Cinderella Reimagined

by Anna Jailene Aguilar et al.

  She could see her old haunts lit up from her window so high above the metropolis. Cindy could imagine her friends laughing and talking as they attended a party or fundraiser, dressed to the nines, night after night.

  Another message came through in muted light on her cell phone. Another apology from her husband.

  She should have chosen candour over charisma.

  Cinderfella

  by Grace Smith

  When Cinderfella was young and his mom and dad were alive, his parents understood that Cindy, who they thought was their little girl, was actually a boy. It was difficult to understand. They had absolutely no idea how to handle the situation.

  Needless to say, when Cinderfella lost his mother and his father decided to remarry, the new stepmother, Lady Tremaine, was not prepared for these rather outrageous circumstances. She had two daughters who, much like their mother, were not the empathetic sort. Life became complicated and Cinderfella became extremely withdrawn and isolated.

  As if things were not already difficult enough, it was only two years later that Cinderfella’s father passed away. Cinderfella was terrified. If his own parents had problems with his gender identity, he knew that his stepmother and her daughters, Drizella and Anastasia, were not going to treat him kindly. And, as it turned out, things became even more terrible than he had imagined.

  His “Steps”, as he called them, didn’t simply reject him, they forced him into servitude. He was a butler to them, only he was not paid. Imagine Cinderfella having to do all the chores and remain beside the fireplace in the basement when he was not performing his back-breaking cleaning, washing, ironing, and other repugnant jobs.

  “We thought you were a girl. Why in the world do you wear boys’ clothing?” snorted Anastasia. “Drizella and I are embarrassed when our friends come over. We feel uneasy when you come into our bedrooms to do your dusting.”

  Cinderfella’s eyes would fill with tears when the Steps talked to him that way but he would never let them see him cry.

  One summer day, Drizella came downstairs to taunt Cinderfella and waved an elaborate, bejeweled invitation in front of his eyes.

  “We are going to the Princess’ Ball, so we’ll need to have our ball dresses clean and pressed before the date arrives.”

  Cinderfella thought he had gone through the roughest part of his life already, but it seemed that heartache would be his natural state now.

  But that night when he fell asleep, a beautiful fairy came into his dreams. (He couldn’t tell if it was a girl fairy or a boy.) The fairy told him that he was going to the ball, as well. The fairy said:

  “Get one of your father’s tuxedoes and be ready for the ball because after the two monster girls and their mother leave, I will have everything you need to make a spectacular entrance at the Princess’ palace!”

  When the day arrived, the girls and Lady Tremaine got ready for the ball and had Cinderfella running around drawing their baths, polishing their shoes, and bringing them snacks. When they left, Cinderfella was so tired, he drifted off to sleep by the fireplace.

  The fairy came again to his dream state and said:

  “Your stallion awaits you, my boy! Your patent leather boots and your silk handkerchief will be beside your horse. Just be home by midnight so you won’t get caught by the monster girls.”

  Cinderfella woke up, put on his tux, and ran outside. His horse was black and had a lovely sheen to his hide. He put his stunning silk scarf in his pocket, put on his mirror-shined boots, and took off.

  When he arrived, everyone was trying to get closer to the Princess. She was not only bewilderingly beautiful, but her kindness made her glow like a hundred stars. Cinder stood there waiting for his turn to meet her, when to his amazement, she stepped away from the introduction area and walked straight toward him.

  When she reached his side, she took his hand and said:

  “What is your name?”

  He answered, “Cinderfella.”

  She replied. “Somehow I feel as though we have already met.”

  They danced the night away until the midnight bell rang from a nearby church, when Cinder asked to be excused and rode home on the wind. When he arrived, the horse disappeared and his exquisite scarf was missing.

  The Princess found the scarf and had her footmen search far and wide for Cinderfella. The next week, when they visited the home of Lady Tremaine, they asked the ladies if they recognized the scarf. They all said they did not.

