Cinders: A Dark Cinderella Tale

Also By Michelle D. Argyle

The Breakaway

Pieces (The Breakaway #2)

Unbroken (The Breakaway #3)

Out of Tune

If I Forget You

Streets of Glass

Monarch

Catch

Bonded

True Colors & Other Short Stories

Cinders/ Fourth Edition

Copyright © 2018 Michelle D. Argyle

First edition © 2010

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, printing, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Summary: Cinderella’s happily-ever-after isn’t turning out the way she expected. With her fairy godmother imprisoned in the castle and a mysterious stranger haunting her dream, Cinderella is on her own to discover true love untainted by magic.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Edited by Diane Dalton

Cover Design and Interior Typesetting by Melissa Williams Cover Design

Cinderella quote http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/21cinderella.html

Author Note

Dear Reader,

Many readers have asked me how my fairy tale interpretations compare to the widely known Disney versions, and whether or not I was inspired by the Disney versions.

Disney’s version of Cinderella did, in a way, inspire me to write Cinders. I was inspired when I watched a trailer for Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. I thought to myself, what sort of story would I tell after Cinderella married her prince? The question was planted, and it took off.

I must caution readers who dive into Cinders expecting talking mice and a sweet, innocent Cinderella. Cinders contains its title for a specific reason, as the word cinders implies the end of something that was once bright and alive. Christina’s journey is that of discovering a new way to view and live in her very real world. I hope you as the reader can discover with her the gritty intricacies and impact of love, friendship, and difficult decisions we make in our lives—sometimes not for the best outcomes. As we all know, glorious fire is capable of rising out of the ashes.

A large difference not only in this fairy tale, but all my fairy tales is that I keep to a darker, grittier view instead of focusing on happy endings. If you love fairy tales, I hope this piques your interest in the collection as a whole. There is happiness in each tale, but as reality proves time and time again, happiness always come with a cost.

CINDERS

In the evening when she had worked till she was weary, she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the fireside in the ashes.

Cinderella as told by The Brothers Grimm

To Darcy, with love

You inspire in me the magic of a princess

1

Into the Dark

The twelfth week after the marriage, Cinderella grew tired of the servants. She ordered them to leave her room and sank into the oak chair in front of her dressing table. Her skin felt dry, papery-thin and parched. She needed a drink of wine or a walk through the woods, but the woods she longed for were at her old home with her stepmother and stepsisters.

She picked up a shell hair clip and wondered what her husband saw in her, why he had given her the clip and dresses made of heavy, musty fabric that pulled on her shoulders and dragged along the stone floors. He had also given her a pewter box of crushed red powder to dust across her cheeks. She lifted the lid and touched the soft substance inside. It looked like dried blood—a rusty color he said made the rest of her skin porcelain against it.

She closed her eyes and remembered the first night in the castle. The prince closed the green velvet bed drapes. The air was sucked of light. She couldn’t see his mouth when he whispered that he loved her, but she heard the smile in his voice. He had gathered her into his arms like a soft-feathered dove. She had felt fragile like that, and frightened.

Her heart beat fast now as she rubbed the powder between her fingers. Her skin had grown sensitive. She didn’t have to button and lace dresses, mend rips and tears, scrub the floors, or slave over hot meals in the steamy kitchen while her stepmother’s cat weaved pretzels around her ankles. She could still smell the river down the lilac path behind the house. Her mother had smelled of lilacs, and the river was bubbly and mossy and smelled like spring. The castle was different, the air always thick with the scent of hot wax and cinders. No matter how many candles burned, the corners stayed dark.

Cinderella lifted a goat-hair brush and dipped it into the red powder. She would look like porcelain for her prince tonight.

* * *

The prince hosted many parties—one a week for the first month after the wedding. There was always dancing and food and beautiful gowns. Cinderella liked it until she discovered how much work it was. First she had to bathe. That took a lot of effort with a lot of servants, and it was always cold no matter how warm they heated the water. It was the middle of winter, and they liked to comb her hair dry by the fire, counting as they went. One, two, three, four, five, six . . . one hundred and two . . . until she wanted to scream stop! Instead, she spoke softly and smiled at them as kindly as she could. She knew what it was like to be in their position.

