Logan the Fandom Nerd

Cinderella watches the breath rattle out of her mother for the last time. The hand she holds between her own cools. A wind with the bite of winter rolls through the window, making the bedcurtains shiver.

Okay takes time.

Cinderella waits for one of two things to rise. The sun or her mother.

The sun wins.

---------------.

Stepmother and her daughters move in too quickly after that. Cinderella doesn’t remember when her father brought them home. Was it the day he found her in the master bedroom? Or was it weeks later when Cinderella could finally tear herself away from staring out the window?

“This is your new mother,” her father says. He kneels in front of Cinderella and cups her cheek with one broad hand. He scans her with worried eyes. “Okay? We’ll be a family now.”

Cinderella wants to scream. Her fingers tangle in the front of her dress and her toes dig into the ground through her shoes. She keeps thinking of her mother’s hand in hers. And now she has a new one?

“Cinderella,” her father says. He squeezes her shoulder with his other hand. “Okay?”

“Okay,” she says. Her eyes dart to her stepmother standing behind her father. “I-it may take some t-time, but…”

“And we will have time,” Stepmother says. Her voice is the very opposite of her mother’s, high and lilting where her mother’s voice was low and round. She smiles at Cinderella. “Thank you, my dear.”

“We will be a family,” her father says. He stands so he can wrap one arm around Stepmother. He puts his hand on top of Cinderella’s head. “A very loving family.”

------------.

A very loving family.

Things are taken from Cinderella slowly. A pretty ribbon goes to Drizella when Stepmother notices her daughter’s envious stare. Her room is given to her stepsisters’ governess when she’s eleven. A textbook goes to Anastasia when her governess runs out of material to teach.

“Father,” Cinderella says from the door of her father’s study. She’s embarrassed that her ankles are showing from under her dress, the sleeves falling short of her wrists, her golden hair knotted on one side of her head. She’d only learned of her father’s homecoming an hour ago when Anastasia called for him too loudly. “May I speak to you?”

Her father doesn’t look up from the reports in front of him. He mutters as he runs numbers over and over and over again, scratching each calculation out with the quill Cinderella gave him last year. The sight of the quill gives Cinderella comfort.

He loves me still, Cinderella thinks as she waits for his attention. She’s too old to tangle her fingers in her dress now, or so she’s learned from eavesdropping on her stepsisters’ etiquette lessons. So she folds her hands behind her back and holds her spine as straight as she can.

“What is it?” her father asks at last. He pushes away his papers but, rather than focus on Cinderella, pulls a ledger in front of him. “It is late.”

“I’m sorry,” Cinderella says. She is sorry. The sun has been done for hours and here is her poor father working away. She bites her cheek. “I—my room. Stepmother said the governess would need it and I would need to move for the duration of her stay.”

“Yes?”

Cinderella’s heart stings. He knew. She breathes in deeply. “It’s only—well, she’s been here for two months now.”

“And she will be here for many more,” her father says. He turns the page of the ledger and freezes. He frowns as his eyes skim the same line over and over again. “Is there a point, Cinderella? I’m busy.”

“I’ve been told to sleep in the kitchen,” Cinderella blurts out. She can see soot on the hem of her nightgown and she steps back to hide the stain in the shadows. “If I could have some space in the servant’s quarters, maybe…”

“It’s temporary,” her father says. He stands without taking his eyes off the page. Sweating, he dabs at his forehead with a handkerchief her mother embroidered for him and waves her off. “Go to bed, Cinderella. It’s late. We will talk in the morning.”

Be patient, Cinderella thinks. She wraps her arms around herself. The cold stone floors bite at her bare feet. Think kind thoughts. Rake the leaves around the oak tree.

Her father is gone in the morning on another trip.

He does not come home.

-----------------.

When Cinderella thinks positively, her life is like a fairytale. The kitchen hearth is warm and she never lacks for company between the birds that sing in the branches of the oak tree and the mice that snatch up crumbs before the ants can get to them. Her father is a dashingly handsome man on a mission to save their family from total ruin. The last letter he sent (over a year ago) detailed a harrowing trip over the seas to a new land in hopes of trade. He’s an adventurer. He’s a hero.

