Mirror Mirror [ONC 2021 Version]

ELEVEN

Millie Hood, the once ordinary lass from the forest deep, led Ruby-Rose and Sir Bashful through countless more forks in the road and it hadn't been till she could see the strong red roots of the trees above breaking through the dirt; not until their scratches left her arms aching, that her memories of what she'd once called home flooded in.

Home. What an odd notion it was now. She'd lived with her aging granny in the Red Forest since she was a child of eight, for she was one too many mouths to feed at home where her Poppa stayed. A home that was no more the same after her mother passed from the Blight. Millie had once been the eldest of three siblings; siblings she now had tucked away safely in their own hut, with their own hearth and plenty of food—no thanks to a bitter father wrapped around the finger of a snake he'd married. A snake who had for all intents and purposes attempted to kill her siblings so feed them she didn't have to.

Lucky for her kin, Millie—cloaked in her Granny's red robe—had been roaming the woods that day, in search of rare herbs she had asked her to fetch. Lucky for her kin the herbs Millie needed grew around a certain, spine-tingling, stomach-curling old cottage.

Lucky for her kin that day, a wolf had indeed chased Millie through the red forest in hopes of a grand feast. A forest Millie knew like the back of her hand by then... luckily.

She had also known how close she'd been to a shelter whose herbs she sought—and for safety's sake, she'd bolted—towards that old gingerbread-smelling cottage of the old Grouch; a smell designed to hide the stench of death that often lingered about. The Grouch dare not touch Millie though, for fear of her Granny—a far more powerful magic-wielder than she.

It was also very lucky for her kin that Millie soon realised upon entering the steamy den that the wee children the witch had in captivity sounded oddly similar to her own brother and sister. A boy who looked oddly familiar upon a sneak peek about the cesspool of a chicken coop—being fattened, was none other than her dear Hansel. And the girl, chained about the hearth, forced to cook—a girl she hadn't seen since she was a toddler—was called Gretel, the name of the youngest Hood of all.

Lucky for the children, the Grouch hadn't refused Millie shelter from the wolf.

"My, what red checks you have, like red apples!" The grouch had slurred her words in, salivating as she shut the door behind Millie, leaving the peeved off wolf to howl at the moon.

Millie, a child who had never liked the witch nor the act of lying, had sneered as she kept her Granny's protective red robe on. "And my, what big eyes you have!" she had fired back, scuttling to the window to see if the wolf was still about.

The witch had shuffled towards her kitchen, hunched over like a crooked nose. "What better to see you coming, of course, dear!"

If words could have been laced with poison, Millie had been sure that day, the old witch would have poisoned her and made a good meal out indeed. Millie had filled out her skeleton more since having moved in with Granny.