Magic at Midnight

by Lindsey Kelk

  Her dad narrowed his eyes, but they were sparkling. ‘I always knew you’d end up at the palace one day,’ he whispered. ‘Whatever your mum said. I only wish you didn’t have to go just yet.’

  ‘Come along, tick-tock,’ the king said, tapping his watch. ‘If we don’t leave soon, I’m going to miss my telly programme.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ Cinders said, putting on a big, brave smile.

  ‘Probably not the best time to bring this up,’ Sparks whispered as Cinders made her way back into the pink cottage for the very last time, ‘but do you think you could speak to the prince and work a daily plate of sausages into the bargain?’

  ‘What I don’t understand is why she wasn’t in the birth register in the first place,’ the king grumbled to the queen the very next morning. ‘There’s no trace of the girl. It’s as though someone has wiped away any record of her existence.’

  ‘Her father says the girl’s mother brought her to the palace to register her when she was born,’ the queen said, taking her seat at the long golden table in the royal dining room, ‘but I don’t remember it at all.’

  The king nodded. ‘The oddest thing is, there’s no record of the mother either.’

  ‘Good morning, Father. Good morning, Mother,’ Joderick sang as he arrived for his breakfast. He took his seat at the opposite end of the very long table and grinned a toothy grin. ‘How are you both this morning?’

  ‘Hungry,’ his father replied.

  ‘Famished,’ his mother added.

  ‘Excellent,’ Joderick said. ‘What an exciting day.’

  The king looked at the queen and the queen looked at the king while Joderick filled his plate. This Cinders girl might not have been their first choice for a daughter-in-law, but their son was happy and soon he would be married, which meant the fairies couldn’t steal him away.

  And that was all that mattered.

  Wasn’t it?

  Two towers over, and ten floors up, Cinders was in a considerably less chipper mood than the prince. They had arrived at the palace very, very late the night before and the king had sent everyone straight to bed. Even since she’d woken, she’d had a very funny feeling in the pit of her stomach – a feeling that, for the first time, wasn’t just a craving for pancakes.

  Cinders was homesick.

  Somehow, all her old clothes had got lost on their way from the carriage to her new chambers, and yet her closets were full to overflowing. Her new wardrobe was bigger than her old bedroom and her new bedroom was bigger than her entire house and, when she opened up the heavy oak doors, she saw a rainbow of gorgeous gowns and silky skirts, billowing blouses and frock upon frock upon frock upon frock. It was Elly and Aggy’s dream wardrobe, and Cinders’s worst nightmare. Even though everything was beautiful, she couldn’t see anything she would have chosen for herself; it was all big skirts and tiny corsets, clothes made for sitting and standing rather than running and playing.

  And it wasn’t just her clothes. Nothing Cinders had brought from the little pink cottage had found its way into her new room. None of her books, none of her trinkets, not even her one-of-a-kind, home-made hula hoop. Everything in her room was shiny and new. Lovely, in a way, but it just didn’t feel like home.

  The other strange thing was how quiet it was at the palace. There were literally hundreds of servants in the castle, but not a single one made a single sound. Even when Cinders was alone in the night, lying in her huge four-poster bed, she was afraid to make so much as a squeak. The only sound she heard all night was the gruffle and growl of Sparks’s sleepy snores.

  ‘Anyone would think you’d be more grateful after I rescued you from the kennels,’ she muttered, shaking her head at Sparks, still fast asleep. It turned out the king was allergic to dogs and had insisted Sparks live outside with the other royal hounds, but one quick mission under the cover of darkness later and he was safely sleeping under Cinders’s bed. Mouse the horse was in the stables because, even though her rooms were pretty huge, even Cinders couldn’t hide a fully grown horse behind the settee.

  The royal grooms had looked pretty surprised when Cinders said he only ate cheese, though.