When her life is like a fairytale, Stepmother is only cruel to protect Cinderella from the Curse. She’s never decided what the “Curse” is, but it feeds on happiness. Stepmother piles chores and chores onto Cinderella so Cinderella is too tired to be happy and the Curse is held at bay.

Her stepsisters don’t make fun of Cinderella’s soot-filled hair or her tattered clothes. No, they tease as all sisters do. They happily eat what Cinderella cooks for them and, though they don’t say it out loud, they are always grateful to Cinderella.

Cinderella is patient. Cinderella is kind. The governess leaves without ever directly giving Cinderella a lesson. Cinderella’s room becomes a closet for her stepsisters and that’s okay. It’s okay because she loves them and she wants them to have room for their belongings.

Stepmother has her move to the attic instead. It’s nicer there than in the kitchen. She has a bed and a dresser and a little window that looks out over the driveway. She thinks it’s a turning point in their loving family and she’s finally been patient enough--

Stepmother starts insisting Cinderella answer to the call of a silver bell at all hours of the night. She thought Cinderella would hear the ringing better from the attic than from the kitchen. Cinderella, come here. Cinderella, move faster. Cinderella—

Cinderella rakes the leaves under the oak tree and stares down the driveway, wishing for her father to come home.

---------------.

Cinderella turns 17. It’s been six years since her father left on his quest and four years since his last letter. The money in the estate is drying up and Cinderella’s chores grow as their finances dwindle.

Cinderella feels the walls caving in a little more each day. Like she alone is sinking further and further underground and the collective weight of the earth around her attic bedroom is the reason the wood creaks a little more each passing storm.

Be kind, her mother told her.

But what is kindness when she is disintegrating in front of the the people who were supposed to love her? Her face is hollowed from understanding smiles. They love you, they just don’t know how to show it. Just be kind a little longer and then everything will be okay. Be patient—

So she ties her hair up in scraps of cloth leftover from mending the tablecloth and she goes out to face another day. The list of chores she must complete stretches until the sun goes down. She presses her hands into abrasive water and scrubs, scrubs, scrubs. She collects the silverware and polishes it (though it does not need to be polished). She sweeps and mops and prunes the roses.

She dusts the great, creaking carcass of a manor her father left behind and wonders for how much longer she is expected to be its beating heart?

Be patient, your reward will come, maintain your kindness and open your soul, carve out what you can spare —

Cinderella is growing too old for fairytales.

-----------------------.

She writes her father one last time on the last full moon of her nineteenth year. Cinderella feels so much older now and so young at the same time. The chill of fall permeates the attic and stiffens her fingers, but her heart is beating very hard.

I’m leaving, she writes. Her quill hovers over the next line. She could end the letter here, but she doesn’t want to. Her father has been absent, he may be dead, but she loves him still. She wants to share her elation with him even as it breaks her heart to leave behind what he built.

I’m leaving. Once my birthday comes, I plan to take a carriage into the city. I have a reference from our old gardener, and I will find work. I can’t stay here anymore, Father, waiting for letters that may never come. Thank you for everything you’ve done.

Cinderella stares at the letters. Thank you. The joy she’d felt earlier is dying under those words.

The truth is, Cinderella doesn’t feel thankful. She feels…raw. Tired. Like leaving is her last ray of hope and, without it, her world is darkness. She’s spent so many years making her life into stories to keep herself from breaking.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived under a terrible curse. Luckily her stepmother was clever and determined. Though she did not want to, she made herself be cruel to Cinderella in order to stave off—

Once upon a time, there were three sisters. Though the older two teased the younger, they loved each other very much—

Once upon a time, Cinderella worked hard enough and her new family realized they should have loved her all along—

She is tired of being kind. It hurts. Hurts like sleep in front of the hearth for years, hurts like the chill clawing through her attic room, hurts like remembering her mother’s last breath rattling out of her chest.

Telling her father thank you is kind. If he really is off trying to save their family from ruin, he is owed thanks. But Cinderella can’t give it. She is selfish in the end. Cruel and unkind. That’s why the family who was supposed to love her never could.

