The final court she would ever visit appeared similar to all the others—a confection of a palace; a striking queen with eyebrows dark and glossy like strips of luxurious fur; an ineffectual king who dozed on his throne, entrusting the running of the kingdom to his ministers; a joyful five-year-old boy. Posing as a chaplain’s long-lost third cousin on a brief visit, the fairy learned the lay of the land, decided on a spell, prepared the groundwork. And then something happened: she found herself procrastinating at the king’s court, for a week, another week, a month. She lingered in the company of the queen, who sang sad, tender lullabies to her son, stirring up the long-buried memories of the fairy’s own childhood in her hitherto hardened breast; for thus had her own mother sung to her at each bedtime. Then, too, she had to confess to growing quite fond of the king, who was not in the least like other kings of her acquaintance, not irate or oblivious, but mild and courteous, often overwhelmed, and given to occasional bouts of existential despair, which she found worthy of sympathy and, if truth be told, rather romantic. And last, she was—much to her surprise, for she had never shown any affinity for children—drawn to the boy himself. He had the face of a stained-glass angel, a sunny disposition, and a generous spirit. One day, he brought her a present—a watercolor quite advanced for his age, for he had a marvelous aptitude for art. He had depicted a beaming boy standing between beaming parents; the three of them held hands, while a pretty, if slightly plump, young woman hovered above the group on immense butterfly wings.
“This is me with Mama and Papa.” He pointed. “And this is you. Because I can see that you aren’t just a girl, you are a fairy. A good, beautiful fairy, the kind that grants wishes. And now, will you please grant my wish?”
“And what is your wish?” the fairy asked, smiling, as she scooped him up into her lap and pinched his little chin between her finger and thumb, a trifle too hard. “A new hobbyhorse, maybe? Or ice cream for every dinner?”
The boy’s blue gaze was clear and serious.
“I wish for you to stay with us, always. I love you.”
And at that very instant her injured heart melted and mended, filling with love in return. But tragically, it was too late. For just as the fairy cried great tears of repentance and relief over the child’s radiant chestnut curls, over his drawing of the happy family, of which she suddenly believed herself a part, frantic servants ran through the palace calling for their queen, yet calling in vain, for the queen had vanished. The fairy realized, then, that her spell had been accidentally set into motion, that the harm had been done, that the queen must have somehow chanced upon the enchanted apple and bitten into it—and worse, deep within herself, she understood that she might have meant for it to happen, for had she not, in a supposed fit of absentmindedness, left the poisoned apple on the queen’s vanity table only the night before? Had she not, in truth, been hoping to get the sweet-voiced beauty with the sable eyebrows out of the way so she could have the king and the boy all to herself?
Horrified, newly heartbroken, she remained at the scene of her crime for a while after, striving to do what little she could to right the wrong. She failed. She watched the king fall into grief so gray and impenetrable that he became like another ghost haunting the royal cellars. She watched the light leak out of the boy. She fled their palace in shame, swearing to atone for her dark, terrible sins with everything she did forever after, determined to dedicate the rest of her immortal life to performing selfless deeds, dispensing miracles, making sweet little orphans happy. And she tried, and she tried, she tried so hard—but everything she did seemed to go awry, quite as if she were cursed. Her wards were not grateful to receive what gifts she gave, and babes wailed at her approach. She built a wondrous gingerbread house in a shady pine forest, hoping to create a peaceful haven for hungry lost children—yet the only ones who came her way were an ungrateful, boisterous, poorly raised mob of boys, five or six brothers, who treated her abominably, nibbled away half her house, and in the end escaped her tender attentions to return to the woods, where they now led wild, undisciplined lives, swinging from trees, playing barbaric games, transforming into ravens when the mood was upon them, making regular assaults on her sugar windowsills and candy-cane fences, and spreading malicious rumors that she was a wicked witch intent on cannibalism and other unnatural practices. And still, she has not given up—oh, no—she has been knitting socks for the local orphanages, has been turning up at every christening, whether invited or not—“so many godchildren I have, all sweet, motherless orphans…”
She trails off.
“But what…” My voice is a croak when I find it at last. “What happened to that queen? The queen with the loving boy? What did you do to her?”
The fairy godmother wrings her hands in anguish.
“She turned into a chess piece!” she wails. “Such an elegant spell it was, too, a proper, elaborate spell, came with a flash of lightning and everything, a pity there was no one nearby to appreciate… That is, of course, it was dreadful, just dreadful… The poor dear… I found her on the floor of her bedchamber, rolled under a dresser, and I dusted her off the best I could and put her on display with some other knickknacks they kept in the palace library. For all I know, she is still there, I never did have the heart to check when I came back. Because, you see, I did return some twenty years later, when I felt that I’d rehabilitated my character with enough good deeds to earn me a second chance with the king and his son. Neither of them recognized me—true, I had become a bit matronly with time—but perhaps it was just as well. The king was still depressed, so I counseled him, and… and I was kind to him in other ways, too, and it did cheer him up, if less than it might have. But the boy—the boy had grown into a man in my absence, and the man was not nearly as nice as he could have been. Cold. A bit shallow. Uncaring, some might have thought. So I decided the best thing I could do for him was find him a perfect bride, the kind who was meek and quiet and patient and would bring out the best in him after a while—and, well—”
She falls silent and, pressing her hands against her chest, stares at me with eyes made enormous by the butterfly frames. I stare back, speechless. I think of the small glass cabinet in the library of my own palace, with its unassuming display of dusty objects—the bleary mirror, the blood-encrusted key, the apple with a bite taken out of its shiny red side, the ivory chess queen, and, in the place of honor, the crystal slipper.
“Do you understand, child? I did it for both of you. I promise I meant well.”
And just like that, I understand—I understand everything. I look at the pink china cups, the pink glowing lamps, the pink porcelain cupids, and see all these trappings of goodness and decorum for the mere illusions they are. For the woman before me, the plump, anxious woman wrapped in pink fuzzy shawls, blinking at me through the pink butterfly glasses from the heart of the pink cozy room, is evil, pure evil, a fat, glistening pink spider caught in the center of the web of harm she has been busily spinning for years and years, trapping me and my prince in her sticky snares, all to avenge herself for some half-forgotten childhood slight.