The Only Things That Last Forever

A murderous queen stalks the child whose beauty threatens to overthrow her.

‘Snow White shall die,’ the Wicked Queen cried, ‘even if it costs my life.’

She slithered to a secret room, where no soul was allowed, and there she made a poison apple, white on the inside, red on the outside. She painted her face with alabaster greasepaint, rouged her hollow cheeks with berries from the forest floor, and dressed herself up as a fruit farmer’s wife. She climbed seven frosted mountains and crossed seven frozen lakes before finding the place where Snow White hid from her—a humble cottage far from the castle in which she born (for the girl was a princess and the Wicked Queen her evil stepmother)—and knocked upon its dainty door.

‘Come see my wares,’ she sang with winsome charm, ‘White Winter Pearmain, quite plump and ripe, picked fresh today for baking and eating!’

Snow White did not open the door, but rather the window, and only a crack. ‘I cannot let you in,’ she said. ‘Alas, the seven dwarfs forbade me…’

‘No matter, my child’ replied the Queen, careful to disguise her vo…