A Cinderella Retelling

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  Though I wanted all the time I could hoard with the prince, I didn’t hurry. At the top of the stairs, I turned once to look out over the candlelit courtyard below, imagining it as a painting in my mind, imagining how I could turn this fleeting moment into a memento that would last me all my years. Once inside, I again kept a steady pace, even going so far as to smile and incline my head toward the soldiers when I felt their eyes upon me. I didn’t know what the rules of etiquette mandated then—Madame had never deigned to cover how to address a servant who was also a protector in any of her lessons—but I cared little for that tonight.

  The first time I came to the palace, I was nervous and giddy, unsure of how my night would unfold and who, if anyone, would notice I was there. Tonight, I was serene, knowing full well that everyone would be watching, knowing that he would be waiting. A servant ushered me through the doors of the main ballroom, and suddenly, once more, a whole new world burst open below me.

  The chandeliers caught my attention first and would continue to do so for my first few years at the palace. Golden candelabras were lit all along the walls but hovering above the dance floor was a line of three, crystal draped chandeliers made of solid gold. At least fifty candles blazed in each, and I wondered how long it took for them to be lit. Surely it took about a dozen or so servants to shine them so brightly they hardly needed candles at all. I gaped in awe at their extravagance.

  The center of the marble floor was filled with dancing couples, perfectly synchronized to the eye of anyone watching from above. The men were smartly dressed, every soldier and lord proudly beribboned, their polished leather boots gracefully leading their women about the floor.

  And the women…who knew so many pretty women could exist in one room? How could the prince be expected to pick just one jewel in a treasury overflowing with such shining, precious gems? The colors of their dresses were like the first flowers of spring, a rainbow of color springing from the ground after a long winter’s night with the promise of youth, beauty, and life. Their hair was twisted fancifully up and studded with gems, their necks wrapped in pearls, their wrists and fingers sparkled with gold and silver. I wished my mother could be there to share in my bedazzlement.

  A thirty-piece orchestra held court along one wall of the dance floor, the violins, the harps, the flutes, the trumpets bringing down the music of angels to us mortals on earth. The wall adjacent to them had large glass doors propped open to allow in the cool night air, while also ushering guests out onto moonlit terraces and surely romantic gardens as well.

  I stood at one leg of a grand two-pronged marble staircase, which met halfway down at a landing that joined both sides into a sweeping staircase leading right to the tip of the dance floor. Each guest was supposed to be announced before descending, but when asked, I couldn’t respond. My eye had caught the prince waiting for me on the middle landing, and the servant must have seen it too because he didn’t press. I saw the prince before he saw me, saw his long-strided pacing and anxious glances toward either side of the split stairwell. He wore a dark, royal purple jacket with gold buttons, the gold sash draped over his shoulder angled across his chest. He wore gold gloves on his hands, and even his hair twinkled golden in the chandeliers’ light.

  The captain stood stiffly to the side, his eyes following the prince. I wondered if I should call to him or if I should find my voice, my name, and my grand entrance.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to decide. The moment the prince saw me, he jumped a little, then bounded up the steps. I was sure he was about to take me in his arms and swing me around, but unfortunately decorum got the better of him and he settled for a huge, uncontrollable smile, awakening a mad flurry of butterflies in my stomach.

  “Good evening,” I curtsied to him. “Prince Charming,” I added for good measure.

  The prince reached out to raise me up, and for a moment extended both hands so he could cup my face. I wasn’t shy enough to not lean into his touch.

  “You made it!” He seemed genuinely elated.

  “It seems so, Your Highness,” I replied, accepting his proffered hand. It felt so natural then to be taking it, so natural for my hand to rest on his arm, for him to be leading me, for me to be at his side. That feeling would not fade for a long while.

  “I will not leave your side for one moment tonight,” the prince declared. “I cannot have you running off again. My poor heart cannot take it.”

  My face flushed with pleasure at his words. Nothing on earth could compare to hearing a prince say that to me of all people. Blasted magic, I would have stayed with him forever if it would only allow.

  As we passed the captain on the steps, a significant look passed between him and the prince. I should have known then that something was afoot, should have known then how that look signified the end of my charade and all that I’d known in my life. But I was blind then to anyone but the prince, deaf to any sound but the tune of his voice and the rhythm of his heart. The entirety of my senses was overloaded with only him and would remain so for far too long.

  “I want you to meet my father,” was the next thing he said to me, and that was almost enough to shock the entire world back into sharp focus. Almost.

  As it turned out, he introduced me to his father at just the right time. I was barely able to execute my finest curtsy and give him my requested hand when Sir Percival saved me with a gaggle of dignitaries it seemed the king had to meet. The king kissed my hand—kissed my hand!—and sent me off with a kind smile. I would have fainted away in the arms of my prince had I not been intent on racing the magic to enjoy every possible minute with him.

  The prince whisked me into a dance and for the next few hours, my feet didn’t touch the floor. My heart was so full of love and happiness, I was sure it was the only anchor keeping me from floating away from this world.

  Before I knew what had happened, the prince had spun me off the dance floor, through a double set of glass doors, and into the cool night. I’m sure we passed some people on our way out, but I only remember the two of us, just him and me in a small blossoming garden under the vast starlit sky.

