Mirror Mirror [ONC 2021 Version]

NINE

Few minutes and several hundred meters later, Sir Bashful brought them out into a small, now-abandoned courtyard around the back of the castle where fruit trees and flower bushes grew wild, some even dead. Grass or more so weed grew as tall as Ruby and Millie.

They were in the dark, lifeless south wing that once used to be full of life—before a dark shadow fell on the lands—a shadow of a child who looked like light itself but bore the heart of darkness. Snow White.

Snow's insatiable greed for power had been contained within the south wing's walls while her father King Charming the Twelfth had lived. He was the only one she had cared for, respected; even listened to.

Since the King's untimely and unexpected demise, his Queen hadn't the courage to visit his wing, and his daughter, who only cared for herself, hadn't bothered. Once on the throne, Snow had resorted to shutting the wing off entirely. Something that made Bashful suspect a part of the witchy Queen still felt emotions like the rest of them. Some part deep, deep inside.

It was the precise reason clever Sir Bashful had picked the long-abandoned south wing as their escape route. Part of an extensive tunnel system lay beneath what used to be his Majesty's wing. The tunnels, with undocumented secret passages, had been designed to quietly and quickly evacuate the royals should someone ever lay a siege on the castle. Tunnels that were built well before Queen White was even conceived. Tunnels she knew not about.

He hoped, by the time the Princess is noted missing, they would be deep in the tunnels if not already on the other side of it. And should they discover the missing Princess earlier than he hoped, he prayed to the fairies, his brothers wouldn't remember the tunnels long enough to allow them to flee.

Only brothers Sneezy and Sleepy had ever known where the discrete tunnels opened up. They were the only dwarves with him when Bashful had built the tunnel besides others the King had commissioned. Since Sneezy was no longer alive—blessed be his fairy heart—Bash was relying on Sleepy having been too sleepy to remember all the details of an assignment nearly seventy years old. He was the only dwarf who suited his name, of course, a nature Bashful was hoping proves handy tonight.

"It's here somewhere." Sir Bashful fumbled about the courtyard wall, tapping away with a stick, telling the girls to be quiet when they hadn't said a word. He peered up at the patch of the night sky they could see, dark and moonless, making it exceptionally dark in the courtyard. Part of him hoped he hadn't forgotten the details either. Dwarves were known for their powers of recollection—usually. Part of him wished he still had his second eye to help him navigate the night.

"What might you be searching for, Sir? Perhaps the lady and I could help you find it?" Millie asked in a hush, tired of staying mum. She swatted away the bugs whizzing about their heads, attracted by the light of the oil lamp.

"A chamber so that we may escape the castle via the mazes underneath. It once used to be our most profitable mines." Sir Bashful continued knocking softly on the masonry with a stick he'd grabbed from the overgrown garden bed. "It's here somewhere. It has to be. I put it here myself!"