by Lee Hayton
“Lift up your foot, I want to see.”
I moved off the log and knelt in front of Cinderella, gently holding onto her slender ankle. The blood looked inky black in the pale moonlight, fading into the dirt and mud from the forest floor.
“It’s not too bad,” I said as I prodded it tentatively. As I pressed my finger near the wound, a new glut of blood pumped out over my hand. Cinderella didn’t need to know that, though. Besides, it might be better to keep bleeding and wash the wound clean.
She whimpered, and I returned her foot to rest on the ground, thinking the sound was in response to my handling. Maybe I hadn’t been gentle enough. But her sobs weren’t connected to me. They were connected to something from her recent memory—a vision I wasn’t privy too. Although I hugged her around the shoulders and pulled her close, I wouldn’t push her for details. Let Cinderella keep her worst memories private, compile a lonely photo album the same as in my mind.
“We should get going,” she said when her crying dried up to only an occasional hitch in her breath. “My father will be worried.”
My harsh laugh had barked out of my mouth before I thought to stop it. Cinderella turned to face me, her drying tears reflecting the moonlight overhead.
The poor sap. Did my stepsister really believe that her father cared the slightest jot about her? I know all about whispering lies to yourself, but there’s such a thing as carrying that to the extreme.
I shook my head, and whispered, “Sorry.” An inadequate response but the only one I had. “We’re so late now, it won’t matter if we head off now or wait until the morning. The morning’s safer.”
I could feel her nod in the vibration of her arm near mine. We sat together in silence for hours more, while the night rustled and bustled around us. The creatures we never saw during daylight, moving about in the commencement of their workdays.
“When we get home,” I said when the first rays of dawn finally began to lighten up the darkness. “Remember not to tell mother we went off the path. She’ll kill us herself if we do.”
“What do we say?” Cinderella whispered, and I shrugged my shoulders.
“We’ve got the rest of the walk home to think of something,” I said. “Let’s not worry about that now.”
We needn’t have worried at all, as it turned out. When we dragged our weary bodies from the edge of the wood and turned toward our cottage, a lie was ready in our mouths. Then we pushed the door open to reveal the men waiting inside. All our words scampered in terror, running away to hide in fear.
Chapter Eight
My stepfather was hunched in a corner. It appeared he was trying to make himself as small as possible, maybe even invisible. At the table sat Francois, with Gerald at his right side and another footman at his left. On top of the scratched and scarred wood of our dining table sat a dirty shoe. Flat soled, worn, so grimy that its placement where our food usually sat made my hunger evaporate.
Cinderella’s shoe. The one she’d dropped earlier at the party. How I don’t know, but the prince had tracked it back to the recipient in less than one night.
Gerald wouldn’t catch my eye, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach, my thighs, my calves. It flowed out through the soles of my feet to puddle on the floor.
He’d told Francois. Everything about his slumped posture and evading gaze broadcast the fact. He’d told the prince where to find Cinderella or me. With the harm he could do to either of us, it amounted to the same thing.
Betrayal cut off my breathing, and my head spun from a lack of oxygen. My heart, already pounding with anticipation, began to sprint. I clutched at Cinderella’s arm, but she did the same in return so that we fell together. Our knees gave way, so we sank onto the floor.
“These men, they want to ask you some questions?”
My stepfather’s voice was weak where usually it was aggressive and booming. His face was pale, where usually it was crimson red with an alcoholic flush or from rage. As he spoke the words, his shoulders hunched even further forward until his body looked as deformed as the castle freaks kept for when they wanted to stage a show.
I don’t think they’d touched a single hair on his head. My mother, though . . .
She sat on a wooden chair, her hands gripping the seat so tightly that her knuckles shone white. The skin on her face was as pale as milk, her long, graying hair draped gently over her shoulders. Broad, bleeding lines on her face, arms, and back showed where a cane had struck her repeatedly. The blows had landed with such force that the blue cotton of her dress was driven deep into her wounds.
