Once Upon A Time (5) Before Midnight

by Cameron Dokey

  I changed out of my bedraggled ballroom finery into one of the dresses my stepmother and I had made over for me. With my hair braided and pinned on top of my head, a pair of sturdy and practical shoes on my feet, I felt like myself, once more.

  “Cendrillon!” I heard Raoul’s voice cry out above the sound of the horse’s hooves, “Cendrillon!”

  I flung open the front door, flew down the steps. He leaped from his horse to swing me around in a great circle, my legs flying.

  “I knew you would know what to do,” I said, “I knew you would come.”

  Raoul set me on my feet,” You lighted candles just like they do in the city,” he said, “It’s beautiful. I didn’t come alone.”

  It was only at that moment that I realized there were two other horses in the courtyard, Niccolo sat upon one. This, I might have expected. What I did not expect was that the third rider should be Prince Pascal. I felt my heart perform a long, slow somer-sault inside my chest.

  “You came together,” I said. “Oh, Raoul,” I threw my arms around him once more.

  “I may be an idiot on occasion,” Raoul whispered in my ear. “But at least I can admit when I’ve been wrong. Besides, you are more important than any crown. Now stop hugging me. Your prince will get the wrong idea about us.”

  He stepped back. “Is Susanne still up?” he asked aloud.

  “She is in the kitchen waiting for you,” I said, “If I know her, she started frying rashers of bacon the second she heard horses’ hooves in the courtyard. She took a cherry pie out of the oven not half an hour ago.”

  Raoul gave a shout of laughter and sprinted for the kitchen door. Niccolo tossed a leg over the saddle and slid lightly to the ground. He came to me and caught me by the hands.

  “You don’t look any worse for wear,” he said, “It gives me joy to see that you are well.”

  “Thank you, Niccolo,” I said. “And I hope I will be calling you brother before too long.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I hope so too,” he replied. “Your mother and sisters send their love. They should be here sometime tomorrow. Old Mathilde is with them.”

  He moved past me into the house. Now, it was just Pascal and me in the courtyard. In the moon-light, I could see every plane and angle of his face, but I could not read what his expression held.

  “You have just had a long, hard ride,” I said at last. “Don’t you at least want to get down?’

  Without a word, Pascal swung down from the saddle and came toward me.

  “Raoul said you would be here,” he said. “That your father would bring you home.”

  “I don’t imagine that he thought of it that way,” I answered. “But Raoul was right. My mother is buried in this place. She died the night that I was born. All my life, my father has blamed me for this. He had to bring me here, I think, before he could truly decide what to do with me, or what not to do.”

  “Where is he?” asked Pascal.

  “He is gone. He sat beside my mother’s grave until the moon came up, then got on his horse and rode out the gate. I do not think any of us will ever see him again.”

  “So you are quite safe,” Pascal said. “You’ve been safe for hours. You didn’t really need rescuing at all.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But I’m glad that you have come.”

  “Are you?” he asked. “Why?”

  “Will you walk with me?’ I said, by way of an answer. “There is something I would like to show you.”

  Giving me an answer of his own, Pascal offered me his arm. I took it and together we walked around the side of the house, along its length, until we reached the gate in the stone wall that was just higher than a tall man’s head and led to my mother’s garden. I opened the latch, pushed the gate open wide. Then I led Pascal across the soft green lawn until we reached my mother’s grave.

  It was covered with pumpkin vines. Pansies with brave faces. Bee balm. Every single thing that I had ever tried to grow upon my mother’s grave had come to life, watered by my father’s tears. Only the tree my mother had planted herself remained unchanged.

  “This is the place my mother is buried,” I said. “Every year, on my birthday, I have made a wish here for as long as I can recall. And what I wished for was this: that what I planted here might grow and thrive. Tomorrow is my birthday. My wish has finally come true.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Pascal said.

  “It wasn’t,” I answered. “Not until tonight. Tonight my father mourned my mother truly for the very first time. Old Mathilde, who raised me, said my parents loved each other from the moment they met, love at first sight. She says such a talent runs in families, and I think that she is right. For I believe that my heart knew you from the moment you first held me in your arms.

  “I wish to be my mother’s daughter,” I said. “I will make many mistakes, have many regrets, take many risks, but I will not do what my father did. I will not turn my back on love.”

  “Are you saying that you love me?” Pascal said, and I felt the way his arm trembled beneath my fingers.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I know it’s traditional for the man to speak first, especially when he’s a prince, and I know that it is sudden.”

  “I think,” Pascal said carefully, “that I would like to ask you something.”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “Will you please sit down?”

  “Sit down?” I echoed, altogether stunned.

  “Yes,” Prince Pascal said. “Here, on this pumpkin.”

  “Of course I will,” I said, but my heart had begun to beat with a sound like thunder. I had just told the handsome prince I’d known for less than three days that I loved him, and he had asked me to sit down upon a pumpkin. At least I knew it would be sturdy enough to hold me.

