THE AMBYS 2021 Runner-Up in Fantasy
REWIND THE CLASSICS 2021 Honourable Mention
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An Urban Fantasy Reimagining of Snow White
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When Jacintha Wight's husband died, the multi-million dollar cosmetics company Skin Deep wasn't the only thing she inh...
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Sometimes I feel like a queen in my office at the top of Wight Tower, looking out at New York's glittering skyscrapers standing like soldiers at attention. On other days, a certain fear rests against my back like a hand ready to push me through the windows, sending me plummeting to the grimy obscurity I spent years rising away from.
Like today.
Grey mist gathers within the mirror on my wall to form a mask. Her eyes open, revealing blank darkness behind them. Her mouth turns downwards like the classic mask of tragedy.
"Jacintha." Her voice ripples through the air, as enchanting as it was when I first heard it in a junkyard eighteen years ago.
The sound draws me to stand in front of her. "Cassandra."
As always, her lips are a dark, shimmering green like seaweed and fish scales. If it was a lipstick in my range, I'd name it 'Sea Witch Kisses'—a timeless name for a timeless shade.
Before I get too lost in my reverie, Cassandra clears her throat.
Returning to reality, I pull my shoulders back. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?"
"For years, it was you, but Snow, I fear, is now the fairest."
My stomach drops.
This is the first time Cassandra has given me this answer. As a woman in the beauty industry, I know what it means.
"The Board of Directors wouldn't appoint Snow CEO over me just because she's more beautiful."
I keep my chin up to hide my fear as I used to whenever Papá yelled. He raised his voice the more I cowered. My fear was to him what blood was to sharks. That was when I realised that the only way to survive in this world is by showing none.
"Perhaps," says Cassandra. "But as Alistair's daughter, Snow possesses much of the board's favour, and her charm has won her powerful friends in the industry."
Words type themselves into the search bar on my computer screen. The cursor steers itself onto a photo of Snow beside a woman with braids and gleaming dark skin—the CEO of Ayonna Cosmetics.
More photos click past of Snow smiling with colourful beauty gurus, dewy-skinned influencers and veterans of the cosmetics industry whose faces are unlined despite their ages.
I was too busy building Skin Deep to build relationships as Snow did. I spent my free time caring for Alistair and his little girl after the death of his first wife.
Maybe I'd have done things differently if I knew that little girl would become the biggest threat to my command of my company.
"You know how the board thinks," says Cassandra. "It's not about your experience or your intentions. It's about who can benefit the shareholders most, and that's Snow."