My mother stared at the floor, her eyes unfocused. Not once over the course of that morning did she acknowledge anyone was there.
I couldn’t concentrate any longer. My eyes drifted down to the floor in front of me but didn’t stop there, they were drawn deeper. They drifted so far apart that the world around me grew fuzzy. It was as though they were trying to bring into focus the very entrance to Hell.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, papa,” Cinderella whispered. Her shoulders shook so badly they generated warmth in the chilly morning air. “We went to the party, and we left early because I didn’t feel well. I did everything that you told me I should.”
Anger rose inside me at her apologetic tone. Her plaintive voice wore on my overburdened nerves until my skin was jumping and crawling.
“What do you want?” I demanded, exerting all my strength to pull my gaze up to meet his eyes squarely. I tilted my chin up haughtily as though I were the one in charge.
“Why have you put a dirty shoe on our kitchen table? That’s where we sit to eat. Take it off at once.”
“We’re asking the women of the Kingdom to try on this shoe to see if it fits—”
The prince’s voice was cut off as Anastasia banged open the front door and stumbled inside. She was dressed in finery, and I don’t know to this day where she sourced it. I do know that she had no money, so purchased it for services rendered or promised in the future. Either one of those was too high a price to pay for silks and ribbons but who am I to talk? Only a week or two ago, I would have willingly paid the same.
She stumbled inside, not noticing for the first few steps that she was in such exalted company. The wine must have flowed indeed at her side of the party. Ana had to shake her head a few times to focus on the person sitting in her chair.
“Francois,” she called out in drunken delight, throwing her arms wide and tumbling forward to collapse awkwardly on his lap. “Have you told my step-daddy that we’re engaged to be married?”
She leaned her head forward to whisper into his ear. Instead, though, she shouted so loudly I winced in empathy for his pain.
“Did you tell him what you did to me, Francois? How we sealed the deal?”
She turned and looked over to our stepfather. He was still fixated on his attempts to shrink away altogether, so Anastasia turned back to the prince and laid a wet kiss on his face.
The footman to Francois’ left, immediately dragged her away. He tossed her on the floor like she was a pile of stinking rags, then shook his hand to rid it of her cooties. The prince shuddered and wiped his mouth with a crisp, white handkerchief. He scraped the clean fabric along his tongue, erasing every taste of her embrace.
A short bolt of joy at his dismay accompanied the wave of terror for Anastasia’s safety. I wondered how the prince enjoyed having something shoved in an orifice when he didn’t want it. I hoped it made him feel as dirty and small as it had made me. The thrust of a tongue wasn’t enough for vengeance, but it was a small shot of pleasure, delicious and fleeting.
“I believe that one of the women in this household wore this shoe to the ball yesterday. Each one of you will try it on, and whomever it fits, I will marry.”
Anastasia’s drunken eyes lit up, and she lunged across the table for the grubby footwear. With a grunt of effort, she attempted to pull it onto her foot. Anyone watching could see her toes were far too long, her heel too broad. The unknown footman
nudged Gerald while flaunting a grin of delight.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What the hell was this charade all about? At the time, I believed it was a ruse to get through the door. It seemed reasonable to assume that Francois already knew who would wear the shoe and whom he would marry.
Except, when I look back at that scene in my memory—trust me, that’s something you do when you cease to store away new visions—maybe it was a test that we all failed. As a family, we could have thrown our lot together and stood as one. It might have earned the prince’s respect just as easily as his rage and retribution. I don’t know how many women he’d danced with the night before, how many keepsakes he’d stolen. For all I know, the same charade could have been acted out a dozen times already that day.
A fleeting thought, nothing more, and one that doesn’t bear scrutiny. It could be just my imagination talking, left alone for too long in the dark.
