So White

No dwarves, just runaway boys....

So White

 

       A beautiful woman who lived in a small time gave birth to a baby girl one fateful day.  The baby was not planned, but her husband was quite happy over it.  He cooed and fussed over his baby daughter that they named Bonnie.  The mother grew very jealous over her daughter’s good looks.  The husband paid less and less attention to Sue and the Sue blamed the baby for it.  The husband and wife began arguing until they finally divorced a few years later.  The father abandoned his old family and began a new one, thus leaving Bonnie to be raised alone by a mother her really didn’t want her either. 

       Years passed and Bonnie grew ever more beautiful and ever more sweet.  Her short black hair framed her perfect porcelain skin. Sue hated her daughter’s perfect white skin, for Sue had always been plagued by acne.  Her poor complexion had always been a source of great misery for her over the years.  Every time she looked at her girl’s soft, flawless face, she grew sick inside.  And everyday that Sue looked into the bathroom mirror and asked, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall who is the prettiest of them all?”  In return she was cursed in seeing her own reflection staring back at her, her mouth often twisted into a grimace.  The mirror only showed Sue all that was wrong with herself and never anything positive or pretty about her own looks. 

        In her demented mind, Sue could hear her daughter laughing at her along with all the kids from grade school and high school.  They were pointing at her and making fun of her because she wore braces and had acne.  The kids had asked her repeatedly what race she belonged to.  She wasn’t black or white or yellow or red.  Her jaundice skin was often colored with black and red splotches, which she could never seem to be rid of no matter what products she tried from the store.  She tried covering her skin with make up, but her blemishes were still very visible.  Her mother refused to take her to the dermatologist, saying nothing was wrong with her and that she’d eventually outgrow the acne like everyone else did.

        Now that her husband had left her, she was in total despair.  Next to Bonnie, Sue felt absolutely hideous.  She felt like no one would ever want her again and so Sue decided the best way for her to snag another man was to get rid of the burden of her beautiful child. 

        Sue hired a man to take Bonnie into a small wood outside of town and kill her.  He was to bring back Bonnie’s heart as proof, but bury the rest of the body where no one would ever find her.  A tall, handsome man came to their door not long after Bonnie turned eight.  Bonnie was told by her mother to go with this man�"that he was her long lost uncle who wanted to get to know her.  The naïve little girl went along, not knowing what lay in store for her that day.  Bonnie rode with him in his truck to the edge of the lush green woods.  These woods were where the man had gone hunting in years past.  Killing was not unknown to him, although he’d never taken money to kill a person before.  He led Bonnie deep into the woods and  she followed him quietly, enjoying the walk.  She looked up at the birds singing in the trees and thought it was the most wonderful day for a nature hike. 

         Once they were miles away from anyone or anything, then man stopped and pulled out his gun.  Bonnie watched serenely with her brilliant green eyes.  The man was so enraptured of her innocence and beauty that he could not kill her.  Instead, he fell to his knees and began weeping.  He couldn’t do it.  It simply wasn’t in him no matter how badly he needed the money. 

        “Why are you crying?” asked Bonnie.  She came toward him to comfort him.

         “Your mother wanted me to kill you, but I can’t do it.  I can’t kill you.  You are too sweet, innocent and beautiful to harm.  Go!” he told her.  “Run away and stay away so that mother will never know that I let you go.”

         Bonnie was puzzled at her mother’s cruelty.  How could she be so callous and cold toward her own flesh and blood she wondered? 

         “Go,” the handsome young man begged.

         So Bonnie took off running and kept running until she could run no more.  Bonnie stopped in the woods, suddenly realizing that she was lost.  She had no idea where she was at or where she was going.  The trees were taller, dark and older in this part of the woods.  She sighed and decided to follow the stream that meandered through the trees. 

         Bonnie approached a shack at that she spotted amid the tall oaks and maples.  It appeared to be abandoned, so she decided that there would be no harm in resting there.  Tiredly, she opened up the door and peered inside.  Carefully she crept into the bedroom and laid down upon a tiny bed and fell asleep.

        When she awoke she saw seven pairs of eyes on her.  She rubbed her eyes, thinking it must still be a dream, but it was not.  Bonnie nearly jumped out of the bed when she realized there were seven boys staring at her. 

        “I thought this place was abandoned.  Who are you?”

        “We live here,” one of the boys said.

