Twisted fairy tales: Cinderella's glass slippers
Cinderella discovered quickly that wearing glass slippers was not as glamorous as it seemed. Glass cut skin just as easily when it was shaped into a shoe as when it was scattered in shards across the kitchen floor. To dance in glass slippers, one must be nimble and step lightly, hardly letting one’s feet touch the ground, lest trails of blood flow. Dancing at the Prince’s Ball three nights in a row taught Cinderella all she needed to know about being nimble and light-footed. She found she could walk behind her stepsisters and stepmother without them hearing a single footfall beside their own, and she soon made a game of it. After all, Cinderella’s stepmother always said that children should be seen and not heard, and stepchildren shouldn’t be seen or heard at all.
Becoming a Princess had never been Cinderella’s dream. It was beyond reach and an implausible thought, and while she was hopeful and sometimes optimistic, for the most part Cinderella was a realist. The most she thought she would get out of life was to marry someone from town just to escape her stepsisters and stepmother, or if she failed to catch a man’s eye from the confines of her late father’s house, she would work and scrub and clean until she died. Being a Princess had never been a dream of hers, especially not after her father’s death when she was merely nine years old. The day of her father’s funeral had Cinderella (merely Ella back then) serving drinks, pastries, sandwiches, and cakes to the guests at the wake. It was at the request of her stepmother who couldn’t bear to move in her grief and needed her help, and hers alone. Wouldn’t she be a dear girl and help her poor, grieving stepmother? (Cinder)Ella had agreed, of course, and since that day, she had never stopped.
Except for the few hours she slept at night, Cinderella hadn’t time to herself for almost eleven years. She hadn’t read a book in that time either, much to the chagrin of the castle tutors who were expecting a maiden of twenty years to have a far higher reading level than Cinderella possessed. She had no idea what most of the history books said, could barely read the law books that others swore were written in English, and had difficulty reading the charming letters her new husband sent her. (Her handmaiden refused to read the second letter; the first had the poor girl blushing for days.)
Despite all of this, Cinderella flourished in the castle. She could read people far easier than pages; she understood everything they said, and more to the point, what they didn’t say; and after years of veiled words and threats, of anticipating raised hands and voices, Cinderella had an unparalleled understanding of even the subtlest body language. Within weeks of living in the castle, Cinderella accidentally revealed three affairs, foiled an assassination, and discovered the Prince’s cousin’s hiding place in mere minutes after the castle had been in an uproar for the day, thinking the young royal had been kidnapped.
The Queen had recognised Cinderella’s talents, commended her on dancing in glass shoes for three nights, and had offered a job beyond that of Princess and wife to the Prince. Eager to do something that wouldn’t result in either tutors yelling or courtiers glaring at her, Cinderella accepted.
A month later, she was sent to a neighbouring kingdom in the guise of a belated honeymoon with the Prince, who took the honeymooning part very seriously. Cinderella still couldn’t manage more than a few hours of sleep, but the Prince was a heavy sleeper and he never noticed his wife’s absence. An unfortunate accident befell the King days after their arrival, the guards confirmed their guests had been in their room all night, and it was deemed he stumbled down the stairs in his old age, breaking his neck on impact. Without a son, his daughter was crowned Queen, and a treaty was struck between the two kingdoms in the days following the late King’s funeral.
A few weeks later, a visiting dignitary belittled the staff in the castle; he sneered about the Queen and Cinderella when he thought he wouldn’t be heard; he kicked the horse when he failed to follow a simple instruction from the riding instructor, and then yelled at the instructor too. A day later, he fell victim to an unfortunate accident as well. The dignitary had been alone in his room, so it was presumed that he’d drunk too much wine and fell off his balcony in a drunken stupor. No one missed him.
As she packed for her next job, Cinderella mused about her husband. She suspected that the Prince knew what she did, but he never brought it up, and she knew better than to offer the information herself. While it was suspicious to take her glass slippers on their so-called holidays, Cinderella liked the nostalgia that accompanied wearing them, nimble and light steps that never left a trace. Her nostalgia was not for the Prince’s Ball, as most might expect, but for her first kill: her stepsisters and stepmother where, on the night of their mysterious deaths, no one was seen or heard at all.