Anyway, when Anastasia failed, and the precious shoe was wrenched from her possession, it came to me next. The shoe was already bloodstained from my sister’s determined attempt. The sight of it, fresh crimson melting into the brown dirt from the forest path, triggered an idea along with revulsion. At the time, falling under the spell of whatever cruel game they were playing, I thought of a solution to force their hand and hopefully spare Cinderella from her fate.
I’ve already told you how slight of frame my stepsister was. Her feet were the same, like miniatures compared to my own. With the shoes, already blood-streaked, and a sharp blade in my pocket for cutting string from bundled silverware, I formulated a quick plan. I thrust the knife into the thick calluses of my left heel and cut before I could register the pain. Better there, than to hack away at my toes where every strike of the blade would be agony from the start.
Shoe in hand, I quickly inserted my toes into the forward cup, cramming them as tightly as I could bear. With the slickness of my blood providing ample lubricant, I slid my heel down. For a second, it stuck fast, the edge of the shoe catching it and making my body retract in pain. I didn’t want to continue, but this was my gentle and cheeky stepsister at risk now. Anastasia was lost, I’d been ruined. At least one of our family could still make it safely through this ordeal.
I gathered up my courage and shoved my heel down as hard as I could. It stuck again, but this time the force behind it wedged it down until my foot was encased in the stiff leather.
With stars dancing a jig before my eyes, I stuck my foot out in front of me. As the men looked at their requested proof, I crossed my fingers behind my back.
The prince frowned. He looked at the shoe, glanced at me, then turned back to the shoe again. Anastasia, who’d pulled herself up to one elbow, groaned and slumped heavily back onto the floor. Her head struck the cobblestones with such a thump, I half expected her to be knocked unconscious. Instead, she issued another long groan that ended in a rueful chuckle. The amount of anesthesia in her system appeared to ease her pain.
“Well, Sir. It appears we’ve found the woman you sought,” Gerald said. He looked me in the eye, and when I nodded, he tipped his head forward and spoke with renewed vigor. “And she’s such a beautiful girl. I’m sure your family will be overjoyed.”
Francois, by this time, had tilted his head on an angle. He still stared at my foot quizzically, as though it were a puzzle he could solve.
Gerald stepped forward, extending a hand to me. I reached out, angling the blade with shaking fingers under cover of my sleeve. As his sturdy arm hoisted me to my feet, I prayed it wouldn’t slip down onto the floor.
Francois leaned forward, his frown deepening the cleft across his forehead. He pointed with one hand while drawing another shoe out from behind his back.
“The other one,” he said, tossing the new shoe to hit against my chest and fall on the floor.
It was unnaturally pale, gleaming white in contrast to everything else in the squalor of our cottage. The same white as porcelain, or the sharp flash of a hungry wolf’s teeth. “I want you to try to fit the other one.”
He pointed at my right foot and smiled so wide it seemed his head would break in two. Of course, my right foot was shod in my own comfortable footwear, perfectly fitted. Leaving it on had been a grave error on my part. Now that my skirts had settled above my ankles the size difference was plain to see. Blood seeped out of my heel and ran down the back of Cinderella’s tiny shoe.
“Sir, with all due respect,” Gerald said, his shoulders trembling but his voice firm with courage. “I think we’ve already proven the case sufficiently.”
To speak up at that point was a brave and valiant effort on Gerald’s part. Unfortunately, the prince wouldn’t be dissuaded. When I attempted to sit back down on the floor, trying to pull the blade back down my sleeve, Francois shook his head.
“At the table,” he ordered. “Sit in the chair opposite me, and try the other shoe on at the table.”
Even the other doorman, who’d been happy to revel in Anastasia’s misfortune, shifted from foot to foot in obvious discomfort. He cast a worried frown at Gerald who once again refused to meet his gaze. Not having shared his inappropriate humor, he wouldn’t now take on the burden of the man’s worry.
Tears of frustration, anger, and pain, rolled down my face. I let them run freely, holding the little shoe in my hand. I heard Cinderella’s skirts rustle and the second footman rushed forward to hold her back. I didn’t turn. I didn’t want to add to her distress.