Cinderella presses quill back to parchment.

If I must suffer, I would rather it be from my own choices. There is no future for me here any longer. I will carry the memories of Mother in the garden for the rest of my life. I will remember the dinners we had at the dining table. I will think of the oak tree we used to sit under as a family. I hope you return to your new family safely and I hope you do not think of me when you do. I think we parted when Mother died. I must start my new life so this is goodbye.

Goodbye, Father.

She signs her name and seals the envelope before she can falter.

--------------.

A month after she sends her letter, a messenger arrives from the castle.

“A ball,” he says, handing the invitation to her stepmother. He frowns at the cobwebs along the ceiling and eyes the high polish of the ebony banister. “Open to all noble ladies of suitable peerage.”

There’s doubt in his voice when he says the word noble. Cinderella, eavesdropping from behind the closed door of the parlor, silently agrees. It’s been years since she thought of her father’s title of Baron. As part of the landless nobility, it rarely came up and, with her father’s absence, there’s no one to care.

But Stepmother cares. As soon as the messenger leaves, she’s celebrating with her daughters. “We’ll order dresses,” Stepmother says, clapping her hands together. “New dresses that will make my daughters shine brighter than any Duke’s daughter.”

“I want to wear green,” Anastasia says. She sighs dreamily. “They say the Prince’s eyes are green.”

“I want to wear black,” Drizella announces. She presses a hand to her chest. “The Prince and the King both have black hair. It will be to honor them.”

Stepmother does her best to hide her grimace. “Darling, black is…for other occasions. How about you try a nice lilac? Purple is for royalty.”

Drizella grins happily.

Cinderella slips back up to the attic. This speeds up her plans a little bit. The ball is three months away, but that is still a month before her birthday. A ball means the house will be empty. Cinderella will leave the night of the ball and, with any luck, it will be days before Stepmother even thinks to ring her silver bell.

Cinderella has work to do.

------------.

The ball affords Cinderella more opportunities than she thought. Stepmother keeps a strict inventory of the pantry, so Cinderella must collect her rations little by little to avoid detection. When her family goes into town to visit the seamstress, Cinderella leaves behind her chores. She picks her way through the woods behind the manor, eyes scanning the sides of the path. She can dry mushrooms or can berries if she finds them. Foraging is a faster way to fill her rations.

Cinderella likes being alone in the woods. The sun is high overhead and the light that shines through the canopy turns the leaves bright green. Birdsong drifts through the air and there’s a small scuffling from the ferns to her right as some small animal searches for fresh shoots. It feels like the woods are the only place she can be herself without worrying about kindness or unkindness.

She remembers a time when she hated it. One winter, they did not have enough firewood. Stepmother sent 15-year-old Cinderella into the woods in search of twigs and branches. She remembers the fear that still winter night built in her, the surety that she would either freeze to death or be eaten alive.

She’d wandered further and further from the house, desperate to complete her task so she could return to her attic. Her fingers had nearly frozen even tucked into her sleeves. The trees were stripped bare by the weight of the snow and ice. The moon had been barely bright enough to light her way and, looking back, there was no way she would have been able to collect enough firewood to make a difference. She was going to die before she completed her task, or so she thought.

Then she found the clearing.

She steps out of the treeline and into that same clearing now.

The woods are dense behind the manor. They trees that grow here are too hard for most loggers, ancient and gnarled in appearance. When she first stumbled into the wide, circular meadow, she had thought she was imagining things.

Even on that snowy, terrible winter, the clearing was green and warm.

Wildflowers peak out through grass as high as Cinderella’s knee. She wades through it, never fearing sharp stones or unexpected holes. In all the years she’s been coming here, she has never twisted her ankle or torn a hem. The clearing is like stepping into a picture, everything as soft as a brushstroke.

In the center of the wildflowers is an oak tree. From her studies, Cinderella estimates it to be twice as old as the one in the manor’s garden. Perhaps three or four hundred years old. The base is easily as big around as a carriage and the tree stretches a good dozen feet higher than the forest’s canopy.

