A Mythos Grimmly

by Morgan Griffith

  Cinderella was too traumatized by what she’d witnessed Elizabeth and her daughters do to Kevin to even think of asking her stepmother if perhaps they had sought to get rid of their neighbor’s remains by chopping him up and turning him into the stew she was eating. For that is what it was – Kevin Foster stew, with horrid potatoes and terrible carrots.

  As fall turned into winter, and then into spring, and she continued to be treated horribly as her stepmother’s slave, she continued to think about Kevin’s horrible fate. She wondered if Kevin had any family who questioned what happened to him.

  And she wondered about his great and vast library.

  One afternoon, when the sisters and her stepmother were out of the house, she stole upstairs to the attic rooms where her great-grandfather lived.

  Old Whateley was ancient, at least in her mind. He was still a hulk of a man, standing at the gargantuan size of close to seven feet tall. Despite his age, he was still rather strong of heart and mind. He recognized Cinderella at once and smiled eagerly as she closed the door to his rooms. “I can’t stay long,” she said. “Elizabeth will be home soon, but I had to see you and I’ve never had the chance to get up here. They hardly ever let me out of my rooms and – ”

  “But of course, dear,” Old Whateley replied. He grinned knowingly at her. Cinderella noted that his rooms were cluttered with lots of manuscripts and books lying on tables, chairs and on the arms of the lone sofa in the center of the main room. There was an artist’s easel propped in the corner with a large sketchpad on it with a drawing that contained strange, archaic shapes and symbols. Cinderella noticed one of the shapes painted on the bare wooden floor of the room and realized the entire floor was marked up by these symbols. The rumors of witchcraft she’d heard all her life from the villagers came briefly to mind.

  “Tell me what troubles you,” Grandpa Whateley said.

  Cinderella told him. Old Whateley nodded, the smile remaining on his face.

  “Pay attention to what Zelma and Faye have to report when they return this afternoon,” he said cryptically. “I think you will find it most interesting.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Have faith in your Old Grandpa.” Old Whateley grinned. What remained of his teeth were blackened stumps.

  A noise from outside signified that Elizabeth had returned, so Cinderella quickly left her great-grandfather’s quarters and rushed back downstairs. She was dusting the living room as Elizabeth and her stepsisters entered the house.

  Zelma and Faye were especially chatty, dressed in their best outfits and were positively beaming. “Have you heard?” Zelma addressed Cinderella. “Mr. Bishop is having a party at his estate – an old fashioned ball! And he’s invited us!”

  “He’s actually invited all the girls at the high school,” Faye said, her voice catcalling and mocking. “All the girls! I guess that would include you as well – if you actually went to school!”

  Laughing, Zelma and Faye went upstairs, leaving Cinderella with her broom in the foyer. She hung her head in sadness. At one time, she had been friends with the Bishop family and knew all of his children, especially William Bishop, who was her age and quite handsome.

  Over the next few days the two stepsisters gleefully planned their outfits for the party that was to be held at the Bishop estate. Cinderella continued with her duties and overheard much. She also caught a glimpse of the outfits her stepsisters acquired; Elizabeth had taken them to the mall in Arkham and bought the loveliest dresses for them. When the stepsisters saw Cinderella they taunted her: “Too bad you can’t join us for the ball, Cinderella,” Zelma said, as she posed in front of the full-length mirror in her room as Cinderella walked by carrying a large sack of garbage from Faye’s room. Zelma did look rather nice in the dress, which was blue and hugged her frame beautifully. Thinking about the fun they would have, about the friends she once had who would most likely be at the Bishop estate, brought tears of shame and loss to Cinderella. She dropped the garbage bag in the metal chute at the side of the house and ran down to her basement room and cried.

  The night before the Bishop’s party, Cinderella couldn’t take it anymore. Confident that Elizabeth and her stepsisters were asleep, she stole upstairs to Old Whateley’s attic rooms.

  Old Whateley was huddled over his great oak desk, which faced the large picture window that looked out over Miskatonic Valley. One gnarled finger pointed at a series of runes in the book. She heard him mutter something that sounded garbled and not intended for human speech.

  “N’gai, n’gha’ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y’hah, Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth! Ia! Ia! Gyaggin Cthulhu Fhtagn. Gyaggin! Gyaggin!”

  Cinderella let herself in quietly and shut the door. “Grandfather Whateley?”

  He turned around, and his expression changed from intense concentration to happiness. “Cinderella! You have come to me on this dark night, when the stars are almost right! What brings you here?”

  Cinderella could hardly contain her emotions. Though she did not know him well, he was the only real family she had left. “I need help, Grandfather!”

  Old Whateley’s rheumy blue eyes appraised her from behind his thick spectacles.

  “Your wicked stepmother banished me to this attic room and forbade me to leave it,” he said. “But this suits me fine, for all my studies are undertaken here. She keeps me alive because she thinks that when I pass on, my wealth will pass down to her and her daughters.”

  “Your wealth? I didn’t know you were wealthy.”

  “I’m not!” Old Whateley grinned. “But they don’t know that.”

