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She began to read her story.
Cinderella
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a tiny kingdom. Peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition. Here, in a stately château, there lived a widowed gentleman and his little daughter, Cinderella. Although he was a kind and devoted father and gave his beloved child every luxury and comfort, still he felt she needed a mother’s care. And so he married again, choosing for his second wife a woman of good family, with two daughters just Cinderella’s age. By name: Anastasia and Drizella. It was upon the untimely death of this good man, however, that the stepmother’s true nature was revealed. Cold, cruel, and bitterly jealous of Cinderella’s charm and beauty, she was grimly determined to forward the interests of her own two awkward daughters. Thus, as time went by, the château fell into disrepair, for the family fortunes were squandered upon the vain and selfish stepsisters, while Cinderella was abused, humiliated, and finally forced to become a servant in her own house. And yet, through it all, Cinderella remained ever gentle and kind, for with each dawn she found new hope that someday her dreams of happiness would come true.
Lady Tremaine slammed the book down. “Nonsense, none of this has happened! Sir Richard is alive! And if anyone has squandered our money, it was him,” she said, getting angrier. “This is a book of lies. And what if I got my hands on what little money was left and used it to provide for my own daughters? What of it? It’s my money!” She was about to throw the book across the room in anger. Instead, she got up and took the book and the stack of letters to her own room, where she put them on her vanity. Then she fastened the brooch to her dress, right over her heart, and paced the room trying to figure out what was going on, trying to wrap her head around everything she learned that day.
She didn’t know who to believe or what to think. This book was clearly talking about something that was going to happen in the future, and because of that these fairies—or witches, or whatever they were—thought she was a villain. It didn’t make sense.
Just then Sir Richard burst into the room, his face full of wrath. “What is this I hear, that you and your daughters are planning on leaving?”
Lady Tremaine looked up at him in shock, grasping for her brooch and grateful she was wearing it. Nanny had it all wrong. The brooch wasn’t cursed. It helped her and gave her strength.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir Richard,” she said, lying to his face easily. She met his steely gaze.
“Don’t lie to me, woman! Cinderella told me that you and your gawky daughters plan to leave the Many Kingdoms. And who do you suppose will care for Cinderella? What kind of woman are you that you could abandon your family?” He came toward her menacingly, and she found herself backing away from him, afraid of what he might do.
“Don’t come any closer, I warn you,” she said, sure he would strike her.
“And what will you do, oh great and mighty lady?” he asked. “Do you really think you can do anything to me? Or leave the Many Kingdoms, for that matter? You will never leave, I will make sure of it.” He slammed the door and locked it behind him.
At the sound of the key turning in the lock, she ran to the door and banged on it, calling out for someone to help her, but to no avail. She was terrified and alone and worried what Sir Richard might do to her daughters. She hated him as she had never hated anyone in her life, but she hated Cinderella even more for telling Sir Richard her secret.
She would never forgive the girl for betraying her.
Later that evening when Sir Richard unlocked Lady Tremaine’s bedroom door, she was standing there waiting for him. In her hand, carefully hidden among the folds of her dress, she clutched the bottle the strange sisters had given her.
Sir Richard barely looked at her, his voice cold.
“Since you seem to have dismissed Nanny and Rebecca, I suppose you’d better get down to the kitchen and make our dinner,” he said. Cinderella stood behind him with tears in her eyes.
He continued. “And keep those foolish daughters of yours in line. They’ve been weeping all evening. I can’t bear the sound of it anymore. I don’t want to lay eyes on any of you in the dining room. I would like to eat in peace with my daughter. You lot can eat in the kitchen like the help you are.” He took Cinderella by the arm and dragged her after him down the hall.
“And where are my girls?” she called after him.
“In the kitchen where they belong,” he muttered, not bothering to look back at her.
She stood there for a moment, then remembered what he had said about dismissing Rebecca. But Lady Tremaine hadn’t dismissed her. Where had she gone? She wondered if those witches had warned her not to come back after Nanny sent them flying out the front door.
Still, something about all this didn’t make sense. The only thing she knew for certain was that she and her daughters were trapped with a man she feared would cause her harm. There was only one choice left to her.
After Sir Richard’s untimely death things were different in the Tremaine household. The book of fairy tales had gotten some things right. He did die, quite suddenly and all too soon. Lady Tremaine’s fortune had been returned to her upon his death, and the story was right that she had squandered it, if you could call trying to care for her children, herself, and a stepdaughter she hated squandering. There wasn’t even enough left to book them passage back to England. She was quite literally trapped, with hardly enough money to support her daughters and Cinderella, and she was desperate to do something that could change their circumstances. She tried mailing several letters to Lady Hackle herself, but even without Rebecca’s interference, she was almost certain her friend did not receive them. It felt as if the entirety of the Many Kingdoms was conspiring to keep her and her daughters trapped there so they could live out this predestined story.
And just like it was written in the book, one morning as Lady Tremaine was having her coffee in bed, her daughters came screaming into her room. It seemed Cinderella had put a mouse under Anastasia’s teacup.
Lady Tremaine had had enough of this mouse nonsense. It was one thing for Cinderella to make clothing for the things when she was a little girl and treat them like living dolls she could play with, but it had become an unhealthy and frankly disturbing obsession now that she was a young lady. She spent all her time up in her room talking to the foul creatures, and Lady Tremaine was starting to become concerned for Cinderella’s state of mi
nd.
Nothing ever seemed to faze the girl. She didn’t cry at her father’s funeral, and she didn’t protest when Lady Tremaine insisted she take over the household duties. She even appeared rather pleased when Lady Tremaine told her she would be sleeping in the attic bedroom after her father died. Cinderella simply said, “I understand.” It seemed there was nothing Lady Tremaine could do to squash her spirit—the girl even sang as she did her chores.
But the fact was for all Cinderella’s smiles and naivety, Lady Tremaine felt the girl had a sinister side. She had been tormenting her daughters since the day they met: she put mice under their teacups, mice in their shoes, mice in their dress pockets, mice in little hats and vests everywhere! Lady Tremaine was sick to death of it. But what she resented most of all was that Cinderella had betrayed her. She had acted so sweet, then turned right around and told her father that she and her daughters were trying to escape. That, Lady Tremaine could never forgive. And now she detested the girl.
And so she found herself once again calling Cinderella into her room to have a talk with her about mice.
“Close the door, Cinderella,” she said in a low voice. “Come here.” She was stroking her cat, Lucifer, eyes narrowed at the girl. She had been putting up with nonsense like this for years, and she no longer had any patience for it. She had been doing it since day one, and no amount of conversation or punishment helped the matter. Cinderella had never learned, and she would have to accept the consequences.
Of course, Cinderella tried to deny it. But who else would put a mouse in a matching hat and vest under a teacup?