There won’t be any mushrooms here, or at least not the kind Cinderella can eat. But it’s been so long since she’s had the chance to come here. She heads for the oak tree and sits against its trunk with a sigh, titling her head back against the bark. The warmth coming from the tree eases the tension from her shoulders. She’ll have to be careful lest she fall asleep. She’ll need to be back before Stepmother returns from the seamstress…

“You were gone a long time.”

Cinderella hums and folds her hands over her stomach. The boy’s words are accusatory, but Cinderella knows him well enough now to hear the undercurrent of worry in his words. “I had a big decision to make.”

The boy in the tree never shows himself. He may be the tree for all Cinderella knows. She’s never looked for the source, sensing that her friend may never come back if she asks too many questions. So, like always, she keeps her eyes shut as the boy’s presence grows all around her.

“About what we talked about last time?” he asks.

“Yes,” Cinderella says. She thinks of the letter she sent to a father who probably won’t read it and sighs again. “You’re right. I’m old enough to leave.”

The boy’s presence – his aura – brightens in her mind’s eye. She doesn’t know what he is, but she thinks fairies in fairytales move like this. Moving in short bursts, flashes of light, and sensations of warmth. “You’re coming to the Capital?”

Coming? Cinderella shakes off the odd phrasing. “Not quite.”

The boy is confused. “Then you’re not leaving?”

“I am.” Cinderella stretches out her legs in front of her. “I don’t know anyone in the Capital. Someone who used to work for my father gave me a reference that will be good in the next town over. That’s where I’m going.”

“You can’t!” The boy is in the tree now and it surges with heat as his temper flashes. “You can’t go there!”

“Why not?”

“Because we won’t be able to see each other anymore,” the boy says. The leaves of the tree rattle together. “I can’t get to that town.”

Cinderella sits up straight. “Wait, I could still see you in the Capital? That’s why you want me to go there?”

“Why else would I suggest it?” the boy asks. His voice softens. “You do still want to visit me, right?”

“Of course,” Cinderella says. She opens her eyes. There’s a sheen over the world, like she and the tree are being held separate from everything else by the boy’s presence. She watches rainbows drift through the air. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“We are.” The boy nudges her. “Close your eyes, you know it’s not good to look at magic too long.”

Obediently, Cinderella closes her eyes again. The boy is always saying that, but Cinderella has never felt any ill effects from looking at the rainbows. “I’ll get to the Capital eventually. But I do need to go to that town first.”

“Why?”

“I need to work,” Cinderella says. “If I’m going to the Capital, I definitely need money.”

“I can give you money.”

Cinderella doubts that. She doesn’t see why a fairy would have human money. “I still can’t go right away. My stepmother and sisters will be there for a while.”

“They’re coming—going there?! Why?”

“The Prince is looking for a bride,” Cinderella says. She shrugs. “A messenger came a while ago to invite us. That’s why I could come out today. My family is at the seam—Whoa!”

The wind picks up all at once, a warm and gentle gale that sweeps Cinderella’s hair up into the air. When she peeks, the rainbows are dancing.

“You got invited to the ball?” the boy asks. “How? Why?”

Cinderella furrows her brow. “All nobility is invited, even the children of barons who haven’t been seen for nearly a decade, apparently. Why are you excited? Do you even know what a ball is?”

“Do I—of course I—” The boy falls silent. When he speaks again, he’s using a much calmer voice. “I’m just excited that you could be in the Capital so soon.”

“I’m not going,” Cinderella says. She crosses her arms. “This is my best chance to leave. I’m not giving it up just so I can play servant to my stepsisters when they attend the ball.”

“You were invited too, right?”

“I wouldn’t actually be able to go,” Cinderella says. She can see the way it would play out. They’d bring her along to satisfy the messenger’s invitation and that’s it. “I don’t have a dress and, even if I did, my stepmother would force me to stay at the inn. I’d just be brought along to curl Drizella’s hair and patch Anastasia’s dress when she inevitably tears a hole in it.”

“That’s not fair,” the boy says. She gets the impression he’d be scowling if he had a face. “That’s not what the Prince meant to happen when he invited all noble ladies. He meant all of them had to come to the ball, not just the Capital.”

