A.N.D. - Through the Looking Glass

Littlebit, in contrast, was free to go anywhere as long as she delivered embroidered clothes to her clients on deadline. The wolf woman would dutifully help with the cooking and cleaning at meals, but the rest of the time she was either sewing and singing along at the pub or in the audience of her favorite shows-and even at the discounted prices the wenches were paying her minus the price of her daily admission ticket, she was still making more than Wolf and Virginia put together. Although Littlebit stayed cautiously submissive and turned all her wages over to “the pack,” it was hard not to be jealous.

Virginia sighed again. They had had no takers for braiding for the last hour, and she was bored. Everything exciting always seemed to happen elsewhere on the grounds. There was a lot going on too-she’d forgotten how many games were set up between the cast and the regular patrons. The rogues were having a contest to see which of them could win the most tokens from the wenches and staff women. (Wolf was winning by a tail so far, and had amassed quite a collection of scarlet lipsticks. Sometimes he even got it in the tube instead of secondhand all over his face.) The wenches were locked in a deadly game of dares called rose tag, apparently trying to see how many people could be suckered into singing the Unicorn Song (with gestures) in public. Preferably while dressed in character for their act. But none of the fun ever seemed to happen by her booth. The only thing she had to look forward to was when Wolf would come and... there he was!

The wandering storytellers were supposed to stick to a distinct route, but Wolf tended to set up shop close to her booth rather than across the square. He was, as usual, surrounded by a crowd of worshipping children.

Virginia still wasn’t sure what sort of mother she would make, but after she’d seen Wolf with the children of the other workers, she knew their “cub” would be all right. He obviously adored children of any age, and they adored him right back. He was always ready to tell stories, oh and ah over treasures of rock and string, roll around wrestling-he even seemed to enjoy diapering. Everyone under four feet tall (and quite a few over!) was Wolf’s willing slave.

Only once had a kid tried to disobey him, and the camp children still talked about that black day in hushed whispers:

“All right!” Wolf clapped his hands, getting the attention of the kids pouncing and shouting in the straw-lined play pit he had built. “I need all of you to get out now and help me get set up for dinner!”

Most of the kids whined, but they came out of the straw and lined up. All except for Ken, the camp brat. “Not me. I ain’t gonna work.”

“Everybody eats, so everybody helps,” Wolf reminded him with an edge to his voice.

“Not me. Can’t make me.” Ken folded his arms and scowled at Wolf. “My momma won’t let you make me go hungry and she won’t let you hit me. So what are you gonna do?”

Camp opinion was that Mrs. Whitley’s politically correct views of child raising were the reason why Ken was such a jerk; certainly she was the only mother who disagreed with Wolf’s “ask once, order once, growl once, smack once” style of discipline. But the only time he’d raised a hand to Ken, Mrs. Whitley had threatened to get both Wolf and Virginia fired, then sent Ken off to a “time out” that he had promptly ignored.

Obviously, Ken now felt invincible. “What ya gonna do? Huh? Huh? What ya gonna do about it?”

“Nothing.” An older, more sensible child would realize that Wolf’s low, even tone was more threatening than the loudest of angry shouts. But Ken was far from a sensible child.

“That don’t sound too awful,” he taunted, turning back to play while the rest of the now-restless children trooped dubiously after Wolf.

It wasn’t until after dinner that the horrible truth dawned. Wolf barely looked down for the rest of the night, pointedly ignoring anyone shorter than he was... meaning all of the children. There were no stories that night, no jokes, no “wrassling” matches, no extra servings, no promises to tuck anyone in.

Nothing.

Wolf was implacable. Tearful entreaties didn’t elicit anything more than a noncommittal, “Maybe tomorrow.” Apologies on Ken’s behalf were met with a snort. The larger kids even carried Ken off into the woods for a little frontier justice, presenting him later bruised and disheveled and finally contrite. But still Wolf didn’t relent.

The next morning, a third of the mothers in line for breakfast confided to Virginia that their children had cried themselves to sleep. Wolf, however, had flipped back to his old, genial self. “Who wants to help?” he cried, bounding out of the door of the staff kitchen.

The rush of underage helpers almost flattened the shack.

Visiting children adored Wolf as much as the renrats. He was easily the most popular storyteller of the fairy tale characters. They loved him because he told stories they had never heard, they loved him because he made funny faces and squeaky voices, they loved him because he pulled them up to be part of the story. But most of all, they loved him because he loved them. There wasn’t a kid Wolf didn’t seem enjoy being with-not even the now-chastened Ken.

