Endings & Beginnings

Snow-white married him, and Rose-red his brother, and they divided the great treasure the dwarf had collected in his cave between them. The old mother lived for many years peacefully with her children; and she carried the two rose trees with her, and they stood in front of her window, and every year they bore the finest red and white roses. - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

Fairy tales always end with the protagonists living happily ever after. I remember our parents reading us the 'Snow White and Rose Red' tale when we were younger -- it ended with Snow White marrying a prince and Rose Red marrying the prince's heretofore unmentioned brother. All very convenient.

Life is not convenient. Point in fact: after killing the Thistle Man, we were stuck in the flower fields. I thought about going through the veins and arteries again, but the urge told me not to.

She wouldn't survive it. She's not a vessel, like us.

"So what do we do?" Rose asked.

"I guess we just start walking," I said.

We walked for miles and miles and though the flowers changed, nothing else did. Eventually, we found ourselves near some of the trees that sprang from the earth like crooked fingers.

Don't get too close to those. The fruit isn't very pleasant.

I glanced at the fruit that grew on the trees and I could see they were covered by spines and thistles. We moved away from trees quickly.

Keep walking. When you feel tired, keep walking. Keep walking and you'll find yourself home.

And we did. We walked until our feet were bleeding and we held each others hands and walked more. The sickly sweet smell went away, as did the smell of decay, and the sky changed into a different shade of blue. The area around us seemed normal.

Eventually, we found ourselves by a highway. We hitchhiked back to town, back to our house.

We fell asleep in the same bed, like when we were younger.

Rose Red:

She's left. She packed some stuff and bought a train ticket. She didn't tell me where. "It's better if you don't know," she said. "I don't want you following me."

"But you saved me," I kept saying.

"I know," she said. "But the blood...it's stronger than me. I gave into it. Once it takes control of me, I won't care that you're my sister. I won't. So please don't follow me. Please."

"What about the Thistle Man?" I asked. "What if he comes back?"

"He won't," she said. "And if he does...I'll know."

"How?"

"Blood always knows," she said. "I don't know exactly what that means, but...it means I'll know."

"What'll I tell mom and dad?"

"Tell them I ran away," she said. "Tell them...tell them a lie they'll believe."

I hugged her and told her I loved her. She said she loved me, too, but she had to go. She had to find a way to stop the blood, the get rid of it from her body. It was too strong, she said.

After she left and after I stopped crying, I looked up what some of those flowers the Thistle Man gave me meant. Amaranths mean immortal love, jonquils mean "return my affection." The last flower he gave me, though, was a love-lies-bleeding. And that means hopelessness.

I've written down my story and she's written down hers. There's no more left for me tell.

I'm leaving now. I know I told her I wouldn't follow her. I lied. If things are hopeless, then at least we can be hopeless together.

Bye.

The Red & The Black

Snow-white and Rose-red,
Don't beat your lover dead.

 - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

A man had taken Rose. One minute they had been in the middle of the dining room and the next minute they were gone. There was no flash of light, no special effect. The room was empty as if nobody had been there at all.

No, not nobody. There was roses scattered on the table. And the note. As I read it, an anger boiled up within me.

The Smiling One, he took her. He took our sister. He's going to pay. We're going to find him.

"How?" I asked.

Give in, the urge said. Give in and we can show you the way to the flower fields. We know the way. The way of the blood.

So I gave in. I closed my eyes and let the blood take me.

I can't describe what happened after that. I know I was surrounded by redness, by something resembling blood, I know it filled me and I filled it, but I can't really describe what it was.

Veins and arteries. We go where blood goes. We go where life goes. The flower fields are filled with life and death and decay. We go where blood goes.

We stepped out of the red and into a field of flowers. There was a sickly sweet smell in the air, but underneath that there was the smell of decay. The smell of dead things.

I followed the smell.

Rose Red:

It still amazes me what she did. She was doing some weird eldritch teleportation thing, while I was blacked out cold.

I woke up in a field of poppies. The sky was blue, but a strange shade of blue, like whoever had decided it was that color hadn't really paid much attention to the actual sky. The same with the sun -- it looked like the sun, but it was still off.

I sat up and looked around. The poppies were everywhere. Off in the distance I could see some other flowers and some trees, but no roads.

I was trapped in the fucking land of Oz.

I heard the rustle of flowers and I turned there he was. I averted my eyes so I wouldn't look at him, not directly; I didn't want to see his eyes or his smile. I wanted to leave, but I knew that wasn't possible.

He had something in both of his hands. In his right, he held up a plant. It was different from the poppies. It was violet and it was long, at least three feet. I finally recognized it: it was a love-lies-bleeding.

I looked at his other hand. It held a knife, long and sharp. It glinted in the sunlight.

