Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?
    Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?
    Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?
    Ebook186 pages2 hours

    Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?

    By Jon Jacks

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ugly? Who the heck first started calling me ugly in that complete fairytale?
    I mean, relatively speaking, anyone’s ugly compared to some lucky girl gifted with a magical beauty!
    And all that magic is still lying there in that glass slipper she left behind...
    All I need to do is find it...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJon Jacks
    Release dateApr 14, 2017
    ISBN9781370408160
    Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?
    Author

    Jon Jacks

    While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

    Read more from Jon Jacks

    Related to Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I Met Myself Coming Back

      Oct 6, 2022

      I Met Myself Coming Back
      6 min read

    • Article

      Family Ink

      Mar 28, 2021

      Family Ink
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dissonance At Dinner

      Jul 21, 2022

      Dissonance At Dinner
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      A WING AND a prayer

      Sep 28, 2021

      A raven saved my life Cate McMurray, 47, from West Midlands I ’d always known I was different. As a small child, I used to see and hear people who weren’t there. One day, I was playing hide ‘n’ seek with my two sisters, and tucked myself away in a cu

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Devil You Know

      Jul 10, 2021

      I met the Devil today. He was walking down main street, right by the undertaker in B____, which is a little town near here, and which, for obvious reasons, I’d better not name. I recognized him straight away because he had furry legs with hooves for

      8 min read

    • Article

      Good Guysfinish Last

      Oct 6, 2020

      Good Guysfinish Last
      3 min read

    • Article

      His Brilliant Career

      Mar 19, 2023

      His Brilliant Career
      9 min read

    • Article

      Honey & Spice

      Aug 8, 2022

      So, he was good with kids; had a softness to him. The most dangerous thing about that was clearly it wasn’t performed: there was no way he could fake the adoration with which he looked at that angel. With that obnoxious display of genuine cuteness, h

      5 min read

    • Article

      You Talkin’ To Me?

      Mar 2, 2023

      You Talkin’ To Me?
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wolf

      Nov 6, 2018

      The Wolf
      12 min read

    • Article

      A Kid’s First Deer

      May 1, 2019

      A Kid’s First Deer
      8 min read

    • Article

      Smile through THE SADNESS

      Nov 26, 2020

      Driving past an old pub in a Gloucestershire village, Dad caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘That’s a haunted pub, there, Becki,’ he told me. ‘Cavaliers haunt this place. It was a royalist stronghold in the civil war…’ As he talked, I listened,

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      What Lies Beyond

      May 23, 2021

      Karl Stead, poet, critic, fiction writer and memoirist, keeps saying he has been told he could cark it at any moment – a matter of his wonky heart – then he doesn’t cark it at any moment. He is 88. I think he will go on not carking it until he is 99,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Sam Neill On His New Memoir And Living With Blood Cancer: ‘I’m Not Afraid To Die, But It Would Annoy Me’

      Mar 17, 2023

      If you came to Sam Neill’s memoir without knowing the first thing about it, chapter one would hold a terrible shock. It begins amusingly enough: a lovely anecdote about his daughter Elena being asked at school when she was little about what her dad d

      7 min read

    • Article

      Mr D goes TOPLESS

      Apr 26, 2023

      You should probably read these opening paragraphs while hiding behind the sofa because disturbing images might be involved. You’ll risk it anyway? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. We have a full-length mirror in our spare bedroom, and the other day

      3 min read

    • Article

      A merry DANCE

      Jan 18, 2023

      I am in the doghouse, or I would be if we actually owned a doghouse. If our dog had to sleep in an actual kennel, he would call social services. He doesn’t even sleep in his basket any more, but on a small sofa in the kitchen. He has his favourite b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Anti Hero

      Apr 7, 2022

      Anti Hero
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jason the Heat Guy

      Jan 11, 2021

      Jason the Heat Guy
      11 min read

    • Article

      Unbroken Angel: Happy Birthday, Absent Brother Juan Francisco Urrea

      Mar 1, 2018

      Carnal, today is your birthday.  I don’t know where you are now.  But I know you’re somewhere. Many of our intellectual friends would argue that if you’re dead, you are nowhere.  I know you well enough to know you are busy wherever

      4 min read

    • Article

      Part 2 A BOY CALLED EVEREST

      Feb 1, 2022

      Part 2 A BOY CALLED EVEREST
      5 min read

    • Article

      Just a Kiss

      Jun 4, 2020

      Just a Kiss
      6 min read

    • Article

      An Offer I Can REFUSE

      May 5, 2021

      “‘I’m really discovering myself,’ said Mrs Beasley, as we walked through the woods together. ‘I am finally beginning to find out who I really am.’ The dog snorted at this, and frankly I could not have put it better myself. Mrs B, who is stepping do

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper?

