Mary Anne Gruen - The House of Red

After the Second Kingdom fell and the elves returned to report to their Queen, preparations for the next part of the battle began. King Wendell was notified that more of his border was in danger. King Cole sent word to his Chancellor that several battalions of troops should be sent to aid the Fourth Kingdom and placed under Wendell’s command. Matilde notified the giant Demetrius that he would be needed there as well. The Ice Maidens were dispatched to the Sixth Kingdom. And a good sized group of fairies were amassed between the Eighth and Second Kingdoms. A panic was quickly spreading. With the fall of Red Riding Hood’s Kingdom, there was fear that everyone would soon be involved in the war.

The trolls, for their part, had decided to forego fighting for the night. The fall of the Second Kingdom was a cause for celebrating as far they were concerned. There was raucous partying all through what was now being called the Old Troll Kingdom. And major looting going on in what was now being referred to as the New Troll Kingdom.

Matilde, as president of the Council of the Nine Kingdoms, had many duties to perform and things to oversee. It was very late by the time she was able to join the members of the Council of Truth in the mirror room. The others had been waiting for her because they had seen the final happenings of the day and felt it was their duty to make some kind of ruling concerning everything they had seen. But they had to wait until Matilde had witnessed it all too.

As Matilde began to watch, the others walked about the room or left to take care of other quick business. Cinderella slept in her chair next to Matilde’s and snored gently. Actually, Matilde found the sound comforting. For the scenes before her were hardly of a pleasant nature.

The death of Topaz was not unexpected for Matilde. She could see it coming. The poor child was lost between two warring factions. And once gone, she was an embarrassment to both. Matilde shook her head as she watched. Those who ignored the lessons of history were doomed to repeat them. Wasn’t that how the saying went?

She was just at the part where the girl Isabella had wandered onto the scene on her way east, when something about the girl’s voice nagged at her memory. “Mirror,” she said. “Play that part again, the part where the girl Isabella says she wishes it was Pearl dead in the snow.”

As per the request, the mirror stopped the story and replayed it.

“Anything she wants, Emerald gives her,” the voice of the girl Isabella began again. “Even the wooden charm my father carved for me before he died. She knew how important it was to me. But she didn’t care. What does she care about an orphan like me? Or anyone else for that matter? Pearl is all she cares about. The little brat. I wish she were the one lying dead in the snow.”

“You don’t mean that,” Virginia said.

“Oh, yes I do.”

“Mirror, stop again,” Matilde commanded. She sprang to her feet and started tapping Cinderella gently with her cane. “Cindy, Dear, wake up,” she said.

“What is it?” Cinderella said. “Are we making a decision now?”

“In a minute, Dear. Do you remember this girl from before?”

Cinderella squinted. “Wasn’t she the girl at the meeting the other night?”

“That’s right.”

“I saw this part in the woods already. She has a wheelbarrow with a mirror and she suggests to Aesophocles that he should revenge himself against Emerald.”

“I haven’t heard that part quite yet. But of course everybody knows how he attacked Red Riding Hood several years later. That must be what he planned to do. It’s the girl here I want you to center on. Does she look familiar to you?”

Cinderella leaned forward and squinted again. “No,” she said. “I’m sure I’ve never seen her before.”

“What are you driving at?” Eranthis asked. He had been pacing back and forth behind the chairs. The other two members of their group were out of the room at that moment.

“You wouldn’t remember her, Eranthis, Dear,” Matilde said. “You’re entirely too young. And actually,” Matilde turned and pointed to the girl with the dark hair frozen in the mirror’s image, “So is she. The first time I saw her I didn’t recognize her because she didn’t speak. But that voice. It’s unmistakable.”

Cinderella shrugged her shoulders and exchanged glances with the Dwarf King.

“Cindy, Dear,” Matilde said, “I want you to close your eyes. Come on now. Close them up. Just listen. Imagine this voice a little older. Mirror, play that part again.”

Immediately, the mirror did as it was told.

“Anything she wants, Emerald gives her,” the girl Isabella repeated once more. “Even the wooden charm my father carved for me before he died. She knew how important it was to me. But she didn’t care. What does she care about an orphan like me? Or anyone else for that matter? Pearl is all she cares about. The little brat. I wish she were the one lying dead in the snow.”

