It was from them that I started to wonder what I really looked like, because in the past few years, I noticed the merchants had grown rather flirtatious with me. Not just Toothless John, either. Even Ferthin the egg seller, who was about my age and not a bad looking boy. He was very kind to me these days.
“Cinderella!” I heard my stepmother call my name, and hurried downstairs into the gloomy room. My stepmother usually kept thin curtains drawn over the windows. She didn’t like the way the windows faced the street. She complained about it like it was my father’s fault, as if he was both architect and city planner.
“Yes, madam?” I asked, as deferentially as I could manage without it slipping into sarcasm.
“Didn’t I tell you to trim all the candles yesterday?” Her elegant, mask-like face had a yellow pallor in the diluted sunlight.
“Yes, madam…”
She thrust a candle into my face with the air of a deeply wounded party. “Well? What have you to say about this? I found this, right here in the parlor.”
“I must have…missed one.”
She drew in a slow breath, and took a few equally slow steps around the brand new imported rug she had bought with my late father’s money. “I certainly hope we can find a place to keep you when the girls are married. I certainly do hope that, Cinderella. I would hate to have to turn you out into a city that is not friendly to goblin girls.”
She liked to go on like this, and there was nothing I could do but wait.
“I will not need such a grand house, then. You are eighteen, my dear. It’s about time you started to consider making your way in the world.”
“You never let me leave the house,” I said. “What would I make my way to?”
She looked at me with feigned pity. “I simply can’t have anyone knowing such a girl comes from this house, not until my daughters are wed. The time will come soon. Who knows, maybe one of them will be chosen by the prince?”
They were always her daughters, and I was no one’s daughter now. My father had married this woman without knowing how she would treat me.
I still remembered when he brought her home, with her two girls. Two girls my age, Father said, hoping I would finally have sisters. They had all worn such elegant clothes, and all of them wore gloves although it had been summer. I thought it was strange—how could they stand having to feel everything through a layer of fabric?
Before long, it was obvious. These were not people who liked touching things.
“Mind your place tonight, of all nights,” my stepmother said. “We have some very fine people coming to dinner and I don’t want them reminded of your father’s transgressions.”
I should know better, but I couldn’t let this slide. “It wasn’t a transgression. He loved her. They were married.”
She sucked in a warning breath, her narrow nostrils flaring. “If I hear one peep out of your insolent mouth tonight, tomorrow I will send you to the work house down by the docks. Do you understand me?”
“The work house?” I didn’t even quite know what a work house was, but it sounded bad.
“Yes. They are always in need of girls. If you were to go there, you would have nothing, not even privacy. You would sleep in a room with a dozen strangers, work all day and eat gruel for dinner. Now, you’d better get back to the bedroom. I know my daughters have much still to do.”
By now, I was absolutely dreaming of making them suffer. I didn’t go straight to the bedroom to spend more time taking orders from Gwyn and Cerra, but detoured to my garret. Where once I had a proper bed, now I had a pallet stuffed with straw and an old horse blanket. The mice? No, they had earned more than mice tonight. I crouched in the corner and put my hand out. “Spiders and mice…,” I called. “Please, I call upon all of the bravest among you. My stepfamily is having a grand party tonight, with lots of wealthy guests…”
I didn’t remember my mother, but my father used to say she had witch blood in her. I thought it must be true, because when I called a spider to me, it crawled right into my hand. Now, several of them came creeping out of the cracks in the floorboards and the corners of the room. Mice scurried in, squeaking.
I probably should have behaved myself, with the threat of the work house hanging over my head. But, whether or not I was a witch, I was certainly a goblin. They never let me forget it. And goblins loved nothing more than making trouble.
I would make sure no one forgot this dinner party.
Chapter Two
Ellara
I hadn’t always made friends with spiders and mice.
Sometimes it was hard to remember, these days, that I had once been raised by a high elf gentleman. My goblin mother died young, and it was just Father and me. My elegant father was a spice merchant, a wealthy man who wore silk and velvet, and was mannered and graceful, but also very kind. He had to work a lot, but when he was home, he was devoted to me. It wasn’t just the gifts he brought me; any rich father could have handed a girl dolls and ribbons and ignored her the rest of the time. No, he told me stories, he played games with me, he asked the cook to make tiny food for my tea parties. He took me out in the carriage on fine days and showed me the Palace of Waterfalls and the High Court of Lords and the Library of Elvish. He took me to the seaside. He told me I reminded him of Mother, spirited and a little too honest.
But I strived for the manners of an elven girl, back then. I tried to keep my dresses clean. I kept quiet when Father had important guests visiting. And if I saw a spider in my room, I screamed for the maid to beat it with her broom, like any lady would.
Then, I became the maid, and I realized I didn’t really like killing things, and perhaps ladies weren’t as nice as I once thought.
I suppose it was my loneliness that got me to start giving names to the spiders and mice, and talking to them. I saw them as my fellow prisoners. I ushered them to safe havens whenever I could.
At some point, they started to actually listen to me. I no longer had to trap them. If I told them to hide in the kitchen or go out the window, they would simply obey my commands.
