A Cinderella Retelling

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  “Whoa,” he rumbled, grabbing the magnificent horse’s bridle, trying to keep from frightening the glorious creature.

  The rider of the horse must have peered around then, because he suddenly exclaimed, “I didn’t see you there, little girl! Take care, or you’ll easily be trampled underfoot.”

  I was too flabbergasted to correct him. “I was only getting some water,” I said dumbly, turning back to the well so neither man could see the blush of shame burning across my cheeks.

  “As are we,” the rider sang out.

  Then and forever his voice was a melody, a rich, rolling symphony; a lone, fragile violin. In the beginning, especially, I heard the songs of angels in the very lilt of that man’s voice.

  I already had the bucket halfway up, and the words that would begin my downward spiral tumbled out, “Please take,” I offered him the bucket, “and perhaps some for your horse as well?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the rider agreed. “How thoughtful.”

  It wasn’t until I was pouring water into his metal cup that I snuck a glance at the rider.

  My breath stopped. My world turned upside down.

  Before me was the most handsome man I had ever seen. Even within the abruptly realized limited confines of my imagination, I could never dream up a man so wonderful to simply look at. He had sandy hair that curled at the too-long ends. A short straight nose, chiseled jaw, and eyes deeper than the oceans and bluer than the skies. His clothes were specifically tailored not in style, but not out of style either. I was to later learn this was because this was a man who set the fashion, as that’s one of the many things princes do.

  I was suddenly embarrassed to be standing before these two finely dressed gentlemen, the very accent of their voices belying their superior education and upper class. My sisters had new dresses made at each turn of the season, but I had been wearing the same two for years. I fingered the material that had been washed so many times the color fled back into the earth it came from. The hem had been taken out and adjusted until it could be no longer, and the sleeves had finally been cut short so my adolescent arms wouldn’t give away their odd length. And this was my nicer dress.

  Still, the man inexplicably grinned at me as I filled his cup, once for him and then once again for his fine white horse to clumsily spill over his shiny leather boots as it tried to lap it up. After, he effortlessly raised himself back onto his horse, and flicked over a gold coin “for your trouble.”

  Years of swordsmanship helped me catch it easily, and I dropped a short, flawless curtsy in thanks. The man leaned forward in his saddle as if to say something more, but it was then that I heard the sharp beginnings of “Ell—!”

  “I must go,” I apologized and grabbed the parcels even as the captain called out behind me, “But your drink!”

  I scurried down the alley and fell into step behind my stepsisters before Madame could rebuke me. I prayed we’d be well on our way before either of the men on horseback saw me like this.

  I didn’t look back as I obediently followed behind my sisters, past farmers selling livestock and travelers selling exotic animals, past watchmakers and glassblowers, blacksmiths and taverns, until we came upon the end of the street. There, it spilled into a large promenade bordered by the river that scurried past the city before snaking around the palace and catching up with the sea. The palace sat on a large rocky outcropping that overlooked the capital. It was accessible only by water and the large main bridge that was carefully guarded from every angle.

  We found some shade to wait under as Father was sent to track down our footman and carriage. We weren’t waiting long before the loud ringing of a hand bell interrupted our rest. Looking up, we were greeted by the sight of a castle crier perched upon a hastily positioned wooden crate. Behind him, close enough to watch the proceedings but not enough to be part of them, was the handsome man from the well and the captain. They had been joined by a half dozen other men wearing the same purple uniform as the captain’s, sans the gold epaulets on his shoulders.

  Slowly, the little bits and pieces started sorting themselves out. Their manner of dress, the refinement of their speech, their beautiful horses, their presence here now…

  The captain surveyed the crowd from his position atop his horse, his ever-watchful eyes missing nothing. I didn’t know if he could see me, or would recognize me if he did, but even so I shrank down, mild and meek as a mouse in the shadow of a hawk.

  One last ring of the bell—what I would later know as my death knell—silenced the growing crowd and the crier cleared his throat and began the proclamation that would end my current life.

  “Hear ye, good people! So shall it be announced throughout the streets of Camallea, so shall it be proclaimed across Laurendale. In the name of His Royal Majesty, King William Robert Alexander, fair and just, defender of all, His Royal Highness, Prince Henri Christopher Charles Alexander, slayer of dragons, protector of the realm, will be hosting a masquerade in two weeks’ time.”

  A soft tittering began at the edges of the crowd, and I glanced to the men on horseback. The way the handsome one sat, the way the captain’s face never changed… could it be?

  “The purpose of this event is to find, in a manner unbiased to standing, a wife for His Royal Highness, Prince Henri Christopher Charles Alexander.”

  “Do they have to say his whole bloody name every time?” a man muttered somewhere beside me.

  The captain’s head pivoted in our direction, making me certain he’d heard. At that moment it didn’t matter to me, because it was then that I realized that the man beside him was the prince, whose full name I would definitely never tire of hearing. And I didn’t, for over three years at least.

