The man pushed her toward the edge of the room, where her stepmother was standing, her arms folded over her chest.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said to the man. “I’ll take her from here.”
“No, you won’t.” Cinderella broke free from the man. All she needed was some time to talk to Ty. Even if he didn’t remember their past conversations, she’d start from the beginning. He liked her—the real her. He might even love her, and no matter what kind of forgetfulness spell her stepmother had cast, it hadn’t changed who he was, who she was. She just needed some time.
She looked up at the huge clock at the end of the ballroom and her heart sank. It was eleven thirty. If she stayed, even if she could fight off all the other girls and their mothers seeking Ty’s attention, it would mean the end of Max. Staying and trying to win back Ty’s affections would be selfish. She had no choice.
Her stepmother laughed, and rage bubbled up inside Cinderella, but this was a battle she didn’t have time to fight. Not if she was going to get home in time to save Max. She turned from her stepmother and started along the side of the room toward the door.
Her stepmother landed in front of her. “Do you plan to walk home? We can’t have that.”
Cinderella stepped around her, but her stepmother kept in stride beside her. “It’s very dangerous out there. Especially at night. If you go into those woods, the wolves will surely eat you.”
Cinderella kept her jaw firm. Getting through the forest at night was not without dangers, that was true, but she’d proved today she could withstand more than she’d ever imagined. Right now, facing her stepmother seemed more dangerous than encountering any wolf or thief in the woods.
“I’ve done my best to protect you, Cinderella.”
She was only twenty feet from the front entrance. Once through, she’d break into a run, and surely her stepmother would let her go. Surely her stepmother would be happy if she were eaten by wolves.
“But clearly,” her stepmother continued, “I won’t have done my motherly duty if I let you out tonight into that dangerous forest.” She tapped her wand against her palm. “I must get you safely home.”
Cinderella stepped out the doorway and turned to her stepmother. “You’ve done enough. I can outrun the wolves and thieves and whatever other dangers are in those woods tonight. Please. Just let me go.”
“Not a chance I’ll risk it. You’re too valuable. You need some transportation.” Cinderella realized her stepmother was worried she wouldn’t go home. Her stepmother had no idea she needed to be back by midnight, and thought she planned to escape for good.
“I’ll not only send you home,” her stepmother added. “ To keep you safe, I’ll make sure you never risk this sort of escapade again.”
Cinderella tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t move. Someone . . . some spell . . . had nailed them to the floor. She tugged on her limbs, but her efforts were useless.
Max. If she didn’t get away soon, she wouldn’t get home in time.
“I have an idea,” her stepmother said. “One that will keep you out of trouble. From now on, whenever you are outside our home, your tongue will be tied.”
Cinderella opened her mouth to object, but it felt as if it had been stuffed full of cotton. Then a huge flash of light blinded her and she was lifted off the ground. Air rushed around her as if she were being pulled through a long, windy tunnel. She tumbled, spun around, and flailed against her will.
She landed on her bottom with a thud, on something hard. The light around her cleared and her eyesight returned.
“Cinderella? Are you okay?” a male voice said, and then a careful hand fell onto her shoulder.
The world came back into focus—she was in her cellar room—and she stood up slowly. When she turned around and saw Max, she let out a cry of joy and threw herself into his arms.
Over the next five minutes, Cinderella told Max everything that had happened. When she got to the tongue-tying part, a look of fear rose in Max’s normally reassuring eyes.“Quickly,” Max said as he took her hand and pulled her toward the cellar door.“Let’s get outside before midnight, and I need your mother’s wand.”
“What will happen at midnight?” She held back.
Max stared down at the floor. “Just come with me, before it’s too late for us to talk.” He flung the door open and she raced to keep up with him as he dashed outside and then turned toward her. “Try to talk to me,” Max said, nodding his encouragement.
Cinderella opened her mouth to talk but nothing came out. Her tongue felt like lead. All she could do was make strange, unintelligible noises. She put her hand in her mouth and, though it didn’t seem possible, her tongue was actually tied in a knot.
