“Your story is well known to us. We’re watching it being written,” said Martha.
“We know of your hardships, my lady. We know you’re a prisoner in your own home. A servant to Sir Richard and his brat daughter, Cinderella. But we can help,” said Lucinda.
“Yes, Lady Tremaine, we can help you,” said Ruby, taking a small bottle from her pocket and holding it before Lady Tremaine. “The laws in the Many Kingdoms are similar to those in England. Should your husband die, all the money would revert to you since there is no male heir.” She smirked.
Lady Tremaine backed away from the sisters, scared and revolted. What were they suggesting? And what was in that little glass bottle?
Her fear only made them laugh, which made Lady Tremaine’s head swim more.
“Oh, don’t play the dainty little thing with us, Lady Tremaine. We know your heart. It’s what brought us to you. Only moments ago you were wishing for Sir Richard’s death,” said Lucinda, laughing.
“It’s really the only way out of this,” said Martha.
“Yes, the only way,” Ruby added, joining in her sisters’ laughter.
Lady Tremaine had the terrible and sudden realization that Mrs. Bramble had been right about this place. Could it be that these were the witches she had warned her about? The authors of the book of fairy tales, standing right in front of her?
“I suggest you leave here at once before I call someone to throw you out,” said Lady Tremaine.
The sisters laughed again as they pressed their way into the house inch by inch.
“Who are you going to call?” asked Martha, advancing on Lady Tremaine, causing her to back up farther and farther into the house. The two women were practically nose to nose.
“Keep away from me, you witches!” Lady Tremaine stumbled backward as all three witches slowly bore down on her. The odd trio laughed even louder.
“Your lady’s maid is off sending a letter to your friend in London that will never reach her hands, and your nanny is so old she has forgotten she is the most powerful witch in the Many Kingdoms, aside from our sister Circe, that is. You are quite literally alone and powerless, Lady Tremaine, but we can help you. Just take this.” Martha took Lady Tremaine’s hand, put the small glass bottle in it, and closed her fingers over it with a theatrical wink.
“Keep it. Just in case you need it,” Ruby said.
Her sister Lucinda added, “And should you ever need us, just call to us from any of your mirrors and we will be here.”
But before Lady Tremaine could reply, the witches went flying backward all at once, and the door slammed closed behind them with a powerful blast. Lady Tremaine quickly turned around and saw Nanny standing there.
“What in the heavens just happened, Nanny? Did you…How did you do that?” asked Lady Tremaine, clutching at her chest and wishing her brooch was there. She ran to the window and saw the three strange sisters standing a good twenty feet away, dusting off their dresses. “They’re still here, Nanny!” She rushed to lock the door.
“Those locks won’t help you. Go to your room and bring me your brooch. It’s time we give it back to its rightful owners,” Nanny said.
But Lady Tremaine didn’t comply. “Those women said you would ask me for my brooch. They were trying to help me, encouraging me to wear it.” She eyed the old woman warily.
“Of course they’re encouraging you to wear it; it’s cursed! They know you’re too smart to fall for their trickery and manipulations, so the only way to seduce you is through curses,” said Nanny, heading up the stairs.
“And just where are you going, witch?” spat Lady Tremaine.
“Upstairs to get your brooch,” Nanny said. “That’s one thing the sisters weren’t lying about. I did come here to retrieve it, but Rebecca was always encouraging you to wear it.”
“What does Rebecca have to do with it, and why did those women say my letter would never reach London?” asked Lady Tremaine, trying to wrap her mind around all this.
“I imagine the Odd Sisters are intercepting your correspondences, to keep you under their control. They say they want to help you, yet they lured you here just as it was written in the book of fairy tales. I’ve always found their ways confusing, honestly. Their good intentions tend to run afoul. Oh, Lady Tremaine, I wish I could tell you more, but I fear I’ve already overstepped by telling you my purpose. I fear you will just have to trust me when I say it’s of paramount importance that I have your brooch.” She started to make her way up the first set of stairs, but Lady Tremaine was right behind her and seized her by the arm.