“Okay!” He gathered his crowd with a flourish. “Who wants to hear a brand-new story?”

“WE DO, WE DO!” his crowd squealed, dropping to sit around him.

“Which one do you want to hear? The Lonely Princess and the Misunderstood Wolf, or The Dog King?”

“The what or the who?” Nantucket muttered in Virginia’s ear. “Where does he get these crazy things?”

“You’d never believe me if I told you,” Virginia whispered back.

For the next few seconds there was cacophony as the children yelled competing titles. To Virginia’s ear there was no one clear winner, but Wolf had his own agenda anyway. “I shall tell the story of the princess and the wolf.”

“But I wanted to hear the one about the dog!” one boy sniffed.

Wolf ruffled his hair and bent over so he could smile and wink at the boy’s level. “Come back right here in two hours and I promise I’ll tell that one.”

Mollified, the boy settled back down. Wolf spread his arms wide and began.

“Once upon a time, there was a lonely, misunderstood Wolf. He lived in a magical land that you can see on the other side of your mirror, a land where all the fairy tales you know actually happened. People really do live happily ever after there-but not wolfs. People hate wolfs like me, just because we’re different. And do you know the word for that?”

They did, sort of. Virginia had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep the kids from hearing her laugh over the way they mangled “racial prejudice.” (“Glacial Pear Juice” was her favorite. Even Wolf got the giggles over that one.)

“But just because wolfs are different doesn’t mean they’re bad, does it?”

“NOOOOOOO!!!” shouted all the kids.

“But I-I mean, he was treated like he was a bad person just because he was a wolf.” Wolf pouted, and Virginia caught him glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

Treated like he was...! He’d been in jail! Virginia mouthed, “what about all those sheep?” Wolf gave her a pained look, then turned back to the children.

“He should come here,” a tiny girl with a tinier fur tail tied to a back belt loop of her jeans said earnestly. “We’re nice to wolfies here. See?” She wiggled her little tail at him and Wolf burst into giggles again. He swished his tail back at her until he could keep his face straight and began again.

“He did come here. He was sent here on a great quest.”

“Ohhhhhh,” breathed the children.

“You see, he was searching for a princess. A hundred years after Snow White died...”

“SNOW WHITE DIED?!” several girls yelled in horror.

Wolf rocked back, obviously startled that what was ancient history to him was such shocking news here. The little girl with the tail wiped her nose on her sleeve and blinked welling eyes at him. “She didn’t die! Say she didn’t die!”

“Well... died isn’t the right word.” He looked nervously at the children, who settled tentatively down. “She went from being a queen to being a fairy godmother. It’s like a promotion.”

“That’s better!” Tail Girl announced. “I don’t like stories where people die.”

“Neither do I,” Wolf smiled at her. “Anyway, a century had passed since Snow White... got promoted. And everyone missed her, because fairy godmothers can’t hang around all the time like queens do. They can only appear when they’re needed.

“Then a new princess was born. She had hair as black as coal, skin as white as snow, and lips as red as blood, and everyone said ‘Snow White has come back to us!’

“The people rejoiced, for Snow White was the most beloved queen of all. They hoped that this baby would bring her spirit back into the world. But there was another spirit lurking-the ghost of Snow’s stepmother came back as well. It was too weak and powerless to hurt the baby, so it whispered in her mother’s ear.

“It told her that the baby would be more beautiful, more beloved than she ever was.

“It told her that the baby would never love her.

“It told her that the princess would kill her for her throne.

“It told her to kill the princess first.

“One terrible night all that whispering drove the queen mad. She tried to kill her daughter, but she couldn’t. So the queen and the ghost made a plan so that the princess would live-but she would never live to be queen.

“The ghost lived on the other side of life, so it knew how to open the other side of the mirror. It turned a mirror into a doorway into this world, to this very city. The queen came through with a loyal footman. She found a skyscraper and said ‘This will do for a tower.’ She imprisoned the princess in the tower and left the footman to care for her. And to make sure that they would never, ever try to open the mirror and come home, she stole something from each of them.

“From the footman, she stole hope and replaced it with greed. Forever he would want things he shouldn’t have and feel unworthy of things he should really try for.