  At that exact moment, Cinderfella came running through the room thinking that the cake he was baking could be burning. The footmen stopped him and asked if he knew to whom the scarf belonged. He told them it was his.

  The rest is history (or fairytale) but when the Princess and Cinderfella reunited, they could hardly wait to be married. Before asking the Princess for her hand, Cinderfella said:

  “There is something I need to share with you…”

  Little Rich Girl

  by Theresa J. Barker

  "Little rich girl, glittering with bells,/come running lightly as/the fawn of the fairytales/treading musical leaves;" - Edith Weaver, "Lost Cinderella"

  Henrietta winked into the garden on time. At least that was something. If she could complete this job correctly, she'd be back off probation and in full stead again with Fairy Tale Endings Inc.

  The girl was sitting on a bench in the garden just as the dossier had specified. Now to magic up a ballgown, and a carriage and four white steeds — or its equivalent for this century — and all would be well.

  Much to Henrietta's dismay, there was something amiss. The girl — who should have been dressed in rags — had a very different appearance. Black leather jacket, spider-web leggings and black boots, and that hair! A blue streak down the center, purple along the sides. Was that a piercing in her nose?

  Henrietta checked the dossier app again. Ella D'Maris. Age sixteen; this girl looked closer to twenty-five. Daughter of a gentleman father, now deceased, widowed stepmother and two stepsisters. She switched to the holo-pic app; the image looked nothing like her. Wait. Squinting, Henrietta imagined the holo-pic image with that hair cut short and dyed blue-purple… yes, the features looked similar enough. Huh.

  Not dressed in rags. Even in this century she'd be in old jeans, and maybe a faded T-shirt or hoodie, if the dossier app data were correct.

  Birds twittered overhead in the pretty little garden back of a townhouse, very respectable.

  Henrietta had a moment of panic. There were those two incidents last year. First, the frog prince — it's true, princesses don't scamper after golden balls anymore. And then the princess and the pea fiasco — it was hard to keep a princess awake these days, what with overscheduling and gender-neutral physical training.

  She didn't really blame Raymond for putting her on probation. But she had upgraded to using a handheld as he'd asked — no more paper dossiers — and just before she winked into this scenario she'd swiped down on the handheld for an update — as she'd been instructed in the training class — just in case of any last-minute changes.

  Yet here she was, at the assigned scenario with an up-to-date dossier — and things were not adding up.

  They were always weeping, these girls in Cinderella scenarios. Henrietta had done at least a dozen — no, closer to a score — of Cinderella jobs in her time. There was the first one that took her to France. That one went so beautifully — the eighteenth century was remarkably civilized. There had also been the Cinderella in Thailand, in Nigeria, in Poland, in Iraq, not to mention the original Cinderella (China), as well less-exotic locales, including Houston and South Florida. Henrietta was something of an expert in this scenario, and she suspected Raymond had allowed her to be assigned to this case as an easier way to come off probation now that she had upgraded to the latest information technology.

  It was more than the clothing. Something more was wrong. She should have been weeping, this girl; Henrietta couldn't remember a Cinderella who wasn't crying. It was natural. Loss
of a loving father was bad enough, but then to be neglected, ignored, and frequently exploited by the father's widow, whose own daughters had more than their share of pretty things and comfortable delights, that feeling of aloneness was overwhelming, particularly in the face of blatant favoritism by a step-parent.

  Not this girl. She had a disagreeable scowl on her face. Her body was tensed with emotion, yes, but this was an irritation tenseness rather than one of sorrow. Sitting on the garden bench, the girl twitched one foot up and down in a gesture of impatience rather than nervousness.

  Maybe she had missed another update to the dossier. She winced as she remembered the problems from last year when she still relied on the paper dossier system.

  Henrietta pulled her handheld out of a pocket and swiped down on the dossier app for an update.

  Just then another girl came into the garden. Ah, perhaps this was the girl she was here for. The age seemed a better match, her clothing more conventional. She did have an air of disappointment about her, which could have been sadness. Henrietta checked the holo-pic app on her handheld.