  It seemed only then that we stopped dancing, though I’m sure we had sense enough to walk once we were away from the music. For a moment, neither of us spoke, simply looking at each other, simply being together was enough.

  The prince broke the crystalline silence first. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said, reaching out to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind my ear. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most beautiful lady I’d ever seen.”

  I smiled happily but wasn’t about to correct him then.

  “The second time I saw you, you looked even more beautiful,” he continued, “and now, how is it possible?”

  “Ever the charmer,” I murmured.

  The prince leaned closer to me and my heart just about exploded in my chest. If it had that night, at least I would have died happy.

  “I love it when you say that,” he said, his voice a tickle in my ear.

  He pulled back and studied me with his shining blue eyes. There would never be a look to match the one he gave me then, that moment when all the love and joy and possibility he felt melded into one moment. That moment, when we were still content to just be, the moment before he found out the truth of who I was, before I found out the truth about him, that was our only bit of ever after.

  “I admit I was rather upset when Father and Sir Percival insisted that we have these silly parties,” the prince told me without letting go. “I was just weeks away from quieting the borders and all they wanted was to marry me off.”

  The prince paused and studied my face, drinking in every part he saw.

  “The masquerade began as expected,” he went on, “as I expected at least, then I looked up and there you were. A kingfisher angel come to rescue me.” He reached out as if to touch my cheek, but his hand hesitated. As if doing so would prove there was really nothing to touch, that I was a dream, a fantasy. “How can you be real?”
he whispered.

  I would have said something, but it was difficult to talk with my heart in my throat. It was difficult enough to breathe.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” I finally managed to squeeze out.

  The prince didn’t respond right away. A small smile played at his lips, before he abruptly leaned forward and pressed them to mine. The kiss was too quick to feel anything but softness because the prince pulled away just as quickly and granted me a radiant smile.

  “You’re right,” he said, and firmly took my hand in his. “We must tell the king at once.”

  “Tell him what, Your Highness?” I asked stupidly.

  The prince let out an exuberant laugh. “Do you not wish to marry me?” he teased.

  So it was true. The mystery lady had captured the prince’s heart and he was willing to let her keep it. It was too much for me. My mind shut down. My heart ballooned in my chest. I gripped my prince’s hand fiercely, and that was all the answer he needed.

  Triumphant, he led me back into the ballroom, making straight for his father, and I would have gone with him had we not passed the clock on the way in. It was seven minutes to midnight. The prince had my hand in his grip. I had to get out before the magic released me and I would embarrass myself, and even worse, him.

  I looked around frantically for a solution. I needed a distraction. Or better yet, a blade. Could I take a sword from a soldier and fight my way out without anyone minding?

  Heaven sent me my release, for which I have offered thanks every day. My stepsisters, Heaven bless those two wretched souls, appeared suddenly in our path with their young lords in tow, blocking our way forward. Perhaps my kindnesses to them the last two times we’d met there had emboldened them enough to approach us without permission. However, I couldn’t be upset with them, not then. Seeing how happy they were with their young, enamored lords made me think for a moment that perhaps, having also grown up under Madame, they too were in need of a little love.

  They did have the manners to blush at their own impudence and immediately dropped into perfect curtsies. “Your Highness, my lady,” they murmured.

  The prince bid them rise, but said little else, visibly ready to end this encounter.

  “How delightful to see you two again,” I said with more meaning then they could know. The clock continued to tick treacherously forward behind me.

  Calliope held out a small bouquet of yellow wildflowers. “For you,” she said, blushing fiercely.

  Reluctantly, the prince released my hand so I could carefully take the flowers from her. It was really a silly, misguided thing, them offering me a small bundle of flowers as if I was a bridesmaid. It was only later that I understood it for what it was. Their awkward, bumbled attempt was only because they were so unused to genuine kindness they didn’t know how to respond, how to thank me for it. It was proof that a little kindness can truly go a long way.

  “Thank you,” I said, pausing with my nose in the flowers, and that was the signal to end my night.

  Without warning, I darted away from the prince and my stepsisters, diving through the crowd and toward the steps as the frantic cry of “Stop her!” tore from the prince’s throat after me.

  But the room was so full and the music so grand, even a prince couldn’t yell over the noise. He could be right behind me, though. Still foolishly clutching the flowers, I grabbed up my skirts and took the steps two at a time. By now, the music was grinding to a halt and I could clearly hear the commotion I was leaving in my wake.

  Right outside the hallway, I ran smack into the captain, who was as startled to see me in his arms as I was to be there. He looked down at me and in that moment I’m absolutely sure he saw through the lace to the frightened purple eyes beneath. This time, no confusion clouded his face as he remembered the two other times he’d clearly seen those same unusual eyes. And the type of girl they belonged to.

  “Your eyes—” he began, but I didn’t let him finish.

  Because, in the end, he was the one who’d always seen me, no matter what I wore.

  “Please,” I whispered, my eyes begging him to let me go. “Please.”