“When she saw what she had turned the footman into, she realized that she could no longer trust him. So she built a windup doll to help raise her daughter. It was sort of like the queen, but older and uglier. To make it look alive she made it chatter. But because it was empty inside it could only talk about two things, the two things that mattered most to the queen-money and power.

“Then she turned to her own daughter. It was the last chance to save herself and the child, but she didn’t take it. Instead, she took the child’s heart and replaced it with ice. She held the heart in front of the princess’ eyes and said, ‘I will keep this safe for you. You will never feel love, so you will never feel heartbreak. I have left you in a world without magic, so no one will ever curse you. Someday you will realize that I’m really doing you a favor.’

“And then she went away, back through the mirror. She buried the mirror deep in the dungeon of her castle, told the people that the child had died, and went on to become an ever greater, even crueler queen.

“The princess grew up. She was very lonely, but she did not know what loneliness was, because she was too frozen by the ice heart to feel anything. When she was little she had hoped that her mother would bring her real heart back, but the footman taught her hopelessness and the doll taught her that it is normal to feel empty inside. So she thought she would simply live in her boring tower until the day she finally froze to death.

“And then, one night, she met the Misunderstood Wolf.”

“All the years the princess was growing up, the stepmother’s ghost had been whispering in the queen’s ear. Between the whispers and the grief for her missing baby, she had gone quite insane. Her kingdom was no longer enough for her. Now she wanted to take over all the other kingdoms as well. She was also obsessed with the princess. Every time she thought how much she missed her daughter, the stepmother would whisper lies to her. Her thoughts and feelings became so twisted up that she became convinced that the princess was going to come back through the mirror and take it all away.

“So the queen found the wolf. He had been put in a cage because people thought he was an animal, and animals belong in cages. But he wasn’t an animal, he was a wolf, and wolfs need their freedom. He was almost mad himself from being unable to see the moon and bound about.

“The queen promised to set him free forever. She even told him pretty lies about making wolfs protected if he helped her. He didn’t believe her lies but he would have done anything, said anything, if she just let him out of the cage. So when she unlocked the cage and asked him to be her slave... he said yes.

“She showed him where the magic mirror was hidden. She told him to go through it and kill the princess.

“The wolf went through the mirror. This place, this city...” Wolf’s voice trailed off, his expressive face showing all the surprise and delight he must have felt. Virginia envied him, to have had such joy. Her first impressions of his land had been a great deal less thrilling!

Wolf cleared his throat. “The wolf had grown up around magic, but this place was the most magical of all. He wanted to run, to explore, to sniff every new smell, to revel in this land. But he had a job to do.

“The wolf was strong and clever. The defenses around the princess were easy for him to defeat. He tricked the footman by appealing to his greed. He tricked the empty doll by chattering to it about power and vanity. And then...” his voice filled with wistful wonder as he turned to stare with hot longing at Virginia, “He found the princess.

“She was the most perfect person he had ever met. She was beautiful. She was brave. Huff, puff, she smelled as good as a month of Sunday dinners! He knew he could never hurt her, that he would love and protect her until the moon stopped waxing and waning. But she misunderstood him, as everyone did. As soon as she saw a wolf, she screamed and hit him. She even pushed him out of a window.”

Wolf was still staring at her, the crease between his black brows growing reproachfully deeper about that window. “You forgot the cleaver,” Virginia mouthed at him. The crease became positively cavernous and Wolf elaborately turned a shoulder to her as he picked the story back up.

“The wolf knew that he could never take her back through the mirror. She would be safe on this side, away from her mad mother. But he had forgotten about the footman.

“The footman had only lost his hope, not his heart, and the footman had truly loved the queen. He knew that if a wolf was in this world, then the mirror door was open and he could see his beloved queen again. So the footman took the fleeing princess and told her he would make her safe from the wolf and safe from the results of his own greed, if she would only follow him through the mirror.

“She did. But the footman had been away too long. He had forgotten how to live in the fairy tale world, especially with his curse of greed. And the princess never knew how to live there, because she had been taken away so young. Almost immediately they ran into trouble and the princess was kidnapped.”

“Oh no!” the rapt children gasped. “Was it the queen?” one asked.

“It was trolls! Evil, stupid, stinky trolls!” His body language was very eloquent, and Virginia had to cover her mouth again. It had been so very scary then, how could it be funny now?

