“I imagine he had no choice,” Loki said.
“Exactly,” Snow White let out a long sigh. “If Carmilla died, who was going to take care of me while he was away looking for a cure or fighting the vampires? The thought of Carmilla never getting better tortured him. He blamed himself for dragging her into his cursed life and couldn’t stand the thought of being unable to feed on her blood drops again,” Snow White looked at me for a second then shied away. “Eventually, he turned her into a vampire,” she said in a voice I could barely hear. “Although his transformation wasn’t complete, he learned from Night Sorrow that he had the power to turn her into a half-vampire like him.”
“Since you didn’t project an image for this, I take it you don’t want me to watch it happening,” Loki noted.
“Not you,” she said. “I couldn’t bring myself to see it.”
“I understand,” Loki said. “So how did it go, your dad saving your mom’s life?”
“A vampire does not have their lives saved, but cursed. Trust me,” Snow White said. Loki could see her chest rise and fall like an unsure tide searching for a shore to crash on. “Carmilla woke up the next morning alive and beautiful as ever. I heard stories about how her beauty was intimidating to other women in the castle, shining a darker light onto their average looks.”
“And you?”
“I was no problem anymore. The life energy I sucked unconsciously out of her, she could compensate for with her new strength. I remember her becoming so acute and sharp, seeing things far away, hearing inaudible conversations and predicting the weather, and even running as fast as Angel. My father taught her how to control her cravings, and feed on sparrows, bats, and animals.”
“So she was able to stay a half-vampire like Angel as long as she didn’t feed on human blood,” Loki said.
“But like always, there was a catch,” Snow White said. “It turned out that no mirror reflected my mother’s new beauty. Instead, all mirrors only reflected a beast, which was probably what she was changing into on the inside.”
“But that wasn’t the case with Angel. Why was she different?”
“The Karnsteins were no ordinary vampire hunters. They were descendants of a holy bloodline, and thus, the curse of seeing a beast in the mirror when she looked into it was a righteous punishment.”
“Your family is doomed, princess,” Loki commented.
“Still, we managed to survive. Carmilla avoided mirrors again, fed secretly with Angel while raising me, and kept the secrets from the rest of the kingdom,” Snow White said. “Things were kind of acceptable until the day we received that package,” Snow White said.
“What package?”
“One day, in my father’s absence, we received a package from Europe,” Snow White said. “It was from a Justus von Lieblig, a German scientist who’d been gifting my mother with the finest mirrors the whole time she was collecting them, before she banned them. This time, Justus sent us his latest invention; a silvered mirror like the ones we use today. The servant accepted the gift and sent the mirror directly to my room, of course. I have to say that I was fascinated it by it. I had never seen my reflection so clear in my life.”
“Seems like just a regular mirror to me,” Loki said.
“I wish it was, but that’s not true. In my boredom, and loneliness, I started talking to the mirrors in my room. In the beginning, I was only talking to my own reflection, killing time, and substituting them for dolls and playmates. I wasn’t allowed to go to school anymore—of course, I wasn’t told how dangerous I was yet. The girl in the mirror was just some lonely girl imitating my moves and combing her hair at the same time I did mine, saying the same words I said. Then one day, the mirror started talking to me, and it wasn’t my voice or hallucinations. There was another girl in the mirror,” she said. “I couldn’t see her, but could hear her. She sounded a little older than me, and she told me that she was trapped inside. To my surprise, she didn’t like talking to me. She said that she was capable of healing my mother and making her reflection look beautiful, and she kept asking to meet her over and over again.”
“Did you tell your mom about her?”
“Only once; she became angry with me, and threatened she’d break all the mirrors in my room if I mentioned it again. I explained to her that I was feeling lonely and needed someone to play and talk with, especially after I had been grounded when I bit the prince. Remember him?”
“Ouch,” Loki pursed his lips, trying not to laugh. “I forgot you had an irresistible taste for hot, good looking young princes. Yummy, yummy.”
Suddenly, the door burst open, and the Snow White Queen, Carmilla, walked in.
Loki sprang up, standing with his back plastered to the wall. Snow White laughed. “Be cool,” she said. “It’s just a new scene that you have to observe.”