Screaming wouldn't work. There was nobody around to hear me. I could run, but he would catch me. I backed away slowly, but that was stupid, too. He moved alongside, faster than I thought he could move. He held the knife upwards and...

Snow grabbed his arm. She had appeared out of the fucking blue and oh my god was I grateful. Her face had a look of pure rage and her eyes was so fucking red. She snapped his arm and I could hear the crack.

The Thistle Man turned to look at her. I hadn't looked into his eyes, but Snow was staring directly at them. She was crying now, tears of fucking blood pouring from her eyes.

She raised up both hands, placed them around his head, and twisted. I heard the snap of his neck.

And that was how my sister saved me.

Blood & Roses

One evening as they sat thus cosily together someone knocked at the door as though he desired admittance. The mother said: "Rose-red, open the door quickly; it must be some traveller seeking shelter." - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

At home, I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror again. I thought about my options, what I could do. I could try vomiting again -- perhaps use a feather? But that hadn't worked last time and I had heard horror stories from my mother about anorexic girls who had torn their stomach lining.

But I had to do something. I had something inside of me.

Why? Why do anything? Why not just accept it? It can be so very fun.

It wasn't a voice, more like an urge. This urge to just accept it, to go along with the flow.

You could try so many things. It could open up so many doors for you.

My head hurt. My eyes watered. The whites had turned red again. "What are you?" I asked.

Just let go, let everything go. We can show you how to be fun. We can show you how to live life to the fullest.

The veins in my neck pulsed. I pushed my hands against the mirror and I ground my teeth and I said, "What. Are. You."

We are the blood and the sin. We are hunger and lust and life. Relax. Don't resist. It will feel better if you didn't resist.

I pushed forward and cracked the mirror and shards fell into the sink. I picked one up, long and jagged, and held it against my wrist.

And then I heard the scream.

Rose Red:

While Snow was having her crisis, I was having mine.

I had ran home and locked the door behind me. I was hyperventilating and close to blacking out, so I tried to calm down. I slowed my breathing, I took deep breaths, I tried not to fucking panic. And then I saw it.

On the dining room table, there was a bouquet of roses. Light pink roses, white roses, blue roses, and, of course, red roses.

And there was a note. It simply read:

BE MINE.

He grabbed me from behind. He put one hand over my mouth. It felt sharp and prickly, like it was made of thistle (hence the name I gave him). I bit down on his hand with all my strength and sap flowed into my mouth.

He let me go and I screamed. It wasn't one of those screams you hear in horror movies where the last girl is finally confronted by the killer or a dead body or any-fucking-thing. It was a fucking visceral scream. My throat still hurts from it.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop him. He took my shoulders and pulled me to his side.

The last thing I saw was my sister rushing out into the room and then everything became black.

Thorns & Thistles

Once, when they had slept all night in the wood and had been wakened by the morning sun, they perceived a beautiful child in a shining white robe sitting close to their resting-place. The figure got up, looked at them kindly, but said nothing, and vanished into the wood. And when they looked round about them they became aware that they had slept quite close to a precipice, over which they would certainly have fallen had they gone on a few steps further in the darkness. And when they told their mother of their adventure, she said what they had seen must have been the angel that guards good children. - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

I tried finding him, I tried calling his number. It had been disconnected. I felt worried -- I thought something bad must have happened to him. Different scenarios tore through my mind: he got into a car wreck and was in a coma somewhere or perhaps his family had moved overnight and he didn't have time to tell me.

The most obvious answer, that he had been lying to me, that he had used me and then left me with a wry grin, didn't occur to me until the end of the day. As soon as the thought appeared in my head, I got sick. I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

I washed my face in the sink and then looked in the mirror. My face looked flushed, like I had a fever. I felt my forehead, but it wasn't any warmer. And then I looked closer.

My eyes were bloodshot. Blood filled the white until there was only red surrounding the black pupil.

I choked and started to throw up again. A thin red fluid poured out of my mouth and into the skin. The fluid then reversed motion and flowed upwards back into my mouth and I fell down.

I tried so hard to throw up again, to get rid of that red fluid, but I couldn't. I checked the mirror again and the red had dissipated from my eyes, but I could still feel it in my body, in my veins.

I told the nurse I was sick and went home.

Rose Red:

Snow seemed distracted when we walked to school, but then again so was I. My thoughts were filled with flowers and what they meant. Perhaps it hadn't been as sinister as I thought. Perhaps it was just someone I met during class and they wanted to ask me out, but didn't have enough courage.

I found another bouquet in my locker. More amaranths, then asters, balsams, chrysanthemums, and cloves. And another note:

TO MY BRIAR ROSE

It didn't seem sweet. It didn't seem like it was from some classmate with a crush. It seemed fucking creepy.