  ‘Something tells me I shouldn’t be making many wishes while I’m in the palace,’ she said to herself, walking across the room and counting her extra-long steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten steps from the bed to the window. ‘I do hope Brian will be able to find me here.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,’ Sparks said, yawning as he clambered out from underneath the bed. ‘They don’t like dogs, they don’t like hula hoops – I really don’t think they’re going to be that keen on fairy godmothers.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Cinders replied, staring out of the window. ‘Sparks, do you think we’ve made a terrible mistake?’

  ‘I think you should call down to the kitchen for breakfast,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know after I’ve eaten.’

  The view from the palace really was glorious. Cinders had never been up so high and, from her room, she could see all the way from the ocean in the east to the mountains in the west. The sea was magical – a sweeping, sparkling stretch of blue that went on as far as the eye could see – but the mountains were another story altogether. Three tall peaks reaching so high into the sky that they could almost have blocked out the sun. Cinders had seen other mountains in her storybooks at home, magnificent mountains with beautiful snowy peaks, but these were as black as night from top to bottom. Cinders thought they looked like teeth, biting into the kingdom.

  And yet … there was something about them that almost seemed to … draw her to them. A part of her that wanted to head up into those heights, through the snow … explore the valleys and peaks and what lay on the other side.

  But she hated hiking. It was a good way to ruin being outside, as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Sparks?’

  ‘Cinders?’

  ‘Do you know what’s beyond the mountains?’ she asked her furry friend. She simply couldn’t stop staring at them.

  ‘Nothing you need worry about.’ Sparks stretched out his long front legs. ‘Now how are you getting on with that breakfast?’

  Before she could answer, there was a loud knock on her bedroom door.

  ‘Just a second!’ Cinders yelped, pushing Sparks back beneath the bed. ‘I’m coming!’

  She opened the door to see five young women in what she recognised as servants’ uniforms, waiting patiently.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ said the first with a low curtsey.

  ‘Good morning,’ Cinders said, awkwardly curtseying back.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the second with a low curtsey.

  ‘Good morning,’ Cinders said, wobbling down again.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the third with a low curtsey.

  ‘Good morn— Oh, no!’ Cinders yelped as she fell face first on to the floor. She looked up to see all five women looking down at her.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ said the fourth with a low curtsey.

  ‘Okay, enough of that,’ Cinders replied, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. ‘How can I help you?’

  The five women looked confused.

  ‘We’re here to help you,’ the first said. ‘We’re your ladies-in-waiting. We’re here to tend to your every need. Is there anything we can get you right now?’

  ‘Breakfast,’ Sparks coughed from underneath the bed.

  ‘Breakfast,’ Cinders repeated quickly. ‘I’d love some breakfast. Sausages preferably.’

  ‘Oh.’ The first girl looked at the second. ‘Princesses don’t usually eat sausages for breakfast.’

  ‘This one does,’ Cinders replied. ‘More importantly, you haven’t told me your names. What should I call you?’

  The second girl looked at the third, the fourth girl looked to the fifth and the first looked straight back at Cinders.

  ‘None of the royal family have ever asked our names before,’ she whispered. ‘T
hey just ring a bell when they need us.’

  ‘Well, that’s very rude,’ Cinders said, surprised. She had assumed everyone in the royal family had impeccable manners. ‘I’d really rather know your names if we’re going to be friends.’

  ‘I’m Andy,’ said the first girl with a smile. ‘And these are my sisters, Candy, Sandy, Mandy and Tandy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Cinders. ‘Yeah, I’ll admit that might take me a while. Still, it’s very nice to meet you all.’

  ‘And it’s very nice to meet you,’ Andy replied. Or possibly Tandy. ‘The king asked his butler to tell a page to tell the housekeeper to tell us that he and Prince Joderick will be in diplomatic negotiations all day long so you are to amuse yourself until dinnertime.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cinders felt the smile fall from her face. ‘Doesn’t matter, I suppose. I’m good at taking care of myself.’

  ‘Let’s get your day started,’ the servant girl said. ‘Candy will get your breakfast, Sandy will draw your bath, Mandy will prepare your outfit, Tandy will make your bed and I will let the housekeeper know she can tell the page to tell the butler to tell the king that you’ll see him at dinner.’

