B1. Snow White: Part 5

Chapter 14: Wedding Preparations

News of Snow White’s return spread quickly. The dwarfs ran to see her. She hugged them all and invited them to her wedding.

The dwarfs stayed to help prepare for the wedding. Guests were invited from all across the seven kingdoms.

Meanwhile, the queen didn’t know Snow White was still alive.

She asked her mirror:

“Mirror, mirror, tell me true

Who’s the prettiest of all, who?”

The mirror answered in a nervous voice,

“The Queen was the prettiest yesterday,

But the Prince’s bride is now, they say.”

The queen screamed in anger. She threw the mirror across the room, breaking it into hundreds of pieces.

She thought, I must see the prince’s bride! She got ready for the wedding.

When brushing her hair, she found more gray hairs than usual. She put on her best crown to hide them. She touched the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. I can’t lose my beauty, she thought. It’s all I have!

She put on her most stunning black dress and left.

Chapter 15: The Queen’s Last Try

On the wedding day, the castle sparkled with thousands of candles and roses. There was soft music, and laughter and reunions between old friends.

Snow White was surrounded by all who loved her. Even the forest animals came. She wore her mother’s necklace and held it close.

Everyone clapped and cheered for the bride and groom!

But one person did not cheer.

When the queen arrived at the wedding, she pushed through the crowd to see the bride.

On seeing Snow White, the queen’s face turned white as a ghost.

Snow White was now a queen more beautiful and powerful than her.

The queen snapped.

“How dare you!” she shouted in front of everyone. “Your kindness is your weakness. Beauty is my power, and you will not take it from me!”

Some guests laughed, and others looked at the floor awkwardly.

Snow White reached out her hand to help her, but hesitated. Snow White remembered being poisoned the last time she reached out to the queen.

Instead, Snow White held the prince’s hand tightly.

“Now, I’ll use my most terrible spell!” The queen raised her hands to the sky. Her hands filled with lightning. The crowd gasped.

“I will make you as old as me, so you know how it feels!” The queen cried out.

The dwarfs quickly made a protective circle around Snow White and the prince.

Suddenly, the lightning in the queen’s hands disappeared, for her dark magic was powerless against true love.

Instead, the queen’s hair had turned completely white! The crowd burst out laughing.

The queen covered her face, sobbing, “Why won’t you just disappear?”

The queen ran to Snow White and grabbed her mother’s necklace! But it burned her hands. She screamed and stepped back.

The guards grabbed the queen.

“Get your hands off me!” she shouted. “I am the queen’s mother. She needs me! I gave her everything!”

The guards threw the mad woman out of the castle, into the dirt. Her face was covered in mud.

The music resumed, and the party continued as if nothing had happened.

The queen walked into the forest in her high heels. She fell over tree roots. Her dress got stuck on branches. Soon, she disappeared into the fog and was never seen again.

Some say she wandered around the countryside, forever searching for her lost beauty.

But she never found true beauty — the beauty of a kind heart.

Snow White’s father fixed the magic mirror and gave it to his daughter as a wedding gift.

Snow White asked a new question:

“Mirror, mirror, tell me true,

Do our people live in peace and happiness too?”

The mirror smiled and said, “Yes, your majesty. Very much so.” This made Snow White happy.

Snow White’s kindness was her strength, but she learned kindness doesn’t mean being naive.

Meanwhile, deep in the forest, the queen looked at her reflection in a lake.

She no longer recognised the person staring back at her.

Trying to be the prettiest of them all cost her everything — her kingdom, her family, and her happiness.

“I could have had a daughter’s love,” she cried.

The End.