“You don’t mean that,” Virginia said.

“Oh, yes I do.”

“That’s enough, mirror,” Matilde said.

“Oh, my!” Cinderella said, pushing herself slowly to her feet. “It can’t be.”

“You hear it now, don’t you. How old do you think that girl is, fifteen? Look at her dark hair, dark eyes, and rosy cheeks. Imagine her in five years at the age of twenty when she’s slimmed down and rounded up. And match the name to the voice.” Matilde said the girl’s name again with all the drama she could muster. “I s a b e l l a.”

“It’s Snow White’s stepmother,” Cinderella said.

“No!” Eranthis said. He walked up to the mirror to get a better look. He got so close, his breath started steaming up the frozen image of Virginia’s face.

“Go get the others and tell them what we’ve found,” Matilde said to Eranthis.

“I’m going,” he answered, moving out of the room as fast as his little dwarf legs could carry him.

Matilde walked pointedly toward the mirror and tapped her white cane impatiently on the highly polished wooden floor. “Snow! Snow, I know you can hear me. I want to speak to you.”

“Right now?” the voice of Snow White asked, as the recorded figures in the mirror began to swirl into clouds of gray.

“Yes, Dear, right now.”

“Of course.” Snow White appeared out of the gray mist, a half smile on her face.

Leaf Fall and Old King Cole ran into the room with Eranthis in the lead. However, they came to a stop when they saw who Matilde was speaking with in the mirror.

“Were you going to tell us about Isabella’s little cameo appearance, Snow Dear?” Matilde asked. “Or were you counting on us to figure it out?”

“I had a feeling that at least you would figure it out, Matilde. Even though I was pretty certain you wouldn’t recognize her by sight at this age. But she used that same tone of voice when she referred to me as a little brat several years later. She even used those exact words, I believe, just before she was forced to dance at my wedding.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Matilde asked again.

“Because she’s not important to this story. The only thing you need to see is that she and Scythian knew each other before she came to power. And before he became obsessed with revenge himself. In this one short week you have witnessed the passions that went into the making of the Second Kingdom. You have seen the first crime committed within the House of Red. It was the murder of Topaz, an innocent person, who was killed with the full agreement of her mother and the ultimate eradication of her name from history. You already know about the second crime. Aesophocles will attempt to revenge himself on Emerald by destroying her beloved granddaughter. Red Riding Hood was a headstrong girl, but she was entirely innocent of her unknown aunt’s death. It was wrong for Aesophocles to try and kill her. You have now to learn of the third crime and the fourth that was planned but foiled.”

“But what tie does Scythian have to your stepmother?” Matilde asked.

“You will hear. But it’s not that important anymore because that plan has been foiled. I will let Josiah tell you the story when the time comes. I have already sent our questers on to their second stop in the past. You can begin watching them tomorrow. Or even tonight if you like.”

“But who is Josiah?”

“Josiah is Wolf’s father,” Snow White said, as her form began to fade from the mirror. In a minute the surface was dark again, as the mirror’s attention became once more centered on the past.

“So, then,” Leaf Fall said. “What ruling shall the Council of Truth make on this evidence we have seen?”

“We will rule,” Eranthis said, “that the feud that began within the House of Red had very few heroes, except for one forgotten woman. That Emerald’s complicity in the murder of her daughter was a crime committed because of her personal hatreds and ambitions for her granddaughter. That Aesophocles’s actions against Red Riding Hood were based on personal revenge and not the innate evil of his kind. That, as seen in these proceedings, no side was without guilt, except in the case of the innocent victims. And that the persecution of the entire wolf population by the entire human one was entirely without warrant.”

“Are we all in agreement?” Matilde asked.

The other four nodded.

“So be it. I will announce our findings to the other kingdoms in the morning, as well as to the rest of the Council. Cole, if I were you, I would endorse Wendell’s proclamation making Wolf a hero at once. It will make it easier for your army to fight alongside of Wendell’s wolves. And Leaf, I think you should do the same as well. I know you held back before in deference to your friend Red Riding Hood the Third.”

Leaf Fall nodded.

Old King Cole said, “I will do it. But I can’t simply proclaim away hundreds of years of prejudice.”

“No,” Matilde agreed. “But it’s a beginning. And it may be the only way to put the Second Kingdom back together once this war is done.”