  Cinders ticked off the names on her fingers. Yes. It was definitely Andy who was speaking.

  ‘And what will I do?’ Cinders asked as the sisters began to busy themselves around her rooms.

  ‘Whatever you like!’ Andy replied. ‘You’re practically a princess.’

  ‘Practically a princess,’ Cinders repeated. ‘With absolutely nothing to do.’

  She watched as the sisters set to work and wondered, just for a moment, what her own stepsisters might be doing. Who would wash the dishes if she wasn’t there to do it? Who would chop the wood and feed the pigs?

  With nothing else to do, she sat quietly in a chair and gazed out of the window while the sisters got on with their chores. There had to be something beyond the mountains, she thought to herself.

  From the moment she set foot out of bed the next morning, Cinders’s day went from bad to worse.

  First, she tried to take Sparks for a walk and find the spot where her parents had met, but everywhere she tried to go was forbidden.

  Then she ran away when the palace photographers tried to take her photograph for the terrible magazines her sisters liked to read.

  And then she was told off for running in the palace grounds because ‘it wasn’t considered ladylike’.

  And, right after that, she was told off for saying something very naughty to the guard who had told her off for running when she thought he couldn’t hear her any more.

  ‘What’s the point in having a garden if you can’t play in it?’ she asked Sparks as she returned to her rooms to stare out of the window. ‘Imagine going to the bother of having an entire garden that’s just for looking at. What a lot of nonsense.’

  ‘Imagine having an entire kitchen full of food downstairs when I’m starving,’ he replied, rolling on to his back and letting his floppy red ears fall to the floor. ‘Wish us up a sausage, Cinders. I won’t make it if I don’t get something to eat soon.’

  ‘I’m hungry too,’ Cinders said, rubbing her own empty belly, ‘but I really, really don’t think it’s a good idea to make wishes while we’re in the palace.’

  It seemed Sparks had changed his mind on that front.

  ‘But I’m starving,’ he cried, throwing his head back and howling at the ceiling. ‘My kingdom for a sausage!’

  ‘Shush, Sparks!’ Cinders leaped across the room and clamped her hand round his chops. ‘If the guards hear you, they’ll take you away and then you’ll be in the sausages, not eating them. Now do you promise to be quiet?’

  Sparks nodded and she let go. Immediately, he began to howl.

  ‘I wish we had some sausages!’ Cinders shouted.

  Her fingertips tickled and, when she looked down at the floor, she saw one measly-looking, skinny sausage.

  ‘That’s the best you can do?’ Sparks asked, poking at it with a paw. ‘Good grief.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she replied as he gobbled it up. Holding her hands up to the light of the window, Cinders sighed.

  Why weren’t her wishes working any more?

  And where oh where was Brian when she needed her?

  ‘I really do think something a bit looser might be more appropriate for dinner,’ Cinders said as Andy, Mandy and Sandy helped her downstairs to the dining room. Candy and Tandy were already preparing her chamber for bedtime while Sparks resumed his very important nap. ‘Not that it isn’t a lovely dress, but come on – don’t you think it’s a bit much?’

  The dress was a bit more than a bit much. Canary yellow and with fourteen layers of silk skirts, Cinders felt as though she were drowning in it.

  ‘The queen specifically asked that you wear this dress,’ Mandy replied, slapping Cinders’s hand away from the very, very, very tight corset. ‘And you look so pretty. I’m sure you’ll get used to it very soon.’

  ‘If it doesn’t squeeze the life out of me first,’ she muttered. ‘Death by ballgown. I can see the headlines now.’

  ‘Cinderella.’ The king stood as she entered the room and she tried very hard to give a small bow without dropping the ridiculous wig Andy had insisted she wear. ‘Don’t you scrub up nicely?’

  ‘I feel a bit …’ She paused and turned her head to look at the queen.

  There she was, sitting at the head of a long, narrow, gilded table, wearing an almost identical dress and wig.