Cinderella can’t help it. She laughs. “It’s not fair, true. But I’m tired of waiting for the world to be fair. I’m sorry, but I won’t be going to the Capital just yet. I’ll come and find wherever your tree is as soon as I get there. Maybe in a year?”

The boy is silent for a long moment. At last he says, “If I could get you to the ball without your family knowing, would you go?”

Cinderella blinks. “I just said that I need to get a job right away—”

“But if I could,” the boy presses, “would you?”

Sometimes Cinderella forgets how naïve the boy is. He’s always talking like that, as if anything is possible. “But I can’t,” Cinderella says gently. “Even if you could get me to the Capital, I’d need a place to stay.”

“I could—”

“And a dress,” Cinderella interrupts. “And I’m sure I’d need the invitation and Stepmother would never let me have that. Even if I did go, what then? How long would I have to wait until I could leave again? Not to mention if my stepmother ever found out…”

“What if I got you a way to the Capital, a place to stay, a way for your stepmother to never find out, a dress, and a guaranteed way to stay in the Capital?” the boy asks. His aura shivers with intensity. “What if I promised you that I could do all that? You could go to the ball and still escape and you’d be somewhere we could still see each other.”

“That’s a lovely dream,” Cinderella says. She’s irritated now. Of course, that sounds wonderful. Cinderella has never been to a ball and the idea of having everything taken care of for one night sounds divine. But Cinderella is too old for fairytales. “Of course, if it were possible, I would do it! The truth is that it’s not possible—”

“Come back the full moon before the ball,” the boy says. His presence jerks up towards the canopy of the oak tree. “At night. Bring your things as if you were leaving. Alright? Promise me!”

“I don’t—”

“If it doesn’t work, you’re not any worse off. You’ll still be able to leave for the next town and we’ll see each other again in a year. But if it does work—”

“If what works?” Cinderella cries.

“Magic,” the boy says before disappearing completely.

Cinderella blinks rainbows out of her eyes. It’s suddenly too bright in the clearing and her head is spinning. Magic? What magic?

“I’m not going,” Cinderella says out loud. The boy isn’t there to hear her. She glares at the meadow. “This isn’t a fairytale. Magic won’t fix anything.”

Cinderella stands, dusts off her dress, and goes looking for mushrooms.

——-

Thanks for reading!

Part two is already posted on my Patreon (X)! If you’d like to read it a week early, please consider supporting me on there :)

“Yes, Stepmother?” Cinderella asks. Her voice startles her. Low and rounded and empty. She is deep inside her own head as Stepmother steps into the sunlight streaming through the small window above the preparation table. “Is there something you need assistance with?

“I have been thinking,” Stepmother says. Her chin lifts and her eyes glint when she eyes the basket of stockings. “You have…shown efforts in this household. I know the girls and I have not been as attentive as of late. Our focus has been entirely on the ball. Yet, I would not have you thinking your…help has gone unnoticed.”

“It was my idea,” Drizella blurts. She darts under her mother’s arms and pelts forward, nearly falling when she stops just short of Cinderella’s seat. She grins down at her. “This is my idea!”

“Our idea,” Anastasia says with a sniff. She steps around her mother with tiny, practiced steps. She’s using a strange accent, half Capital and half west mountains. She’s been attempting to blend into the upper nobility. “We thought of it together.”

“Yes, my girls are so kind,” Stepmother says. She reveals what she’s holding behind her back and Cinderella’s breath stills in her lungs. It’s fabric, beautiful, shimmering silver fabric. A hint of a lace sleeve peeks out from the bundle. “Here.”

Cinderella stands. This can’t be what she thinks it is. She doesn’t reach for the bundle even when Stepmother takes a step forward, hand outstretched. She swallows. “Is that a dress?”

“We had some money leftover at the seamstress,” Drizella says, leaning into Cinderella’s side. She tilts her head to rest on the taller girl’s shoulder. “Isn’t the color beautiful?”

“I didn’t want lace on my dress,” Anastasia says. She sits in Cinderella’s abandoned chair, smoothing her skirts like a court lady might. “So the seamstress said she could add it to yours. You’re welcome.”

