She became vaguely aware of someone shaking her and chanting her name. She tried to ignore it through her slumber, groaning and covering her head with a pillow, but to no end. The voice told her, “Your Highness, you need to wake up so you can eat this breakfast I cooked before it gets cold. Lady Griimhiiildeeeee!” The voice desisted, and Grimhilde smiled with satisfaction.
“I made coffee.”
The queen’s eyes flashed open. She saw the pale girl with a white nightgown and, more importantly, a pot of coffee. A table on the wall of the room she’d slept in contained two plates with bacon, eggs, and toast, along with sugar, creamer, milk and two mugs.
Grimhilde crawled out of bed and took one of the seats at the table while Snow sat in the other. They ate and drank, and Snow offered more food, which Grimhilde declined. Then Grimhilde said, “Snow, yesterday you said that you wanted to learn how to use magic. Would you still like me to teach you?”
Snow smiled. “I would love that. What time shall we start?”
“Well, you have some dishes to clean, so I was thinking right now.”
Grimhilde opened a window in the kitchen and said, “The key to magic is to find where you draw your power. If you think a lot, you’ll use your brain to manipulate the world. That, I believe, is the most powerful form of magic. But if you’re an artist of some kind, you draw power from your hands, and so on. That is how you can tell a real witch from a fake one. A real witch can use her own magic; a false one has to use a wand. Do you know where your power is?”
Snow nodded.
“Then the first lesson is to pick up a dish. Do you think you can do that?”
“I can.”
Grimhilde smiled at her confidence. “Then just draw on your power source and think of what you want to be done.”
Snow inhaled deeply, then started singing the most beautiful song Grimhilde had ever heard. As she let loose, a bird entered through the window and picked up a plate, and then another came in and took a sponge and began cleaning the plate. A third bird flew in and took a rag, with which it dried the plate so that the first one could take the plate to the cabinet to which it belonged.
The queen was intrigued. Most people might simply stare at the plate until it began to slowly rise into the air, then become so absorbed with the fact that they were using magic that the plate drops, then repeat until they had found enough focus to bring the plate to the sink. Snow, however, was using an entirely different approach. She wasn’t manipulating the world around her on her own; she was giving instructions and letting things take care of themselves.
Snow must have foreseen how long her process would take, so she called in a flock of various species of songbirds into the kitchen and set up a system of washing, drying, and putting away the dishes. All the while, Snow did not end her ballad, nor did Grimhilde’s eyes cease to widen.
When Snow had finished with cleaning and had evacuated all the fowl from the room, the queen asked, “Young lady, where did that come from? It took me years upon years to come up with an effective way to control animals’ minds, and even now, I can’t use it for more than ten creatures! How on Earth can you just...just...do that?”
Snow blushed. “You were wrong. I draw power from my voice. The most powerful magic isn’t the one that you think about, it’s the one you sing about.”
Grimhilde smiled. “No, Snow. Watching you, I realize what I’ve been doing wrong. The strongest type of magic is the one you feel so strongly you have to sing about it.”
Grimhilde sent Snow to get dressed and clean her room so that she could speak with Mirror. “Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“You are, my Queen.”
“Mirror, there’s a problem. Go ahead and say, ‘I told you so.’”
“Um, I told you so.”
“Okay, so now that that’s out of the way, I think Snow may be lying to us.”
Mirror’s face appeared, laughing. “So you are telling me that some random girl you found at your doorstep who you let into your home for no reason has been lying to you? Oh, if only I had warned you of this!”
“Yeah, yeah, but the problem is–”
“‘Oh, the problem is she stole all of our most valuable items!’” Mirror mocked, mimicking Grimhilde’s voice predictably well. “Oh, I so told you–oh, you are clever, your Highness! I have already said that.”
Grimhilde smirked. “Are you done now?”
Mirror sighed. “Yes. Go on.”
“Good. Snow has been lying to us. She said that she wanted to learn magic, but I think she already knows it.”
“Did you come to that conclusion from the mark on her leg?”
“What mark?”
“The one that marks her as a witch of Satan.”
A wave of emotions swept over her. “What? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“I was going to inform you of it last night before you interrupted me,” Mirror answered gruffly.
Grimhilde was going to retort with some rude remark, but, determined not to start another fight, simply answered, “What are we going to do? She’s a devil’s witch, she is evil! We need to get her out of the house before–”
“That will not be necessary, your Highness.”
Grimhilde turned around. There, tears flowing down face, was Snow White.
