Once Upon a Time
“Clean the floors Cinderella, make me a new dress Cinderella.” My stepsisters’ mouse-like voices jolted my brain like pins prodding it as I cleaned up the house. The Heavens were blessing me today because I had the house to myself so they couldn’t hinder my progress. The house is in complete disarray, which wasn’t unusual because neither my stepsisters nor stepmother could ever think past their own convenience. Clothes, trash, everything strung wherever it was last used. It didn’t matter to them because I would clean up behind them like I always do.
How were they ever going to find husbands? How would they ever survive without me doing all their work? The thoughts danced on my tongue, begging for the opportunity to be released into the world like demons. I was desperate to play with the odds, but my brain held the gates to hell shut. They always believed I was their submissive slave, but I was curious about how they would react to learn it wasn’t the case. They already made my life a living hell, the most they could do was to kill me, but that would require work and they could not be bothered with it.
I still could not understand how Father could ever fall in love with someone as vile as Stepmother. It wasn’t like she seduced him with her succubus ways. On her better days, she was homely. Nor did she have a pleasant personality to her either. She talks down to everyone except for her own vile children. I’ve seen the dirty looks the other villagers give her and her daughters when they go to the markets, on the few occasions they have permitted me to go. It’s not like she was above them in status, her house looked just like everyone else’s, she had, from what I could tell, more money than the rest of them, but that could be because she gives me nothing and them everything.
Father and I moved here only five years ago, and he passed not too soon after that, so I knew no one here. No one ever talks to me when I go to pick up their purchases at the market. Were they afraid of her? Were they afraid of what I would tell her? I’ve never had the courage to ask them about her because I feared they would take any of their aggression out on me.
I picked up several dresses off the floor of the common room. There wasn’t anything wrong with them, they just didn’t suit for tonight. The Prince was holding a ball tonight, and they fully believed they could swoon, or con, the Prince into marriage. None of the dresses I made them were good enough for the ball and after sixteen dresses between the two, a sapphire gown and a pastel pink gown made the cut. They discarded the rest on the floor without a second thought.
I looked over to the fire glowing in the fireplace, it’s embers enticing to let the dresses burn in its orange glow. It was my small act of rebellion, letting their clothes, my hard work burn. Sometimes I would relish when they asked where a certain dress was that I burned and I would simply play dumb and ask questions where they would dismiss the case because they would rather not wear the dress than deal with me any longer. I grabbed several rejected dresses and whisked them into the fire; the flames engulfing the various fabrics. I watched my work, consumed, and it soothed my anxious soul. Maybe because I already viewed my years living with Stepmother as a waste that I didn’t bother seeing all my hours of work swallowed by orange ombre of oblivion, or rather seeing all of her money being reduced to ash.
Everything becomes ash, it’s only natural. It’s our way of returning to the earth. My mother returned right after she gave birth to me, my father returned fifteen years after her. Eventually, all of us will, there’s nothing we can do to prevent our fate. There are always people who believe they are the exception to this, I know Stepmother and her grotesque daughter believe they will be gifted with immortality. Hah! They would be naïve enough to ingest mercury believing it was a philosopher’s stone.
I left the common room and walked into my stepsisters’ room. Goodness, how often can I clean this for it not to be a mess? I already clean it thrice a week, and it seems as filthy as Pauper’s row. The dresses I made in anticipation for the ball had become new carpet for their floors, remnants of leftover dinners scattered amongst the tables and vanities in the room. For the time being, the wretchedness of the room didn’t bother me, I needed more material for the flames. I bent down to scoop up more kindling when the front door slammed open
