Rose Red Kills Snow White and Vice Versa
Jordan Davidson
There are two girls playing chess.
I am the good girl. She is the bad girl. You can tell us apart by who wears what — she wears red, I wear white, and we are never to be parted — the bad girl says we are never to be parted, and she holds my hand. She holds my hand with her nails. If she was given a needle and thread she would ask me to sew our hands together, and so I keep all the needles and all the threads hidden in locked boxes, and I tell myself that I have the keys.
She has them too. I forget that sometimes. But the girl in red, the bad girl, she doesn’t want to do bad things herself. She wants me to do bad things for her.
We are sitting at a chessboard. We are inseparable. We are holding hands. Red chess, white chess. Bloody chess, clean chess. If I lose, I bleed, but we are never to be parted. We are mirrors. Mirrors that hold hands and make the same chess moves — I put a pawn forward to D4 and she puts her pawn forward to D5 and I put my pawn forward to to E4. Her pawn already covers E5, and now I don’t know who went first, but I’ve thought ten moves ahead. Fifty. Seventy behind. If this, then this, then this, and this, and this.
She tells me a chess pieces could choke me. She tells me to put the chess piece in my mouth. She runs her fingers on the palm of my hand. Over my lips. Makes me tingle for the knight between my molars but when I stop looking at the board, she’s made another move. She’s screwed my head back to my shoulders in the wrong way.
She says, “You’re bad. You’re very bad. You should know you’re bad. Do you remember the man in the woods?”
I remember the man in the woods. The red girl and the white girl, the her and the me, the me and the her, were holding hands and touching thorns. To gather rose hips. To make jam. There are scissors to separate rose hips. There is a man in the path, and she tells me to stab the man. She puts the scissors in my other hand. I see the man when I face her. In her pupils.
I don’t remember why I put the knife down — did I? Did I want to? Which did I want to do? What was me, and what was whispering? I think her whispering is very porous. It slips in my ears. If you look at my brain it’s stained red. I get nosebleeds every morning. I’m crying out her tears.
She tells me to think about the man again — look at the chess pieces, one’s going to fall. Like the man was going to fall. Off the side of a cliff (berry hunting again, we were looking for berries, or lost lace, or needles, or not needles because I hide the needles from her, and I had scissors).
Did I tell myself to push him? Or did she tell me? I could feel every air between us, Rose Red and the Man and I. He didn’t fall. But does that mean I didn’t want him to, and I move a pawn, and she stops the mirroring, and she takes it. She says it’s in my nature. To be reckless and sacrificial — when the man was in the river, didn’t I tell myself to hold him under? Or did she tell me? Or are we both the same?
I’m holding my own hand. Moving my own chess pieces.
She is the bad girl. We are the bad girl. I am the bad girl. The clock on the wall is ticking. What if I smashed it? What if I wanted to smash it? What if I wanted to want to smash it—the door opens.
The therapist sees one girl playing with chess pieces. In her head and on the table. There aren’t two of you, even though it feels like it. There’s not a bad you and a good you. There’s one you. He looks like a bear — large brown coat, sad eyes.
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. If there’s only one of us, then I’m Rose Red. Rose Red is me. I am the bad girl. The violent girl. The hopeless girl. The bad girl, the red, red, red, red girl.
He says: You won’t believe me now, but you aren’t your OCD.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I am. Look at the chess pieces.