  But this new girl had no resemblance to the holo-pic. Her skin was a different shade, her hair thick and curly, her stature more diminutive.

  "Ella," she said, "Mother said to let you know that your outfit for that rock concert tonight just came. Delivered by Amazon, maybe you want to try it on?" She paused. "Lucky. You've got backstage tickets."

  "I'm not going. She can't make me go." Ella tossed her blue-purple hair.

  "But you said last week —"

  "Changed my mind. She can't keep me here; I'm going out with my friends." This with a haughty look. She certainly knew that part, Henrietta thought.

  The other girl looked puzzled. "I don't understand why you wouldn't want to go."

  "She can't make me go," Ella repeated. Then, "You go to the show." Ella laughed, the meanness evident in her voice. "Yeah, you go, Drucilla."

  "I've love to go, but I'm not a D'Maris —"

  "Pretend." Ella actually sneered.

  This was not her fault, Henrietta thought. She checked the dossier app, but the update was still not ready. The gear-icon twirled interminably at the top of the screen. Damn.

  Well, Henrietta had not been in the business with forty-some years of century-hopping and scenario-fixing without picking up a few techniques along the way. This situation had the makings of a successful outcome.

  She stepped forward from the opaque transportation bubble that had brought her here. A few strategic words and the situation was resolved. Satisfactorily, Henrietta thought.

  Later, in her cottage in the out-of-the-way area at the end of the world, Henrietta made herself a pot of tea — the old-fashioned way with boiling water in a kettle, thank you very much — and settled down to post her report.

  To her surprise, Raymond showed up. In person, in her kitchen. He was wearing Sting today.

  "So, Henrietta, what gives on this most recent job?" he asked, leaning on the counter.

  She mastered her momentary panic — she hadn't done anything wrong, just improvised a bit in the face of incomplete data — and said, "Just doing the report now."

  "And?"

  "Well," she hesitated, "there was a bit of a glitch." She told him about the identity/motivation problem.

  "Are you sure you had the latest update? On the dossier app, I mean." He looked skeptical. But then, Sting usually looked skeptical.

  "Yes," she said firmly. "I was all set at the moment I arrived at the scenario. But something was off." She explained what she'd done to address the problem of the wrong girl. "And so, it was the stepsister who went to the ball — er rock concert. Ella — Cinderella — took off on the back of someone's motorcycle, which made her happy — and by now Drucilla should be setting a time for a second date with the prince — er, rock musician." Rich as a prince, that was for sure.

  "Yeah, but the update —"

  "— took too long. I'm telling you, Raymond, there are some glitches in that dossier app. This whole thing could have blown up in our faces," she finished bravely.

  "Well," he paused as he considered this, "you may have something there. There's been some trouble since the latest installation. To tell you the truth, you're not the only one reporting problems with the dossier app." He sighed, stood up. "All right, Henrietta, congratulations, you're off probation. Back to full operating status."

  Yes, Henrietta thought. "Tea?" she offered. "I've got a new blend, Blue Peacock. Just the thing for stress."

  She expected Raymond to refuse, but he said, "Why not. This new dossier app thing has been running me ragged. — But you're saying the job worked out okay?"

  Henrietta nodded as she offered Raymond his tea. He almost smiled.

  He looked his best wearing Sting, she thought. She might start looking into some of those wearable celeb-look-alikes.

  Maybe Cher.

  The Perfect Pair

  by ANNA JAILENE AGUILAR

  “Try a different one,” Phoebe urged, but she was failing miserably at persuading her best friend to look at other options. She held another pair. “What about these?”

  Joella grinned. “But this is the perfect one!”

  “I know, I know.” Phoebe paused for effect. “That’s the thing; it’s only one,” she said mockingly. “You’re gonna go with one less shoe?”

  “They’re looking for its partner.” Joella giggled.

  “It’s too sparkly!”

