by Lee Hayton
Cinderella’s Not-So-Ugly Stepsister
(Grimmer Fairy Tales)
LEE HAYTON
Copyright © 2017 Lee Hayton
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. V1.2
Dedication
With eternal thanks to Kat Lind, the SIL Creative team, the Ds, and our fellow boot-campers at Phoenix Prime.
Rise up from the ashes, people.
Phoenix Prime is a Ph.D. level workshop that spans approximately four months. It uses applied industrial psychology to address components of writing, marketing, branding, business, contract issues, and productivity that combine Creative Writing and Business perspectives.
The participants will create a portfolio to showcase their work alongside students in doctoral programs in several major universities. The objective, in addition to expanding the professional growth of all the participants, is to study the impact of the independent author-publisher on the commercial fiction industry.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
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About the Author - Lee Hayton
Chapter One
I’m Zelda, though you may have heard differently through the ages. Rumors of my name have been greatly exaggerated. Honestly, I worry about the world sometimes. As if any woman would allow her daughter to be called ‘Drizella.’ My mother wouldn’t have named the most disgusting pig in the trough something as dismal as that.
I have a story for you. One that is perhaps as familiar to you as your own family motto. More likely it’s a tale you only think you know, and you’d be entirely wrong in that assumption.
Once upon a time . . .
But oh, how dull and how misleading. That’s the way to start a boring fairytale. One where the brave heroine arises from the shadows to marry a devastatingly handsome prince.
My story is not a fairytale. Nor, to say it plainly, is my stepsister’s. People do like to burden the simple truth with a gilded edge of lies. Especially, when the facts don’t fit their flights of imagination.
So, I’ll tell you straight and relate every detail I remember. You can shake your head and turn away—there’s no blame for doing so—but at least it’ll be a conscious choice. In these brave new times, or even the old days of yore, that’s a type of opportunity seldom given.
History condemns me as a heartless monster. Maybe not the worst person, but certainly not the best. Cinderella is set upon a pedestal as the highest woman in the land.
Neither of those preconceptions matters a jot to me.
My mother wasn’t a crown jewel of goodness, but she was nowhere near as bad as my stepfather. My stepsister didn’t end up on her hands and knees in horrifying conditions after we arrived. The pitiful thing was like that when we got there.
Men follow that path with their children sometimes. They’ll happily raise a soldier to fight their battles for them or a slave to fetch them every comfort. The gender gap may be sorted out where you live but in my wonderful world roles are fixed in place along a well-worn line.
After my father had died—now that was a good man for you—my mother was left with no choice but to remarry. As for the money, everything he set aside throughout his life so his daughters wouldn’t have to settle for the first limp dick on offer. That inheritance went straight to my grandfather.
What’s that? Doesn’t make sense?
No. But when did sensible thoughts ever carve themselves into the bedrock of common law?
A patriarchy can’t survive if you start settling fortunes on women. Any male-dominated society worth its salt understands that point as a founding principle. Money must, therefore, follow gender. It’s generational, to be fair. If my dad had a brother or nephew, then it would have been settled on them. But his nagging sister didn’t make the grade, especially when our aunt remained childless and unmarried.
Father’s fortune passed back to his father, increased and multiplied from when he saw it last. Once Granddad’s dead, lord knows where it will end up. Certainly, I’ve given up hope of ever laying my hands on a penny.
Where was I? I’m sure I didn’t set out telling you this tale to dwell on the deplorable state of our legal system. Oh, yes. My mother. Destitute. And daughters don’t stop wanting to be fed just because their daddy died.
For all intents and purposes, Mom tried to do a decent job. There was little time to waste, and on paper, Erik Mookie was a sterling match.
Really? You didn’t know that? A ridiculous name. Perhaps being teased as a boy did something to him, because he grew up surly, vicious, and mean.
Anyway, the standard wedding bells and thrown rice followed. When my stepfather told our new stepsister to pick up each and every last grain, I laughed. I genuinely thought he must be teasing. He wasn’t. The worst thing was, to Cinderella, picking up individual grains of rice was a picnic. At least, it was when compared to the disgusting duties of her day-to-day life. Her usual tasks involved washing soiled floors or were constructed from the humiliation of scrubbing caked fluids off dirty bodies. To collect something clean and white off a polished floor was a holiday gifted from above.
I tried. Our stepfather treated his daughter with hostile contempt, but he was deeply infatuated with his new bride. That granted me and my sister, Anastasia, the benefit of better treatment. Of course, none of us believed that when the sexual appeal wore thin, we’d be handled more kindly than Cinderella was.
She was a tired, scrawny little thing. Expressive eyes, cheeky as a monkey. I don’t know how that hadn’t been beaten out of her. The girl always had spirit, for sure.
There I go again, mixing up my tenses. My language tutor used to rap my knuckles until they bled for that, but I never managed to knock it into my thick head.
