, honourable witch, I had hoped that you could, in a way, reimburse me for the mirrors?" Johan was not sure if it was a safe thing to ask for money in a straight way.

"Reimburse?" Hilda frowned. "Oh. You mean money?"

Johan nodded.

"Cripes, say so man, instead of throwing riddles at me." She reached into the pocket of her house-coat and dug up a handful of gold and silver coins. "Something like that? Come here, pick out what you need and then leave."

Johan's hand trembled as he carefully selected three gold and one silver coin. That would be about ten times the price he would charge. Then he put one gold coin back. "This is enough, honourable witch," he said, bowing.

"Sure? You seemed nervous. Here, take the lot, it's too heavy in my pocket anyway." Hilda slapped the rest of the coins in his hand. "Now get lost, I'm busy."

Johan did his utmost to get lost in an expedient way.

Hilda looked at the wrapped mirror. "Not now." Then she returned to the crystal ball. "Right, girl, I'm back. Where were we..."

Back at the castle the mean queen sat in her hidden room, chewing her nails and pondering over the hints that Walt had dropped. What did he know? The pointers he had left were too obvious, he was clearly suspecting something. Maybe he should have an apple also...

The queen looked at the apples on her table. They looked perfect. Snow-White would not be able to resist them. One would be enough. Satisfied over her work, she opened her wardrobe closet and started rummaging through the clothes...

When she was done, she was unrecognisable. A blond wig hid her black hair. She had put something on her face to make her look more tanned. The clothes she wore made her look a great deal younger than she was. And boyish. The queen was certain that this approach would be best. Twice she got to the house of the dwarfs as a woman, and that might cause suspsicion with the child. So a boy it would be. She took a basket and put the apples in it.

"Now let's get this over with, the strap's killing me." She had put a strap around her chest, otherwise her attempt to look like a man would be completely destroyed by her bosom. The queen stepped out of her chambers, basket in hand, and started down the corridor when one of the more voluptuous maids saw her. The queen's disguise worked, because the maid saw a him.

"Oy, what are you doing there? Stealing apples?" The maid launched a charge towards the queen, who did not know how fast she had to run down the corridor, clasping the basket against her to make sure the apples would stay in it. At a neckbreak speed she hurtled down the stairs and once she reached the main hall she sped through that and out the large door as if shot from a bow.

The queen did not stop running until she was away from the castle grounds. Finally she dared to stop and catch her royal breath. She was not used to this kind of physical exertion, let alone being chased through her own castle whilst being accused of theft.

The massive maid had given up the chase already halfway down the stairs. She was even less used to physical exertion and had many more pounds to carry with her.

The queen caught her breath and found a place where carts were being loaded up. One of them was being filled with coal, one with fruit, one with pigs, and so on.

"Is anyone here going to the land of the dwarfs, over the hill?", the queen asked.

"Yeah, I do. Why? Want a ride?", one big scruffy man said.

"If possible, yes." The queen was proud she kept her role as a boy so well.

"Okay. Help load up the coal and you're on."

"The... coal..." The mean queen looked at the three black men that were slaving to get bucket after bucket of black and dusty coal into the cart.

"Yeah. Either that or you get to ride on my knee for a while," the man barked, "your choice."

The queen was not sure what the ride on the knee implied, but judging from the gory laughter of the other men it did not mean much good, so she put down the basket and started helping the three men. Soon after that there were four black figures loading the last bit of coal.

Some rags were handed around, so everyone could wipe their faces and hands a bit. That was a problem for the queen, as she would also wipe the tanning potion from her face. Very careful she dabbed her face a bit and that was it.

Her unwillingness to clean herself up better earnt her a place in the coal when the cart moved out.

People laughed at her as she sat in the black rubble, coughing from the dust that was still flying around. But the carts moved out, and she was on her way to the house where her enemy was still alive. But, she thought with grim pleasure, not for long.