“They threatened to hurt her. They told her they would make her wear red-hot slippers and dance until she died, just like Snow White’s stepmother. But when all was lost, just as they were taking the shoes out of the fire with tongs do you know what happened?”

The mesmerized children shook their heads.

“The wolf came! He had followed her. Now he swung through the window on a rope, grabbed the princess, and swept her away!”

The children all sighed “Ahhhhh!” and applauded him. Wolf bowed modestly with a flourish of his tail.

“The wolf knew the princess would only be safe when she went back through the mirror. But he didn’t want her to go. He loved the princess so much he wanted to marry her. Yet she could never love him in return until she had her heart back. It was a terrible dilemma. Which way should he chose? Send her to safety and never see her again, never smell her delicious scent again, or find her heart and set it free?

“Once the princess knew who the queen was, she made the decision for herself. She wanted to find the queen. She wanted to make her remember-remember her daughter, remember their life, remember when they were a happy family.

“It was a long, difficult journey to find the queen. They had to stop many times along the way. Once a town tried to kill the wolf when they found out what he was, and the princess protected him. It gave the wolf great hope that someday they would be happy together. Once gypsies cursed the princess, but the wolf found the cure. Always they were together. Always the wolf tried to prove his devotion. And always the princess spurned him. Her heart was too frozen to feel love.

“At last, they all stood before the queen-the wolf, the princess, and the footman. The princess tried and tried to get her mother to remember her. But the whispers were too great, her madness too far gone. She threw the footman and the princess in the dungeon and reminded the wolf that he was her slave.

“He could not serve her anymore. His heart and loyalty belonged only to the princess now. So he when he went back to the queen, he was only pretending. She told him to brew a poison to kill all the rival kings and queens who were coming to her banquet. Instead of brewing poison he made a magic potion that would make everyone fall asleep.

“Then, while the wolf was in the kitchen, Snow White herself appeared in the dungeon.”

“I thought you said she was dead,” a boy complained.

“I said she was a fairy godmother who showed up when she was needed the most. The princess needs her right now, doesn’t she?” Wolf shot back. “Snow White came to them and showed them how to escape. She also warned them. They had seen too much to go back to their old lives unchanged. But they had not won back what the queen had taken from them. They had one last challenge to face.

“If the footman ever wanted to have his hope back, he had to believe in the princess. He had to believe enough in her that he would fight for her against all the queen’s soldiers, even though a corner of his heart was faithful to the queen who had done such terrible things. He had to fight even though he had never fought before. Was he strong enough, Snow White asked. Did he believe?

“The footman was very scared, but he picked up a sword.

“The challenge before the princess was even harder. It wasn’t enough to simply find her heart and leave. There was no heart left to find. The queen had destroyed it all those years ago when she left. The princess could never have her happy innocence back.

“The only way now was to melt the ice around the heart the queen had given her and learn to truly live with it. To melt the ice, the princess had to face the queen again and somehow reach past the whispers. If the queen could remember who she used to be, the madness would be broken forever.

“But, Snow White warned her, if the princess could not cure her mother, she would have to drive out the evil spirit of the stepmother another way. The queen wore a gift from the stepmother, the very comb that had been used to poison Snow White. One scratch from it would drive out the spirit-but it would also kill the queen.

“The princess was pale and trembling when she faced her mother. There was no one left to help her. The footman had been injured in the fight and had fallen. The other kings and queens were asleep from the magic potion. The loyal wolf was pinned in a corner, fighting off the queen’s last henchman.

“The princess was alone.

“She tried and tried to reach her mother, but always the stepmother’s mad whispers were in the way. The stepmother made the queen try to choke the princess to death. The poor princess struggled and flailed for any weapon as she struggled to breathe, and her fingers curled around the comb in her mother’s hair.

“The spirit screamed as it was destroyed. For a few, brief moments the princess and her mother saw each other without the madness and the whispers. The queen blessed her daughter for freeing her of the insanity... and then she died.

“The princess’ ice heart shattered into a million pieces. She was literally heart-broken. But the wolf stayed by her as she grieved, and the footman attended her to give her his new-found hope.”

He was staring at her again. “Her new heart was stronger than the old one, because it had been through so much. She learned to love with it, and came to love the wolf as much as he loved her.”

Virginia smiled and blew him a kiss as he ended their story in the traditional way. “And they lived happily ever after.”