It Was I Who Ate the Apple. │ Short-Short #FairytaleClinic

It was a woman who knocked on the clinic door.

“Please, restore this sick story to its original form.”

As she pulled back her hood, lustrous black hair spilled out.
Her skin was as white as snow.

“I lived in the forest with seven uncles.”

Her red, ripe lips spun the tale in a trembling voice.
She said she had been chosen by the King and made his Queen.

After the King died, she was sent back to the forest. That was fine. She had always wanted to return to the forest.

One day, an apple arrived from the royal castle. It was from her stepdaughter.

It was a heavy, polished apple that gleamed. Its color was red like blood. As if drawn to it, she took a bite. It was crisp and sweet, and then.

“The world went dark.”

She was surprised to find she had gained a new life.
What her mother had read to her was “my own story.”

“It was actually I who ate the apple.”

Her long eyelashes fluttered.

The doctor recorded the woman's memories in a medical chart and tied it with a black string. A glowing book absorbed the woman.

He carefully placed it on the clinic's bookshelf.

“The True Snow White”

(410 characters)
Side A: "Even Though I Was the One Who Ate the Apple"

▼ I am participating in Tarahakani-san's weekly short-short note.

Side B: "Mirror, Mirror"

I hated the woman Father brought home from the forest.
It was the spring I turned sixteen.

Mother had died, and not much time had passed since then.
So why?

That woman, who looked nothing like Mother, with her snow-white skin, night-colored hair, and lips like blood—I thought she was a witch.

She always looked pale and had frightened eyes, which I also didn't like.
After she had driven me out of the place where my family should have been.

One night, I heard sobbing coming from the top of the tower.
As I was led toward it, I found a mirror there. It was a beautiful, full-length mirror with a luxurious gold frame.

What was reflected there was a dull-looking woman with a face full of freckles. Her red hair was naturally frizzy and damaged.

However, my reflection suddenly vanished. Just like when a stone is thrown into the water, ripples appeared.

Inside them, Mother was living.

"Your father has been bewitched by a witch."

Mother in the mirror breaks down in tears.

"We must find a way to drive that woman out. We must strip her of her beauty."

A hand reached out.
Against my will, my hand reached out as well.

"This is medicine to bring your father back to his senses. Grate it and make him drink it."

Our hands pressed together through the mirror.
I thought I had touched ice. It was so cold, it stung like a thorn prick. Startled, I pulled my hand back.

A green apple was resting in my palm.

When I grated it, skin and all, a cloying scent rose up. It was much, much sweeter than a normal apple. It smelled like it was full of nectar. As if it were trying to mask something.

I mixed it into Father's wine. The next morning, Father was cold.

Before the mourning period was even over, we banished that woman to the forest.
Hoping she would be eaten by beasts.
That is what Mother said.

Even though I dressed her in rags, her beauty did not fade. In fact, it even seemed as if a light had ignited in her eyes for the first time.

Looking down from the top of the tower, it seemed to me that her steps grew lighter the further she moved from the castle.

And then, she ran into the forest as if bouncing along. As if she had wanted to return there all along.

"Perhaps it is for the best that things turned out this way."

The white-haired servant let out a sigh of relief.

"After all, she was abducted from the forest. Even though she was the same age as the Princess, we did a terrible thing to her."

      

“That woman is living peacefully in the forest. She remains beautiful even now. Let’s take it away from her.”

Mother in the mirror said.

Her arms are wrapped around “Father” like a snake.
At some point, Father had come to live inside the mirror as well.

Father sits with a stark white face, not moving a muscle.
He is just staring at something with hollow eyes.

I send the many apples Mother gave me to that woman.

“These are the most special apples of all.”

Mother, who laughed mysteriously as she said that, was beautiful.

“Because they were so hard to make.”

She giggles.

“I’ve grown tired of this face, and this man, too.”

Those words fell with a thud.

There was definitely something wrong.

I suddenly look up. Mother in the mirror is white. Even whiter than snow. As if no blood flows through her.
Did she always have this skin tone?

I thought that, but my brain felt numb and clouded over. Since when? Since I ate the apple Mother gave me?

I sent the special apple to my stepmother.
The messenger definitely said the woman had eaten it. And yet.

The next morning, that woman returned.
Skin as white as snow. Lips as red as blood. Glossy black hair. She was beautiful to begin with, but something was different. There was an intensity to her.

Unlike when she left, she returned to the castle as majestically as a queen. Dragging the hem of her long, long skirt, she passed through the castle gates with quiet dignity.

Our eyes met.

The woman showed a bewitching smile that didn't seem of this world. Her mouth was moving, opening and closing.

Saying that she had finally become the number one.

Startled, I ran to consult Mother in the mirror.

However, there was only Father in the mirror.

This time, it was I who was banished to the forest. The growls of hungry beasts echoed around me.
What I had once wished for as that woman's end had happened to me.

  

Receiving a new life, I was surprised.
The story Mother read to me was certainly a tale from the world I had been in. And yet, it was not the one I knew.

Was that thing in the mirror really Mother?

Ever since I was a child, I have been too afraid to stare into a mirror.
I have a feeling that I might be called in.