Ehrhart

The Evil Queen

At first the walk was normal. Beyond the drawbridge and the moat lie a field of flowers, with a path cutting through it that led off into the seven hills, ending in Snow White's village. Anastasia ventured away from the path, staying on the palace grounds. She picked a few flowers for her father- pretty purple ones and a few red ones that looked nice together- and then stopped when she heard the sound of metal hitting stone roughly. Slightly anxious but mostly curious, Anastasia headed away from the front of the castle and turned to the back of the palace in order to see what was going on. What she saw made her freeze.

Behind the palace, a winding, twisting gravel road ran off far into the distance. Men, women, and even some children, most of them bleeding, lugged huge, tight ropes that had huge clay or stone bricks tied on behind them, all walking in a line. Most of the people had the ropes slung over their shoulders so that the bricks would drag along behind. Most of the men were shirtless. The women were trying to be brave. The children were crying.

Who are these people? Anastasia wondered, heartbroken. Who could be doing this? Quickly, she ran over to the nearest child, a boy maybe six or seven. "What's your name?" She asked him.

The boy panted, hard. "Jack. Where's your brick?"

Anastasia thought for a moment. "I'm on break."

The boy's eyes widened. "You get a break? Lucky! How do I get a break?"

Anastasia shrugged. "I don't know." At least that was true.

Jack's face fell. "Oh." He struggled on, lugging the huge clay brick behind him. His shoulder was completely red and bleeding.

"Who..." Anastasia fought to word her question correctly. "Who's doing this?" She took a step forward to keep up with Jack.

Jack sighed. "Don't you know?" Then he searched her eyes. "You live here, don't you?"

Anastasia nodded. "I do. And I've never seen this before."

"The Queen," Jack said, answering Anastasia's question. "In my village, she's known as-" he looked around, pulled the brick closer, and then leaned in. "The Evil Queen. She's known as that in most of the outskirt villages in the corners of the kingdom."

"Even in Lohr am Main?" Anastasia asked, her voice cracking.

"I suppose so."

Anastasia sighed. "And so..."

"The Evil Queen is enslaving people from different villages near the outskirts, bringing us here."

"What for?" Anastasia asked, bewildered and oddly becoming angry.

Jack stared at her for a long moment. "To build that." He said, pointing at the huge line of villagers lugging bricks. The line twisted around the side of the castle, a place Anastasia had never been before. She left Jack with an acknowledging glance and headed to the other side of the castle, where she saw a horrible sight. The Queen- the Evil Queen- stood on a high wooden stool, posing as the enslaved villagers all dropped their bricks and shaped them on top of each other, forming a huge image. Other enslaved villagers acted as sculptors, kneading and molding the bricks together and slicing through them, rounding them out so that they formed a shape. And right now that shape appeared to be a set of legs and feet underneath a huge dress. It stopped at the waist because more villagers were coming with more bricks to be piled on. Other civilians took the role of painters, using different colored paints as they climbed up the legs and painted methodically, using a deep shade of royal purple, and a bit of cream and black. Anastasia looked back and forth between the queen and the statue, her mind whirling.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the pieces clicked together in Anastasia's mind.

The Evil Queen is enslaving her people to build a statue of herself. She truly is evil.

And when the Evil Queen broke from her pose to look in Anastasia's direction, the huntsman's daughter had gone.