The Queen of Hearts

Once upon a time in the land of Cards, there was a queen. She was simply called the Red Queen back in the day–when she was even younger she was declared the Red Princess seeing as she was not yet a queen. Her skin was as pale as a cloud, her hair as red as an octopus’s determination. Deep pools of honey colored eyes accentuated the ambivalence in them. Freckles spotted her face like kisses of raindrops, scattered across her skin much like an artist’s splatter painting. She held within her the elegance of a willow tree, confident despite the scarring on her face. There was no denying that she was attractive even with the disfigurement–however, this was diminished by her stepdaughter, Snow. Her skin was brown as a snail shell, her hair was black as a lost soul and neatly braided into ropes like serpents. She carried her body with the grace of a sparrow. And her husband, the White King, was enraptured by his daughter’s beauty. But we’ll get into this later. For this is the story of the Red Queen and how she became the Queen of Hearts. This is absolutely not Snow White’s story. She already got her story. Now is time for the Queen.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? It all started when the Red Princess–her name is Ruby–was born. It was a cloudy night, the trees thrashed in the wind like a child throwing a tantrum, as if it were a premonition. The boughs scraped the windows, the clattering sound of someone drumming their nails on a table. The wind shrieked against the windows, wailing to be let in. The house creaked against its foundations, unrelenting. The wind’s cries were soon joined by that of the new baby, pale as milk, a nasty birthmark like a patch of spilled tea colored the side of one of her thighs.

She was the youngest of three. She had an older brother and an older sister–Magnum and Scarlet. She thought she was close with them, but as she grew older, she began to doubt.

She had a relatively normal, care-free childhood. She had loving and doting parents, and a sister she seemed to get along with relatively well. Sure, there was a tiff now and again, but it wasn’t anything major. Her sister in particular watched over her like a guardian angel. Scarlet was nice and compassionate to Ruby. She remembers playing for hours with her–hide and seek, doing puzzles, learning how to embroider together, playing make-believe, dressing up in their mother's clothing and jewelry.

While things were always easy with Scarlet, things with Magnum weren’t easy. He took to tormenting her for fun, taking to stealing her dolls and beheading them in a homemade guillotine while shrilly shrieking “off with their heads!” Ruby had no idea why he did this, but it best be said that this upset her. But she didn’t know how deep the pain went until she was a teen.

It wasn’t until she was a then that she began to resent her siblings–though for two very different reasons.

It was around her teenage years that her sister, Scarlet, died from a Jabberwock attack. The Jabberwock had attacked the castle, slaying dozens before it was sated. Blood coated the hallways for days, making the surfaces slick and later tacky, splatters of red coating the gleaming white marble.

Ruby’s family grieved for months, as it is not every day that a royal heir dies. It was hard, losing her best friend and sister, but Ruby somehow found a way to cope.

While Ruby resented her sister and best friend for dying, she despised Magnum for another reason entirely. As she grew, her beauty blossomed like a flower, and started snagging the eye of her brother. While she wandered through the gardens, he was following her. As she was reading in the library, Magnum would pick up a book and openly stare at her above its pages. When she sat by the fire embroidering, there he was, quietly observing her. But then one day, things changed.

When Ruby looked back on the first instance Magnum forced himself on her, she wasn’t sure what the catalyst was. She hadn’t done anything different than normal. She had gotten a puppy, so that could be it, but she hadn’t gotten him that recently so that it could have caused this. He was a chocolate lab named Paxton who took to wandering after her wherever she went. He was like Magnum in that way, the following around. But with Paxton, Ruby felt reassured and cared for. Not like the twisted relationship with Magnum.

Ruby tries her best to keep away the thought of this day, but this is vital to her story, so we must brush aside her terror and shame and forge ahead.

The sun was shining like a hole in the sky, its glaring brightness blanketing the world in honey colored light. It was late spring, flowers blossoming, grass turning green. It was a pretty day for a not so pretty act to take place. Life was beginning. But for Ruby, part of hers was ending. When she looked back on this day, she recognized it as the day she turned from a girl and adolescent into an adult.

The day up to the instance was pretty typical–Ruby wandered through the forest with Paxton, climbing trees to try and touch the sky; rolling down hills, laughing, Paxton barking happily in her wake, tail wagging furiously. But then she was curled up on the sofa in front of the fire--for in a castle as vast as theirs, it was always cool and drafty--, reading, when Magnum approached her. When he sat down next to her, Paxton raised his head and barked once. Ruby should have known better due to the long history of torment at the hands of Magnum, but she simply glanced up to see what it was, then returned to her book.

A smile split across Magnum’s face, an ugly, twisted thing. Full of delight and anticipation. You can probably guess what follows–the abuse. The rape. For that was what it was, Reader. There is no sugarcoating this. I won’t go into the details, as it would embarrass Ruby, and you could probably imagine better than I can describe. Let’s just say that this was far from the last time Magnum would approach Ruby in this way.

To escape Magnum, Ruby took to exploring the land of Cards with her loyal Paxton at her side. She discovered the Cliffs of Honesty and the Bay of Lost Dreams. She walked through the Forest of Forgotten Thoughts, and over the Hills of Abandoned Wishes. She explored the Cave of Nightmares and the burrow of a Bandersnatch, barely escaping both with her life. She became good friends with the Cheshire cat, though his grin was reminiscent of Magnum’s leer. She even learned how to play croquet with flamingos and hedgehogs–a favorite pastime in the kingdom of Cards.

And through it all, Paxton was with her. He never left her side. Even at night–especially at night when Magnum was prone to slip into her bed–he never took his eyes off her. He never stopped tugging at Magnum’s hands with his mouth, nipping around his ankles when he just wouldn’t stop.

There was one other occurrence that fed Ruby’s hatred towards Magnum. And this was the one that finally tipped her over the edge. She was perilously close to breaking, like a well-loved teacup, and this event just…broke her.

One morning Ruby woke up, and Paxton was nowhere to be found. She instantly knew that something was wrong. Anxiety struck her like an icicle in her chest, slowly spreading throughout her body like ink in water. She pushed her hair back from her face, dragging her fingers through it, tearing strands out as she did so.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, NO. Absolutely NOT.” She tied her hair up into a knot, frantically searching for Paxton. She half-knew before she stumbled out of her room what had happened. She found him in Magnum’s quarters, restrained. At least he seemed to be in one piece, though he looked very put-out. He whined when he saw her. Magnum, hearing this and recognizing it as a sign that Ruby had arrived, walked out of his closet.

That’s when Ruby saw what he was carrying in his hands and collapsed to her knees like a broken marionette.

“No,” she sobbed. “Please, Magnum. No. He’s the only thing that still keeps me going. Just, Saints damn it, no.” She stopped, lost, unable to voice her torment.

Magnum smiled cruelly, smirking at her, pleased to arouse such grievance in her. “This must be the most I’ve heard you talk in months.”

Ruby grimaced, tears trailing down her cheeks. “Don’t do it.” She knew even before she said it that it was futile.

Magnum set down the guillotine and led Paxton over to it. Ruby lunged for her dog, but was shoved away by Magnum. He then punched her in her gut, kicking her as she fell.

“Down, you little mongrel!” he snarled.

She gave a shuddering breath, feeling at least one broken rib. He set Paxton down, keeping him in place with a foot planted on his body. He dragged Ruby over to one of the chairs sitting at his table, tying her up. He twisted her head so she had no choice but to watch what he did to Paxton.

Magnum shrieked “Off with his head!”

There was a thud.

It was over before Ruby knew it.