Once, in a great
forest far far away from here, there lived a beautiful woman in a cottage. Now,
this woman was actually a Queen who fled from her home in time of war. Despite
her stately upbringing, she was an extremely capable woman, and fended herself
well in the heart of the dark, threatening forest. She was indescribably
beautiful as well. Her hair was the colour of amber, her complexion fair as
spring. She wore the rubies and velvet of her country; a ghost of a bee in the
centre of a deep red rose.
No one knew of her
whereabouts, sans an old farmer’s wife who visited her every full moon with
fresh vegetables and meat. You would think that she was very lonely, and in
truth she was. But not for long, for in the Queen lay the beating heart of new
life.
At the height of
war, when the flames burnt the brightest, and the screams of dying were
shrillest, the Queen gave birth to a healthy prince all by herself. Her strong
maternal instincts told her how to care for her little weakling. They were very
well off, for no man or beast harmed them in any way, and the suckling babe
thrived into a fine boy.
The Queen loved her
son with all her heart. She gave him everything she could, squeezing out the
last drops of her warm milk into his eager mouth when he suckled, the largest
portions of every meal when he began to stomach everything in his path. Of
course, the prince loved his gentle mother, and fetched and carried for her
when he was not three years old.
There was one thing,
however, that the Queen kept away from her darling son. This was a crystal
goblet of wine. Often when the moon shone like marble in the night sky, the
Queen would sit herself in front of this goblet and stare into the still, red
liquid. Often she would cry, silently, so as not to wake her sleeping son. But
sometimes a choke or sob would escape her trembling lips. Her young Prince
would awaken, and watch his mother as she did her solemn ritual. He knew not of
the importance of all this, certainly all he could see was his mother crying over
a cup of not-spilled milk, and he saw no fuss in that.
Many times, he tried
to climb to the table to peer into the goblet himself, but his mother would
slap his hands away (the only time she ever laid a hard hand upon him).
“But whyever not,
mother?” He wailed each time. “Why may I not look into the goblet for myself? I
want to know what is inside that makes you weep!”
“You must never,
never look into this goblet,” the Queen implored. “My child, I am only doing
this to protect you. I love you, and would rather not see you hurt by things
you do not, will not ever understand.”
“But what is inside,
mother?” The Queen would refuse to say another word, and sent him to bed while
she put the goblet away.
One night, however,
curiousity got the better of the little boy. He pretended to be asleep, and
watched where his mother hid her goblet up on the top shelf. When she had her
back turned, he climbed up to the shelf and reached for the goblet. But though
he stretched his fat fingers as far as they would go, he could not reach it. He
stood on his tiptoes, and grabbed at the goblet in a lunge. It flew right off
the shelf onto the floor with a crash, just as his mother turned around, and
the moon burst through the black clouds and starless sky.
The Queen shrieked, a scream that seemed to awaken the entire forest. Wolves howled from
their dens, eagles cried from their nests, owls hooted, bears roared in answer
to the Queen’s cry.
The prince stood
rooted in shock, as his mother began to transform before his very eyes. Her
hair seemed to crackle like fire; her pearly white teeth grew strong and
carnivorous. The rubies and red velvet trickled down her naked white skin,
staining and pooling at her feet in puddles of blood. Her eyes clouded to
black, with just a pinprick of white in the centre of both.
“Do you see now?”
The Queen asked her son in a voice of a beast. “Do you see now, dear son,
foolish son, stupid boy! Do you see why I tried to keep you away from what is
mine, and mine alone?” She took a step towards the prince, who backed away from
her in fear. He stumbled over broken glass, his own blood mingling with the
growing dark puddles at his feet.
“Come, my son,” The
Queen crooned. “You have always wanted to look into the goblet. You have always
wanted to see the reason why I weep. Come, look into my eyes now and find what
you are looking for.” He was trembling now, his knees clacking together like
bones in an empty dish, picked clean. And yet, he could not resist. He could
not fight his childlike curiosity. Slowly, he lifted his head to look into the
soulless eyes of his beloved mother, gazing into the tiny twin moons in her
black orbs that were now like glass mirrors.
And, deep within them, he saw himself.
