Misfit Trials

Chapter 32

Within a fortnight, Rose Red makes it to the cabin. Her typically dusky brown skin, darker from her time in the sun. Her typically pristine ebony black hair, disheveled. Even her deep red lips, chapped and peeling.

It had been a difficult journey for her and she is frail and weak when she arrives at the dwarves' doorstep.

"Sister!" Snow White cries when she opens the door to find Rose Red slumped on the doorstep. "Help! Snick, Glick, Blick! Help me get her inside!"

The dwarves hurry to her side, finding Snow White kneeling next to the girl who seems nearly passed out on the step.

"Who she?" Glick asks, curious.

"Where from?" Snick asks, suspicious about the girl, as he is of everyone outside of his home and family.

"Hurt bad?" Blick asks, unsure what to do.

"JUST HELP ME GET HER UP!" Snow White screams. The brothers stumble back from Snow White, afraid of her for the first time. They had never seen her cross, let alone screaming and looking like she would murder them if they hurt the human girl on the steps.

"NOW!" Snow White screams again.

Snick, Glick, and Blick hurry to do her bidding, helping her to pick up the girl on the steps and bring her into the house. "To the bedroom. Pick, boil water! Flick, bring me some rags to clean her. Whick and Quee, bring food and drink."

The cottage is in turmoil as everyone runs to complete Snow White's instructions. She snipes at each of them, ministering to her sister throughout the night.

By morning, Red Rose has finally regained consciousness.

"Sister," Snow White quietly exclaims, hugging Rose Red tight. "I'm so glad that you are safe!"

Rose Red chuckles. "Of course I am. It'll take more than a few days without food and drink to kill me."

"Did you get it?" Snow White whispers. Even though they are alone, she has found that the dwarves show up unexpectedly all the time. They are quiet and nosy. Though the dwarves may not understand everything that Rose Red and Snow White might say, it is better to keep their voices low.

Rose Red shoots her a look. "Did you doubt that I would? It's in the inner pocket of my corset. Sewn along the hem."

Snow White flashes her sister a malevolent smile. "Sneaky." She searches through her sister's discarded clothing until she finds the corset.

"It's why I went and you found the dwarves. I'm a better thief and you're a better liar," Rose Red says, holding her hand out for the corset. She picks at the seams until they come loose and stone that looks like plops of clay on top of each other, that had been smoothed into a flat piece of rock.

Snow White wrinkles her nose. "Doesn't look like much."

"Doesn't have to, as long as it has its power," Red Rose says. She sits up and waves her hand over the rock, muttering an incantation. Suddenly, the room brightens from the power that the stone possesses.

Snow White's grin is a scary thing to behold. "Perfect. How long will it take to get the spell together. I can't stand having to cater to these little men anymore."

Rose Red responds in a sharp tone, "You better figure out how to, sister dear, because it takes a moon for the potion to be ready."

"'Snails, will this never end? I just want to get to the end of this charade and get to what we're really supposed to be doing with our lives," Snow White whines.

"Well, that time is not now," Rose Red bites out. She was always the quicker to anger, the one with the shortest tempter. "You had better go make sure that they are still under your charms. I do recall you yelling at them as you brought me in the house."

"A witch of such power should not be required to bow to such maggots as these. To curry their favor," Snow White spits out.

Red Rose grabs her sister's face in her hands, her grip tight and her voice full of steel. "You will do what is required of you in order to achieve our goal. I care not that you find it distasteful. It is needed and you will do it. Do you understand?"

Snow White pushes her sister's hands off of her. She tries hard not to show the fear that is in her eyes, trying to mask it with anger. "Fine! Wash up and get dressed. I'll get downstairs and make nice with the worms."

Snow White leaves her sister in the bedroom, leaning on the door as she closes it. Rose Red scares to the point of freezing the marrow in her bones sometimes. Wiping her hand down her face, Snow White reminds herself that it will all be worth it once the potion is done and they can follow through with their plan.

Snow White makes her way down the stairs and finds the seven dwarves sitting in the living room, watching her with petrified expressions on their faces.

Snow White wants to laugh at their expressions, showing her power over them. But that isn't part of the plan. Not yet, anyway. So she plasters a fake smile on her face and she puts a happy note in her voice. "Friends! My sister is awake. It is a cause for rejoicing!"

"Sister?" Whick asks.

"Girl your sister," Snick asks, the ever present anxiety and distrust in his voice.

"Nother Brother?" Quee asks, barely following another in the conversation.

"No, Quee!" Pick says, rolling his eyes. "They girls. Girl is sister. We tell you that!" Quee, being the second youngest, gets rather easily angry with Quee. He knows that a lot of things that Quee should understand, he doesn't. But he also resents Quee for taking over the spot as baby in the family and, ultimately for their parents leaving.

Snow White gives a fake contrite face. "I am so sorry for the way that I treated all of you yesterday. When I saw my sister in such a bad way last night, I lost my mind. I never would have thought she would have come here like that. I am very, very sorry for the way I reacted."

Seeing the remorse on SnowWhite's face. And they immediately forgive her, moving in for a hug. And each time, Snow White reminds herself what all of this is for. Soon, she and Rose Red will have everything that they dreamed of.