“You will not take my brooch! It was given to me by my first husband, and it’s the only thing I have left of him. You and Rebecca are the witches, hiding in my house, plotting against me, making me look the fool in front of Sir Richard. Those women warned me about you. They said you would want to take the brooch!”
Nanny sighed. “It’s true,” she said. “Those women are the Odd Sisters, and I’m afraid Rebecca has been working with them. I have the strangest feeling she thinks she is helping you, encouraging you to wear the brooch, keeping the book of fairy tales from you, but believe me, Lady Tremaine, every time the Odd Sisters and their ilk try to help someone it turns into a disaster. You have to trust me; I’m not here to harm you, I’m here to help. Haven’t I kept your secrets from Sir Richard? Don’t I care for your girls and teach them in secret? Does that sound like a person who is plotting against you?”
Lady Tremaine released her grip on Nanny’s arm, realizing she had been squeezing it rather hard. “What are you then, if not a witch? Some sort of fairy godmother?” Lady Tremaine asked, making the old woman laugh.
“No, that’s my sister. But a fairy godmother is closer to the mark than witch, at least in the way you think of witches anyway,” she said, giving Lady Tremaine a kind but sad smile.
Lady Tremaine could see this old woman was telling the truth. She had cared for her daughters for five years and had been nothing but loving and caring to her and her girls since the day she arrived at the château. If only she had known this woman was magical, she would have asked her for help sooner.
“If you’re a fairy, then please grant me my wish and free me and my daughters from this horrible place.” Lady Tremaine heard her voice crack as she pleaded with Nanny, willing herself not to burst into tears.
Lady Tremaine had never seen so much pity in someone’s eyes, not even after her husband had passed away. “Oh my dear, I’m so sorry. I truly wish I could. But I’m simply not allowed to help by using my magic. That’s why I have been here, doing what I can without it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lady Tremaine, throwing her hands up. She was so angry. This place made no sense to her. Maniac witches showing up at her door with a bottle full of poison and fairies pretending to be nannies? “I thought that’s what fairies were supposed to do—use magic to help people. Why else would you come here if not to protect me and my daughters? We are in danger! You see how Sir Richard is with us!” Lady Tremaine was desperate, and it seemed only to break Nanny’s heart.
“We’re not allowed to help villains, my lady, and the book of fairy tales has decreed that’s exactly what you’re about to become. I physically can’t do any magic that would help you.”
Lady Tremaine scoffed. “Lies! All of this is lies! Then what may I ask did you just do in the entryway downstairs?”
“I broke the rules. That’s what I did, and moments from now I will be summoned back to the Fairylands against my will, and if I don’t get that brooch before I go, I fear something terrible will happen. Please listen to me, don’t trust those witches. I hope with all my heart you are able to turn this story around and break the curse. Will you please try, Lady Tremaine, try your very best? And I promise I will do what I can with the Fairy Council to talk them into letting me intervene. I’m sure once they realize we fairies have this story all wrong they’ll see you’re not the villain, but your husband is. Please, Lady Tremaine, I won’t be able to help you if you—”<
br />
But before Nanny could finish her sentence she disappeared right before Lady Tremaine’s eyes.
Lady Tremaine blinked. “Nanny?” she whispered. Lady Tremaine stood there wondering if any of this had actually happened. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard the stories of beasts, witches, fairies, dragons, and giants, but she truly hadn’t expected to have any of them in her home, casting spells and refusing to help her. But then again, the Odd Sisters had offered her help, hadn’t they? She feared, however, that she couldn’t trust them any more than she could trust Nanny or Rebecca. She was utterly alone, and it was up to her to help her daughters out of this horrible place.