She looked up at Max, fear coursing through her body like a flame through kindling.
He held out his hand and said, “Give me the wand.” He cast a spell, but Cinderella’s tongue remained tied. This time her stepmother’s magic was too strong for Max to undo.
“Go back inside,” Max said, “before she gets home.” He checked his pocket watch. “I’ll stay out here.”
She grabbed his arm and shook her head.
“Cinderella,” he said softly, “at midnight I’ll turn back into a cat. That was the cost.”
No! She tried to yell, but only a garbled sound came out. Max was turning back into a cat? That didn’t seem fair. Nothing that had happened in the past hour seemed fair. Just as she’d thought all her problems were solved, they’d all landed back on her in a huge, messy heap.
In the distance, Cinderella heard the tower clock at the palace begin to strike midnight. Worse, she heard her stepmother’s carriage coming down the path.
“Go inside—now!” Max put the wand in his mouth and ran across the garden. At the final stroke of midnight, Max leaped into the forest, his human form changing to a cat in midair. He landed behind a tree on his soft paws, making not even the slightest noise, and disappeared from view.
Her knees crumpled and she dropped to the ground. The cost had been too high. Max had sacrificed his human form for nothing. She hadn’t won her freedom, and she’d lost Ty.
At least Max had the wand. She hoped he could find a way to use it on his own and turn himself back into a man.
“Who was she?” Gwendolyn slowly and methodically stirred her porridge as Cinderella slumped against the back of a dining-room chair, patiently waiting for her sisters to finish so she might eat a few bites of their leftovers.
“Who was who?” Agatha asked.
“The girl.” Gwendolyn threw her spoon, splattering spots of porridge and cream across the table before it clattered onto the wooden floor. “The little peasant girl the prince saved. They say she cast some sort of a spell on him.”
“I feel certain I saw her,” Agatha said.“But I can’t remember what she looked like.”
Cinderella gripped the seat of her chair.
“Well?” Gwendolyn said. “Well? Well?”
Cinderella jumped, realizing that Gwen was addressing her. “You’re asking me? Why would you think I know anything about her?”
“Fool.” Gwen pursed her lips and shook her head. “The spoon. Are you going to pick up that spoon?”
Cinderella picked up the spoon and slowly handed it to her stepsister, who threw it back at her. It bounced off of her chest and clattered onto the floor.
“Get me a new one, you imbecile. I’m not about to eat with a spoon that’s been on the floor. I’m not a little piggy like you. Some of us have manners.” Gwen snickered and looked to Agatha for a reaction, but her younger sister kept her eyes on her porridge.
“Why are you so mean?” Cinderella said softly.
“I beg your pardon?” Gwen raised her clean white linen napkin to her lips.
“What have I ever done to you? I don’t understand why you hate me so much.”
“Nonsense.” Gwen turned to her sister for a moment, then back to Cinderella. “I don’t hate you. How can one hate a gnat?” She giggled and turned to Agatha again,
but Agatha remained silent, spots of bright, rosy color rising in her cheeks.
Cinderella reached out her hand and retrieved a spoon from the sideboard using magic.
Gwendolyn’s eyes opened wide.“Big mistake, Cinderella. Big mistake. Our mother will be very interested to hear you’re using magic inside this house. Very interested.” She turned back to Agatha. “You never answered. Did you see her?”
“Who?” Agatha’s voice was small and soft, as if she were scared.
“The piece of trash who enchanted the prince. They say it’s her fault he didn’t announce his choice for bride last night.”
Cinderella’s insides woke up, as if they’d been asleep for days. Ty hadn’t chosen his bride at the ball? She clasped her hands in front of her apron.
“He did act strangely for the rest of the evening, that is true.” Agatha pushed her barely touched bowl of porridge forward. “I only wish I’d had a chance to dance with him.”
“Don’t be silly, Agatha. He was never going to choose you. Did you see the way he looked at me when we danced? I feel sure that if that little mouse hadn’t caused such a commotion, Prince Tiberius and I would be engaged right now.”
