First posted December 2019.

Once upon a time, the fabric of the universe was woven into existence. By whom or what is and always has been a matter of much debate, but the queen is sure it must have been a man, for she could not believe a woman would weave such a particular cruelty into it as had been done. This cruelty, this inescapable tragedy of fact, is that a woman has no power except what beauty wins her. Beauty wins a husband to provide for her, or beauty wins her a way to make her own money, but without beauty she can secure neither. Without beauty she must struggle, and beg, and suffer all her days. Without beauty, a woman is nothing.

They, whoever they are, create a world unnavigable without beauty, and then tell her she is evil for wanting to be beautiful.

She is not beautiful, they tell the child. But perhaps one day she might be. When she grows up, perhaps a miracle will happen and she will wake up one day beautiful. At least, this is the fervent prayer, because if she doesn’t, her life will continue to be nothing but misery.

No miracle occurs. She remains ugly: clever, hard-working, kind, but none of it matters without beauty. What a shame, they tell the girl, what a shame that you are not worth the space you take up.

She starves; she thinks of nothing but food every day and dreams of food every night, but she starves. She slices her skin, rips the un-beautiful parts of herself off, and paints the remains. And so, the un-beautiful wretch becomes a beautiful queen, and fate is dead.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, am I worthy of a good life after all?

But the life she gains by the edge of a razor blade never ceases to be precarious. If her beauty falters, even for a moment, she loses everything. She is evil, they whisper, not simply because she wanted to be beautiful, but because she refused to accept her fate. Because she pursued beauty actively, rather than struggling, and begging, and suffering.

Because beauty cannot really be attained. You are born with or without it. And those who are truly beautiful will always win, in the end.

It is exhausting to want something like that: something that you could have been given once, but having missed it that once, will never be possible for you to have. Something you can try to pretend you have, but will never be more than a glamour, a pretty illusion, a lie.

She does not want to want it anymore. The kingdom will fall to the truly beautiful girl of whom the mirror speaks, the queen will die in flames, and she knows this, but she is tired. She just wants to stop feeling. The sadness, the jealousy, the anger, the indignation. She does not want to fight fate anymore.

She asks the mirror for a different favour today.

She feels the cold creep in at her fingertips, running like a half-frozen river up through her veins, slow and full of sharp shards of ice. She laughs like a cauldron bubbling over, weeping the last hot tears she will ever feel on her face before abruptly stopping as her heart turns to stone.