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Whatever Happened to Cinderella’s Slipper? - Jon Jacks

      Chapter 1

      ‘You're a… girl?’

      You know, I’m always open to sparing them until they come up with that line.

      Like it means they suddenly think they’ve been running away for no reason.

      Like it’s all gonna work out just fine for them, after all.

      He laughs; they usually do at this point.

      A laugh of relief that they’re not gonna die after all, as they’d feared.

      Laughing a little at themselves, too, for being so stupid that they honestly thought the rider chasing them through all these forests was actually a man, not a ‘silly little girl’.

      Laughing because they think all their problems are over.

      Nope; they’re only just beginning.

      *

      This one was easier to catch than usual.

      Sure, he ran; but he’s a little bit overweight these days. No longer the relatively handsome young man I remember visiting our castle with the prince, even though it didn't really happen so long ago.

      Of course, he appears older than he really is. As a number of them do.

      Some seem ridiculously young; vulnerable.

      I find them the hardest to deal with. The hardest to find.

      In the early days of my searching, I’d actually passed close by some of them with out actually realising how close I was to my goal.

      Of course, it was all down to magic; magic they had no influence over.

      Magic they’ve suffered, rather than gained from.

      That's why they've all changed so much.

      In the last few years, I’ve changed too: but in completely different ways.

      See, I realised, even way back then, that I really was ‘just a girl’.

      The boys, the men; they were the ones trained to hunt, to fight.

      ‘Girls’ like me; well, it was all ‘catch yourself a good husband, dear!’

      Needlepoint lessons, how to dance – that sorta thing.

      I’d always wondered why I hated all those things.

      And now I know; I just wasn’t cut out for it, was I?

      Turns out, see, I’m more cut out for cutting up people – especially those who refuse to tell me what I need to know.

      *

      Even if he didn’t fear me, you’d think he’d have the sense to fear Cer, Ber and Us.

      (Yeah, I’ve read my histories; I named them after Cerberus.)

      They’re my hounds; black, massive.

      Hungry looking, no matter how much I feed them.

      He certainly feared them when they were chasing after him and his poor terrified mount through the forests.

      If he’d have dared waste a moment by staring back at us, he’d have seen the way they flowed through the undergrowth like the darkest of shadows, unhindered by bushes, even trees.

      As for me, he would have wondered how I appear so dark, even on an eerily moonlit night like this one, as if I’m absorbing any nearby light.

      But now he sees I’m ‘just a girl’; well, he thinks I can’t be serious about setting the hounds on him.

      Well, girls just don’t do that sort thing, do they now?

      I mean, just how wrong could this idiot be?

      If they’re hungry (which they always are), if he refuses to tell me what I want to know: well, he'd have brought it all upon himself, wouldn't he?

      Why should I hold myself responsible for his stupidity?

      He doesn’t recognise me.

      Then again, why should he?

      I was just one of innumerable girls the prince and his entourage visited as they toured the kingdom.

      ‘You know, you’re quite beautiful,’ he says now, fluttering his eyes at me.

      Hoping I’ll be flattered, no doubt. Hoping I’ll start thinking, ‘Hey, you know what? He’s all right after all!’

      Or, better still for him, ‘Wow, like maybe he’s even good husband material!’

      Only thing he’s really good for at the moment is providing a snack for my dogs.

      Unless – he can tell me what I want to know.

      ‘The Glass Slipper: what happened to it?’

      *

      Chapter 2

      My whimpering captive babbles.

      They always do at this point.

      Making out he wasn’t the one in charge, that there were other people superior to him who took responsibility for all things like that.

      Typical, isn't it?

