“Time to call it a night,” her stepmother urged him, still in the doorway, tugging on a gold necklace with a heart-shaped pendant, a gift from Clara’s dad. The stepmother wore no other jewelry except for a thin, delicate wedding band. They’d gotten married just that spring, and by a clerk at city hall. The ceremony, her dad had told her, took all of five minutes. “She likes things quiet,” her dad had said. “No big shindig for her.” Clara had never known her mom, who died so long ago, but there were pictures, including a large one in the living room, where she was laughing. Her dad said of her, “She was so much fun.” The stepmother wasn’t.
“Daddy, don’t stop reading,” Clara pleaded. “The Queen killed Snow-white after she failed three times.” Clara kept careful count. First the Queen ordered the huntsman to kill Snow-white, but he took pity on her and wouldn’t do it. Then the Queen disguised herself as an old woman selling lace, and tied Snow-white up tightly in a lace bodice, but Snow-white was with the seven dwarves by then, and they unlaced her. Then the Queen disguised herself again and created a poison comb that she put in Snow-white’s hair; again the dwarves saved her, removing the comb. Finally, again in disguise, the Queen tempted Snow-white into eating a poisoned apple. The dwarves were at a loss and pronounced her dead.
“But she’s not dead, not really,” Clara’s dad said. “She’s in a kind of trance.”
“Can she see?”
“Her eyes are closed.”
“If she opens her eyes?”
“She’s in a glass coffin. Things would look far away, blurred.”
“Like clouds?”
“Something like that.”
“Can she hear?”
“Sounds would be muffled, too.”
“Like when you’re under water? In the tub I can stick my whole head under and hold my breath.”
“She asks these questions so she doesn’t have to go to sleep,” her stepmother broke in, still in the doorway, no closer. Sometimes Clara thought there was an invisible barrier there, keeping her out. Which was good.
“She’s always been full of questions,” her dad said, sounding proud.
“Stubborn,” her stepmother said.
“Strong willed.”
“How does it end?” Clara asked, of course knowing exactly how it ended.
But it was her stepmother who said, “Snow-white’s in the glass coffin a long, long time. A prince falls in love with her on sight and takes her back to his castle, and on the bumpy ride home the piece of apple in her throat comes unstuck and she wakes up and they get married. Strange ending, though. At the wedding, the Queen is forced to put on iron slippers that have been heated by fire, and dance until she dies. Whose idea was that? Snow-white’s?”
“Never. Snow-white is good.” Still, it worried Clara. What was Snow-white like deep down, where nobody could see?
“Phil,” her stepmother said, “if she doesn’t get enough sleep, she’ll be a wreck tomorrow.”
Clara hated those little comments, which were supposed to be helpful and were anything but. Clara knew her stepmother thought she was spoiled, always reminding her to say “please” and “thank you.” And there was that time, in Belle Heights Park, when Clara wanted her dad to hold her up over the spraying turtle fountain, even if that meant his special-occasion suit got ruined. Or the time when Clara begged for a stuffed unicorn that was way overpriced and then left it on the bus on the trip home. That was an accident! The worst was when Clara needed special markers for a school project, creating a cover for a made-up book, and she’d forgotten to get them on the way home; she went into a panic that night and sent her dad out, and he had to go to three different places before finding exactly the right ones (not too thick, not too thin). Her stepmother had wanted Clara to tell the teacher she needed an extra day, but Clara couldn’t stand to be late, especially knowing that Kim had gotten hers done the day before. Kim’s book was called The Birds of Belle Heights, which was mostly pigeons, but she’d drawn them beautifully. Not that Clara was jealous of her best friend; they’d been inseparable since preschool; but she wanted her own book, Colorful Cupcakes, to be beautiful, too.
“We’re almost at the end,” her dad said now.
Her stepmother sighed and left the doorway.
Her dad read the rest of the story, and Snow-white was happy for the rest of her days. That was the ending Clara liked, when people were happy for the rest of their days. It never said how many days, but Clara assumed it was a great big number, not like what her mother had had.
“You’ll read again tomorrow?” Clara said.
“If you’re game.”
“I’m not a game!”
“Just an expression. It means if you’re willing.” He grinned and his eyes crinkled.
“I don’t like it when I can’t see your eyes.”
He opened them really wide. “Better?”
She didn’t much like that, either.
He clicked off the lamp on the little table next to her bed.
Clara hugged the elephant. “Leave it on.”