Mirror, Mirror On the Wall (Short Story)

Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a plain looking princess called Rosette. With mousy brown hair and freckles, she wasn’t exactly anyone’s idea of beautiful when the current rage was all blonde haired beauties with big, blue eyes.

Her mother, a frail and sickly lady, had died while giving birth to her, though many vicious rumors circulating around the kingdom claimed that she’d taken one look at her new-born baby and died of a heart attack.

Nevertheless, the king loved his daughter deeply and doted on her. But he was afraid that one day, his daughter would grow up and realize that not everyone will look at her with such ready acceptance.

So, when Rosette was just five years old, he set down a royal decree to ban all mirrors in his kingdom and destroyed all the existing ones. Those who were found with a mirror in their possession were severely punished and thrown into jail.

While his men were carrying out his orders, he went, disguised as a common peasant, to a powerful witch who lived at the far end of the forests to request her service.

For he wanted her to create a magic mirror specially for Rosette.

"It'll be difficult," she muttered to herself, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "I'll need a drop of your daughter's blood and a lock of her hair to craft such a devious enchantment."

The king readily agreed to her requests and soon, equipped with the required elements and a sack of gold, the witch started to build the mirror.

This took at least six months to achieve for the magic woven was complex and the whole process was physically and mentally draining. But eventually, the mirror was completed and the king personally went down with a few trusted servants to collect it.

He ordered the mirror to be placed in Rosette’s bedroom and when everything was in place, he called his daughter to come and take a look at the new present he’d gotten her.

Excited, the princess bounced into the bedroom and sat on her father’s lap.

"So where’s my present, Daddy?" she asked impishly, smiling at him with all the innocence of a five-year old child.

Her father smiled and nodded at the mirror hanging on the wall. Rosette gasped in wonderment as she jumped out of her father’s lap and ran to inspect her new present.

With an intricate frame carved out of pure gold and a pane cut out of the clearest glass, the mirror was an exquisite sight to behold.

But what captured Rosette’s attention the most was the reflection in the glass.

"Is that ... is that really me, Daddy?" she whispered, entranced by her new reflection.

For the girl staring back at her had curly locks of gleaming, rich brown hair and eyes the colour of the deepest blue skies. No freckles dotted her smooth, porcelain white skin and her lips were the palest shade of pink.

The girl in the mirror was beautiful and Rosette ... wasn't.

"Yes, darling, that really is you," her father said, mustering a smile even though his heart was breaking at how he was deceiving his own daughter. His only daughter.

Rosette didn't reply, drunk with wonder, as she slowly reached out to touch the illusion on the other side.

For the next ten years, she grew up believing that she looked exactly like the girl in the mirror that hung in her bedroom.

This didn't stop the servants in the castle from looking at her pityingly, and she had to endure constant jeers and taunts at the Royal Academy for Princesses that she attended.

Yet she had only to look into the magic mirror once and somehow, no matter how bad things got, everything would seem bearable once more.

"Its okay," she told her reflection with a brave smile after yet another day of rejection, "it doesn't matter when they look at me with pity or scorn in their eyes. Because you show me who I look like and as long as I know that I'm not ugly, its okay."

Despite her constant self-reassurances, she knew, deep in her heart, that something was amiss.

By instinct, she kept reaching out to brush her fingers against the cold, hard glass, trying to see if her reflection would change upon touch.

But the magic held and Rosette continued to believe in the lie her father had crafted specially for her.

Then, one day, she decided to go exploring around the castle. While sneaking around the kitchens, she chanced upon a maidservant looking at herself through a secret compact mirror.

Curious, she asked the maidservant where she had gotten the mirror from, for she did not remember seeing any mirrors around the castle. But the servant had been so terrified at being discovered that she'd fled, dropping the mirror in the process.

It shattered into thousands of pieces, glinting against the frosty, white marble floor. Rosette gasped as she stared at the broken shards of glass in shock.

For the reflection staring back at her, was not the one she was used to seeing everyday in her magic mirror.

It was the image of a girl with mousy brown hair and freckles. A girl with pasty skin and chubby cheeks.

The reason she faced rejection every single day.

Multiplied by a thousand times in every single shard of glass.

No, she whispered to herself, no, it cannot be.

The princess collapsed to her knees and started frantically sorting through the glass shards. She desperately searched for a piece that would show a reflection that didn’t tell her she was ugly.

Stop it! she wanted to scream out, Stop showing me what I don't wish to see!

But she didn't ... couldn't stop. Driven by some inner perverse desire to face the truth. To force herself to look reality in the eye and realize that her own father had been deceiving her all these years.