Fool that I am, I tried. The ruse with the blade wouldn’t work under such fixed attention, so I used brute force. My toes crushed together until the bones bent to the point of breaking. So much pain erupted that blood pounded in my ears like a waterfall crashing onto the rocks beneath. My vision started to pulse in time with my heartbeat, the edges darkening so I could only focus within a narrow circle in front of me.
Sweat filled my nostrils, salty and sour. I reeked after the long trek to and fro from the castle. The energy I’d used to sprint out of sight of the pursuers at the castle had drenched my dress. I was smelly and dirty, exactly how Francois had made me feel more than once before. Closing my eyes, I jammed my foot down hard upon the stone-tiled floor. Nerves wrung one last drop of vicious pain until my head swam. I believed I must faint or die. Then the moment was past. My heel had a thick cut where the newly dressed leather had bitten deep into the flesh.
It wasn’t even close to fitting.
As I lolled back in my chair, fighting to keep conscious, the prince issued an order, and the shoes were pulled from my feet. The horrendous pain topped out at a level I hadn’t known existed. Even when my stepfather gave me that horrible beating. Even when the prince threw me to his friends.
I now know the pain can go higher, last longer. Then, I didn’t. I thought that was the worst thing I could ever or should ever suffer.
When it seemed I would slump backward off the chair, Gerald was there behind me. His knee pushed me forward to stop my tumble, then he bent and lifted me free and clear.
“Just making it ready for the next candidate,” he explained to Francois.
He eased me down onto the floor, back against the wall to keep me steady. Even through the horrifying whistle ringing in my ears, his voice came through clear as a bell signaling doom. “Hang in there. It won’t last too long.”
Gerald pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and slipped it underneath my bleeding heels. When he stood, my body felt empty, bereft of his attention. As though it were a physical thing I wanted to hug close to my chest.
“See! I told you she would be the one,” Francois’ voice said in triumph. Through a darkening haze, I saw Cinderella being hoisted aloft and carried out the front door.
Not by the prince, he would bend and break within two steps, even under my stepsister’s meager weight. No, the other footman performed that service for him. I dully wondered if he would perform the same ritual after their marriage. Carrying my stepsister aloft into her new rooms and laying her down on the bed.
/> Gerald cast a last concerned glance in my direction then exited to follow his employer. I was left alone with my thoughts, my pain, and my wretched family.
Chapter Nine
I’m getting so melancholy now. The black hounds of depression are barking at my door. They may go away periodically, but they always return. Their gaping maws always need feeding. The pain that drags me down to the floor with its massive weight is a tidbit they love the best.
We have time, though. Let the dogs wait a little longer. Maybe anticipation sweetens and sharpens their appetites the same way saying grace in front of a sumptuous meal whets mine.
By the following day, the news rang throughout the kingdom. Our little village was in celebrations that one of their daughters had been chosen. Well, some of them were in celebration. Many more were in deep emerald fits of jealousy. It got so that even my stepfather and I clung together, despite our mutual hatred. As each dreadful package of well-tended resentment hit the walls of our cottage, we hung off each other like drowning victims would cling to a floating log.
Excreta wasn’t even the worst surprise thrown against the log walls of our modest wee house. A piece of old meat, infested with a waltzing ballroom of fattened maggots, exploded against our front door. Through the gaps where the old wood didn’t fit as snugly as it should, the blind white worms of death and decay wriggled their way inside. Excitedly searching for more rotting carcasses.
The four of us lived like shut-ins for the next two days. I tended to Mom’s wounds as best I could. Anastasia recovered from her hangover and disappointment, well enough to tend to mine.
Our faces grew so long, it was a wonder we didn’t trip over them as we walked from one room to another. The privy was out of bounds. During the first night, we’d heard a terrible cacophony from its direction. When we woke in the morning, the walls were crashed through, an ax head lying discarded to one side. Its sharp edge glinted in the early rays of the sun.