  The prince, beautiful and handsome, tall, and valiant. He’d been away from Camallea for years to attend Laurendale’s prestigious finishing school and military academy, from whence he’d been plucked when war broke out and sent straight to our eastern borders to ward off an invading army of ogres and gargoyles. He’d then headed south to fight against a hoard of dragons attacking the villages there. The prince had defeated all with a relatively swift and completely victorious hand. So it seemed he was allowed to return home to celebrate the newfound peace and share his victory with the people.

  “All eligible maidens are invited to attend,” the crier’s voice continued to ring out, “all with proper attire,” he raised his hand with a flourish, brandishing a parchment overhead, “and all with an invitation.”

  The crowd erupted as people shoved past each other to grab one of the coveted invitations still clutched in the crier’s hand. They swarmed the poor man who tried as best he could to hand them out with the speed necessary to preserve his life, no easy feat considering as he’d just announced that almost anyone could one day be queen.

  “Girls, we must keep our composure,” Madame proclaimed just seconds before she lost hers to lunge for the precious paper.

  Very few people were not swallowed in the ensuing frenzy: the prince and his cadre of guards, and myself, who was pushed to the fringes of the crowd to protect my stepfamily’s packages as best I could. With my head ducked and my feet stepping high to keep from being trampled upon, it was no wonder I missed the man who approached me and shoved an invitation into my already full hands. I looked up in time to catch the back of a soldier’s uniform skirting the melee and raised my gaze still higher to catch sight of the prince as he turned to leave. Behind him was the captain, who followed after the prince just as my eyes landed on him.

  I couldn’t say for certain, but I was almost sure that he had made sure the invitation found its way to me. Then, I couldn’t say why. Now, I have my suspicions.

  Carefully setting aside the packages, I hurriedly folded up the invitation and pocketed it before the step-women in my family found me again. Over the next two weeks, I endured their teasing as they proudly waved their tickets to royalty as if they were the only ones in the entire kingdom to have them.

  “It’s going to
be marvelous,” Calliope squealed. “Wouldn’t you so love to come?”

  I kept my lips tight, knowing that any answer would be to my peril. At the moment, I was trying my best to sweep the floor despite the two vultures circling me.

  “And what would she wear?” Maybelle queried, pinching the edges of my rags with the tips of her fingers. “This?”

  “It is a rather fitting costume,” Calliope pointed out.

  “Imagine a Cinderwench on display!”

  “A Cinderwench on display!” Calliope echoed, then grabbed Maybelle’s hands and danced with her in a circle, trapping me inside.

  “A Cinderwench at a masquerade!” they continued to sing, as they twirled merrily about me.

  I swept the same spot for ten minutes before they finally tired of their game and went to examine the progress of their butterfly gowns for the fiftieth time that day.

  Foolish as it may seem, I did think that perhaps I would be allowed to go to the masquerade. If anything, faery tales I heard from my mother proved that even the miserable and wretched could possibly find happiness one day. Perhaps, Father, the real Father, would poke his head out of his study long enough to demand that Madame allow me to join. Perhaps, if I was perfect, absolutely perfect in everything I did, Madame would allow it in one brief moment of compassion. I could sew my own dress. I had my own jewelry. Madame needn’t dress me; she need simply allow me to ride in the carriage. Besides, the prince himself had decreed that anyone with an invitation could come. It wasn’t as if he would notice me. I was no threat to Madame or her daughters.

  How shortsighted the present can be.

  It took both weeks to build up the courage to ask Madame if I could go. Even then, the matter didn’t come up by my own doing. Rather, since I’d received the invitation from the soldier, I had kept it in my pocket, sometimes running a finger over its soft, rich surface during the day, but otherwise never allowing myself to take it out until I was sure all had gone to bed. Then I would sit in my little corner by the fire and smooth out the creases, reading and rereading the words that promised the reality of all my faery tales. Unfolding the paper unfurled my imagination and there was no limit to how brightly my dress would shine, no shortage of suitors begging a dance from me.

  It was one such night, lost in my dreams, that I missed the footsteps coming into the kitchen and was abruptly caught.

  “Ella,” Calliope’s voice was suddenly alert. “What is that?”

  I was too off-guard to hide the guilty look. “I was just finishing up.”

  Calliope’s astute eyes saw right through me. “What’s in your hand?”

  “It isn’t anything,” I mumbled, grabbing for something near me to show that I had been busy at work.

  “Let me see it,” she demanded.

  “There’s nothing to see,” I persisted.

  “Let me see it now or I will scream and wake up the whole house.” Calliope sucked in her breath to make good on her threat.

  I doubted she would actually do it, not after all those times I’d told her fantastical stories to take her mind off of why Madame had shamed her enough so she cried into her pillow at night, but I’d come to the point where I wouldn’t put anything past the people who had come to control my life. Those stories should have been a respite for me, a return to years long gone, but after the first few times I’d spoken on impulse because I was too young to bear her whimpering, too young to know we would never be friends, they quickly became just another means to command me. Some days Calliope remembered those handfuls of moments in goodwill, most others she turned her shame of them against me in spite. But even then, with my fragile future in her hands, I did not regret helping her.

  “Here.” I shoved the invitation at her and hurriedly looked away so she couldn’t see how my cheeks burned with shame and longing.

  Calliope had to have seen how worn, yet how carefully kept, the invitation was. However brief, a surge of pity must have washed through her.

