Snow White's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Snow White ran because the huntsman had raised his knife and then let it fall. He could not do it. He told her the queen wanted her heart in a box, and that she must never come home. So the princess who had been raised to wait for a prince now ran alone through the dark trees, her yellow heels breaking the ground behind her. She did not understand it. The queen was jealous. People called Snow White the fairest in the land, and that praise had become a death sentence. She kept running until her legs gave out. Then she walked. Her heels sank into cold mud, once, twice, and she pulled them free and kept going. Three days passed. Maybe four. She lost count. The forest gave her nothing but roots and rain. She had always believed a prince would arrive to save her. No prince came. The thought of him kept her walking, but for the first time she wondered if wanting was enough. On the fourth morning she saw smoke. A small wooden cottage sat in a clearing, its roof green with moss, its windows glowing. Snow White stumbled to the door and knocked. When no one answered, she pushed it open and stepped inside. Someone else was already there. A small wooden boy stood on a chair, dusting a shelf with a rag far too big for his hands. His nose was long and straight, his hat yellow with a red feather. He turned, saw her, and dropped the rag. "You're not supposed to be here," he said. "I'm not supposed to be here either. So we match." Snow White gripped the doorframe to keep from falling. "Please. I have nowhere to go. The queen wants me dead." The puppet climbed down from the chair. He studied her muddy heels, her torn sleeves, her white face. "Queens want a lot of things," he said. "I ran from someone too. A man who kept telling me what I was for." He brought her a cup of water. His wooden hands did not shake. Snow White drank all of it. "Whose house is this?" she asked. "Not ours," Pinocchio said. "But it's warm, and the door locks." He crossed the room and slid the bolt shut. The sound was final. Snow White sat on the floor and breathed. She was alive. The huntsman had spared her. She had crossed the forest and found a locked door with a strange boy behind it. She was safe, for one night. But safety was not the same as home. She could not marry a prince from a stolen cottage. She could not fix a kingdom she had run away from. The queen still believed her dead, and that belief would not last forever. "I can't hide here," Snow White said. "I have to decide what I'm going to do." Pinocchio looked at the bolted door, then at her. "Then you'd better decide fast," he said. "Because someone always finds out."