Lady Tremaine went right to Rebecca’s room looking for answers. She felt she didn’t have the entire story. She rifled through Rebecca’s vanity, her wardrobe, and even under her mattress. She was almost at the point of giving up when she felt one of the floorboards under the rug shift beneath her feet. She might not have even thought twice about it, if she hadn’t been searching for something. She pulled back the rug and pushed on the loose floorboard until it popped up, revealing what she had been looking for: a stack of letters all addressed to Lady Hackle. So it was true; Rebecca had never sent the letters. That was why Lady Hackle hadn’t responded to a single letter in the last several years. What she didn’t expect to find was the book of fairy tales, hidden under the stack of letters. She sat there on the floor thumbing through it, feeling foolish that she hadn’t believed Nanny now that she had this proof right in front of her. But then she found a name she recognized. Cinderella.
She began to read her story.
Cinderella
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a tiny kingdom. Peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition. Here, in a stately château, there lived a widowed gentleman and his little daughter, Cinderella. Although he was a kind and devoted father and gave his beloved child every luxury and comfort, still he felt she needed a mother’s care. And so he married again, choosing for his second wife a woman of good family, with two daughters just Cinderella’s age. By name: Anastasia and Drizella. It was upon the untimely death of this good man, however, that the stepmother’s true nature was revealed. Cold, cruel, and bitterly jealous of Cinderella’s charm and beauty, she was grimly determined to forward the interests of her own two awkward daughters. Thus, as time went by, the château fell into disrepair, for the family fortunes were squandered upon the vain and selfish stepsisters, while Cinderella was abused, humiliated, and finally forced to become a servant in her own house. And yet, through it all, Cinderella remained ever gentle and kind, for with each dawn she found new hope that someday her dreams of happiness would come true.
Lady Tremaine slammed the book down. “Nonsense, none of this has happened! Sir Richard is alive! And if anyone has squandered our money, it was him,” she said, getting angrier. “This is a book of lies. And what if I got my hands on what little money was left and used it to provide for my own daughters? What of it? It’s my money!” She was about to throw the book across the room in anger. Instead, she got up and took the book and the stack of letters to her own room, where she put them on her vanity. Then she fastened the brooch to her dress, right over her heart, and paced the room trying to figure out what was going on, trying to wrap her head around everything she learned that day.
She didn’t know who to believe or what to think. This book was clearly talking about something that was going to happen in the future, and because of that these fairies—or witches, or whatever they were—thought she was a villain. It didn’t make sense.
Just then Sir Richard burst into the room, his face full of wrath. “What is this I hear, that you and your daughters are planning on leaving?”
Lady Tremaine looked up at him in shock, grasping for her brooch and grateful she was wearing it. Nanny had it all wrong. The brooch wasn’t cursed. It helped her and gave her strength.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir Richard,” she said, lying to his face easily. She met his steely gaze.
“Don’t lie to me, woman! Cinderella told me that you and your gawky daughters plan to leave the Many Kingdoms. And who do you suppose will care for Cinderella? What kind of woman are you that you could abandon your family?” He came toward her menacingly, and she found herself backing away from him, afraid of what he might do.
“Don’t come any closer, I warn you,” she said, sure he would strike her.
“And what will you do, oh great and mighty lady?” he asked. “Do you really think you can do anything to me? Or leave the Many Kingdoms, for that matter? You will never leave, I will make sure of it.” He slammed the door and locked it behind him.
At the sound of the key turning in the lock, she ran to the door and banged on it, calling out for someone to help her, but to no avail. She was terrified and alone and worried what Sir Richard might do to her daughters. She hated him as she had never hated anyone in her life, but she hated Cinderella even more for telling Sir Richard her secret.
She would never forgive the girl for betraying her.
Later that evening when Sir Richard unlocked Lady Tremaine’s bedroom door, she was standing there waiting for him. In her hand, carefully hidden among the folds of her dress, she clutched the bottle the strange sisters had given her.
Sir Richard barely looked at her, his voice cold.
“Since you seem to have dismissed Nanny and Rebecca, I suppose you’d better get down to the kitchen and make our dinner,” he said. Cinderella stood behind him with tears in her eyes.