  “Would you like to go to the party, Ella?” she asked in a voice too kind, too at odds with her behavior just moments before.

  I refused to answer.

  “Answer me, Ella,” she demanded.

  Still looking away, I nodded my head.

  “Then I shall ask Mama for you,” she decided.

  “Really?” I asked in a small voice, not trusting that she would actually extend this level of kindness to me.

  “You’re too small for anyone to notice anyway,” she said, “and if someone accidentally does, you’ll only make the rest of us look better.”

  She returned the invitation and I carefully put it away, vowing not to take it out again in a place where I could be so easily caught. I was too grateful then to care about what kind of wrapping she’d put on the invaluable gift she’d given me. The next morning, true to her word, Calliope spoke to Madame, in the most humiliating way possible.

  The three women were sitting around the table in the small sunlit nook where they took breakfast when there was no one around to impress. I was serving, of course, the teapot raised to top off Madame’s cup when Calliope made her announcement.

  “Mama, the Cinderwench would like to go to the masquerade.”

  I blanched and spilled some of the tea into the saucer, from which it promptly slid out onto the tablecloth. I hurriedly grabbed a rag and tried to blot it out.

  “Is this true?” Madame demanded of me.

  I was forced to look up. “I thought if I could finish my chores on time,” I began meekly, then stopped, unsure how to continue. “And everyone was invited,” I finished lamely.

  Maybelle choked into her napkin, but to my surprise, Madame didn’t answer immediately. She rapped her fingers thoughtfully on the table, and till today I cannot claim to know what she was thinking.

  “You will need to get that stain out of the tablecloth.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “And you have your regular chores, in addition to helping with the girls’ costumes.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “It’s soon spring, so there is much to be done ridding the house of winter.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “And there is the matter of finding something suitable to wear.”

  “Perhaps, something of my mama’s?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then I can go?”

  “We’ll see.”

  That was enough for me. For the next week, I hardly slept. True to her word and her style, Madame loaded me down with chores, many of which were unnecessary or could be taken care of after the masquerade. She demanded that all winter cloaks and blankets be thoroughly cleaned and packed away, even though the nights were still cool enough to keep them out a bit longer. She wanted all curtains washed, all rugs beaten, all floors scrubbed to an unnatural shine as if the party would be taking place in her home.

  And that was without my sisters’ incessant harping, their constant teasing, their obsessive and tedious changes to their dresses.

  I went about it all dutifully, never once complaining, the mere promise of attending enough to deafen my ears to the commands, the mocking, the constant battering of what was left of my mind and self. For once, I was able to ignore it all completely, the wide wings of my imagination raising me above it all.

  Most of what my mother left behind had been erased by Madame when she came, but I managed to find a soft yellow dress I thought suitable enough to work with. After my long, long days were over, I worked well into the night to fix up the dress with bits and scraps I had gathered about the house. I would have loved to take my scissors to any one of my sisters’ old dresses that, though only a few months old, had already been deemed unwearably out of fashion, but I knew that wasn’t an option.

  The masquerade was, ostensibly, so the prince could find a wonderful girl without the distraction of physical beauty or some such nonsense. It was supposed to be a move to level the playing field, but anyone could determine half a girl’s background simply by her manner
of bearing and richness of dress. As I would later learn, it wasn’t as if every girl received an invitation. Only those lucky enough, only those in certain suitable areas when the announcement was made. I only knew that the idea of wearing a mask simply lent intrigue to a night in which I wanted to disappear into a world of silks and succulence, a world that I had only thought possible to tread on in the streets of my fancy. I never thought the prince would pay me any heed. The farthest I allowed my hopes to take me was a duke. We would share one dance before I would twirl away into the night, leaving him forever broken, a piece of his heart missing, stolen away by the mystery girl in the soft yellow dress.

  Having nothing else at my disposal, I chose to make my mask out of the leftover greens from Calliope’s gown and cascading blues snipped away from Maybelle’s. Their masks hid part of their faces, but their chosen colors would highlight their eyes in a way that would render the masks irrelevant. I was hoping that, if done right, the interlocked patches of blues and greens would help dilute the color of mine.

  The day of the masquerade couldn’t come soon enough, then all at once it was there too soon. Father was conveniently away on one of his travels, so he was spared the agony of the full day of preparations. The morning began late, and although Madame harped about conserving energy, I was only allowed to serve them half the food they usually ate. Soon after lunch, I hauled bucket after bucket of water to the house so my sisters could soak in relaxing salts and wash with sweet smelling soaps.

  “You’ll help your sisters put up their hair whenever they are ready.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “Then you will help them dress and make up their faces.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “This will not excuse you from any of your regular chores, and you will be expected to complete them if you are to come with us tonight.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “Today is a very busy day.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “Then why are you still standing here?”

  I allowed myself to think of nothing but the promise of the night ahead as I scrambled to keep up with my stepsisters and the chores that seemed to multiply as the day wore on. I focused my mind and stilled my heart so I could work quickly and efficiently, seeking to complete everything in so perfect a manner that even Madame with her irrationally high expectations could not fault me. Not today, at least.