The door to the dining room burst open and her stepmother entered. Cinderella resisted the urge to back up into the corner and hide, but instead kept her feet planted solidly on the floor.
“Fabulous news, girls! Fabulous!” Dressed in a deep brown gown embellished with ivory ribbon trim, her stepmother strode to the end of the long table.
“What is it, Mother?” Gwen bounced up to her feet and her hand came down on the spoon handle sticking out of her bowl. Sticky porridge flew everywhere.
If Gwen had cleaned up even once in her life, thought Cinderella, she wouldn’t be so careless.
“The prince is coming to visit.” Her stepmother ran her hands down the bodice of her dress, and if Cinderella didn’t know the woman better, didn’t know she was incapable of real human emotion, she’d almost swear her stepmother was excited.
“He chose me, didn’t he?” Gwen threw herself toward her mother, who patted her awkwardly on the back.
Her stepmother brushed a stray tendril of dark hair off her daughter’s face and then held Gwen at arm’s length, studying her. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, my dear.”
Agatha jumped up. “It’s me?”
“His choice hasn’t been announced.” She shook her head. “It sounds as if the poor lad is confused.” She chuckled. “According to the announcement sent to all the households in the kingdom this morning, he’s convinced that a girl he met last night”—she paused to pull a scroll of paper out of her pocket and unroll it—“ ‘has a place for his heart.’ ” She shook her head.“The poor boy is daft, but we can work with daft as long as he’s rich and powerful.”
Gwendolyn giggled, but Agatha just looked confused.
“Come, girls. Let’s make sure each of you can show him a spectacular place for his heart.”
The stepsisters dashed toward the door, but before her stepmother left, she spun back toward Cinderella.“And don’t you get any ideas about talking to the prince.” Her eyes narrowed as her smile widened. “Since it’s such a special day, I think I’ll allow you outside in the sunshine. We can’t have you inside the house when the prince comes. Can’t have you talking his ear off now, can we?”
Cinderella’s heart sank. She hadn’t thought it possible for it to sink any lower. In the house she could talk, but outside she couldn’t. At least she’d be free from the cellar, and she could make sure Ty saw her. Perhaps that would spark his memories.
“And clean up this disgusting mess.” Her stepmother gestured toward the porridge-spattered table. “Really, after all I’ve done for you. You are such a lazy girl.”
Cinderella pulled against the chains clamped to her ankles. This went beyond cruel and vicious, even for her stepmother. Not only had she cast a spell so she couldn’t speak, but as an extra precaution, she’d tied her up in the back garden like an animal. Cinderella couldn’t move more than five feet in any direction, and out here behind the house, she’d be completely invisible to Ty when he arrived.
She heard a commotion in the distance. Galloping horses.
She pulled against the chains, but the shackles dug painfully into her ankles, so she stopped. As badly as she wanted to see Ty, to make him remember her, or even to set her eyes upon him one final time, she wasn’t about to hurt herself to do it.
Think. Think. Her confidence in her magic had grown since meeting Ty and entering the competition, but she’d certainly never done anything like break a chain.
Concentrating, she stared at a couple of links about two feet from the shackle, and soon they glowed red, but heat rose in the metal around her ankle, too. Clearly, she wouldn’t be able to use magic to break the chain—not without burning herself.
The horses pulled to a stop in front of the house. Voices drifted back on the wind, but she couldn’t make out a single word.
She dragged the excess chain back to the steel peg and the ring to which it was attached. Squatting down, she wrapped the chains around her arms a few times and then used every muscle in her back, legs, arms, and shoulders to pull and pull. She collapsed. It hadn’t budged. Whatever black magic her stepmother had used to drive the peg into the ground was powerful.
Gathering every bit of strength inside her, she tried again, yelling the way the martial arts masters recommended. Although her effort was the greatest she could muster, the sound that came from her throat was muted by her stepmother’s tongue-tying spell.