  “Exactly! It’s perfect,” she said, giving Phoebe a playful hug. “I’m buying you lunch after this.”

  “You better. I’m starving.”

  “Like always.” They laughed.

  They entertained themselves by trying on almost all the shoes in the store while waiting for the sales assistant to find the offending shoe only to be told that it was nowhere to be found.

  Joella wasn’t convinced. “I know you will find it.” She beamed.

  The store assistant glared at her. “Seriously?” He shook his head lightly but smiled at her.

  Joella had quickly written her details for him. “Just send the pair to me as soon as you find the delinquent.” She chuckled.

  She was adamant the missing shoe would be located before the Princess Ball set to take place at The Castle in a week. It didn’t bother her that her perfect pair was one of a kind, custom-made for a princess.

  And she was no princess!

  But perhaps there is magic; or miracles happen.

  The day of the ball arrived. Unlike her friend, Joella went about her day as usual. Late in the afternoon, she lazed around while Phoebe paced back and forth.

  The doorbell rang.

  Phoebe’s anxiety ended when Joella opened the box to behold the perfect pair.

  She put them on. In a flash, she stood there, made up and dressed in the most magnificent pale lavender gown.

  “And they said witches don’t have fairy godmothers.” Joella cackled. Phoebe joined in.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Anna Jailene Aguilar is a Filipino-South African writer and blogger. Having discovered a love for literature during her teen years in Zambia, she started writing short stories. She wrote her first romance, albeit only a first draft, in 1987. She discovered and began writing poetry in 1996. In 2003, a few years after her divorce, she wrote a non-fiction, which she is currently revisiting and editing.

  She is also a financial controller in an internet company, mother, partner, and friend. She presently resides in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, with her family, and her collection of shoes, where she inspires many. For more of her works, visit annajaileneaguilar.com and odysseyofawoman.com.

  Nausheen Athar is a storyteller who writes about people, their myriad perceptions and intricate relationships. When not immersed in words she works with destitute children and victims of domestic abuse. Her alter ego is a software quality analyst and an auditor. You can read more of her work at leakinginkblog.wordpress.com.

  Theresa J. Bar
ker was born in Tucson, Arizona, and lives in Seattle, Washington, USA. She writes science fiction and poetry, and she received her MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in 2015.

  Her stories have been published in Grievous Angel, a professional online SF/F literary journal published in the UK, among other publications. One of her blog posts, “Found,” was selected in 2013 by the editors of WordPress.com as “Freshly Pressed”. Find more of her work at theresabarker.com and theresabarkerlabnotes.com.

  Theresa is a co-curator of Two Hour Transport, a monthly series of reading events featuring new voices in science fiction and fantasy in Seattle. She has three children and two cats, all of whom live imaginative and independent lives, to her great delight.

  Sascha Darlington lives in a microcosm outside of Washington, DC with her trusty companion, Scout, where she writes poems that could be turned into song lyrics should a rock star request. You can find her and more of her scribbles at Sascha Darlington’s Microcosm Explored, saschadarlington.me.

  Amanda M. Eifert is a writer, freelancer, and blogger in Alberta, Canada. She has poetry and short fiction published online for www.spillwords.com, www.sicklitmagazine.com, Silver Bell Press, and on www.herheartpoetry.com. Amanda has an English BA from Concordia University of Edmonton with Distinction (2007) and a Certificate in Residential Design (2016) from the University of Alberta. You can visit her blog at www.mandibelle16.wordpress.com as well as her other social media sites @mandibelle16 on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

  Edith Follansbee is the third daughter of a design checker in the aerospace industry and a teacher. Her father was a wannabe farmer on a city lot in a town near Los Angeles and her mother liked to preserve food. Her father’s backyard farm had two peach trees, two avocado trees, an apricot tree, a plum tree, and a tangerine tree. He also kept a kitchen garden that always had lettuce, zucchini, and red juicy tomatoes. Mother canned everything and made jellies and jams.