Cinderella is staring at the dress. This can’t be real. Something in her chest trembles. Were they thinking of her at the seamstress’ studio? Her? “Why?”

“So you can attend the ball of course,” Stepmother says. She takes another step forward. “I am not so ungenerous as to ban you from going. Did you think I would?”

Yes. Cinderella’s hand trembles when she reaches for the dress. Her fingertips graze the smooth fabric. “It’s beautiful.”

“As beautiful as you are,” Stepmother says. Stepmother’s voice trembles. She blinks quickly as if holding back tears. “I have never told you so. It is not good for a girl of your…station to nurture ideas. However, I have come to regret my restraint.”

Don’t! Cinderella ignores the warning. Her heart is aching so fiercely that she can scarcely breathe. She takes the dress from Stepmother as gently as she would hold one of the mice. “You want me to come with you?”

“We’re all noble daughters,” Anastasia says primly. Her eyes are on Cinderella’s folded dress. “Wearing that, you might look the part.”

“Indeed. We leave in an hour,” Stepmother says. She holds out her hands to her daughters. “Come, girls. Let’s not get in Cinderella’s way. She must pack quickly.”

Cinderella feels light headed. She strokes the fabric and marvels at how cool and light it feels against her fingers. She doesn’t have anything else to wear to the Capital, not a stitch, but she has a dress. A dress her family gave her.

Don’t.

“But I want to see her open it,” Drizella whines. She walks backwards towards her mother. “Go on, Cinderella. Take a look. You’ll love the silhouette.”

Cinderella hardly notices Anastasia tiptoe around her. They bought her a dress. She doesn’t care what it looks like. It could be decades out of fashion. It could be completely bare. She doesn’t care. They bought her a dress and Stepmother acknowledged her hard work and—

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t—

Cinderella unfurls the dress. Something so light she didn’t notice it in the folds of the fabric drops to the ground and rolls.

Coal.

The dress is streaked with black soot, the front wrecked by the stains. There is no lace on the dress except for the one sleeve. The hemline is unfinished and cut at an angle that can’t be salvaged. The silver fabric is ruined everywhere except for the back panel of a skirt which Stepmother had used to conceal the mess.

“Oh, dear,” Stepmother says as Cinderella stares at the wreck. The trembling in Stepmother’s voice isn’t regret. It’s glee. “My, Cinderella, your dress is a mess. You won’t be able to go to the ball after all, will you?”

“In that?” Anastasia asks. She presses a hand to her chest, once again safely behind her mother. “No, no, no, you could never go in that.”

“Maybe you can clean it,” Drizella says. She’s bouncing on her toes. “You’re good at cleaning, right, Cinderella?”

“Alas,” Stepmother says, shaking her head. She ushers the girls ahead of her. “We leave in just an hour.” She clicks her tongue. “Do hurry, won’t you, Cinderella? Of course, if you can’t save the dress, what’s the point? Perhaps you should stay here after all…entirely up to you, dear.”

Anastasia’s snorts and Drizella’s shrieks of laughter echo behind them. They’re off to pack, thrilled by their prank. Stepmother stays in the doorway. Cinderella can feel her looking. Cinderella can’t tear her gaze away from the dress. After a long moment, Stepmother speaks.

“It is not in my nature to be cruel,” Stepmother says. Her heel taps against the stone. “I see we have hurt you. Perhaps you think us unkind for this little mischief, hm?”

Cinderella’s head is bowed. She can’t bring herself to speak.

“Trust me,” Stepmtoher says, “that it is not even a tenth as cruel as it would be to have you come with us. You are beautiful, Cinderella. Does it please you to hear me admit it? I can concede that much at least in light of what you must be feeling. But my daughters have worked hard for this day. They do not deserve the cruelty of having you who have worked for nothing overshadowing their efforts just because you were born beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” Cinderella tastes the word like poison on her tongue. “I—I am not—“

“Save me your false humility,” Stepmother says coldly. Her tapping heel stills. “You think yourself clever, but you are just a girl. I see how you lord yourself over my daughters. I have spent years attempting to curtail your excessive pride to no avail. In the end, you’ll see today as a favor to all parties involved. My daughters deserve this opportunity to rise above their station. You? You will have the opportunity see where you really belong.”

