In the past two years, Grimhilde had spent plenty of time in the library, reading up on everything that could possibly stop or even define the attacks. There was one word she kept coming back to.
Vampire.
So now, as she sat in a chair, skimming through books like her life depended on it (because it very well might), her mind came back to the anger she felt when she realized the Huntsman had lied to her about going through with her orders.
She was originally going to have him executed, but he was nowhere to be found. She suspected that he had run away and hidden himself in the woods, knowing that he had done the wrong thing by betraying Grimhilde for Snow. Oh, well. She hadn't been sure how she was going to justify his death sentence anyway, without giving away that Snow was the attacker and that the Queen had failed to properly get rid of the princess. Let the kingdom believe the girl was innocent, for all they idolized her.
Her eyes scanned the page and landed upon the words: How to kill a vampire. Yes. This was what she was looking for. She quickly studied the rest of the page.
Sunlight is incredibly harmful to vampires, along with Holy Water. A wooden stake to the heart is fatal, and to them, touching garlic is dangerous, even lethal if ingested. The only thing that counteracts garlic is consumption of human blood, but the garlic should incapacitate the vampire and kill it before it gets a taste of the blood.
A plan began to form in Grimhilde's mind.
It took her all afternoon and all evening, but Grimhilde finally figured out how to inject an apple with garlic, so that it could not be discovered upon touch, but only upon taste.
She injected half of her twenty-four apples with the solution she had concocted, placing the safe apples at the bottom of the basket so the top layer all were garlic-infused. After her careful work was finished and inspected, she called her royal makeup artist (whom she rarely used) down to her undercroft.
"You sent for me, my Queen?" the makeup artist asked.
Queen Grimhilde reconsidered her plan for a moment, but it was quite obvious that no one was going to do the job right, and so she would have to do it herself.
"I'm going into town to check on something," Grimhilde lied, "and I'd rather not be recognized. Will you make me look like an old woman? They are the ones people tend to be kindest towards, and I want to check in on the town's hospitality and kindness towards one another."
"Of course, my Queen. Who would I be if I refused your orders? Come, sit down on this chair here, and let me get to work."
It took a long while, but after everything was finished, the Queen scrutinized herself in the mirror. When she was satisfied with the disguise, she turned to the woman who'd made her wrinkled, liver-spotted, and gray. "This is perfect. Thank you so much. I will see to it myself that your pay grade is raised."
The woman beamed. "I'm glad to be of service to you, my Queen!"
And she left.
The Queen donned a coal-black hooded cloak, holding a gnarled wooden cane in her right hand and hunching her back. She clutched her basket of apples and hobbled off into the forest.
It wasn't unheard of for particularly poor beggars to venture into the woods in search of business. There were a few houses deep within, and on the other side was another kingdom, one that had long ago allied itself with Grimhilde's own.
Grimhilde wasn't worried about getting lost at all. Before she was too busy to ever have free-time, she'd spent plenty of time in the woods. She knew the place like the back of her hand, and in the two years it'd been since she last spent her days there, it had hardly changed. The Queen knew there were few places Snow White would be able to settle. It wouldn't take her a while to find the girl, if she was still in the forest (though Grimhilde was sure she and the town would have heard about it if Snow had made an appearance elsewhere).
The Queen pushed her way through a thicket of leaves, careful to keep the branches away from her face, lest she ruin her disguise and put herself in danger.
Checkmate. The first spot she decided to look held a small cottage that hadn't been there two years before, the last time she visited the forest. It looked gentle and unthreatening... just like Snow did. It had to be where she was hiding away.
Grimhilde shuffled up to the old wooden door, and rapped her knuckles against it three times. A moment passed, and Grimhilde began to doubt that this was actually where Snow dwelled, but then the door opened and her stepdaughter peeked her head out.
"Yes?"
Grimhilde smiled the way she'd seen older women do in town, adopting the guise of a poor but kindly beggar. "Hello there, sweetheart. Are your parents home, by chance?"
Snow frowned slightly, clearly unused to not being recognized. "No, I live with seven little men, but they are out working in the mines. They won't be home till dark. Is there something I can help you with?"
"I live a few kingdoms over, but my family lost our home in a fire, and we didn't have anywhere to go." Snow White would have heard of such a tragedy if she still lived in the castle, but she resided in the woods now, and so she was out of the loop. The story would sound plausible to her. "I'm trying to make some money to support us, since we have next to nothing at the moment. Would you be so kind as to buy a few of these apples, dear?" Grimhilde gestured toward her woven basket. "It would help us so much."
Snow hesitated. "I-"
Grimhilde couldn't have her say no, so she interrupted. "You said you live with seven little men, correct? And they work in the mine? They must be awfully tired when they get home. I'm sure there's nothing more they would love than to have a bite of a sweet, crisp apple after working hard all day. You can try one for free, if you'd like, to see if they fit your taste."
Snow bit her lip. "I suppose you're right. But what if they are poisoned? Excuse my uncertainty, but I believe one should always be careful with strangers, even if they are kind old women."
Grimhilde smiled warmly at Snow again. "Of course, my dear, I understand that completely. What a good rule of thumb for a girl your age!" Grimhilde picked an apple off the top of the pile, a particularly shiny red one. She bit into it, chewed, and forced it down. It took all of her strength to not cringe at the flavor mix: sweet and pungent spicy. "If this apple was poisoned, sweetheart, I wouldn't have taken that bite, would I have? Here, now you can try it. You can decide if your seven little men would like it." Grimhilde offered the same apple up to Snow.
Grimhilde could see Snow's gears turning—she knew it'd be suspicious if she still refused—and so she plucked the apple from Grimhilde's grip, biting into the fruit. She chewed and swallowed, her brow creasing. She almost gagged, but tried to hide it. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm not quite sure they'd like-"
Snow's eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed on the cottage's doorsteps. Grimhilde barely got out of the way, lest she get toppled by the girl. Grimhilde looked down at her stepdaughter sadly, but noises in the distance caught her attention.
It sounded like a group of men singing merrily.
I live with seven little men, but they are out working in the mines. They won't be home till dark.
Grimhilde looked up at the sky and realized that night was beginning to fall. The singing was distant, but was steadily growing nearer, and Grimhilde knew she had to get out of the forest as soon as she could.
She left Snow's body on the doorstep of the cottage.
