The Story Retold!

He who sees the world from the eyes like hawk except that these eyes have more power than one could imagine. She loved the story of Snow White, like any other girl, except that she did not know that one day, she would be living one like that.

It was a mid-summer afternoon and she was sitting on her porch with a storybook in her hands. The words in Garamond said, “Snow White: The Story Retold” and below it was scribbled, “Because some secrets are better not revealed”.

Andrew Reynolds, the author was famous for his eerie depictions of fairy tales. He was fond of old tales and only retold them but with a twist so mysterious that instead of feeling the twinkle of fairies, a reader would be lost in the gloomy corners of castles that bore no mark of softness and shine but were desperate for the modern world darkness.

Mia was a teenager, a 16-year-old thin and pale girl who wore half-rim glasses. She was hardly noticed by her classmates or neighbors around. If at all, she had any friends, they were the books that sat in her personal library. She had more books than any teenager would have at that age and many of them were stories of magic and romance, in addition to Science, English, and Maths. Harry, her half-brother had once come to visit and had dropped his jaw, blurting an ‘ooh’ when he saw a shelf full of big and thick books.

“OMG! How many are they? 500?” He had said, looking at his kin who had smiled with pride, and was pushing her spectacles up.

Mia was so thin that even spectacles did not fit her well and kept slipping on her nose that would twitch every few minutes and then, she would adjust the glasses.

She had many books, collected crazily, like a mad scientist who would do the same with weird objects but Reynolds was the new book in her collection. She liked reading fairy tales but not the realistic or gloomy versions of them but she was almost finished with all the famous ones for her age and wanted to explore something new, not knowing that not those 499, but this 500^th book was what was going to change her life for real, something she had always wanted, except not in the way it happened.

The words were magical and made her feel every wrath and every chill that was in the story. Snow White was not called by that name for she was too fair in Andrew’s story but for she was born in the family of Whites who were the lords of a Kingdom so rich that Snow White never had to move an inch without the help of a maid. Her mother was not killed at birth but had given up her soul to a devil seeking childbirth in return and on her daughter’s 16^th birthday, she was taken.

“How creepy and sad,” she said to herself, “I feel like meeting this guy and telling her that no matter how bad life looks, it is never as hopeless as he shows. How can he ever sell his books? No wonder, he is a lost writer” She closed the book and curled up on her sofa, pulling the blanket that was resting on a chair nearby, and closed her eyes.

It was a bright white room with just a plain white window opening towards a vineyard that had ripened purple berries shining with the sparkle of dew. A large bed was lying in the middle of the room on which she sat, sadly thinking about her mother who had just lost, on her 16^th birthday.

“You wish to meet me?” came a voice and the girl looked up. A man wearing a black jacket over a white waistcoat, and charcoal trousers was standing on the other side of the bed. He gave a staunch look to the girl and bent a little towards her, "You wish to meet me?”, he repeated with a Duchene smile.

With his smile growing on his face, his furrows were also pulled up and his eyes gleamed suspiciously. For some reason, the girl did not feel comfortable, even at first, and then, felt a chill going through her spine, and screamed on the top of her voice, hiding her face with the cups of her hand. She was breathing heavily and slipped down on the bed. She stayed there, unmoving for a few minutes, with her hands still covering her face.

“What happened sweety?” came another voice, not of the man but of a female in her late thirties.

Mia slowly opened her eyes, moving her hands away, and looked around. She was not on the bed but the sofa, the bed was not white but rouge, and the window was painted with rosewood stripes. She looked around again, investigating every corner as if she was to ensure that she was in the right place. And then, she looked at her mom who was staring at her with her eyes full of questions.

Mom slowly touched her daughter’s face and caressed her cheek, “Did you see a bad dream?” she asked in a slow voice.

Mia quickly pulled herself out of her nightmarish dream and hugged her mother tight. For a few minutes, she kept holding on to her cozy arms, and then, she flipped back, immediately reaching out to the book that was still lying on the table where she had kept it before drifting into sleep.

She pushed it up, waved her arm backward, and with full force, threw the book into the air. The book flipped open and its papers made crispy noise, some were even torn out and flew in the air first and then, were dropped on the ground where the book also landed after taking a swirl.

“I hate this book”, said Mia and got up from the Sofa, leaving her mother wondering, not even bothering that she would have to clean Mia’s mess after her.

“God knows what happened to this girl. She never behaves like this. The book must be really bad” Myra convinced herself and started putting the pieces of the book together. She was a very organized woman and did not like anyone throwing things and the same was with her daughter but today, Mia seemed different.

As Myra picked up the papers of the book, she looked at the reckless drawings of weird faces that were shining from the pages. In one paper were a creepy face drawn with a huge hat over his head and a black and white three-piece suit that he was wearing. She gave it a good look, “This man looks really scary”.

“She wished for me” She heard a hushed voice that sounded like it was coming from the book. At first, she thought that it was an illusion and ignored it but as she put the paper inside the book and bent down to pick another up, the voice came again, except that it was louder this time and she felt it like a whisper in her ear.

“She W I I I I S H H H E D for Meeeeee”.

“Aaaah!” She could not help but scream and the book slipped from her hands. The next moment, the book was lying upside down. She was shivering with the lack of belief but she could not be believing that something like that was even possible. She was an educated woman and a psychologist who understood how the mind worked. She went down again, except slowly this time, with hesitation that was visible in her throat that looked dry and her heart that was banging so bad that she could hear the beats in her ear.

She picked up the book and as she turned to face it up, her eyes bulged out from the socket.

“Nooooooooooooooooooo” She threw it again. The book was back with its pieces well tucked as if it was never torn, never thrown, and never read. It looked as new as one brought fresh from a bookstore. Her breath fastened and a drop of sweat started to take shape on her forehead. She wanted to throw the book but could not gather the courage. Instead, she decided to leave it as it is and turned away.

To her greater horror, the man from the book was standing right behind her, “I WANT YOUR SOUL” He said, still whispering but louder.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooo,” She screamed again but this time, she could not hold it anymore. Her heart had given up and she slipped into unconsciousness, falling down with a thud on the ground. Her long hair was pulled over her face and her hands were curled up supporting her head as it touched the ground.

The man looked at the lady without a change in expression. He pulled his one leg and hung it over her.

“MOM!” came the familiar voice of the young girl which stopped the spooky man from harming her mother. He drew back his leg and looked at the poor girl tilting his head slightly towards her.

Mia slowly walked to her mother, bent down. Tears hurled up in her eyes and she gave a faint cry, and then, she slipped on her mother’s shoulders, hoping that it was only a dream except that it was not.

“Do you want her to live?” He asked her with the same old expression shining on his face and with an unwavering voice except that it was not hushed anymore.

She pulled herself and turned to look at him, “What?”

“Do you want her to live?” He repeated.

“Of course, I do,” she said, wiping her tears off.

“Then, you have to give me your soul,” He said.

“What?” She frowned, unable to believe the words, nor what she was seeing.

“You read the book so you have the duty to live it. She is your mother who had to trade her soul as per the story but Andrew loves twists so if you are willing to give me yours, she will be free!” and that was the end of it.

It was not a nightmare, nor an illusion. It was a story, the twisted version of her old favorite. A story that she was going to now live, except not the way she would have wanted.