Read Sneaky Snow White (Dark Fairy Tale Queen Series Book 2) for Free Online Page B

and draw a deep breath. Oh, I’m so scared.
    I turn back to the room, my eyes still lowered. Though I’m not looking directly at it, I can see it. Huge and dark and ovular, like a great mouth waiting to swallow me. I wrap my arms around my body, over the simple grey dress Hunter gave me. With awkward, shuffling footsteps, I creep toward The Mirror.
    It’s glad to see me. Waves of love and warmth wash over me and I almost feel as if I’m being caressed by ghostly hands. But I resist. I don’t want to feel happy. I just want to know where Hunter is.
    I’m now standing in front of it. Still hugging my sides, my head downward, my hair a black waterfall around my face. Cinderella used to talk to The Mirror, out loud. I don’t want to – it feels stupid – but I guess I have to try.
    “C-can you tell me where Hunter is, please?”
    I feel another wave of warmth and a message comes with it. Look.
    No, I don’t want to look. I just want an answer.
    The Mirror is waiting. Patiently. Lovingly. All it wants me to do is look. It won’t hurt me. It won’t frighten me.
    I’m shaking with the fight to resist. Looking gives it power, I have seen that with Cinderella. But if I don’t look, it won’t tell me. And I have to find my Hunter.
    Slowly, I turn up my face and I lift my eyes.
    There’s a girl in the mirror. A young girl, no more than eight years of age. She is small and soft and gentle. Everything about her is beautiful, her delicate hands, her shining black hair, her tiny pink mouth that smiles sweetly. I can feel this child is precious, so precious to The Mirror. And the child is me.
    Like a well flooding over, emotion surges through my body and my eyes fill up and drop tears. I have not felt like anyone’s precious child since I lost my mother. I felt abandoned. Often, I still feel like a child that needs someone’s arms to curl into. I wasn’t expecting this, that The Mirror would understand me. That it would know me.
    I’m no longer afraid. I feel calm and confident. I know how to speak to The Mirror.
    “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall. Where is my Hunter, brave and tall?”

~*~ 17 ~*~
     
    My reflection fades. A scene appears before me as if I’m looking through a window. I see the dungeon and a stone slab on the floor shifting sideways. Hunter climbs out, emerging from the secret passage. The Mirror makes me understand that what I’m looking at has already taken place.
    He creeps through the dungeon, his eyes alert and wary. Slowly, he makes his way up through the palace, easily avoiding the idiot guards who have grown too used to safety. I gave Hunter instructions on how to reach Cinderella’s chamber. After a few wrong doors, he locates the parlor and the stairs that lead up to her room.
    I feel proud as I watch him. He’s as silent as a bobcat, his face expressionless. As he glides up the stairs, he slowly eases the crossbow off his back. My heart begins to pound with excitement. Maybe he did it. Maybe the reason I haven’t seen him is because he’s out burying her body.
    Hunter reaches the top of the stairs and the corridor that runs outside Cinderella’s chamber. The angle shifts so I can see what he sees. The doors to Cinderella’s chamber are closed. And she’s lying on the floor outside of them.
    I mean it. Cinderella is lying on the floor, in her long black dress, shut out of the room that holds her precious mirror. She’s curled up like a sleeping cat, her back facing Hunter. Talk about the perfect target.
    Hunter crouches on one knee and lifts the crossbow. For a long minute, he simply stares at her, his finger hovering over the trigger.
    Come on, Hunter, I think. Just do it!
    Cinderella stretches and rolls onto her back. She sees Hunter. Slowly, she pushes herself up until she’s sitting against the door. Her hand is pressed to the place where I cut her, above the swell of her stomach. I don’t know why Hunter doesn’t shoot her now. Her face looks dead already.
    Her beautiful blue