  Only then did confusion etch across his face. The captain hesitated, and with years of sneaking away and darting Madame’s wrath coloring my instincts, I saw that brief pause and I took it. I broke his hold and ran away from him, leaving him with the small bundle of flowers. He turned sharply to follow after me, but fear compelled me forward, pushing me faster than I ever ran before. Perhaps the slippers had a little magic speed in them as well.

  I burst through the palace doors and turned sharply to scurry down the front steps, wanting to hug the rail so I could bound down two and three at a time, even in my Castarrean glass slippers. Did it even matter what happened to them if they would anyway be gone by midnight?

  At the bottom, my carriage was already waiting for me, the coachman’s whip raised above the horses, the footmen ready to toss me in and jump on.

  After the second step, I felt my foot catch and to my horror looked down to find the stairs covered in a viscous, black substance. The smell gave it away. Pitch. Was that the look I had seen pass between the prince and his captain? Had he really gone so far to keep me here? I would have been flattered, melted into the very pitch, had I not been so desperate to get away.

  I yanked one foot out and leaped toward the carpet, but when the other released to follow it felt too light. I glanced back long enough to see that one of my slippers had stuck in the pitch. There was nothing to do about it. It would be gone within the next three minutes when the clock struck midnight anyway.

  As I had used the captain’s hesitation to my advantage, the brief pause on the step cost me. The captain, with the prince and a handful of soldiers in tow, burst out of the palace doors, even before I reached the bottom of the stairs. Heaven bless the lizard that leaped up the steps to grab me in his arms and somehow toss me gently into the carriage. The carriage took off like lightning, thundering down the road toward the bridge, a shooting star in a dark night sky. The footman who’d tossed me in stayed behind at the palace steps in an attempt to distract the prince and his soldiers for the last two minutes until midnight, the last two minutes it would take for my carriage to make it across the palace bridge and into the streets of the capital.

  Thank Heaven for the hand of foresight that led me to study the maps of the city, because scarcely after we had made it across the bridge the magic fled, and everything fell apart. The carriage sputtered to a bumpy stop, landing hard on the cobblestone streets of the quiet capital city. The rats and remaining lizard fled, the pumpkin smashed into bits, and it was only me and the goose who would never again tip his hat for me but maintained an inexplicable fondness for me all the same.

  I didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity, and I wanted even less to be sitting in the mud when the others came by. I had to get back home before anyone could find out I was missing, and the walk ahead was a long one. I could already hear the pounding of the horses giving chase to my now ruined carriage. I stood up and felt a strange limp in my foot. Praying nothing was broken, I glanced down to see a swirl of colors in sand, a sparkle of glass showing I still wore my remaining glass slipper. How had the magic missed this? Or was it a lasting gift from Marie? Was its mate still stuck to the palace steps? Was the light being sucked into the glass now turning into the colors of hope?

  I didn’t have the time to figure it out, especially because having on one shoe meant my others hadn’t been returned to me. I tucked it into my apron pocket, then gave the broken pumpkin two or three quick shoves to send as much as I could into the gutter. I chased the goose into a dark alley and hunkered down with it, mentally pleading it stayed quiet until the soldiers had passed.

  For once, that blasted goose cooperated, but I still stayed there with it a long time, even as the cold from the cobblestones traveled up through my body, even as the chill from the night entered my bones. I was sure I would be sick after this, and miserable, t
oo, because being sick was never an excuse for not doing my chores.

  After a long, long while, well after I heard the clock chime one and then two in the morning, well after I was sure the hoof beats I now heard were the disgruntled men returning from their fruitless chase, I finally allowed myself to stand. The goose had fallen asleep at my feet and though I hated to, I had to kick it awake. It had been good to me, but it was too heavy for me to carry all the way home.

  In my mind’s eye, I pulled up the maps I had so diligently studied and wove through Camallea’s dark streets, pressing close to walls and staying in shadow until we broke through the city and were forced onto the widened path that led home. I was barefoot, but too overwhelmed to feel the pebbles sticking into my heels, too tired to begrudge the dirt coating my feet.

  We walked for hours, and I still don’t know how the goose kept up. Maybe some magic still lingered in its addled brain. I didn’t know what Madame would do to me if she found out the goose had run out under my watch, but I was beyond caring at that point. All I wanted was a long hot bath to wash away the dirt, the grime, the magic, the feel of the prince’s arms around me.

  For all I knew, I was done. This was it for me. It was all over. My imagination had drained out when faced with the reality of what magic could do. I didn’t even have the will to run away anymore.

  We had been walking so long, I was almost relieved to see the turn down the familiar path to my house, almost relieved to round that final bend and see it as I once had when I was still a child, a little slice of paradise made just for my family.

  I trudged up the long walkway as the first rays of morning light began stretching awake across the sky. I barely had enough time to hide the extra slipper in my attic room and wash my blackened feet before the dreaded sound of hoof beats and carriage wheels announced my stepfamily’s return.

  I had to work very hard to keep myself together while my stepsisters almost tripped over themselves to recount the night I knew too much about. I had already gone through it all, had already ripped my heart in two running from my prince. I didn’t need to hear it all again. I didn’t need to hear it from them.