  ‘… I feel beautiful, thank you,’ Cinders said, smiling so brightly that the king began to wonder if there might be something wrong with her. ‘This is the most glorious dress I’ve ever seen, and who knew wigs could be so much fun?’

  They weren’t fun, not in the slightest. She was hot and sticky and she could barely hold up her own head, but she was also starving and, as every right-minded person knows, food comes first. Cinders was quite prepared to suffer a corset and a sweaty head if it meant filling her belly.

  ‘You look lovely,’ Joderick whispered from across the table as she trotted down the length of the room. ‘But the wig’s a bit much.’

  Cinders smiled and took her seat across from the prince. The king and queen were so far away from them at the other end of the table that she could barely even hear them.

  ‘Have you had a nice day?’ she asked, really hoping he had. This wasn’t Joderick’s fault after all, and she really did want at least one friend in the palace.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I was in a very important meeting all day. It’s supposed to be top secret, but, since we’re to be married, I’m sure I can tell you.’

  ‘Ooh!’ Cinders was terrible at keeping secrets, but she hated to be left out of the goss. ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘It’s the fairies,’ Joderick whispered. ‘It turns out they’re real and something must be done about them.’

  ‘Fairies?’ Cinders gulped. ‘What’s wrong with fairies?’

  ‘What’s wrong with fairies?’ Joderick looked shocked. ‘They’re terrible things. Monsters even! Didn’t you know?’

  Cinders reached across the table and grabbed a big iced bun.

  ‘I did not know that,’ she said, shoving the bun in her mouth and trying not to look too scared. ‘Please tell me more.’

  ‘The fairies want to take over our kingdom,’ the prince explained. ‘And we have to keep them away before they sneak over the mountains and eat us all up in our beds!’

  ‘Eat us all up?’ Cinders gulped. Fairies wanted to eat people? Brian was weird, but she’d never given off much of a cannibal vibe.

  ‘Yes,’ Joderick confirmed. ‘They have long claws and sharp teeth and they steal naughty children out of their beds at night.’

  ‘Blow me down,’ she said. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘They’re terrible things, the fairies,’ said Joderick, shaking his head sadly. ‘We’ve managed to keep them away for generations, but my father is worried they could come back and attack any day. Jack sugges
ted we all go up the beanstalk and live in the sky, but that’s hardly practical.’

  Cinders was still thinking hard. None of this fairy business made sense to her. Brian was a fairy and Brian didn’t have claws or sharp teeth, and the only thing she’d tried to eat was a plateful of sausages. Admittedly, she had very questionable fashion sense, but that didn’t make her a monster.

  ‘Have you ever met a fairy?’ she asked Jodders as he loaded his plate with broccoli, peas and runner beans. ‘Maybe they’re not as bad as you think.’

  ‘No one has met one, not for more than one hundred years,’ he replied. ‘Not since my great-great-grandfather made a pact to stop them coming to our land and I think I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much.’

  Cinders didn’t know what to say. Could it be true? Could Brian really be so wicked? It seemed rather unlikely. Not lovely Brian. Flaky, yes. Unreliable, absolutely. But a kiddy-eating monster? Not so much.

  ‘What are you two whispering about?’ the king called down the long golden table.

  ‘Nothing,’ Joderick piped up quickly. ‘We definitely weren’t talking about fairies.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ the king replied. ‘Keep that stuff to yourself, son.’

  ‘Thank you for dinner,’ Cinders said, pointing at all the food on the table. ‘I say, this is a lovely spread, isn’t it?’

  ‘This is nothing,’ the king said. ‘Wait until you see the whole suckling pig Cook is preparing.’

  ‘Ooh, that sounds nice,’ she said, rubbing her still-rumbling tummy. Without thinking, she added, ‘I wish it was ready now.’

  Quick as a flash, Cook walked in, carrying a whole suckling pig.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ she declared, looking a bit surprised when met with a round of thunderous applause.

  ‘What a coincidence,’ Cinders said, covering her sparkling hands with a napkin. Why were her wishes coming true now? She shoved another iced bun in her mouth. At least if she was eating she couldn’t make any more accidental wishes.