        As they talked she discovered that the seven faces belonged to seven orphan boys who’d run away from the group home they were in.  The oldest was here age, eight.  There were three others who were seven and two that were six.  Only one of the boys was five years old.  They needed a mother and Bonnie decided that she could be a mother to them.  Thus began a happy seven years.

       The hunter had returned to Sue with a fawn’s heart and she couldn’t tell the difference.  She seemed very pleased with him and paid him greatly.  She thanked him again and he left, returning to his wife and ten year old son.  For the next seven years he prayed that Bonnie had survived and was alive and well somewhere.

        Sue continued her routine of asking her mirror everyday who was the most beautiful.  Still, she heard the voices laughing at her. Somewhere, deep inside, she had a feeling that her daughter was still alive out there.  Seven years of this persistent feeling passed before she sent a private detective to find her supposedly missing daughter.   The private detective came back to her with the news that her daughter was indeed alive and living in the woods.  Promising to turn it over to the authorities, she dismissed the man.

        “If you want something done right, you do it yourself,” she said out loud.  Sue came up with a plan to put arsenic in some apple juice and disguise herself as an old gypsy woman.  Bonnie had always been fascinated by gypsies as a little girl.  Sue wandered through the woods until she found the shack.  Trying to hide her malevolent glee, Sue knocked upon the door.  A delicate, pure white skinned and black haired girl answered.  It was Bonnie, now a young woman of fifteen. 

        “May I help you?”

        “I am here to help you my dear.  I am selling a potion that will keep you young forever.”

        “How did you find me here in these woods?”

        “My powers told me. I am a gypsy you know.”  She took the small container of apple juice and told her, “Here take this sample. I will be back to see if you wish to buy more of it later.”

         Bonnie took the bottle hesitantly and said, “Are you sure?”

         “Quite,” the woman smiled.  Sue waved good-bye and slipped away.  She hoped that Bonnie was still naive enough to believe her.  Sue did not go far, for she wanted to make sure her plan worked this time.

         Bonnie studied that bottle alone in the shack.  Her boys were off at work and had warned her not to trust strangers.  They knew of the cruel world, but she did not.  Her whole life she’d lived in the woods, taking care of her boys.  Bonnie set the bottle down and began her daily chores.  When she finished, she found herself very thirsty indeed.

         The sunlight shone through the open window and through the golden juice.  Bonnie couldn’t resist.  She picked up the bottle and opened it.  She tipped it to her ruby red lips and drank the sweet, cool juice.  After a few moments, her stomach grew queasy.  She didn’t feel well at wall.

        Bonnie flew into the bathroom and got sick.  It scared her greatly because she’d never been so ill in her entire life.  It was even worse than the time that her boy Bobby had given her a taste of Tequila.  When she was finished vomiting, she fell onto the floor and into a deep, feverish sleep.

         Laying on the floor in the bathroom his how the boys found her.  They panicked and talked amongst themselves about how to deal with this crisis.  None of them knew first aide and there wasn’t a phone near by.  They oldest checked her pulse to make sure she was still alive.  Together, they picked her up and put her in bed.  Each one of them took turns tending to her.

          It happened to be fall and hunting season, so it just so happened that a rather good looking young man wandered into the woods.  He was trailing a deer when he came across the shack.  He was curious, as he’d heard stories about how it was supposed to be haunted.  Others had told him that there were a family of dwarfs living there, but no one knew for sure.  Joseph went inside, thinking it was empty and abandoned.   He turned from the dirty kitchen into the bedroom and saw the most breathtaking women he’d ever seen lying there.  Her snow white skin was perfectly framed by her bobbed black hair.  She wore a simple dress that showed her gentle curves.  Spellbound by this timeless beauty and uninhibited by the usual surroundings he leaned down to kiss her.

         Bonnie’s fever broke and she awakened at that very moment that he kissed her.  Her eyes still closed, she responded to the wonderful new sensation.

 

 

        Bonnie married Joseph a few years later after they’d dated and gotten to know each other.  Bonnie moved from her shack in the woods to an apartment in the city and was never happier.  Her new father-in-law was the hunter who had originally been hired to kill her.  Bonnie was indebted to him for letting her live.  Sue, on the other hand, was turned over to the cops and charged with child endangerment, abandonment and attempted murder.  The seven boys went their separate ways and the shack was eventually abandoned.  

       No matter, for Bonnie and Joseph lived happily ever after in the city.