In a kingdom far away, where winters stretched long and Snow White“>snow white fell softly and , a queen sat beside her window sewing.

Ebony black was the window frame. Paper white was the snow falling outside. When she pricked her finger with her needle and three drops of blood fell into the snow below, she sighed and wished.

She wished for a daughter with snow-white skin, red lips for blood, and hair as black as the ebony frame upon which she leaned.

Soon thereafter, her wish was granted. A little girl was born fair and bright as she had wished her to be, and the queen named her Snow White.

Happily ever after doesn’t always last nine months in fairy tales. Her queen mother died shortly thereafter, leaving the child alone in an empty palace far larger and colder than she’d realized.

—

He married another. She was beautiful, stunningly so—terrifyingly so at times—and she knew it. She had a magic mirror, framed in gilded gold, which hung upon her chamber wall, and each morning she stood before it and asked.

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?

And each morning it answered her with the confirmation she desired.

**You, my queen. You are fairest in the land.

It pleased her. For a time.

Snow White grew contentedly in the palace. She was quiet and kind and knew nothing of how envied she was by her stepmother for possessing beauty without equal. She ran through the gardens, spoke with the birds, and smiled for everyone she met in a way that stayed with them long after she passed.

And when Snow White was seven years old, the queen asked her mirror the same question she asked every morning.

The queen paused.

**You are beautiful, my queen. Truly, you are. But Snow White is the fairest in all the land.

The queen froze.

It was that morning that everything changed.

—

Her hatred grew slowly at first, like mushrooms in the dark. But once it started, it grew quickly until it consumed her whole, and there was nothing left but hatred for Snow White. She could hardly look at the child without recoiling in jealous spite. She could hardly stand for the servants to compliment the young girl without feeling a knife twist in her gut.

She summoned one of her huntsmen to her chambers that night and gave him an order that no honorable man should ever have to give. He was to take Snow White deep into the forest and let her be lost forever. He was not to bring her back.

The huntsman obliged, leading Snow White through the forest the following morning with a leap in his step. Snow White skipped along beside him, happily oblivious to the flowers, chatting with the birds, and trusting him as she trusted everyone.

But when the time came for him to do it, he couldn’t.

He looked into her eyes and simply couldn’t bring himself to kill her.

Instead, he crouched down in front of her. “Run,” he said. “Run deep into the woods. Run until you think you can’t go on. But don’t ever return to the palace.”

Snow White looked at him, eyes wide and scared in her dark face.

Then she was off and running.
The forest was dark and ominous in that way deep forests can be ominous—thick with shadows and noises and glimpses that the imagination fills in with things far scarier than reality. Snow White ran until she couldn’t run anymore, stumbling across tree roots, branches snagging at her hair, and light disappearing beneath the ceiling of leaves above her head.

She collapsed to the ground, breathless and frightened. She sat for a moment, heart racing.

Then she noticed it—peeking through the trees, there was a light.

Snow White followed that light.

It took her to the tiniest cottage she had ever seen, built into a clearing in the woods so perfectly symmetrical it looked like a child could have traced its silhouette. Everything about the cottage was small—the door, the windows, the chairs within, and seven tiny beds arranged in a row against one wall.

Snow White entered the house. She found the kitchen and set to work—sweeping floors, washing dishes, and putting everything in its place like she always did wherever she happened to be. When she was too tired to stand anymore, she collapsed across three of the beds shoved together and fell asleep immediately.

—

The owners of the little cottage returned home just after dusk.

Seven dwarfs, small miners who spent their waking hours miles beneath the earth’s surface searching for precious stones and metals and returned each night weary and hungry but happy in the way people with families who work hard at honorable labor can be happy. They were Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey, and beneath the hardness of their exteriors and the faults they let the world see, they were good men.

They discovered their cottage clean, their kitchen tidy, and a beautiful girl asleep across the three beds they owned. They stood there together in a line, looking at her, frozen in shock that melted into something else.

Snow White woke up to find seven sets of small, serious eyes staring down at her and told them everything that had happened to her simply and honestly as she would later tell anyone who asked her her name.

The dwarfs listened quietly. When she was finished, they looked at each other.

“She stays,” Doc said.

Not even Grumpy disagreed, though he argued and complained as if he did.

Snow White remained in the cottage. She cooked them meals and cleaned their home, and the dwarfs headed out to work before sunrise and returned after sunset, and it was, all things considered, a small makeshift family.

Before they left each morning, they drilled one thing into Snow White’s head because they were serious enough to sound ridiculous when trying to scare their deepest fears into someone else.