There is something interesting happening in Cinderella’s chest. Whereas before her heart beat so slowly it felt as if time flowed backwards, it’s the opposite now. Her heart is beating so fast and so loud that a river rushes through Cinderella at the speed of light.

“Beauty,” Cinderella says. She finally pulls her gaze from the ruined dress to meet Stepmother’s eyes. Stepmother’s mouth thins in displeasure, but Cinderella doesn’t care. “All these years over— over your perception? Your idea of what I am? Who I am?”

“Do not condescend to me,” Stepmother says.

It is not a denial.

Cinderella is a child again, perched on top of her father’s shoulders. The light is golden in her mother’s hair and she reaches for a strand that’s fallen free of her pins—

She is crouched in the garden, watching ants pull at a grounded butterfly’s wings. Sickened, she steps on them, pounds at them with her heels. Her name rings through the air as her mother hurries towards her—

Her father’s back is fading into the light as he leaves her mother in her window. Her mother’s shoulders shake and Cinderella is behind them both, clutching a doll—

She is holding her mother’s hand and it’s so cold. Her eyes are as pale and lifeless as the butterfly’s wings. Cinderella calls for her mother and the silence swallows her whole—

Cinderella is crying in the snow. She is dying or dead. Her legs are frozen, as cold as her mother’s hand, and she can’t tell if she’s even walking still. A bell rings through the trees and, half-mad, she follows it—

She lies in the warm grass of the meadow as the boy talks about stars and constellations and something beautiful unfurls in Cinderella’s chest for the first time in years—

She hopes. There is hope so bitter that it puckers her soul a little more with every letter she writes. She stands at the window and waits for her father or a letter or a sign—

You deserve more, the boy says. You’re strong, Cinderella. You have endured the freezing cold long enough. It is time to find somewhere warm—

When Cinderella is able to rip herself from the memories, Stepmother is gone. The dress is crumpled on the ground and Cinderella’s heart is loud in her ears.

“I,” Cinderella says to the empty room, “am more than beauty.”

Something in her chest cracks. A bone, maybe. A heart.

A dam.

Cinderella, not waiting for night, bursts out of the kitchen door. She lifts her skirts so that she can lengthen her strides and runs. The woods swallow her without preamble, the canopy glowing green in the afternoon light.

Be kind.

She leaps over fallen trees and dodges low branches, not caring as sticks fling up under her heels and leaves whip at her face. Her heart pounds.

Be patient.

How could she have been so blind? They were never going to love her. Stepmother saw only what she wanted to see, a part of Cinderella that is not who she is, something that’s never mattered.

One big loving family.

She poured love like blood into their mouths. She did what her parents taught her and loved with hands so open that her fingers bent backwards. For what? To be boiled down to nothing? To be pretty?

Magic won’t fix anything.

Cinderella, chest heaving, leaps into the clearing. She can feel her hair tangled behind her. Her hands are stained with soot and they leave black fingerprints on her skirts. A cut on her leg oozes. The wind whips at her in alarm. Cinderella doesn’t care.

She approaches the tree. The boy is waiting, still for once. How did he know she’d be there so soon? Why is his presence watching her like that? The rainbows of magic shiver like grass, bending away from her when she stalks through them.

“You promised me magic,” Cinderella says. Somehow she is not out of breath. She presses a hand to the oak tree’s warm bark. Her eyes spark. “Didn’t you?”

“I did,” the boy says.

“Then show me magic,” Cinderella says. “Whatever you want. Whenever you want. Just—keep your promise. Take me away from here.”

“Your wish,” the boy says, “is my command.”

The bark shifts under her fingers and Cinderella falls forward into the tree. She doesn’t have time to scream. Would she even want to? She drops into darkness so warm that her shoulders loosen as she plummets.

Out in the meadow, a single butterfly drifts across the top of the wildflowers.

——-

Thanks for reading! This is turning into a whole novella, but I’m having a blast writing it!

Part three will be posted next Friday (sorry this one was a day late! I’m traveling) and is already up on my Patreon for those who’d like to support me there :)

See you next week!