“The toad,” a sibilant whisper to the raven makes it come flying towards the Wicked Witch, a black plumage of it falling to the steep floors of the coven stead. It drops a cold, lifeless animal into the claw-like grips of its owner. Pockmarked and dirty skin wrapped around pale and long fingernails. She cuddles the toad in what she calls a hand, examining the sweltered venom in it. A growl escapes from her throat as she exhales in happiness. Just perfect.
She remains serious, turning the few ingredients in the pot with her dog’s skeleton femur. After a few more witchy spices and what seems like ten minutes, she looks expectantly at her raven, her icky nose drawing back and forth from the isolated place it is located on her face. She had changed into the hideous hag she chose to bear for this particular occasion.
Intelligent and wise as it was, it picks up a potion from one of the numerous shelves, “Caw!” the raven croaks gurglingly, gently pouring the baboon’s blood into the cauldron.
Following after, she sprinkles an unknown mixture, gotten from inside her black cloak, into the pot, causing the flames underneath to ignite a reddish colour, “the final ingredient.” She stirs and stirs, smoke covering the entire stead.
“Boil, cauldron, boil. Boil, cauldron, boil. Death within thy depths I see, for one who dares to rival me. Brew the magic recipe; boil, cauldron, boil!” Chanting repeatedly, her voice crescendoes, lifting the spell effect - with her hair taking various directions, grasping onto multiple things at once, throwing them against the other. The smoke surrounds her throat line, whirling. It wasn't the first time understanding what was going on, so the raven croaks again, taking shelter behind the rusted stairwells. The floors creak at all edges as the cracked ceiling drops its wooden splinters at the double.
Cackle, cackle, cackle goes the witch, her powers rising to its fullest. She drops the apple into the concoction with a splash, the green potion wetting her face. The charm was firm and good. That was part of the signs in the book.
As the roofing burps, splitting apart from its truss and falling back with a thud, the raven comes out of hiding and settles on her left shoulder, the evilest part of her entire body. Using a ladle, she retrieves the apple from beneath the pot, breathing air onto it to make it shinier and redder.
“Try some, will you?” she grasps the raven by its feathered neck, letting it taste a dangerous whiff of the fruit. It scurries away from her loose grip. He is not the one she is after, she remembers laughing maniacally.
The deed was about to be done.
As a strange being saunters through the garden path to a cottage, the rumble of the thunder in the sky and short light bolts create an eerie feel.
“La, la, la,” a child with skin as white as snow, hair as dark as ebony and lips as red as blood sings giddily, cleaning the small house she occupied with seven other people, some nice dwarfs.
“Knock knock,” the jubilating voice of a woman resounds through the room.
Snow White, young and curious, walks over to the door, opening it wide for the visitor, “Who goes there?” She looks at the old, unkempt woman with a basket beneath her right pit, no shoes to cover her swelling feet and abscesses too many they formed a unique shape of inscriptions. Never had she seen someone like the woman before.
“Princess—” the hag drawls, putting to her face an apple, irresistible and sweet looking, “—I’m a journeyer, and I seek an exchange for this only fruit I have.”
“What kind of exchange shall I give to you?” Snow White asks bewilderedly, the woman walking behind her and shoving her in all places with the apple.
“You shall see, princess. A single bite and that’s all I want”, she mumbles, placing the ghastly red apple into Snow White’s cupped hands.
When she breaks the tender peel to taste the apple in my hand, her breath will still, her blood congeal, then I’ll be fairest in the land!
The skies darken by the seconds ticking, and then a body drops to the cold carpeted floor.
“Mirror mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?” Queen Grimhilde asks, excitedly, the roundish magic glass at her disposal.
“Thou, O Queen, art the fairest in the land.” Satisfied with the response, she skips away to her stead on a hill.
The seven dwarfs troop into their house one after the other, meeting a purple coloured Snow White laying dead on the ground.
Amazed and horrified, they pull at her, in an attempt to wake her up from the reverie she has been engulfed in.
A movement at the door, some indiscreet talk and knock peel the dwarfs’ eyes off their lonely princess. A whiter as snow creature walks in through the door, shuffling over to Snow White, crouching down to her body in a heap.
It was almost exactly how he had dreamt it to be; she eating the poisoned apple, she fainting, the witch disappearing, he coming to find new friends while travelling with his guards from the palace, he seeing her on the ground outside, he walking over and reviving her. The only difference was a few details.
Dreams were never meant to be that accurate, he acknowledges, throwing his ermine coat over her.
It was going to be a simple process: say the magic words and dig his fangs into her awfully pale skin, then she wakes up.
“Isolated from reality, roaming the world asleep, you take refuge in your dreams, drowning out your conscience,” he whispers, his face disappearing into her neck, revelling in frenzy, the rhythm of the mouthful after mouthful suck, and the slight shudder she gave under his touch.
“Cough,” she awakes, with a different golden glint in her eyes and an alabaster shade to her white body.
Hello to vampirism, dear love. He coos with delight to her, telepathically. They were now one, in soul and mind.