Writing prompt #4

Prompt: Fairy tales have happy endings. All of us know what happened in that mushy fairy tale, Cinderella. Yeah, it's romantic, the prince actually finding Cinderella. They lived happily ever after. But happy endings can something be well, boring, no zing. So predictable. So...happy. What if the shoe fit one of the sisters? What happens then? Play with your imagination here. Write your ending of the Cinderella story, but this time make it so that the shoe fits one of the icky sisters. What does Prince Charming do? How does Cinderella cope with it? And what about the Fairy Godmother? Start the story here.

"Another night inside this dark, musty castle. Will it ever end?" Prince Charming muttered to himself and looked out the window. The sky was overcast and gloomy. The sun hadn't made an appearance in weeks even though it was the middle of summer. Footsteps clunked down the nearly rotten wooden stairs. He wheeled around.  Great, he thought, her again.

His wife waddled toward him. She was wearing a frilly, lace dress that had to be custom-made to accommodate her large size. His eyes darted to her shoes: the same glass slippers he fitted on her feet two months ago. He couldn't believe his eyes when her fat, over-sized feet glided into the slippers - a perfect fit.

His shock must not have registered to the three women because two of them jumped for joy and the third looked bewildered but resumed sweeping without a word. He remembered the third in particular: she had a natural beauty that has never been rivaled. He figured after the wedding, he would forget about her, but he didn't. When he laid down in bed with his porky wife that night, he turned away from her and envisioned the beauty’s face. He didn't know her name, and he dared not ask his wife, lest she explode into rants of fury from intense jealousy. He figured she was their maid, and never considered that soft, beautiful creature was related to these vile, disgusting monsters. He wondered where the beautiful woman was and what she was doing at this precise moment.

*

Cinderella looked outside the window in her basement. Well, technically, it was her sister's basement. She was jealous of her older sister. She recalled that fateful night two months ago: the gorgeous prince came to her door holding a lone glass slipper. She had called for her two older sisters, and to her great surprise, it fit the eldest – and fattest. She resumed her sweeping. He had left with what looked like a dejected expression on his face, but maybe she was reading too much into it. She had tried to forget him. Tried to forget that night. But she couldn’t. She slaved away day after day in her sisters’ house, sleeping in the basement alongside the rodents and insects, never getting a breath of fresh air. His memory restored her, revitalized her, intoxicated her. But he was not hers.

She wasn’t invited to the wedding. Two months after the ball where they wed, as she was about to sleep, an evil plan took root in her mind and formed little by little, day by day.

A week later, she gathered her wits and snuck out of the basement late at night while her sister was sleeping. In her left hand, she carried twine; in her right, a rock. She darted towards her sister, the princess, and the prince’s castle on the far side of town.

When she got there, she found him sitting by the stream, and she dropped her lethal weapons.

*

Is that her? He wondered. Could that be the same woman from that night? The maid? He wanted to approach her but was afraid she would turn and run. He stayed his ground. To his gratitude and amazement, she slowly walked toward him. Step by step. Soon, she was standing right in front of him, and it was all he could do to not reach out and kiss her. She crouched down next to him.

He wanted to be polite and introduce himself first, like a proper gentleman, but something felt caught in his throat, and he only squeaked. She chuckled.

“You must be the prince,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes. Prince Peter Charming. You must be…?” he trailed off for fear of offending her.

“Well, I guess I would be your sister-in-law, Cinderella.”

Sister-in-law?? So she wasn’t the maid. She was his wife’s sister.

“But you are so beautiful,” he blurted.

She blushed. “Not nearly as beautiful as my sister. Or as lucky.”

He scrutinized her incredulously. Not beautiful? Was she out of her mind? Insane, maybe? Fishing for compliments?

“Well, then,” he said, not knowing how to continue.

“Why are you up so late?” she asked.

“Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh. Well, uh, the bed is, uh, quite small to fit two people, so I came down here for some, how do I say this, fresh air.”

She nodded and shot a look of sympathy at his direction. They had an implicit, yet mutual, understanding. Her sister, his wife, was a bossy pig who would not, could not take care of herself or the castle.

She picked up a pebble and tossed it in the pond. He followed suit.

“So, do you wander around alone at night in this area often?” he asked.

“No. Only for special occasions.”

“And that would be?”

“Oh, you know.”

He smirked. “No, I don’t” he parroted back to her.

She smiled. Her cheekbones looked like small sugarplums on her face. “Paying a visit to my dear sister.”

He noted a hint of sarcasm but chose to ignore it and looked up at the night sky again. Full of stars. He desperately hoped for a shooting star. “At this hour?”

“Yeah, you know she can be unreasonable sometimes.”

“Sometimes? You’re very modest about her. You want to know the truth?”

“If you want to tell me.”

“I was thinking about running away. Truth is, I am miserable. It may seem all fun and games being royalty, but…” he trailed off. “Not really. I mean, if your sister, I mean my wife, were beautiful, it would make things easier. More bearable. But, alas, she is not, I am afraid. I work hard all day, and I come back to a mess of a castle. Not that I’m not grateful or anything, it’s just…I think I would be better off…not being here.” He heaved his chest as if a hundred pound weight had been lifted off.

*

Cinderella looked at the night sky and saw two stars, no, two eyes, twinkling. Could it be? She thought. My fairy godmother? The one who was supposed to make my life better when I was of age? No.

But she had heard the prince’s words. He was miserable. She was miserable. Both wanted to run away.

“Why not?” she asked.

He laughed deeply. “I cannot simply leave my post. I have duties.”

“You only have duties so long as you remain,” she retorted logically.

He paused as if digesting her words. They stuck. “Wait here.” And he was off.

And she did as she was told sure that she would never see him again, sure that his personal guards would capture her, sure that her head would be chopped off by the guillotine tomorrow with her sister billowing with laughter next to her husband. But, she was wrong. She saw a cloaked figure run in her direction, and was relieved when she realized it was the prince. He looked different without his regal attire. More normal. More attractive.

He kneeled. “Will you accompany me on this journey, madam?”

She gave him her hand. “Yes, sir. Shall we leave?”

“Give me one minute.” He took his wedding band off and tossed it into the pond. He stood and waited until it had sunk to the bottom and clung to the sand. “Let’s go.”

She looked up at the sky and was sure the two twinkling stars that were no longer visible were her fairy godmother giving her that second chance of happiness. She took it, and they never looked back.