A Cinderella Retelling

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  “Remember, girls, a straight back comes from your ribs,” she’d shrilly command. “Lift them and the rest will follow. Good, now chins up and follow me. One, two, three, step and one, two, three and step. Up. Up.”

  At this point, we were expected to gracefully float behind her, twisting around furniture and stepping over any amount of obstacles she’d shove off nearby tables and into our path. The trick was to never flinch, never falter, never lose poise.

  “Carriage up, Calliope, up.”

  “Your neck is a swan, Maybelle, but only your neck. We have no use for the rest of its body.”

  “Keep up, Ella, and try not to get underfoot.”

  “She really is small, isn’t she Mother?”

  “She could fit into my pocket!”

  “Calliope, smile coyly when you have something witty to say. Grace, modesty, and suggestion.”

  “That’s a good effort, Maybelle dear, but lift your chin more so you only have the one.”

  “Ella, how can a mouse like you make noise like an elephant?”

  “An Ella-mouse!” Maybelle chirruped.

  “An Ella-phant,” Calliope corrected with a carefully coy smile.

  My stepsisters were quick to teach me that Ella was a name easily paired with almost any term of ridicule.

  “Quite right, girls. Now, to the drawing room for tea. Ella, be a dear and clean this up.”

  On cold nights, when the fires burn too low to warm me, and the sky’s too dark to let the stars shine through, the echo of her voice still haunts me.

  I’m not sure how Father viewed these lessons the few times he stumbled upon us as we glided along the bottom floor of the house, up the stairs, down the stairs then to the gardens, keeping pace, changing pace, but always with a coy smile and perfect posture. The first few months after he brought Madame home, it really seemed as if he would allow himself to be happy, even if he would never be the same. Then he started traveling again and staying away for longer and longer periods of time. He withdrew into himself only a year or two before I was completely left to the whims of Madame. By then, Father couldn’t save me, even if he had wanted to. I may have too well reflected my mother’s image for him to ever look upon me without reliving the pain of her loss.

  During that time, he brought a macaw parrot home with him from one of his trips, and considering Madame’s reaction to my goldfish, I was surprised she let him keep it. The macaw was usually confined to his study, however, and I wonder now if wasn’t there just to keep her out. Despite the macaw’s bright red body and yellow-and-blue wings, he named it Iris, I assumed after my mother, though he’d never admit as much to Madame. She only every referred to it as “that beast” anyway. I supposed Father simply felt he needed someone to talk to. Looking back now, it pains me to wonder why that someone was never me.

  The last kindness I ever received from him, or anyone in that house, was a short while before the bold colors of my soaring imagination were buried under the soot of my stepfamily’s dulled one. I was almost eleven then, going on three years into my life with the woman who would never be a mother to me. Father was preparing to leave on yet another trip and like a proper family, we all stood at the top of those twelve steps to wish him farewell.

  In the last moment—perhaps as an afterthought or, as I like to believe it, a moment of clarity—Father stopped somewhere around the seventh or eighth step, turned around, and with a genuine smile asked each of his daughters what gift we wished him to bring back for us.

  “Beautiful dresses in the latest fashion of all the high courts!” Maybelle immediately exclaimed.

  “Pearls and, and,” Calliope stuttered in her excitement and Madame hit her accordingly, “and jewels!” she managed to finish.

  “And you, Ella?” Father turned his sunken, once warm and peaceful eyes upon me. “What would you like?”

  I kept my gaze on the steps unsure of what to ask for considering my stepsisters’ requests. All I really wanted was the Father from before, the one who’d never asked but always perfectly surprised, whose smile began at his lips and ended in his eyes, the one who readily joined my mother and myself in our sheltered world of pretend. But he was gone and I, the mirror image, the spectral of my mother, could do nothing to bring him back.

  I searched his face for the whisper of the man who used to delight in me. “Please bring me the first twig that brushes your hat on your way home, Father,” I finally said. “That’s all I want.”

