This story was actually for my Children’s Literature class, not my writing class. We were assigned to take a classic fairytale and put our own spin on it, and then had to record it as we told the story.
I told the story of Snow White
“Anastasia White”
I once had a mother that I very much wish I knew. But if she was still here, I probably wouldn’t be telling this story to you. You see my mother died right after I arrived and that was that. My father moved on, married another woman, and forgot my mother all in a drop of a hat. You see, this new mother was beautiful, but it was all a game. She would never be a mother to me, all because of my name.
Anastasia White is what my mother deemed me right before she passed. I had beautiful black hair, ruby red lips, and porcelain skin just like she’d asked. Anastasia means resurrection in Greek I’m told, but we’ll talk about that a little later. Let’s get back to my step mother and I’ll tell you how I came to hate her.
Gazing into the bathroom mirror my step mother would stand for hours. Marveling at her beauty I suppose as if the mirror had some special powers. I walked by one day and thought I heard her speaking.
“Mirror, mirror,” I snickered, but just maybe the truth was leaking.
My step mother never liked me, but as I got older her temper had become much worse. She could no longer bear to look at me, for when she did my father would have to buy her a more expensive purse.
“You sure have grown to be beautiful,” my father said just once.
“Your mother would be proud.”
Indeed, I was very beautiful, but not the way my step mother was. My beauty didn’t have to be so loud.
On the day I turned seven my step mother started mentioning boarding school.
“Let’s send her away to Europe,” my Father agreed. Assuming his role as the mesmerized fool.
So off I went to boarding school that offered seven prestigious courses. Each one helped the other one to make me wiser than the next, possibly wiser than my step mother’s evil forces. I thrived as I learned with a mind that now matched my beauty. A servant’s heart I now had earned as I made friends and helped others as if it were my unspoken duty. But when summer break arrived and I was all set to go home, my step mother had found me a summer camp where I would be sent all alone.
At first her depictions were cleverly sweet and I thought that camp might be exciting. But once I got there I found that it was for troubled kids and it was more terrifying than inviting. I asked myself what I’d done to deserve this marooning. Little did I know she’d been feeding my father stories of skipping classes and failed grades, but that she had found a special school perfect for my pruning.
How did she pull this off you ask? Was my father just that blind? Well her beauty served as her mask, you see. And somehow it made my father lose his mind.
School days went on and summers at the camp did too. But having me away wasn’t enough and my step mother’s hate still ensued. She had received all of my A’s, my accomplishments, and my dazzling school pictures. I knew she had hidden them all from my father and imagined her again in front of her favorite bathroom fixture.
“Mirror, Mirror, show me one more fair.”
And in the mirror again I appeared with my ruby red lips, porcelain skin, and my flowing black hair.
She tried to take my life from me. She hid my success and trap me in her little glass case. She tried to keep control of me, and then tortured me because she was jealous of my face. Years went by and I felt like I was fast asleep. I had no real mother that would hear my cries, not even a shoulder on which to weep.
One day along came a young man. He was smart and kind and he supported me and then he asked me for my hand. We planned to marry as soon as we could. I told him all about my step mother’s evil schemes and we both wanted her gone for good.
We invited her to the wedding not knowing if she would come. She couldn’t stand to see my face anymore, but she still had a battle that must be won. We knew she would try to steal this day for her own glory. And that’s why we planned very carefully, so that we could give new life to my life story.
She and my father arrived with the other guests and the wedding was truly grand. We turned to face the world together as husband and wife, my hand in his hand. The night went on and the other guests started to leave. Now it was time to make our move, a new breath of freedom I would soon breathe.
“Father, Step Mother come here, we’ve planned for you a special treat. Sit down now, he’s coming over, I just can’t wait for you all to meet.”
We all sat down with Doc, a professor from my college. He was a professor of English and we’d asked him to share some knowledge. We told him of my step mother’s game, and he was the one to show me the meaning of my name.
“You may think you’ve lost your life to her, Anastasia, but you have just begun. Your name means resurrection my dear, and your new journey is going to be so much fun.”
Doc told my father and step mother a story of an evil queen. The queen tried to kill a princess who was more beautiful she. Eventually the queen was caught and everyone saw her for what she was and what she was not. The queen’s life rightfully ended and the princess had prevailed. The evil queen was made to dance on hot coals until she died, no matter how she wailed. My step mother couldn’t sit still, as the story set in. She knew I was not so dumb, and that this battle she would never win.
We said goodbye to them that night, and it was the last of them we would see. I thought my life had ended as Anastasia White, but now I was free to just be me.
Fit Grit & Grace 