The Fairytale Keeper

11 March 1247

11 March 1247, Afternoon

Once upon a time in the middle of winter, when the flakes of snow were falling like feathers from the sky, a queen sat at a window sewing, and the frame of the window was made of black ebony. And whilst she was sewing and looking out of the window at the snow, she pricked her finger with the needle, and three drops of blood fell upon the snow. The red looked pretty upon the white snow, and she thought to herself, would that I had a child as white as snow, with lips as red as blood, and hair as black as the wood of the window frame.

…she had a little daughter, whose skin was as white as snow with lips as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony, and she was therefore called little Snow White. And fifteen winters after the child was born, the queen died.

-Snow White

*

I place my hand on the nose of the brown workhorse as Father and Johan remove her dead body from its carriage. He shakes his head and snorts, the steam of his breath floating into the cold March fog.

I am not supposed to be motherless. That happens to other children. Yet here I am, watching Mama being placed on a pyre. My legs shake as I approach her for the last time. I haven’t slept in days.

A loosely-knit ivory shroud is tightly wound around her lifeless skin. Her once pink lips are violet and flattened. Mama is dead, I think. Seeing her again makes it all dreadfully real, and the grief robs me of breath.

I brush my fingers along the waves of her russet hair and trace her high cheek bones, her shoulder, the curve of her arm, finally resting them on her cold, hard hands folded gently across the waist of the cream-colored tunic.

Papa clears his throat, and I turn. My gaze catches on Galadriel. Tears trace thin trails, rounding fair cheeks to her trembling lips. I feel Father’s pewter eyes on me. He jerks his head, gesturing for me to stand at his side so the funeral can begin. The clouds are dark and heavy with the threat of storm. If a torrent comes, it will put the pyre out.

I watch him as I approach. He stares forward, his face a mask of steel. Men do not cry in Cologne, at least not outside the walls of their homes.

An icy gust tears the petals from the bouquet of dried lavender in my iron grip. I had plucked them from our mantle earlier today to lie on Mama’s ashes. Now they flit in the wind, a violet snow on an pewter day. Mama is too good for the dead, flaxen stems, I think, and toss the bouquet to the ground.

The dead flowers begin to roll away, but Father kneels quickly to collect them. He pushes them against my stomach and muffles a cough.

 The priest rounds Mama’s pyre from a distance, eying her like she died a leper. He positions himself upwind and makes the sign of the cross. ”In Nomine Patris, Et Filii, Et Spiritus Sancti, Amen,” he says.

“Amen,” we echo.

The priest speaks the funeral rite with haste.

Thunder rumbles, and Father Soren, with his eyes on the darkening clouds, speaks faster. I despise him and his church. In this, I know I am not alone. These vile men hide in their churches as the people of Cologne succumb to the fever without last rites. They are the ones who order the bodies of our family and friends to be dumped like refuse into the enormous pit far outside the city walls.

Yesterday, Father sent friends to find a priest who could serve Mama her last rites. St. Severin, St. Kunibert, St. Gereon… even the cathedral’s priests refused us.

It was Sunday, they said, and they were busy preparing for Mass. But I know better. No priest would come to our home for fear of catching the fever. In one breath, I pray Saint Peter shall pardon this missing sacrament and grant Mama entry to Heaven. In the next, I pray each cowardice priest perishes without last rites of their own. I hope they are placed on that horrid cart destined for the pit, their crooked bodies hanging from the edge of the cart with the poorest and most decayed victims, mouths agape, surrounded by flies.