  Cinderella told him of the party at the Bishop estate, and her stepsister’s gleeful gloating over their attendance. “It’s just getting to me,” Cinderella said, the tears starting again. “Ever since my father died my life has been terrible! All I do is serve these…”

  “Now, now, Cinderella,” Old Whateley said, a gleam in his eye. “There is no need to fret. I think I have just the solution for you.”

  Cinderella’s cheeks were streaked with tears. “What’s that?”

  “You remember Master Foster who lived in the woods in that old stone house?”

  Cinderella nodded. “Of course.”

  “He was set upon by Elizabeth and your stepsisters. I watched it happen from this very window. They ate him!”

  “I know.” Cinderella shuddered.

  “I am told by the night gaunts that Master Foster’s home is unattended. He had a rather large library that consisted of thousands of volumes, and holds copies of some very rare grimoires. One such book is said to be the Olaus Wormius translation of the Necronomicon.”

  Cinderella was confused. “The Necromancer? I don’t know what that is…”

  Old Whateley waved her concern aside. “The book itself shouldn’t concern you…but it concerns me. I’d rather have the unabridged Latin edition, but Miskatonic University has it well guarded. They won’t let anybody enter the room it is housed in. The copy Master Foster has will suffice, and it contains segments that are missing from my copy. Will you get it for me?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good,” Old Whateley said, nodding. “Here is what I need you to do.”

  He told her. It seemed simple enough. Cinderella merely had to sneak out of the house and off the grounds, make her way to Kevin Foster’s home, locate The Necronomicon, and bring it back to the house.

  “Bring it to me, and I will guarantee you will be at the ball,” he said.

  Cinderella was desperate to be out of the house. She was even more desperate to be among her old friends, to socialize again. “Yes!” she said. “I’ll do it!”

  That night, Cinderella sneaked out of the house while her stepmother and stepsisters were fast asleep in their chambers. She made her way down the narrow, unpaved road toward Kevin’s home deep in the woods. The air was cool, tinged with the lingering fingers of winter that still hung on.

  Eventually, she reached her destination. Kevin Foster’s hous
e was dark, the windows shuttered. The trees that grew around it were finally getting their spring leaves. Cinderella mounted the front steps to the large, heavy front door and tried the knob. The house was unlocked. Of course it was. He lived so far from town there was no reason for him to lock his house up, even if he did have an extensive library. Cinderella opened the door.

  Kevin’s living room was large, but was taken up by several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There was one sofa and one easy chair tucked in the far corner with an overhanging lamp for reading. Cinderella turned on the light – so far so good; the electric company hadn’t turned off the electricity yet. Now she had to find the book.

  The Necronomicon was a spell book of some kind, so she figured it would be filed accordingly. A quick perusal of the books in the living room told Cinderella that the bulk of the volumes here were fiction. She moved deeper into the house and saw another room just past the kitchen and dining room – a den of some sort. She turned on the light, revealing bookshelves on all four walls, all containing more fiction.

  She checked all the rooms upstairs. More fiction, old magazines, and even more fiction, from volumes that appeared to go back to the late 18th century. Cinderella was giving up hope when she entered one of the back rooms upstairs. It held books on history, archeology, anthropology, and religions. A few titles on magic were salted in. The volume her grandfather was seeking was not among them.

  She spied a small door, and opening it, found a closet with bookshelves crammed with a dozen titles, all of them old and moldering. Among them, was a package wrapped in brown paper with the word Necronomicon marked in black felt marker.

  Excited, Cinderella pulled the book out and extracted it from the bag, verifying it was what she sought. Then she put the book back in the bag and made her way downstairs and out of the house, turning lights off as she did. She closed the door behind her, leaving it unlocked, and ran home.

  The next day, Cinderella brought the musty old tome to her grandfather, who took possession of it with greedy delight. “At last!” he cried, his watery blue eyes dancing with glee. “I have it! The Olaus Wormius translation of the Necronomicon! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Fhtagn!”

  “The ball is tonight,” Cinderella said, hardly able to contain her enthusiasm and trying to not to sound annoyed at the weird sounds coming from Old Whateley. “What can you do to get me out of the house unseen by Elizabeth?”

  Old Whateley turned to her, the book clutched in his gnarled hands. “I will commence a spell for this.” He regarded the book reverently. “This book has helped us Whateley’s in the past; it will help us in the present!”

  Cinderella tried to get her grandfather to commit to a more realistic method – she knew vaguely about her family’s history and knew much of it centered on superstition. Cinderella was a millennial and, therefore, less inclined to myth and superstition. Despite her demands that Old Whateley explain how he was going to help her, he only replied cryptically. “Be ready at eight o’clock. When the sound of the whippoorwills flock to the house, you will be transported to the Bishop Ball. But you must be home at midnight – if you aren’t, the spell will wear off and the consequences will be dire.”

  Cinderella had to leave his quarters because she heard Elizabeth’s car pull up to the driveway. She spent the remainder of that afternoon doing her chores with a sense of frustration. She was going to miss out on the ball; she just knew it.

