With frightened gasps, Margaret stumbled over to the chair where she held herself until she was calm. She gazed upon her wicked stepmother in contempt for she knew now what had become of her older sisters. Snapping out of her trance, Margaret noticed something around her stepmother’s neck: a silver key. She ripped it off, grabbed the lamp and darted to the cellar. The door was already slightly ajar. A breeze pushed the door open, welcoming Margaret into the darkness.
She lifted the lamp to illuminate her descent. Rocky walls were poorly painted purple in a failed attempt to make it more inviting. She dragged her fingers along the stone, feeling long grooves she knew were not part of the masonry. The marks were directed in an arch with an intention unfathomable to little Margaret; they lead her further, deeper underground. At the end of a long hallway she stopped at a black door that opened with the silver key. It clattered to the ground when her eyes met with a gruesome sight. Horror repelled her, but curiosity dragged her in.
A tall pot of boiling water stood next to her, emitting the smell of a seasoning, the only good smell in the room. On one wall, a set of bloody knives hung; one of which was missing. A pile of freshly skinned bones laid under a rack of meat hooks. Speared on the tips were the rotting heads of her missing sisters. Their faces were frozen in expressions of horror, screaming for her to run, but shock tightened her muscles. The world spun around her and her knees landed in a thick puddle of blood.
Her head shot up when she heard the lock clicked. Margaret lept up in a fearful frenzy, running past the shadowy figure and jostling the doorknob that would not turn for her. She pounded on the barrier and begged for an escape, but her little hands were no match for the dense door. A cackle erupted behind her. Her stepmother, seemingly back from the dead, loomed over the imprisoned little girl.
“Foolish sisters of three, you listened not to me. Hunger and boredom got the best of thee; now of these pains you shall be free.” Much like her sisters’, Margaret’s screams did not reach her father sleeping on the top floor.
The following morning, the queen woke the king to tell him that all of his daughters were missing. “Perhaps they went to explore the surrounding forest and got lost,” he repeated. “I will send a servant to search the area.”
“My dear, you should search with them,” The queen suggested. “I made you a hearty stew that will give you the strength to look for your little girls.”
For seven days, the king searched for his three daughters. On the eighth, he grew hopeless and returned to the castle alone with his beloved queen. For many years they lived in peace with the new family they raised.
One day, the king died of a violent illness. The queen and her kin took the kingdom’s reins, steering it into darkness for many generations.
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