  My stepsisters snickered beside me, but I focused on the way my father’s eyes softened for just a brief moment before they distanced back to vacancy.

  “Of course, dear Ella,” he replied, and with that he descended the last of the steps and swung himself onto his horse.

  My father was as good as his word. When he returned, Maybelle was given three dresses: one a golden yellow to match her bottle curls, one a cobalt blue with silver trimming on the bodice to match her startling blue eyes, and one a pastel pink to match her rosy, well-fed cheeks.

  Calliope was brought jewelry as she’d been promised. A string of white pearls to adorn her swan-like neck, a pair of tear-shaped emerald earrings to match her forested eyes, and a bracelet of rubies to bring attention to her delicate white hands.

  As my stepsisters reveled in their finery, I was granted my one simple request, a thin, leafy branch, unnaturally healthy despite being removed from its source since it brushed my father’s hat. It did not match my oddly colored lavender eyes, for which my stepsisters often mockingly suggested that I was not a small human but an overgrown faery, it was too big for my small white arms, and overshadowed my reddened auburn hair. Yet it was exactly what I wanted.

  The fleeting spark in my father’s eye told me that perhaps he’d chosen which tree would brush his hat first, and so I took the twig out to the end of our estate, near the low stone wall where my mother was buried, dug a hole and planted it. Two years I watered and cared for it, despite unaccountable amounts of teasing, then I trekked out one day to find that the thin twig had taken root and blossomed. Within months, a sturdy tree had spread its unnaturally green branches over that small corner, my small corner, of the estate.

  Of course, by then, it was too late for me, and the tree’s emergence, quickly followed by its production of succulent green pears, sealed my oncoming fate.

  “Ella dear, how marvelous!” Madame beamed at me one day not long after the first pear peeked out. “To think you could turn a dead stick into a pear tree.”

  “Faery,” Maybelle smirked, but for once Madame ignored her.

  “A green thumb in the family,” Madame mused to herself without moving her cunning gaze from me. “Perhaps you could help Cook sometime in the garden?”

  Despite the suggestion in her words, the tone of her voice said it would be done.

  “Yes, Madame,” I answered dutifully, and turned toward the garden as expected.

  It wasn’t just the tone that compelled me to listen to her, nor the misguided thought that she might still replace the mother I lost. I thought, naively I realize now, that perhaps if I would just do right in this one thing, if I would help Cook with my green thumb and coax the garden to produce the most delicious vegetables, then, finally then, Madame would notice me and treat me like a true daughter of the house.

  But green is the color of envy and illness, not love.

  “Oh Ella,” Madame cooed after me.

  “Yes, Madame?”

  “Do change your dress before you begin,” she innocently suggested. “So it doesn’t ruin.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  That is how it began. Helping Cook in the garden turned into feeding the chickens, which turned into drawing water to wash the windows and the hardworking ladies-to-be after their strenuous lessons in etiquette. Then it was sweeping the floors, polishing the silver, and setting out tea, then serving the others breakfast…in bed.

  It came to a point where I had so many responsibilities about the house that Madame announced, “I simp
ly don’t know what I would do without Ella. It would be such a waste of time to bring in someone new and start from the beginning.”

  Why was I ever kind to her? Perhaps I was weak or dimwitted. Perhaps I thought it could win her favor or was too desperate for her kindness to think of anything but. That same mistaken mindset would follow me to the palace where it would mislead me there as well. For, though my mother had done her best to teach me how to be kind, I needed more than that in my life. Kindness is not a currency many people trade in.

  That time felt like the end but was really only the beginning for me. Each night, as the pile of work grew larger and the nights grew too because of it, I would recede into my small kitchen corner and work by the light of the fire. My back grew stiff from sitting too long on a hard, broken wicker chair and my hands cramped as I scrubbed and mended and swept and cleaned. I no longer had time for books or lessons, could scarce afford a moment to paint or wander around outside at my leisure. Yet neither Madame nor Maybelle nor Calliope, who in bursts of goodwill would sometimes sneak me some of the treats from the table that I was no longer allowed to have, could manage to take away nor dull my imagination. As a young girl, I had traveled the world with my mother, and as I grew older I traveled it again, not to explore, but to escape.