  At six o’clock she took her dinner downstairs in her basement room and listened with envy as her stepsisters got dressed and made up for the ball. For the first time she wished the superstitions about her family were true and that her grandfather was right – she wished the Old Ones, or whatever they were – would assist her.

  As Elizabeth herded her daughters out to the car, Cinderella stood in front of the mirror, a sense of blind hatred enveloping her. Then, she felt a change come over her. It wasn’t subtle, but it wasn’t as profound as she thought it would be; it was as if some force had reached down and taken her in its hand. Suddenly, she was looking at a completely different person in the mirror.

  Cinderella blinked and the girl with the black hair, the kohl make-up around her eyes, the dark rouge on her cheeks, and the dark lipstick blinked back. It was still Cinderella’s face – there was no denying the symmetry of her cheekbones and her chin – but the hair had gone from blond to pitch black. She wore a black dress with a wide V, her breasts supported by a black lacy bra that not only supported but also drew attention to her milky cleavage. Cinderella stepped back and examined the rest of the outfit – the dress reached mid-thigh; her legs were covered in black fishnet stockings, and her feet were encased in black heels. Cinderella bent her right leg up, her right arm braced against the wall to support herself, and inspected the shoe. It was hard, made entirely of glass, but it was comfortable, like a slipper. Unlike other high heel shoes she’d worn, they weren’t uncomfortable at all.

  The chatter of the whippoorwills outside drew her attention to the front of the house. Her heart fluttered in her chest. Old Whateley’s words resonated in her: “…you must be home at midnight – if you aren’t, the spell will wear off and the consequences will be dire.”

  It was five minutes past eight.

  Cinderella stole upstairs and waited for the arrival of her transportation.

  IV

  The ride was a blur – Cinderella wasn’t sure if she was driven by a black carriage pulled by several large, frothing dark steeds with fiery eyes and piloted by a rat-like coachman, or a sleek black limousine driven by a pale, cadaverous chauffeur. She didn’t stop to ponder it; instead, she entered the Bishop manse by the front door, nodded at the butler, and made her way through the foyer to the large ballroom at the rear of the estate, feeling a sense of nervous excitement.

  She felt alive, happy, and beautiful. She also noticed the attention she was getting from everyone as she entered the ballroom. Her outfit turned heads – she looked like a cross between a fairy princess and a Goth chick – but she remained focused and poised. She sensed that the boys all wanted her and the girls either wanted to be her – to have that power, poise, and sense of purpose – or they were jealous. And the two who seemed the most jealous were her stepsisters, Faye and Zelma.

  Cinderella saw them out the corner of her eyes, but focused instead on William Bishop, standing with his friends on the other side of the room. She sensed insane jealousy coming from the sisters, but she also knew, instinctively, they had no idea who she was. If they had known, they would have raised a ruckus. Instead, they glowered at her from afar.

  William Bishop did not glower. In fact, he seemed completely smitten with her. She remained calm as he tentatively approached and asked her if she wanted to dance. Until then, Cinderella had only been vaguely aware of the bland pop music pumping out of the sound system. William was dressed impeccably in a black suit, black slacks, a white shirt and a black tie. His suit coat was a slim cut, his black hair slicked back from his angular features. He looked like he could be a prince or a vampire, she thought.

  Cinderella’s first impulse was to turn him down – she didn’t like modern pop music – but the song had changed. It was minimalist in sound – a simple drum beat, with echoing percussion, a throbbing, heavy bass line and sweeping guitar riffs, the singer wailing in an echoing, deep voice. It was at that moment that everything clicked together and she answered yes to William’s invitation to dance.

  And what a dance it was! She moved to the rhythm of the music she never would have thought possible. It was as if some other force was guiding her, influencing their movements. Some of the other guests attempted to dance but not everybody. Most stood around and watched as Cinderella and William danced together, completely mesmerized by each other.

  At some point Cinderella found herself at the bar with William and he was getting her a drink. The music had changed again, this time to something completely different, and while other couples had taken to the dance floor, she could tell that people were sneaking
glances at them. William asked her name and Cinderella gave it willingly. Whether he remembered it or not she didn’t know – her guess was he didn’t, he seemed so mesmerized by the overall ambience of the night.

  Over the next two hours Cinderella and William talked and grew closer to one another on an intellectual level. They also grew more attracted physically to one another. They found themselves on the dance floor again, their moves becoming more suggestive, more sexual. This created a ripple affect with others in attendance, but it also sparked more jealousy in her stepsisters, who kept their distance. They still don’t know this is me, Cinderella thought at one point. But they’re too afraid to confront me.

  Cinderella liked that.

  “I think you’re amazing,” William said, as they stood outside on the veranda, off the main garden that opened up from the ballroom.

  Cinderella looked up at him, her heart swelling. “I think you’re amazing, too.”

  And then he kissed her and she kissed him back, and the world seemed to stop.

  She melted into his embrace then, feeling content.

  This moment was the happiest in her life.

  The moon was large and glowed full. Curious, Cinderella glanced at her watch and was startled to see that it was ten minutes before midnight.

  “Oh no,” she exclaimed. “I have to leave!”

  William looked surprised. “So soon?”