He continued. “And keep those foolish daughters of yours in line. They’ve been weeping all evening. I can’t bear the sound of it anymore. I don’t want to lay eyes on any of you in the dining room. I would like to eat in peace with my daughter. You lot can eat in the kitchen like the help you are.” He took Cinderella by the arm and dragged her after him down the hall.
“And where are my girls?” she called after him.
“In the kitchen where they belong,” he muttered, not bothering to look back at her.
She stood there for a moment, then remembered what he had said about dismissing Rebecca. But Lady Tremaine hadn’t dismissed her. Where had she gone? She wondered if those witches had warned her not to come back after Nanny sent them flying out the front door.
Still, something about all this didn’t make sense. The only thing she knew for certain was that she and her daughters were trapped with a man she feared would cause her harm. There was only one choice left to her.
After Sir Richard’s untimely death things were different in the Tremaine household. The book of fairy tales had gotten some things right. He did die, quite suddenly and all too soon. Lady Tremaine’s fortune had been returned to her upon his death, and the story was right that she had squandered it, if you could call trying to care for her children, herself, and a stepdaughter she hated squandering. There wasn’t even enough left to book them passage back to England. She was quite literally trapped, with hardly enough money to support her daughters and Cinderella, and she was desperate to do something that could change their circumstances. She tried mailing several letters to Lady Hackle herself, but even without Rebecca’s interference, she was almost certain her friend did not receive them. It felt as if the entirety of the Many Kingdoms was conspiring to keep her and her daughters trapped there so they could live out this predestined story.
And just like it was written in the book, one morning as Lady Tremaine was having her coffee in bed, her daughters came screaming into her room. It seemed Cinderella had put a mouse under Anastasia’s teacup.
Lady Tremaine had had enough of this mouse nonsense. It was one thing for Cinderella to make clothing for the things when she was a little girl and treat them like living dolls she could play with, but it had become an unhealthy and frankly disturbing obsession now that she was a young lady. She spent all her time up in her room talking to the foul creatures, and Lady Tremaine was starting to become concerned for Cinderella’s state of mi
nd.
Nothing ever seemed to faze the girl. She didn’t cry at her father’s funeral, and she didn’t protest when Lady Tremaine insisted she take over the household duties. She even appeared rather pleased when Lady Tremaine told her she would be sleeping in the attic bedroom after her father died. Cinderella simply said, “I understand.” It seemed there was nothing Lady Tremaine could do to squash her spirit—the girl even sang as she did her chores.
But the fact was for all Cinderella’s smiles and naivety, Lady Tremaine felt the girl had a sinister side. She had been tormenting her daughters since the day they met: she put mice under their teacups, mice in their shoes, mice in their dress pockets, mice in little hats and vests everywhere! Lady Tremaine was sick to death of it. But what she resented most of all was that Cinderella had betrayed her. She had acted so sweet, then turned right around and told her father that she and her daughters were trying to escape. That, Lady Tremaine could never forgive. And now she detested the girl.
And so she found herself once again calling Cinderella into her room to have a talk with her about mice.
“Close the door, Cinderella,” she said in a low voice. “Come here.” She was stroking her cat, Lucifer, eyes narrowed at the girl. She had been putting up with nonsense like this for years, and she no longer had any patience for it. She had been doing it since day one, and no amount of conversation or punishment helped the matter. Cinderella had never learned, and she would have to accept the consequences.
Of course, Cinderella tried to deny it. But who else would put a mouse in a matching hat and vest under a teacup?
“Oh, please, you don’t think—” Cinderella tried to defend herself, but Lady Tremaine cut her off.
“Hold your tongue! Now!” she snapped, then continued. “It seems we have time on our hands,” she said, picking up her coffee cup and smiling.
“But I was only trying to—” Cinderella began, but again Lady Tremaine cut her off.
Cold Hearted Page 12