I’m saying had, as though the princess of our kingdom is long gone. She may be out of sight but Cinderella is not out of mind—my mind at least—and there’s no way she’s been relegated to the past.
Cinderella has and is—she IS—and I’ll not have anyone say differently. Not even my own slippery tongue.
Once, I came home from school, my backside caned from being naughty and stupid as usual, to find her crying from frustration and despair. I felt my heart breaking at her plight, though my mom had told me to stay clear. I’d already been lectured not to interfere. Mother knew my weaknesses better than I understood myself.
Cinderella was on her knees, trying to clean the floor. One half-full bucket of soapy water and a balding scrubbing brush at her disposal. After dipping the scrubber into the fouled liquid, murky gray, she’d rub it back and forth across the tiles. My stepfather had been at her, long thin crimson lines streaked along her spine. Not that she was naked, but they’d bled enough to stain the fabric.
She scrubbed hard at the stonework, but poor Cinderella couldn’t get it clean. Her knees were bleeding, her sides were bleeding. Dribbles of dark red splashed down onto the floor. As soon as she could scrub it clear, my stepsister would bleed again. Her drops of blood staining the inky cobblestones with crimson so deep in color it looked black.
I mean honestly. What’s that about? It’s one thing to want a clean house and not to care that the cost is your child’s love and admiration. I’m not a prude nor am I a simpleton. A daughter belongs to her father, she’s his chattel, so if he wants her to scrub his floors and cook his dinner, then that’s what she does.
But when the beatings negate the cleaning, then all we’re talking about is torture. No matter how much the high council bleats on about how they don’t condone that behavior—I can give them another dozen examples that pour derision all over that supposed stance.
I pulled her up and hugged her close, taking care not to squeeze my arms over her open wounds. When she jerked away, insisting she must get back to work, I told her I’d do it. My single bed barely sank under her light weight as I sat her down on the end of it. I used an old dress to stem her terrible bleeding, then I dressed her injuries as best I could. My heart hung heavy in my chest. Unwept sobs became trapped in the sticky flypaper of my distress so they couldn’t break free.
I told you she was tiny, right?
Leaving her in my bedroom, I walked back through to the dining room and sat down on the floor. Not constantly adding to the workload, I quickly whipped through the remainder of Cindy’s chores. When the last drizzle of crimson water had been tipped out for the pigs to guzzle with their scraps, I hurried inside.
My stepfather had arrived home.
When he saw me carrying the bucket, his face became mottled with red, pumped up in a furious rage. His eyes bulged as though his head were about to explode. He backhanded me across the cheek. The force something I’d never before been subjected to.
Not to say I hadn’t been beaten before. Just not hit in anger by a full-grown man. His punches thumped my chest so hard, my ribs cracked. A blow to my throat caused so much pain that I opted to stop breathing. I couldn’t know it at the time, but I wouldn’t speak above a whisper for a month following the attack.
When I fell on the floor, his feet started to do the work for him. He kicked me in the guts with such force that I vomited black blood over the clean stone tiles. He stamped with all his weight on my leg, and the bone snapped. Another boot and it tore through the skin to poke its head out—as though there was something pleasant out there to see.
There was never anything good to see in that house.
My mother tied my leg up, binding it fast to a wooden splint so the bone could heal. When the weather turns cold, there’s still an aching itch from where it didn’t knit together the way it should.
I lay in bed as Mom fought her best for leniency. My father’s anger was so bright and fierce that if she hadn’t talked him down, he might have come into my room and continued. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard him force her to do terrible, disgusting things.
She did them out of love for me. To save me.
If that had been the extent of it, I would have tried to intercede again. Poor Cinderella always looked so cold, so weak. Better a beating be delivered to a healthy girl than to a waif who is so underfed that you could almost see through her.
But that wasn’t the full punishment.
There came a next time when I extended a kindness, offering Cinderella a bite of bread and cheese from my plate. My stepfather slapped me a few times and plunged a fork into the back of my hand.
Later that night, he crept into my room. My stomach tightened, crawling with fear. He squatted down beside my bed, his groin on full and proud display. He leaned forward to whisper into my ear.
I never helped Cinderella again.
Yes, I’m weak, and yes, I’m stupid. I’m every terrible thing that everyone has leveled at me. But I wouldn’t ever be so cruel and callous as to visit my earned punishment upon another.
He threatened to do everything he’d done to me, perform each twisted sexual act he regularly practiced on my mother, on Anastasia instead. The sister I’d known longer than a few months. The person who formed the greatest bond in my life outside of my parents. The one who shared my whole life story. The living, beating heart of me.
I know what you say about her now. It may not be as hurtful as the feast of bitchiness you dole out to me, but it’s bad enough. Destructive to the point of making me weep, even though I’d never show myself doing so.