  As I worked, I dreamed of many things, of exploring jungles and befriending exotic animals, of singing and dancing on the world’s greatest stages, of wearing the finest clothes made from the softest silks, and even, perhaps, of being the kind of girl tall enough and pretty enough to make others take notice. I foolishly thought then that looks were all I needed.

  Above all else, my favorite and most recurring dream was that one day someone would rescue and carry me away from that now-wretched place. For my part, I would never look back, never regret what my life would become. And who better to rescue a maiden in distress than a prince? I put so much hope, so much faith into that dream that when reality came, I mistook it for the other.

  Overall, the adventures I managed in those days were too few and far between for my liking. Late at night, when I was sure the house was asleep, I would gather some of the pears from my magical tree and sneak away to the homes of the poor that I used to visit with Mother. I didn’t dare take anything from the vegetable garden, orchard, or even leftovers from the kitchen as I was certain Madame kept track of it all. The pear tree was too close to Mother’s grave for her to ever go near, so they were one of the few things I still genuinely owned. Unfortunately, my chores at home kept me from visiting at a more appropriate hour, so I didn’t speak with any of the people anymore. Instead, I would quietly hang a few pears from the door latch and pray the gesture brought some comfort when they were found in the morning. Those nights taught me a thing or two about sneaking about silently, certainly more Ella-mouse than Ella-phant.

  Because of the brief time I was allowed to paint, it was discovered that I not only had a green thumb, but also a keen eye for arranging colors and patterns. So it was only natural that I soon be tasked with helping my stepsisters with their makeup, then somehow hair, and even dresses for the innumerable balls they were soon being whisked off to at the homes of the surrounding nobility.

  “It sounds so wonderful,” I made the mistake of murmuring one day, while helping Calliope out of the mounds of material it seemed I’d only just swathed her in.

  Maybelle let out a cruel giggle. “Wonderful!” she crowed. “Oh dear, you don’t actually wish to come with us?”

  I kept my eyes down, a habit I’d unfortunately overdeveloped of late. When Mother was alive, my eyes couldn’t look far enough past the skies, now I was noticing every shade of earth, every warble of wood in the floor beneath my feet.

  Calliope, who was usually more tolerant of me—well, more than the others—couldn’t hold back her shriek of laughter. “Could you imagine?”

  “A cinder maiden at a ball?” Maybelle passed a finger over my soot-stained cheek without quite touching it. “A cinder wench!”

  “A Cinderwench!” Calliope parroted, then collapsed on her bed in giggles.

  The name stuck, as cruel and silly names often will. And after a while, that’s what I became. No longer was I petite Ella, rescuer of damsels in distress, commander of the stage, captain of the swiftest ship, a human in a faery land. With the name came the reality, and only later did I wonder that none of the other servants ever said a word at my sudden fall from mistress to maid. Most of them had come to our house with Madame, but surely, they knew, surely, they saw what was happening. The only thing I could think to say for them is that perhaps, when someone repeats that my life is nothing for long enough, then everyone else believes it, too. So I was, and believed myself to be, nothing more than Cinderwench, with only a goldfish, a faery sprinkled sword, and a pear-bearing tree for company.

  Beginning of the End

  Nothing ominous dawned on the first day that changed my life forever. More precisely, it was a warm and lovely day, a hint of spring in the last days of winter, the perfect kind of day for pretending in the garden with Mother when she was still alive. Now, the perfect day would be put to good use like all other perfect days are by adolescent girls; shopping.