Her hands started to bleed from the sharp edges of the broken glass. Tears poured down her cheeks and mixed with the blood on her badly cut hands, staining her dress a crimson red.

By the time her father came onto the scene, she was huddled in one corner. The servants tried to coax and cajole her, but she refused to get up.

She simply sat there, staring unseeingly into space. And the look in her eyes, the servants whispered to the others after that, was of one who had totally lost her mind.

The king was heart-broken when he saw the state his daughter had been reduced to. He could barely speak for the guilt he’d been carrying for the past ten years now overwhelmed him.

He wanted to run to his daughter and hug her tightly. To brush the tears away from her eyes and tell her everything was going to be okay. He longed to say, I love you. You'll always be my beautiful daughter and no reflection in the mirror is going to change the way I see you.

But guilt turned into cowardice and he found himself unable to go to her and give her the comfort that she needed.

And it was all because he loved her too much.

From that day onwards, Rosette locked herself in her room and refused to come out. When the king replaced the door with one without a lock, she started walking around the castle at night.

Frightened servants claimed that she came to them, a pale wraith dressed in white, when they were sleeping in their beds.

"Am I beautiful?" she would ask in an expressionless voice.

Over and over again.

If she did not get a response, she would suddenly start weeping and this could go on for hours until she crumpled to the floor due to sheer exhaustion.

Otherwise, she would simply sit in front of her bedroom mirror and comb her hair, singing to herself at random intervals.

'Mirror, mirror on the wall
Who's the fairest of them all?'

She sang this particular verse off-key, turning a well-known fairy tale's line into an eerie tuneless chant.

It chilled the king's heart every single time he walked past his daughter's room, and he grew so haunted by it that he lost all appetite and ability to sleep.

He knew that he had to do something about it before his beloved daughter lost her mind entirely.

On a chilly day in winter, he sent out a royal proclamation stating that whoever managed to bring his daughter out of her depression would get half of his kingdom and his/her weight in gold.

News spread far and wide beyond the kingdom and before long, there were long queues of people lining to the castle. Some bore presents and gifts while others simply brought themselves, convinced that their jokes or stories would bring the princess out of her depression.

However, as the winter wore on, the queues started to grow shorter as one by one, the hopeful visitors dwindled to a few. Nothing seemed to be able to capture Rosette’s attention and the king was growing desperate.

Then, finally, the crowds dwindled down to one last person. She was a very young girl, not more than five years old. With frizzy red hair and bright green eyes, she had a smile that could melt even the hardest heart.

However, when she presented herself to the king in the throne room, he could not help but feel slightly dubious. After all, what could a young girl of five possibly do to help?

Nevertheless, he allowed the girl to enter Rosette’s room alone and waited outside anxiously.

She was his last hope now.

When the girl entered the room, Rosette was sitting at the same spot, softly singing the same verse to herself in front of the mirror.

Dust had settled on all the furniture and the room was dim and musty. Rosette’s hair was unkempt and she wore the same dress she’d been wearing since the day she discovered the broken mirror.

The girl did not seem to notice all of this as she stood there, her eyes fixed on the princess. Slowly, she closed the door behind her.

Rosette stopped singing and turned to stare at the little girl blankly. When the girl did not move, her eyes flickered back to the mirror, but she did not sing again.

The little girl started to walk silently towards Rosette. She still did not say anything, but when she reached the princess, she put her tiny arms around her.

There was a tense pause, as the princess stiffened automatically. Her skin reddened, and she looked as though she was about to scream.

But the girl continued to hold on to Rosette and didn't let go.

Then, something gave way, like the lifting of an evil spell, or the softening of a bitter heart.

The princess suddenly began to weep uncontrollably.

No one, not even her father, had dared to go near Rosette.

Earlier visitors who came to try their luck had instantly labeled her as someone insane and ugly upon first sight.

And she could see it in their eyes. The identical looks of disgust and outright rejection on their faces. Every single one of them.

Yet this little girl was different from all of them. She had dared to hug her with unreserved, genuine affection.

It didn't matter that she bore no gifts or extravagant presents. It didn't matter that she didn't try to pretend that she totally understood how Rosette felt.

Her company was more than enough.

When Rosette finally turned to look at the girl, she found herself staring into eyes full of a deep compassion that seemed frightfully old for someone so young.

In those eyes, she saw herself for who she truly was.

Her true reflection.

And she did not feel ashamed.

"You're beautiful, princess," the girl whispered softly, smiling as she placed one small hand against where Rosette’s heart beat. "Both inside and out."

The princess smiled through her tears.

It was then that she knew. The curse was finally broken.

The reflection in the mirror did not matter any longer.