“If someone knocks on the door, do not answer it. Do not open the door for anybody. Understood?”

Snow White understood.

—

At the palace, meanwhile, the magic mirror finally said what the queen wanted to hear least.

Snow White was still alive.

Snow White was alive and living with seven dwarfs in a cottage deep in the forest.

And still she was the fairest of them all.

The queen returned to her chambers and did not emerge for many hours.
When she left, she was unrecognizable.

She had dressed herself in a hooded cloak, bundled up, and was as old as anyone the prince had ever seen, with grey hair, a pinched, lined face, a kerchiefed head, and wrinkles around her mouth. She wore rags and pulled a dirty basket behind her on a string.

Inside the basket: an apple. Half red and half green. Painted to perfection.

The red half had been dipped in poison made from bitter sleep.

She stepped into the woods.

~

Snow White was sitting by herself in the cottage when she heard someone knock.

She remembered her promise as soon as she heard it. Poorly feigned regret echoed through the wooden door. “Sorry,” she said, “but I can’t let you in.” Strangers.

The old woman at the door held up the apple.

Snow White could not help herself.

It was so red. Glowing, perfect.

The old woman smiled knowingly at Snow White’s weakness and said she meant no harm by it, no offense; she just wanted Snow White to try the apple. It was a gift.

“A gift?” Snow White echoed uncertainly.

“Why, yes,” said the old woman. “Just a little gift.”

She leaned closer to Snow White and smiled.

“I want nothing in return.”

Snow White opened the door.

She accepted the apple.

She took one bite.

And fell asleep.

~

The dwarfs returned to an empty cottage.

At first, they called her name. Through pounding hearts and sudden realizations, they shouted at the empty rooms until their voices grew hoarse.

Then they pulled her to her feet.

She collapsed back onto the floor.

Still unconscious.

I’m still clutching the apple to my chest.

The dwarfs pulled their tiny mining clothes over their nightgowns and ran frantically to each corner of the Earth, searching for someone, something that could wake their sister back up.

When no one could, they sat with Snow White in shifts.

No one could bring themselves to touch her.

Let her sleep, they thought. It isn’t real if she is awake.

She looked so peaceful that way.

So unchanged.

Days passed, and the dwarfs finally built Snow White a glass case.

They put her inside of it and placed it atop a hill where the sunlight would filter through the trees. They each took turns sitting beside her bed, and they never stopped crying, not for one day.

~

A prince was riding his horse.

He rode through that forest many weeks later.

Maybe it had been months. Maybe it had been years. But the prince was riding, and he wasn’t thinking of Snow White or looking for trouble or any of the other nonsense that leads characters like her into stories like these.

But there she was.

Built into a glass case and put on display atop a little hill.

The prince stared at her for a long time.

The wait was long enough that his horse turned around and looked back at him, confused.

He asked the dwarfs who she was.

They told him.

In between hiccuping breaths and shaky sorrow, they told the prince Snow White’s story until he knew it better than his own.

He asked the dwarfs for permission to say goodbye.

If he could just stand beside her glass coffin and say goodbye, it would help him find closure.

They looked at each other.

Nodded.

The prince leaned in.

He kissed her forehead.

She woke up.

Snow White opened her eyes.

“Hello?” she whispered.

Her hand shot up to her mouth.

“This is…” Snow White stuttered, glancing between her saviors.

Her eyes grew wide when she noticed her reflection in the glass box.

“Oh my…” Snow White breathed.

She looked up at the blue sky peeking through the trees above her glass prison. She looked at the seven dwarfs gathered around her—sniffling, smiling, and amazed. She looked at the prince holding her hand.

Slowly.

Snow White pushed herself upwards, wiggling out of the bottle till she at least stood eye-to-eye with everyone around her.

“I was asleep,” she said.

“You were,” the prince murmured, smiling into her hair. “But you aren’t anymore.”

~

When the queen realized her mistake with her magic mirror, she didn’t take it particularly well.

That’s her story, though, and it doesn’t get to end this one.

Snow White married that prince, and the dwarfs danced at her wedding, their happiness bubbling over their small bodies.

They stayed friends with Snow White, lived together in the cottage in the forest, and visited her kingdom whenever they could. Snow White promised to always remember them, that none of this would ever change how she felt about those seven silly men who rescued her from sleep.

Snow White lived happily ever after.

As most of us should.

With help, of course.

🌙

If you want to read more like this, click here: Cinderella Adventure