She is beautiful. The most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I have seen everything. I want to tell her, but when I do, she stops speaking to me for weeks, months, even years before. Just an object on the wall, easily ignored.

So I lie. I tell her, when she asks me, that there is one more beautiful than her.

"Who?"

"The girl who plays, just out there, orphaned and left in your care."

"Impossible! She is a child."

"A child once, but now grown, and so grew a beauty of her own."

She storms from the room. I don't know what she'll do, but this was longer than our past conversations.

~*~

It's three days since, and here she is before me, holding something red and wet and squishy. I don't want to know, but I know. I don't want to tell her, but I want to talk to her, and she calls out to me.

"Do you know what this is? It's her heart. Now who is fairest?"

"She is fairest, as before. What you hold came from a boar."

She growls, and I try to think of what to say to keep her with me.

"Where is she?"

"Deep in the woods, a home she's found, with little men from underground."

"I'll find her," she spits out before leaving once more.

I am worried for her, but I feel needed. It's a good feeling.

~*~

It's only been a day, and she is down here, but not to talk with me. She is back with her poisons and potions, concoctions and decoctions, alembic and mortar and pestle.

"What plan do you have in your head? I suspect you wish to make one dead."

"You know who I want dead. There's only one before me. Tell me, would she want meat or fruit?" She holds out a bit of jerky and an apple.

"She's friend to the beasts of wood and field. The latter, your desired result would yield."

"Good, good. And now, since she won't trust my face, a change is in order."

She drinks down a potion and crumples to the ground. At first, I fear she confused the vials. Then I realize it is far worse. The hag before me is hideous. All her beauty has been inverted. She cackles and leaves me, alone with my guilt.

I am waiting her for her return, knowing I will never see her the same. Blinded by my love of a pretty face, I allowed an ugly heart to grow. I can't blame her. I was the guardian of her self love. I was a receptacle to store away her doubts. Now, I am the instigator of her great evil.

I close myself off, shut off my senses. I cannot watch her kill a child. I cannot face her when she returns. From here, I am only a mirror, showing people nothing more than who they are.