And so the Queen of Hearts made her way quietly to the widow’s cottage, and as she hid among the trees, she saw the daughter playing alone. For the cottage was a long way from even the nearest village, and there were no playmates to share the daughter’s game.

So the Queen, who was no queen at all, but a powerful witch, changed her shape to that of a little black cat, and strolled out, tail high, from between the trees.

And all day the child played with the cat, which gambolled and chased pieces of string and climbed trees and came at her call and ate from her hand and was undoubtedly the most playful and picture-perfect of pretty kittycats any child had ever seen—

But for all its purring and preening, the cat could not steal the daughter’s heart, and when night came, the child went indoors to where her mother had laid dinner on the table, and the Queen of Hearts yowled her displeasure to the night, and ripped out the hearts of many small nocturnal creatures, but was not satisfied, and wanted the child’s heart even more than before . . .

So on the second day, she changed into a handsome young man, and lay in wait for the widow’s daughter as she searched for her kittycat in the woods. Now the daughter had never seen a young man, except from afar, on market-days. And this one was glorious in every way – black hair, blue eyes, fresh as a girl, but all boy – and she forgot about the kittycat, and they walked, and talked, and laughed, and ran together through the forest like fallow deer in season.

But when night came, and he dared steal a kiss, the daughter’s heart still belonged to her mother, and that night the Queen hunted deer and cut out their hearts, and ate them raw – but still she was not satisfied, and longed for the child more than ever.

So, on the morning of the third day, the witch did not change her shape, but instead stayed close to the house and watched. And as the child went off in vain to search for her friend of the previous day, the Queen of Hearts kept her eyes fixed on the child’s mother. She watched as the mother washed clothes in the stream, and knew that she could do it better. She watched as the mother cleaned the house, and knew that she could do it better. And as night fell, she took the shape of the mother herself – her smiling face, her gentle hands – and when the daughter came back home, there were two mothers there to greet her . . .

What on earth could the mother do? The Queen of Hearts had studied her, had copied every gesture, every mannerism too flawlessly to be caught out. Everything she did, the witch could do better, faster, more perfectly—