Seeing no movement in the stake or the chain, she slumped back to the ground. A flock of sparrows, disturbed by her attempted shouting, settled back onto the raspberry bushes at the edge of the garden.
Noise—where magic and brute strength had failed, perhaps noise would succeed. If Ty was already in the house, he might not hear, but it was worth a try.
She shook the links, then swung the excess chain, over and over, into the spike that held it. The noise vibrated through her, numbing her hands, numbing her ankles, numbing her entire body. And of course her ears protested the deluge, but they could rest later.
As deafening as the clanging seemed to her, no one came out of the house. She stopped for a moment, thinking she saw some movement in the shed, and wondered if Max was hiding there—and if he’d been able to turn himself back into a human with her wand yet. Encouraged, she clanged again, and this time the back curtains of the house swayed. Agatha waved through the window and brought a finger to her lips.
Not likely, thought Cinderella. Thrilled that someone in the house had heard, she continued to swing the chain.
Just when the muscles in her arms were past the point of fatigue and screaming in protest, just when every swing of the chain felt as if it carried a thousand pounds, she saw movement at the side of the house.
Ty rounded the building from the side yard, followed closely by her stepmother and stepsisters.
She stopped banging, waved her hands, and then ran as far as the chain allowed.
“See?” her stepmother said. “It’s just one of the servants who’s gone mad. Sad, really. But nothing with which Your Highness should be concerned. Now, if you’ll take another look at the lovely velvet-lined box my daughter Gwendolyn showed you. Surely it’s the place you seek for your heart.”
Ty ignored her stepmother and strode forward, and Cinderella realized what might bring back Ty’s memory. Her locket. Could his cryptic message about a place for his heart really mean what she hoped?
Even though his expression showed no recognition, he smiled as he approached, and she pulled the locket out from under her dress, holding it tightly in her hand until he was close. If her stepmother saw it before Ty did—well, that was a risk too high to take.
He approached until he was just out of her reach. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t get too close, Your Highness,” her stepmother said. “She can be
violent.” Her stepmother loomed behind Ty.
He cocked his head to the side as if weighing her warning or—Cinderella hoped—deciding if he recognized her. “She doesn’t look mad or violent.” He looked into her eyes. “Have we met before?”
Cinderella’s heart skipped and she nodded.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” her stepmother said. “Where would you have met a mad servant girl? Come, Your Highness, you really must look more closely at the place my daughter Gwendolyn has for your heart.”
Ty turned away and Cinderella tried to cry out, forgetting she had no use of her voice.
He turned back and stepped toward her, but her stepmother intercepted. “Poor thing is mute.”
Cinderella held out the locket. She’d have no chance to show it to him privately and would have to just hope for the best.
“What’s that?” the prince asked.
“Careful.” Her stepmother grabbed his arm to stop him from moving forward, and then dropped her hand, as if she realized she’d overstepped her bounds. She curtsied. “I’m only concerned for your safety.”
“Madam, I assure you that I am perfectly safe. She’s so delicate, and her eyes seem kind. I’m sure she’s harmless. Release her immedidately.” Ty’s voice was stern.
Cinderella’s love for Ty surged at the fierce look on his face—and then so too did her fear for his life. Angering her stepmother never paid off, and she wondered what type of spell the evil woman might cast.
Her heart racing, she appealed to Ty with her eyes as she held out the locket to him.
“Unchain her at once,” he demanded.
Her stepmother turned to Agatha. “Please fetch the key from the pantry, dear.”
“What key? From where?” Agatha asked, but her mother shot her such a harsh glare that Agatha quickly ran toward the side door of the house even though Cinderella knew the poor girl had no idea what her mother was talking about.
Ty crouched and tugged on the chain and then slowly turned toward her stepmother. “If I learn that any part these bindings are based on black magic . . .”
“Oh, wait,” her stepmother said as she stepped forward, a false smile on her lips. “Look, I have the key right here.” She held a key she’d pulled from her pocket, most likely conjured an instant before.
Cinderella: Ninja Warrior Page 22