I asked others of they saw who put it in my locker, but nobody knew. Nobody had seen anything.

Snow texted me that she was sick and that I had to walk home alone. It wasn't her fault, I know. She was going through some shit. But still, I was freaked out.

And then, on my way home, I saw him. There was an alleyway and I looked down it as I was walking past and he was there at the end, he was standing there waiting for me.

He wore a dirty white straightjacket, unbuckled with the sleeves hanging down. His skin looked prickly, like there were spines and thorns growing from it. His hair was the color of dried blood.

His smile went all the way around. I don't know how else to describe it. I couldn't see where it ended. I thought it might not end, that his smile went around his entire head, but that was impossible. He was impossible.

I didn't look at his eyes. I ran before that. I ran and didn't look back.

Lucky me.

A Boy & A Bouquet

They often roamed about in the woods gathering berries and no beast offered to hurt them; on the contrary, they came up to them in the most confiding manner; the little hare would eat a cabbage leaf from their hands, the deer grazed beside them, the stag would bound past them merrily, and the birds remained on the branches and sang to them with all their might. No evil ever befell them. - The Red Fairy Book.

Snow White:

He had brown hair and brown eyes and an array of freckles on his face. He wasn't too thin, but he wasn't muscular either. Lithe, I believe the word is. He was lithe.

His name was Valentine.

He said he was named after the saint. We commiserated together over our parents' poor naming choices. He told such corny jokes, but he always made me laugh.

The day before Valentine's Day, he asked me out to a movie. I don't remember what we saw -- there are parts of that day I just don't remember anymore -- but it was dark in the theater and I could feel my pulse quicken every time he touched my hand. As the credits ran, he turned and kissed me.

I walked back with him to his car in a euphoric daze. My cheeks hurt from smiling. He led me to the backseat, where he kissed me again.

And then he started taking off my clothes.

I don't remember much after that. There was pleasure, I remember, and there was pain. When I woke up, his car was parked outside my house. My clothes were still on, so I thought I must have just imagined him taking them off. Just imagined him kissing my body. Just imagined the blood.

As I walked to the door, he waved and I weakly waved back. I felt sluggish and tired.

I never saw him again.

Rose Red:

I didn't know any of that until later. After I found out, I wanted to find that Valentine guy and smash his fucking face in, but he vanished into the ether. I tried finding out his school records, but it looked like he didn't have any. He must have been imitating another student or something.

I do remember Snow going on that date, though. I was just concerned about something else at the time.

When I had gotten home from school, when Snow was out on her date, there was a bouquet of flowers on the doorstep. I thought perhaps they were for Snow, but there was a note pinned to the flowers:

TO MY ROSE BRIDE

I looked up the flowers later on: gardenias, gladioli, moonflowers, amaranths, and jonquils. An unusual arrangement with a weird fucking note.

I tried to put it out of my mind. I threw away the flowers and ripped up the note. Whoever had a crush on me could damn well tell me instead of playing these cryptic games.

I didn't know. It isn't much of a consolation now, telling myself that I didn't know. What could I have done if I did know? Not much.

I still wonder, though, what I would have done if I had known about the Thistle Man.

Beginnings & Endings

The two children loved each other so dearly that they always walked about hand-in-hand whenever they went out together, and when Snow-white said: 'We will never desert each other,' Rose-red answered: 'No, not as long as we live;' and the mother added: 'Whatever one gets she shall share with the other.'  - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

Before I leave, I need to write down what happened. And since it's not just my story, it's her story, too, well, she's going to tell you what happened as well.

My name is Snow White and her name is Rose Red. We are sisters and yes, those are our real names. Our parents thought they were being clever, since we were twins (fraternal, not identical - you do not know how often I have had to explain the difference to people who say that we don't look alike), but I would have rather been named something different. Like, I don't know, anything.

Instead, every Halloween, our parents dressed me up like a Disney character, while they usually dressed my sister up like Red Riding Hood (because there aren't any Rose Red costumes, natch). The perils of being named after fairy tale characters, I guess.

Our childhood was pretty uneventful, as childhoods go. We rebelled against our parents when we reached our teenage years, of course, but it wasn't like we starting doing any drugs or hard partying. I had never even slept with a boy.

That changed a few days ago.

That's when I became a monster.

Rose Red:

She's not a monster. She just has a monster inside of her.

It's complicated. She's still my sister, but sometimes she's not. Sometimes she forgets. That's why she wants to leave. I want to go with her. I know she won't hurt me, but she says it's too dangerous.

Too dangerous my ass. I almost got killed by a fucking monster and she says it's too dangerous to be around her.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should start at the beginning, at what happened a few days ago.

It started, naturally, with a boy and a bouquet.