No one had ever taught me magic, but it seemed I had unlocked a piece of its powers of my own accord. And why not? Someone had to be the first witch, the first mage, the first one to discover how to use powers without the aid of a spell book.
“Spiders, I want you to crawl up the legs of my stepsisters and stepmother,” I said now to my miniature army. “Mice, I would like you to scurry across the feet of the guests. Everyone will panic in the commotion. As soon as they do, hurry out again quickly before they can hurt you. I would be most grateful to you.”
The mice squeaked in what might have been acknowledgment. The spiders quietly crept off. I had never called upon all of them to make trouble at once, but I knew they would do it. They had never failed me. I liked to think they understood my plight, and relished making my stepsisters scream as much as I did.
“Cinderella!” Gwyn screamed.
Indeed, that sort of scream was why I liked to make them scream in other ways.
I yanked their corsets tighter and tighter—there was no limit to how much my stepsisters would suffer for fashion—and helped them into their dresses, finishing just as we heard the sound of horses and carriage wheels outside.
“That’s enough, you clumsy thing,” Gwyn said, batting me away. She pulled on her gloves. “Go to your garret and stay there.”
I went up to the attic. It was often freezing cold or baking hot, depending on the season. Tonight, it wasn’t so bad yet; it was raining gently outside, the autumn day cool but mild. The bare ceilings were sloped, and I couldn’t stand fully upright in the room, but it was a sizable space. My straw pallet was up against the chimney. I had one small window, where I could peer out to see the visitors.
A man was climbing down from the carriage. I had never seen a man like him before. He wasn’t an elf, but an older human man with dark skin, white hair, an elegant mustache, and golden robes, unlike anything an elf would wear.
Or had I seen a man like him before?
Something about him seemed familiar.
I strained my eyes to see through the raindrops training down the windowpanes. I heard the door open downstairs.
I left the window and perched at the top of the stairs, trying to listen. The rain was causing me all sorts of trouble; the din made it hard to hear.
“You have had a long journey, Lord Hassari,” I heard my stepmother say.
“Just Mr. Hassari,” he said, with a faint laugh. “I am not a lord.”
My heart clenched. I remembered him now—his low, gentle voice, his melodious accent, and his name. He was one of my father’s business associates. He visited us on occasion, and had once brought me a beautiful shawl dyed with patterns. I don’t know where the shawl had gone, after my stepsisters raided my things, giving some of them away as gifts to their friends.
“Oh—my mistake.” My stepmother sounded annoyed. I think she wanted to call him a lord whether he was one or not, just to make a fuss of him to other guests.
Her friends were arriving, elven men and women, some with familiar voices. It sounded like Mr. Hassari praised the house, which had been furnished by my father with treasures from around the world. My sisters cooed over something or other. I think Mr. Hassari had brought them presents. Their voices were simpering.
“I did business with your late husband,” Mr. Hassari said. “I was sorry to hear of his death. I had also brought something for little Ellara…” He paused. “Well, I suppose she would not be so little anymore.”
He remembered me.
Briefly, the entire party went silent at the mention of my name.
My stepmother generally told people I was dead. But around her own friends, she didn’t try as hard.
“Mr. Hassari—“ My stepmother was trying very hard to sound aggrieved.
She wanted to say I was dead. I knew she did. She was doing quick calculations as to whether anyone else at the party would question her. These were her friends. They didn’t think much of goblins either—but they knew I was alive and no one knew what direction the conversation might turn, with this wealthy traveler.
My heart was beating fast. I didn’t quite know how Mr. Hassari had come to be at this party, but I could imagine. He came to town and everyone talked about him and how much money he had. My stepmother was eager to fete anyone who had a great deal of money. I knew the money my father left behind upon his death was starting to run low. She heard he was a friend of my father’s and hoped to use the connection to her advantage.
Was he here to help me?
“Ellara is a very sickly girl, just like her mother,” my stepmother said. “She doesn’t attend parties. She doesn’t leave the house. And you are aware—she is a goblin?”
“Yes,” he said. “I remember her. Elka. She was a very delightful girl. Faery blood as well.”
“Faery blood? I was not aware. Ellara looks like a goblin, to the very core. And she is as wicked as a goblin. She plays tricks on all of us.”
“Yes,” Cerra said. “I bet she’s the one who puts mice in my bed all the time.”
Hmm. Maybe my plan wasn’t such a good idea.
“I’m afraid she inherited none of her dear, departed father’s sophistication, or, from what I hear, her mother’s…delightfulness.” She sounded like she had just swallowed bitter medicine.
One of my stepmother’s horrid friends added, playing along, “It is a wonder she’s lived this long. It’s consumption, isn’t it?”
“Nevertheless, I must see her before I go,” Mr. Hassari said.
“After dinner, perhaps,” my stepmother said, with some relief.