But for a long time, Anastasia was the only one always there for me. Practically my twin. We’d wrapped warm arms around each other on cold, wintry nights. As our dear father lay dying, we squeezed each other’s hands until we winced in pain. Each of us turned instinctively to the other for consolation, support, and strength.
Noble Anastasia would never survive the tortuous perversions my stepfather wanted to hand out to her. My sister was proud and defiant. She made her own rules and stuck fast to them. I thought she’d rather die than live with that disgrace filling up her memory. Some souls stain too easily to visit the dyes of depravity upon them.
I traded Cinderella for Anastasia.
Call me evil, call me vile, call me any vicious name under the sun. I’ve heard them all, and I’ll tell you the truth right now. They don’t hurt like a broken leg.
###
When my mother’s attractions in my stepfather’s eyes began to fade, she found employment as a cleaner at the castle. She ended up working just as hard as poor Cinderella, though better treated. Another fact that missed the official record there.
These days no one at the palace likes to think of her as an employee. Whispers would get around and where would that leave the royal family? They’ve expunged every trace of her previous existence like she’s a convicted felon getting her crime wiped from the system. I still work there, of course, but only under my married name.
The best thing about my mother’s job—from which the money was directly handed to my stepfather—was that she took Anastasia and me out of school. It was far better helping her during the long days than having my knuckles rapped in class. Brilliant. It may not seem that great to you, sitting back in your chair and sipping at your fine malt scotch. Believe me, working hard at manual labor for fourteen hours a day was pure bliss.
If offered, any one of the three of us would have jumped at the chance to work there twenty-four hours, if necessary. Only stopping to grab sleep during our bathroom breaks. Sheer luxury. The palace was opulent, but that wasn’t the main attraction. The castle was free of stepfathers, and that was the most important thing.
Anastasia and I were tasked with cleaning the silver. At the end of each shift, we’d be patted down as someone else counted the cutlery. Sometimes I wondered if they really thought anyone would steal from them, or if the frisking was a pantomime to shame us into our place.
Well, honey, it takes more than a pat-down and a veiled accusation to make me feel ashamed.
No matter how many hours we creamed, buffed, and shined, the palace never ran out of silver. If they did, no doubt there’d be a stack of gold awaiting its turn instead. The money they expended in that location was legendary. Talk throughout the boroughs rumbled as the taxes weighed move heavily on the people each year.
Still, there was something joyful about the finery when the palace put on a party. Even though we only worked there, our bosoms would swell with pride. Visiting dignitaries would crane their necks to peer into all the nooks and crannies. Meanwhile, all the servants would scurry out of sight. Hidden in the corners, we’d watch the visitor’s greedy eyes fill with envy. It was our reward for the effort we expended every day.
I bumped into the prince by accident. At least I thought that at the time. History would see me as ugly, a wretch who covered up her flaws with embroidered cloth. Truth be told, I was pretty. Perhaps not the best looking in the kingdom, but I was up there in the competition. And forget about the expensive clothing. I may not have been dressed in rags like some that I won’t mention, but I did okay with my plain smocks. I knew how to tie back my hair so the golden gleam would catch any fellow’s eye.
As for those whom I won’t mention, don’t think that’s from callous
ness. Once my decision was made, it grew too painful to look at my stepsister. At first, it was hard not to see her, not to pity her. Sometimes my heart would crack open to spill its life blood into my chest. But I practiced tirelessly because I had to. I couldn’t live without wanting to help little Cinderella, and I wouldn’t cope with my sister bearing the punishment for that.
Blinders aren’t restricted to use on horses in our kingdom.
I was—you guessed it—polishing silver one day when the prince passed through the main hall. A tall footman trotted behind him, giving Anastasia and me a glare as though it were our fault he couldn’t keep up with his young squire.
The event was nothing memorable. Maybe my heart gave an extra pitter-patter in my chest. But nothing fancy, nothing earth-shattering. Just on par with catching sight of a war hero or any other famous figure from the back of a crowd. Your eyes might meet, but that could equally be a trick of the light and distance. The prince was there and gone before I could even catch my breath.
The palace butler pulled us both aside later, after the pat-down, offering a reminder of our station. As though we held any delusions of grandeur given the circumstances.
I may not have thought about it again. At the time, how was I to know that the image of me, on my knees in the main hall with the silver, tugged like a fishhook at his brain?
And that’s just silly, isn’t it? Proof that under this rough skin of cynicism still beats the pure heart of a romantic. It wasn’t his brain the fishhook tugged at. It was his groin.
After that occasion, I often saw the prince in places I’d never seen him before. He’d dismount outside the servant’s exit from the palace, even though the stables were positioned on the opposite side. Once, he cantered along the lane we all trudged our way home on every day. The horse’s hooves splattered viscous mud upon our already stained dresses. Another time, I caught a glimpse of the tip of his nose, peeking around into the ballroom kitchen as we prepared the silver for an upcoming feast.