  Remember what you promised yourself, Cendrillon, I thought fiercely. Never regret love.

  “I went back,” Pascal said, as he settled me upon the pumpkin. “To the ballroom. After Etienne had called me away, I got halfway to my mother’s rooms and thought . . .”

  All of a sudden, he began to pace, just outside the reach of the pumpkin vines. I felt my heartbeats begin to steady. He was not quite as composed as I had thought.

  “I thought to myself, You are an idiot, Pascal!’ he Went on. “You’ve just held the girl you love, the one you know you want to marry in your arms. And what did you do? You let some smooth-talking courtier take you away, never mind the fact that he’s her father. So I turned around and went back, but by then you were gone.”

  He stopped pacing and reached inside his coat. From an inside pocket, he removed an object wrapped in cloth. Carefully, as if what he held was infinitely precious, he pulled the cloth aside and let it flutter to the ground.

  “I found this in the ballroom. You had gone, but you left this behind. And so I wonder . . .” With a graceful movement, he knelt at my feet. “I wonder if I might persuade you to try on this shoe, so that I can be certain that it fits you, and you alone. Please show me I haven’t dreamed this whole thing from start to finish.”

  Slowly, Prince Pascal reached out. I put my right foot into his hand. He untied the laces of my sturdy, sensible shoe, then eased it off and set it gently on the ground. In its place, he slid on the slipper made of glass.

  “Marry me,” he said. “Please say that you will marry me, Cendrillon. Love me. Let me love you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes to all of it.”

  He leaned forward then, and kissed me for the second time. And as he did, I felt a band around my heart, one I had grown so accustomed to holding it in place that I no longer noticed its presence, open up, loosen its hold. And as it did, my heart flew free.

  Behind us, at the head of my mother’s grave, the dead tree gave a moan. Catching me to him, Pascal sprang up. With a great crack, the blackened bark split open. A great trembling seized the tree’s every limb, and then the bark peeled back like the skin of an onion. Revealing strong new bark beneath, glimm
ering pale and fresh in the moonlight.

  The whole tree seemed to give itself a shake, its limbs reaching upward as if stretching after a dream of standing motionless for far too long. And then, in a rush so full and joyous it almost made a sound, every single branch burst into bloom. Our eyes were filled with the sight of blossoms of pure silver, our noses with a scent as sweet as honey.

  “This is why they say love stories end ‘happily ever after,” I whispered. For surely, if this was anything, it was the power of true love. The power to bring life and hope where none had been before.

  Hand in hand, Pascal and I left my mother’s garden and walked back to the front of the house. As we approached, the candles I had placed in all the downstairs windows flickered, and then went out.

  And that is how I knew the truth. My story had been given the start of its happy ending at the very same time in which it had first begun: just before midnight.

  The tree above my mother’s grave grew and bloomed as the love Pascal and4 shared together did, every single day for the rest of our lives. It is blooming there still, for all I know. For Old Mathilde had the right of things. True love never dies.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  A funny thing happened on the way to the ball.

  When my editor and I first discussed the possibility of having me add the story of Cinderella to the Once upon a Time series, I decided it would be interesting to refresh my memory about the early versions of this incredibly famous tale. So I marched to the bookshelf in search of my copy of The Complete Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Sure enough, “Cinderella” was there. I thought I knew, in a general sort of way, what to expect. Boy, did I get a surprise. Because almost the first thing their rendition does is to mention the fact that Cinderella’s father is still alive.

  Intrigued, I turned to an even earlier version, that of the French author Charles Perrault (1628-1703), generally considered the father of the modern fairy tale. Like the Grimm boys who came after him (late seventeen hundreds to mid eighteen hundreds), Perrault draws heavily on older, oral folktale traditions for his stories. Would Cinderella’s father show up here as well? The answer was yes.

  Okay, I thought. Wait just a minute here.

  Both renditions do make similar points, that the father falls so that under the control of his second wife he will do whatever she wants. He then pretty much vanishes from the tale completely leaving Cinderella’s stepmother in control But the fact that he was there at all simply proved too intriguing a notion for me to pass up.

  If Cinderella’s father is still alive, but takes no action to save or protect her, what might this say about both him and the woman to whom we are all accustomed to assigning the role of the bad guy? What would happen if I put a father back into the mix? With that, my own version of the story was off and running. I decided to add my own tribute to Perrault by giving my heroine the French version of her name: Cendrillon.

  About the Author

  CAMERON DOKEY

  is the author of nearly thirty young adult novels. Her other titles in the Once upon a Time series include Sunlight and Shadow, Beauty Sleep, The Storyteller’s Daughter, and Golden. Her other Simon and Schuster endeavors include the Charmed books Picture Perfect and Truth and Consequences; Here Be Monsters, a book in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series; and The Summoned, an Angel series tide. Cameron lives in Seattle, Washington.