  Madame only allowed my sixteen-year old self into town with my stepsisters because someone had to carry the packages. Anything large was taken back to the carriage by the footman, but anything small or delicate was placed in my care. Especially because it was to be a full day venture, we would be going into the streets of Camallea, the capital, where, no matter what time of day or year, anything could be bought. Thus, we were under strict orders to stay tight together with unbending carriages and upheld chins. Even Father, uninterested and removed as always, was dragged along to complete the image of the baroness’s perfect circumstances.

  After helping my stepsisters choose new colors for their spring dresses, which of course I would be tasked with designing, after choosing the right feathers, beads, and other bits to accessorize them with, which of course I was charged with carrying, I wandered a few feet behind the others as they strolled through the market stalls piled high with shiny red apples, sun-kissed oranges, tart yellow lemons, and mouth-watering chocolates. I wasn’t too far behind them on purpose, my short legs could hardly keep up, especially with the packages weighing me down.

  A handful of the little shops behind the stalls, the ones not dedicated to mundane trades, boasted mounds of white and pastel-colored confections in their windows and it was only a matter of time before Maybelle had successfully maneuvered us all over to one.

  “Just a little something, Mama,” she pleaded, and Madame, who almost never refused her daughters, gave in.

  “Ella, please stay here with the packages. We can’t risk them getting ruined inside,” Madame said too sweetly, sweeping Father into the store with her and her girls. “Really, she is just so dear,” I heard her say to him as they went by.

  “Cinderwench the gutterwench,” Maybelle mouthed, as she gleefully brushed past me.

  Looking away to force back tears, I spotted a well in a small piazza down a short alley beside the shop and figured to rest my feet there while I waited.

  I do not think coincidence, blind fate, or fickle destiny led me to that very spot. Rather, I firmly believe a hand reached down from Heaven itself to guide me to what would be the beginning of the end. What I didn’t, and still don’t, understand is why it chose me.

  Although nestled just one row behind the bustling marketplace, the piazza was somehow quiet, secluded, becomingly illuminated by glittering rays of sunlight with nothing marring the smooth cobblestones but a simple well. Wanting to take everything in, I turned around even before I entered and ended up backing straight into someone, whereupon I promptly tripped and let all my packages fly.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I stuttered, then immediately dropped to the floor and scrambled to pull everything together.

  “I beg your pardon, miss,” a deep voice rumbled over me. I looked up to see the gentleman I had bump
ed into kneeling on the floor with me and trying as best he could to help.

  “It’s no matter.” I dropped my eyes and focused too hard on the task at hand.

  The man’s large hands were protected from the chaff of horses’ reins, bows, and swords, with black leather gloves which flew in and out of my vision as he adamantly set to putting things right.

  “There,” he reassured me once all the packages were carefully stacked against the stone well.

  “Thank you.” I dared glance up only then, but quickly looked away when I caught the man studying me closely.

  He was dressed in a very fine, royal purple uniform that fit neatly over his broad frame. He had thick brown hair and soft brown eyes, which though puppy-like, were alert and chilling as a lion’s. His voice though deep was gentle toward me and his actions confirmed his nobility. He wore his uniform with unstated pride and respect, and a sparkling sword hilt jutted up from the belt around his hips.

  “Your eyes are—”

  Till then the shadows must have blocked their color. I lowered my head so he could not look anymore.

  I have been called beautiful, but if it’s true, then I believe it to be of an ethereal sort. Some men can’t look away and others can’t get away quick enough. The purple hue of my eyes only compounds the matter, their rarity considered unnatural, a trait of faeries and not man. I have been called delicate and fragile, enough so that men feel an urge to protect me like a child. I wish they did not.

  “I only came for some water,” I blurted, then clamped my mouth shut before I could say anything more, or more foolish.

  The man immediately jumped forward. “Allow me, miss.”

  “It’s no bother—” I began just as the sound of hoof beats stomped over the silence of the piazza.

  “There you are, Captain!” a melodious voice called out, and in an instant the captain’s leathered hand shot out and stopped the nose of the horse that was about to trample me.