Oh no. What now? The spiders and mice would all be downstairs already, waiting for their big moment. I wondered if I dared to go downstairs, dressed in my tattered old clothes, to tell Mr. Hassari that my stepmother abused me and beg him to rescue me. But it was quite likely that he didn’t want to rescue me, he just wanted to say hello and give me a little present. And if that was the case, once he was gone, my stepmother would punish me like she never had before.
They adjourned to the dining room. I edged down the stairs so I could hear better.
“Yes, he’s invited every girl in the realm,” a woman was saying. Mrs. Tansy. She was one of my stepmother’s friends, and her daughter Lisitha was a friend to Gwyn and Cerra. I thought they were talking about the prince’s upcoming ball, the one my stepmother was holding out hopes for that one of her daughters might be the next princess.
“Every girl?” Gwyn asked, dismayed. “Not every girl, surely. The prince wouldn’t invite peasants to his ball.”
“Well, every girl who can afford a dress and shoes and transportation and proper hair styling…,” my stepmother said. “I am sure no peasant girl would be allowed past the doors. That will narrow it down.”
“Just think…” That was Lisitha herself. “One of us might marry the prince. And be a princess.” I could hear the edge in her voice. If one of them was chosen, the other two would tear her apart.
Cerra sounded annoyed. “The competition is going to be so tiresome. If anyone is allowed, hundreds of girls will attend such a ball. We’ll be lucky if we get to dance with him once, much less marry him. It’s hardly fair.”
“Cerra, my dear, you will never win any prize with such an attitude,” my stepmother said. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be one of you.”
“Of course, the rumors about the prince…,” Lisitha said.
Now, that, I would have liked to hear. I was left out of town gossip. But the food must have come out and interrupted her. I heard dishes clinking and murmuring and my stepmother calling for a certain bottle of wine.
I could smell the food. The food was never very good anymore, not like it was in my father’s day. He was a connoisseur of the spices he traded. My stepmother had no such refined palate. Still, with such a feast, there would probably be a lot left behind for me. I used to hate picking morsels off their used plates, but hunger had long since robbed me of that pride.
Suddenly, the cook rushed into the hall and spotted me on the stairs. I was on my feet instantly. “I was—just going back to my room,” I said.
“You’re wanted downstairs,” the cook hissed.
The cook barely spoke to me most of the time. “I am?”
“Yes. One of the visitors is inquiring about you. The mistress said to dress quickly in Miss Gwynamer’s old blue gown and make an appearance. Don’t say anything much besides ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ and then cough and say you have a headache and go back upstairs.”
“Now?” I was bewildered. I wondered if Mr. Hassari had said more to my stepmother out of earshot, for her to actually expose me.
“Yes. Now. Go on.” She started climbing the stairs and I realized with some chagrin that she was going to follow me. She pulled the blue dress out of the wardrobe and motioned for me to get on with it. I untied my apron and unlaced my bodice, finally stepping out of my faded skirt. She yanked the blue dress over my shift. Gwyn’s dresses had been made to fit her corseted body. I was so bony that it hung a little loose on me without any corset at all. She had large breasts and I had tiny ones, so the bodice sort of stood up around me.
“It barely fits,” I said.
“Here,” she said, opening a trunk and pulling out a new shawl. The ephemeral scrap of fabric fluttered in her hand and I knew Gwyn would be furious if I wore it. “Tuck this around your neck and into the front of your gown.” I took it just to annoy Gwyn.
My shoes were another matter. “I certainly can’t wear these!” I exclaiming, wiggling my toes within my sturdy but threadbare brown work boots.
She huffed. “Here, here.” She handed me a pair of Cerra’s shoes, too large for my feet. We had to wedge handkerchiefs in the toes before I could walk in them.
Adrenaline coursed through me. For years, I had dreamed of some long-lost family member saving me, especially my Aunt Kayska. When years passed, I forced myself to shove hope aside. N
ow I felt a glimmer of my old optimism. Maybe Mr. Hassari would see what a wretch I was and do something about it.
At the same time, I was terribly nervous. I didn’t want to come to dinner in ill-fitting clothes and messy hair, just for Gwyn and Cerra and Lisitha to laugh at me, and it all to come to nothing in the end.
The cook took my arm and pulled me down the stairs. “I don’t have time for this, girl, I have a second course to plate. Go on in.”
“Ah,” my stepmother said as I walked into the room. Her friends were staring at me like I was an actual piece of gossip made flesh. “There she is. As you can see, Mr. Hassari, she is rather sickly. I don’t think the air here agrees with goblins.”
Mr. Hassari stood up, clasped his hands together, and bowed to me elegantly, as if he didn’t hear my stepmother at all. As if he had something glorious to say and all my dreams of a savior were about to come true. “Miss Ellara,” he said. “I am glad to see Pelmerrin’s daughter again—auggh—!”
As he interrupted his dignified, accented speech with some shocked utterances in his own native language, Gwyn and Cerra screamed their heads off, and then Lisitha hopped up with an “Oooh ooh ooh!” In another second, the entire dinner party was on their feet and screaming.
Oh, yes. I’d almost forgotten about that part.
Chapter Three
Ellara
The Goblin Cinderella Page 2