Seven: A Lesbian Snow White

By Jennifer Diemer

The strange witch girl Neve has skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and a dark secret. Her father Lexander, an alchemist, harbors an evil obsession, and Catalina, his newest bride, made the grave mistake of becoming his wife. When Catalina finds herself falling in love with his daughter, Neve, instead, the deepening bond between the women sets in motion the final chapter of a story that began long ago, with a desperate longing and a handful of apple seeds. Together, Neve and Catalina must venture into the Huntsman's haunted forest to undo what has been done and set themselves free.

The novella SEVEN is the lesbian retelling of the classic fairy tale, “Snow White.” It is part of the series SAPPHO’S FABLES: LESBIAN FAIRY TALES.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rose and Star Press
• Release date: May 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476323770

Jennifer Diemer

Jennifer Diemer is an author, editor and Etsy artist. A lifelong fairy tale fanatic, she is thrilled to release SEVEN as her first published work. She shares a purple-doored cottage in the country with her wife and soulmate, author Sarah Diemer (also known as Elora Bishop), and a menagerie of spoiled four-legged friends.

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Seven

Part of Sappho's Fables: Lesbian Fairy Tales

by Jennifer Diemer

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Diemer

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For Sarah, with all of my heart.

I slipped off my robe, sat down on the edge of the bed, and opened my mouth. Without a word, he slid the fruit from his knife onto my tongue; then he sliced a piece of the apple for himself.

We chewed slowly, avoiding one another's gaze. It was a communion of sorts, and our most intimate act, but I did not know why, every night, we enacted this ritual. I'd stopped wondering months ago, had stopped asking him questions long before that.

And it was only a bite of apple, I reasoned with myself. In truth, this nocturnal habit was the least of my husband's oddities.

The thin apple skin broke again and again between my teeth; the fruit was so sweet that I winced as I swallowed. With a shiver, I fell back upon my pillow and pulled the coverlet over my body. I was careful not to touch Lexander—he disliked being touched—as he eased into the bed beside me. He exhaled heavily before blowing out his candle. Smoke and apples: my life's perfume.

I stared at the darkness, listened to my breaths, his breaths.

Silence wounds. I have learned that, living here. Silence is not peace; it is its opposite, a spiritual unease, an unrepentant stifling.

I curled up small as a nestling and slipped my head beneath the blankets, eyes squeezed shut. I willed my dreams to fly me away.

*

When we married, I was scarcely older than his child, his daughter, Neve.

I knew nothing of the world, having grown up an indoor creature. I spent my infancy with a wet nurse and my school years with indifferent—sometimes cruel—governesses. My parents were grey silhouettes on the walls of rooms I peeked into but was not permitted to enter. I knew them best by their scents, hovering like ghosts in the empty hallways, on the staircase: my father's cherry pipe tobacco, my mother's violet toilette water.

They chose Lexander for me, though they knew nothing about him, save for his title and his monetary worth. I had a respectable dowry, but it was nothing to tempt a man of his stature, and my beauty, I knew, could offer little temptation. Not that he had ever glimpsed my face.

Still, his correspondence with my father confirmed that he wished to make a match with me. All of these arrangements were made ethereally, invisibly. It felt make-believe, as if I were marrying a ghost.

Lexander lived in distant Avella, an isolated country to the north. Avella was thick with forests and even thicker with fairy stories. When I was small, my governess Tendrille, an Avellan emigrant, liked to frighten me with tales of the infamous Avellan witches, and of beasts who made bargains with desperate men. After her bedtime storytelling, I was always afraid that a treeman might leap from my wardrobe, moss for his hair and branches for arms, come from Avella to steal my heart away. And yet part of me longed to see such wonders—real magic!—with my own eyes, so I listened rapt to Tendrille's harsh whispers, and sometimes, secretly, I put on my black veil and whispered made-up words to the moon, pretending to be a witch.

Neither of my parents had ever traveled so far as Avella, and neither ever would. When I bid them farewell, I knew I would not see them again. My mother gave me a gold-framed mirror to remember her by. A wedding present, she said. It was the loveliest gift I had ever received; I wrapped it in a silk cloth to protect the delicate roses that encircled its surface, and I refused to let the footman take it from me when I stepped into Lexander's carriage.

I was such an eager, hopeful thing. For the journey to Avella, I wore my most flattering dress, the white one with blue lace at the cuffs and hem, and my brown curls were decorated with sprigs of holly—for domestic happiness—and a trailing vine of ivy, to promote affection. I was a rosy-cheeked, self-absorbed bride; I watched the countryside glide by through the carriage window and imagined that it had beautified itself for my sake alone, riotous with yellow and pink and purple flowers.

I'm ashamed to admit I accepted the marriage proposal eagerly. Here was my chance at an adventure. Perhaps love. Companionship. I had never had a friend, or a kiss. Loneliness and I, however, were intimate.

*

Lexander was older than they told me, much older. We were married hurriedly, privately, by a nervous clergyman in a small, dark room. I had no time to change my dress or wash up after my carriage ride. There was no formal introduction. There were no witnesses. Lexander kissed me just once, to seal our contract. I had dreamt of the marriage kiss—my first kiss—since the arrival of his letter confirming our betrothal. But my husband's mouth was closed and hard. His rheumy eyes drifted, lofty, never meeting my gaze.

Not one week into my marriage—if such a circumstance may be called a marriage—I found myself longing for the life I had so readily sacrificed. After a full month had passed, I began to ponder escape. We lived far outside the village, removed from sight of any other inhabitants. Still, there were horses, servants I might bribe. I had no belongings to offer them, though, besides some dresses and my mother's mirror. Lexander had never given me a ring.

I confronted him, in the beginning, asked him why he had chosen me, since it did not seem as if he wanted me at all.

It is not a matter of want but of necessity.

I am your wife, but you treat me terribly. What have I done to deserve this?

You mustn't mistake detachment for dislike, Catalina. I provide food for you, and shelter. What more do you need?

I could not answer, did not know the answer—not precisely. I had hoped for freedom, but instead I found myself caught in another cage.

Still, I did not despise him, not at first. Some part of me held on to the fancy that perhaps, given time and care, our affection would grow. He was old enough to be my grandfather, but it was not so uncommon for a wealthy man to take a young bride, and though I knew I could never love him in the way that a wife loves a husband, was it naïve to imagine that we might be friends?

But Lexander ignored my attempts at kindness, spoke to me only when it was unavoidable, or when he wanted something from me. He was an alchemist, an odd hobby for a man of his wealth, and on frequent occasions, he asked me—and, eventually, threatened me—to submit to innumerable, nonsensical tests.

It was my duty as his wife, he said. He asked nothing else of me, he said. He took care of me; I was free to live a life of leisure, without worries or responsibilities. All he asked, he said, was that I be compliant in this one small matter.

When I refused—and I did refuse, many times—he raged and punished me in a hundred different ways: ordering the cook to ban me from the kitchen and prepare me no meals; locking me up in our chamber for hours, sometimes a day, sometimes longer; sprinkling my half of the nightly apples with peppers and powders that made me wretchedly ill.

So, more often than