Carmilla’s eyes glittered suddenly. She looked as if she had been awakened from the hypnotizing effect of Bloody Mary. She sensed that this was all a work of evil.
“No, I am not the fairest of them all,” Carmilla resisted Bloody Mary’s suggestions. “And if I am, I know that I shouldn’t be seeing my reflection in the mirror,” she said while reaching for a candlestick to do away with the mirror. “This isn’t right,” she said. “You’re an evil mirror and you have to be destroyed,” she swung the candlestick at the mirror.
But before she could break it, the mirror’s surface rippled and showed her images of other vampire women who seemed to suffer from an aging condition like Carmilla—of course, none of them were a chosen one’s mother, but they were all aging after giving birth. The vampire women in the mirror seemed to have no problems with their aging condition because they had a solution for it. They fed on young human girls, and consumed their youth so they themselves wouldn’t age. Once they fed on them, the young girls grew older instantly and died while the vampire women grew younger and healthier.
Carmilla stopped in her tracks, her fangs drawing out. The women in the mirror were checking out their beautiful faces in their hand mirrors, enjoying their eternal youth. They were combing their nurtured hair, checking their fine skin, putting on makeup and lipstick and rubbing their lips together, putting on mascara, and slightly squeezing their cheeks into reddish patches full of life and energy.
“What good is beauty if one can’t see it?” Bloody Mary said, toying with Carmilla’s weakness. “You have done nothing wrong to deserve to become a beast. You deserve much better. You’ve sacrificed your youth, your love, and yourself for your daughter, because you love her.”
Loki wanted to scream into the dream to warn Carmilla of the girl in the mirror, but he couldn’t risk her seeing him.
“Will your daughter ever appreciate what you’ve sacrificed for her?” Bloody Mary said.
The images in the mirror turned into a single image of a seven year old Snow White who looked lovely, lively, and luminous.
“All this beauty she has sucked out of you has gone to waste,” Bloody Mary continued. “Your pain was never appreciated. You could have simply died young and beautiful without having to bring her into the world.”
The mirror rippled into a liquid surface and showed another live scene of Snow White in the future, wearing her white dress and walking barefoot in a garden of purple and yellow poppies. Men of all ages watched her with longing eyes in the background; knights, huntsmen, and princes as one of the servants placed a crown on Snow White’s head; the Queen’s crown.
“Sooner or later,” Bloody Mary said. “Snow White will be the fairest of them all by feeding on your pain.”
The movie in the mirror showed Snow White walking into a cemetery, now wearing warrior armor stained in blood, thousands of vampires lying dead at her feet. She stomped over an abandoned grave that was left behind with no care. Snow White kneeled down and touched the tombstone. Upon it, Carmilla’s name was engraved:
Carmilla Karnstein
The Queen of Sorrow
1777 - 1812
The Snow White in the mirror laughed in a tone very different from the way she laughed in real life. It was an evil tone. “I killed her,” she said. “I killed them all; I rid the world of all vampires, including my beastly mother.”
Carmilla shielded her face with her hands from the mirror. “No,” she said. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Bloody Mary wondered. “She is the chosen one, the Dhampir girl. It’s foretold in ancient books that she will be half human, half vampire, with extraordinary powers, royal blood, and undeniable beauty. She, your daughter, Snow white, will be the end of vampires in this world, for she will be become a deadly hunter, and a legendary savior of the world of humans. Even if she doesn’t, you will die soon when you start aging again and die because only one of you can live like the prophecy says.
“What do you mean age?” Carmilla’s face tightened. “This can’t be true. Angel tuned me into a half-vampire. I’m not supposed to age anymore.”
“Is that true, my dear Queen?” Bloody Mary mocked her.
The mirror then rippled again and showed Angel talking to the gypsies about her illness before transforming her into a half-vampire. The gypsies told him that Carmilla’s transformation was irreversible, and that turning her into a half-vampire was only going to save her for so long. Sooner or later, she’d start aging at a rapid rate until she would eventually die. There was no way Carmilla could escape her fate as long as her daughter lived. Angel had lied to her.
“I can’t believe this,” Carmilla buried her face in her hands, crying so hard her body shook. “I can’t believe Angel lied to me.”
“See?” Bloody Mary said. “You, my dear, are one of us now.”