They pinned up her hair in elaborate fashions, gently tucked in the prince’s shells, dusted her face and chest, applied the rouge, tied up her corsets, fluffed her skirts, rubbed rose oil on her temples and ankles, and asked if she wanted to wear her fur shoes.

No, no, they don’t fit properly. I might lose one, she would answer, her voice echoing off the stone walls. She wondered what would happen if she lost one of the shoes. They were the only thing left of the old woman who had given them to her. Everything else had vanished.

But they must be warm, Cinderella’s lady’s maid, Amie, remarked.

Yes, but the ballroom is stuffy.

It was, terribly so. Most of the time, she found herself drifting to an open window to breathe the fresh, cold air. Sometimes it would snow, the flakes falling in slow succession, gathering in layers across the frozen moat. She imagined the fish moving along the bottom, their bellies as cold as the ice, their eyes seeing nothing in the darkness. Sometimes she felt the same way, especially when she danced with the prince and everyone watched. She would close her eyes and see nothing, only the smell of candles reminding her that this was real, that he held her close because he loved her, that his lips on her cheek were warm and kind.

Sometimes she forgot about the other man, the stranger she had met long ago, long before she was given fur shoes and knew there were such things as magic and spells.

* * *

It was fifteen weeks before she could call the prince by his first name—Rowland. She called him my sweet or my love or, with a joyous laugh, my prince. Overall, she avoided calling him anything. Even in bed when he slid his knuckles between her ribs to make her laugh, she couldn’t call him Rowland. It sounded so intimate and round on her lips, like the first time she had tried a strawberry in the kitchen, the servants whispering that it would kill her if she ate it raw. Nothing that sweet and cool could kill her, and it hadn’t. She had especially liked the smell of the fruit on her fingers afterward—a heady, red smell.

I have a name, he said one night as she shivered on the bed under the blankets. It was the coldest night in a long time, and she had never been good at keeping warm. Rowland’s body heated the dark air between them, the mattress beneath. No bugs or mice. She had grown used to their absence.

I know you have a name, she said, still shivering all the way down to her toes. Rowland moved closer and she tensed her calves.

Then say it. You are royalty now. You have every right to say it.

She said, Rowland, and it slid off her tongue with ease. He sighed and made a soft hum in his throat.

Say it again.

Rowland.

This was how it went every night. He always warmed her up, eased her into his arms. He was never rough. He kissed her deeply. He whispered her name.

Of course, he didn’t whisper Cinderella. He called her Christina, her birth name, the name everyone called her except two people—her mother and the stranger she had tried hard to forget.

Her mother was the first to whisper Cinderella into her ear. It meant love and light and warmth, everything a burning candle gave. In her mind, the name Cinderella looked like vines winding up a tree, circular and infinite. The name Christina was rough and tsk’d off her tongue, but when Rowland said it he made it sound like the vines. She felt like a vine wrapping herself around him. She was getting used to him loving her.

* * *

She had a lot of dreams. Some of them made her sit up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat. Some of them made her laugh. Some of them, especially the one with the stranger, made her remember how intense real love felt. One morning while she was having this dream, Rowland woke her up with a kiss and she shoved him away so hard he almost fell off the bed.

You’ve never done that before, he said with a chuckle. A worried expression crossed his face. Did I hurt you?

She put a hand to her forehead. She was still warm from the dream, surrounded by white, sparkling light and a voice that made her melt into joy. It wasn’t a dream, she reminded herself. It was a memory of something that had happened two years before she met Rowland. At that moment, as Rowland inched closer to her, she closed her arms around herself and wanted to cry. She needed the voice in her memory. She needed the stranger with her again, whispering Cinderella, his hands on her shoulders, his face more exquisite than any angel or god she had seen in paintings. She hadn’t seen him for two years, and although she was sure he was a magical being, his love had been true and deep—nothing like Rowland’s spell-woven affections which felt real but were like a delicate flower that would never bloom. That fact alone kept her from giving her heart completely to him.

He asked again, Did I hurt you?

She reminded herself where she was, the amount of luck it had taken to land her here, and gave him a soft smile. "No, not at all. You