Unveiled

"Tighter" She grits out, her knuckles white from the seemingly painful grip on the oakwood table, crafting nail marks, next to the ones she left yesterday, and the day before, and each day before that. She visibly winces at the rough heel digging into the back of her thigh to stabilize the painful tugging of lace. "Suck in." Her maiden Devina exasperates, rivulets of sweat crawling towards her golden bronze collarbone.

With one last excruciating pull from her abdomen and a strained grunt, her waist became desirable, and her organs started to shriek in agony.

“Thank the gods”, Devina muttered under her breath, but her voice was drained out by the utter admiration displayed by her mistress, Aubrey Anastasia Delamont.

A mirror was perched in front of her, on the marble floors of the stunning Victorian bedroom, the light blue embroidery swimming through a white base. A mirror of deception and untruths, disintegrating flaws and hidden past, retrieved from the deepest rabbit hole of enchanted items. With mere luck and desperation, the little hopeless wanderer Aubrey Anastasia Delamont made it her prized possession.

Anastasia’s eyes placed on her ethereal reflection and ran her hands down her pudgy slim waist with pride, as if a crude accomplishment. As expected, small smile scurried across her lovely face, however, Devina sighed with pity.

Only she knew the ugly truth behind the prettiest face of the kingdom…how a pudgy girl with dirty blonde hair and a stew of self-detest could become into so.

“Thank you for the help. "You’re dismissed” Anastasia forces out stoically, avoiding any shameful gaze Devina had to offer her. Why the shame for a decision that would be taken by majority?

The click of the door was all she needed for a deep intricate inspection. With every prick of confidence came a kick of guilt. Lies. All lies. “Lying mirror.” She would chant like a mantra when she first saw her new self, until it lost its effect, and she believed every untruth it spewed… every flaw it erased, every perfection it gifted, ripped her apart piece by piece…but she wasn’t willing to have it differently. If deception was what she needed to be beautiful, she would bathe in it, without rose petals. Her hand fell to her heart chest and expected the hole to close with two mere rubs. There was never a hole before, not until she looked in that wretched mirror. She wondered why, but with ignorance her steps took her to the door, and downstairs to the hellhole she travelled.

“It’s unruly.” The matriarch of the house Gianna Delamont comments, a dainty teacup of pink porcelain resting in her feathery gloved hand. Her words were drained by the feigned interest of Anastasia in the chirping of robins outside the window.

“It’s natural.” Anastasia snaps back, her finger instinctively going to wrap her curly copper strands around her slim finger. She suspected jealousy from her mother, as averse to the mortification she once felt, perhaps it’s the chance privilege of being beautiful.

“If only you’d brush out the nest, then maybe the birds wouldn’t be so distracted when we leave the mansion.” Her mother so cruelly jokes, hiding her smile of satisfaction behind her slurp of tea.

“If my hair is a nest, yours would be a goddamn birdhouse.” Anastasia snaps wittily… might as well have been a whisper because her mother’s eyes were fixated on a pamphlet sent by a fellow patrician. A flush creeped up her neck… a series of shame and anger sprinting up her veins.

Still ignored… even after the beauty. That night was loud, like all, the air filled with compassion and unlimited expression as the mirror shined her image. “Oh, darling magic mirror, unveil me.” She whispered suddenly, perhaps untruthfully or recklessly. A small longing of her old self was pitted in her heart. The mirror didn’t budge, expectedly, but it didn’t diminish the depression rooted in her.

Dark circles. They don’t exist anymore, do they? Not in the mirror of allure. This was why Anastasia Delamont spent night to morning in front of it, staring at a vision she had never expected to be greeted with. Call it obsession, she called it gratitude. “I call it unnecessary.” Devina says, her eyes narrowed.

“She’s been in there all night.”

“She’s obsessed.”

“She’s insane.”

“The mirror will shatter if she stares at herself any longer.”

Devina grimaces at the whispers from the other maids and soon the voices were drowned out by the hardwood door.

All those voices were seemingly corrupting and would plausibly make a girl think twice, but Anastasia hadn’t even glanced at them. She saw kindness in the inanimate object mirror, she saw a sense of humanity no one in her life had proved to her… and it drew her closer and closer to the brink of an unidentified psychosis.

When will she cut off the branches of esteem and find her psychotic truth, Devina thought to herself as she stared at the fair fairest maiden, her satin nightgown pooled around her knees.

Anastasia’s fair hand went to touch her fair cheek, and Devina saw right through the loss of her birthmark. Strange, she once detested the ugly thing, never thought she’d come to caress its corpse almost lovingly. She was so invested in it that she hadn’t noticed the soft click of the door and the disappearance of Devina.

She woke up the morning after, groggily and as always lying next to the mirror of belle. Her first glance was always her round puffy sharp sweetheart face. Today was different, instead of a gorgeous siren, she saw a rambunctious unsure girl woman. She couldn’t tear her gaze away and a part of her past wiggled into her vision.

Round cheeks pale lips thin lips long nose sour skin dirty blonde hair pudgy arms plump stomach flat chest dark eyes skinny calves’ thick thighs Aubrey Delamont

She snarls and shakes her head, her hair wilding around her shoulders. That wasn’t her, she was no longer Aubrey the poor Delamont.

This was the last day she would ever see Anastasia in the mirror again.

Loud laughing, tea cakes and ruffly ballgowns were no longer a dreadful scene when you were a pretty girl whose hand was desired by every man. A bright smile shone on Anastasia’s face as she looked up at Henrik Craven, the man she’s admired since she was a mere girl on a swing, all was well until a dark thought crossed her mind. He would never have loved Aubrey.

 A loud shatter was heard by the guests from the upstairs bedroom, confusion was etched on everyone’s faces but one. Henrik was astonished when Anastasia pushed him and the murmuring guests aside roughly.

In her pointy high heeled shoes, Anastasia sprinted up the spiral staircase, her skirt bunched in her sweaty palms and her face turning into sour milk. Two steps into her bedroom and a wretched scream tore from her vocal cords. To her knees she crawled, ignoring the blood and scars that would be left from the shards of glass mirror. “No!” She screamed repeatedly as her hair turned blonde, skin turned fully sour, and hands turned thicker.

In the doorway was her mother’s disgusted gaze and… Devina… wallowing in guilt.

Anastasia Aubrey lifted a shard with shaky pudgy hands and in her reflection, she saw her birthmark.