      What do men usually do but try and impress you with how important they how, how powerful, how high up they are in the pecking order?

      Get them in a position like this, however, and it’s all ‘Oh, it wasn’t poor little me!’

      Well, to give the guy his dues, he doesn’t look all-powerful at present.

      All his clothes torn, caught on any number of branches and brambles as he fled through the forest.

      His face cut a little too.

      As his horse eventually had the good sense to throw him, he’s also a little muddy, a little bit bruised.

      My lasso holds his arms tightly about his waist. The bolero I brought him down with as he tried to run away binds his legs even tighter.

      Even so, he’d desperately tried to get up, to hop away.

      When he still thought I was a man; still thought his life was in danger.

      When I’d lassoed him he’d screamed like a little girl.

      To give him credit, I’ve heard far worse; but then, we’re still in the early stages of the negotiations, aren’t we?

      ‘I’d heard it broke; or maybe, someone even broke it on purpose! It was dangerous, I’d heard – though I don’t know why!’

      I nod; yep, others have said the very same thing.

      Like them, he’s telling me this in the hope I think I’ve set myself an impossible task.

      How can you possibly find a glass slipper that’s been smashed?

      What would be the point, anyway?

      The point is, of course, that all of Cinderella’s magical garments vanished on the stroke of twelve, yes?

      But not the Glass Slipper.

      Which means that slipper is still full of magic!

      *

      ‘You’re not telling me anything new,’ I say to him calmly as I stoke the campfire I’ve made.

      I’ve got all night to get the truth out of him.

      Not that I don't believe him about the slipper being smashed.

      I do: I most surely do.

      ‘But if it’s smashed,’ he replies, managing a bemused grin, ‘then it means it can’t be found. No one knows where it is!’

      See?

      I just knew he’d told me it had been shattered in the hope I’d call off this mad quest.

      Yeah, it is mad.

      I’m mad.

      Mad at him for wasting my time.

      Without warning, I abruptly rise up from my crouch by the fire and launch myself towards him.

      Grabbing him roughly by the legs, I begin to drag his bared feet closer to the fire.

      He’d chuckled earlier when I’d removed his boots, his socks; no doubt thinking it was a very womanly thing to do.

      Like I was welcoming him home and making him comfortable by the fire.

      Now he shrieks for mercy, realising at last that I mean business.

      He’s probably surprised by my strength. Surprised by how careless I am about his wellbeing as I drag him brutally over the rocks.

      ‘What else do you want to know?’ he screams. ‘I don't know anything else!’

      ‘Names,’ I say. ‘Like I got your name off the last man I killed.’

      *

      ‘Who…who was it; the man you killed?’

      He’s quaking now, bless him.

      Like he wants his mummy.

      ‘I presume you mean the man I just mentioned?’ I ask him coolly. ‘I mean, you wouldn’t want the list, would you now?’

      He blanches, nods weakly.

      ‘Baron Nene,’ I say, stoking the fire again, letting his dainty little toes feel the heat.

      Now he turns a deathly white. He recognises the name of course.

      Recognises, too, that Nene was also a member of the prince’s group.

      ‘But…but Nene was…was…’

      ‘A knight? One of the kingdom’s best swordsmen? That what you’re trying to say?’

      He nods again, gulps in dismay.

      ‘Why did he give you my name?’ he asks worriedly.

      I shrug.

      ‘It was the only thing he thought he could give me, I suppose.’

      I stare intently into his wide, fear-filled eyes.

      ‘Like you, maybe? If you really can’t tell me where any of the pieces might be, then tell me the name of someone who can.’

      *

      Chapter 3

      So I get another name.

      Earl Dorag.

      Probably as useless as the last one, truth be known.

      But I’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t I?

      Did I kill him, once he’d told me all I knew?

      Naturally, I’ d thought about it; I mean, I don't want him sending out a warning to all the rest of the prince’s companions, do I?

      My task is hard enough as it is without adding any more complications.

      So, it placed me in a bit of a dilemma, really.

      Do I risk that?

      Or do I kill a man who’s tied up?

      Well, I took a third option of course.

      I cut him free.

      Told him he could go.

      But I’d left my sword close by him; just as a test, to see what sort of man he really was.

      He grabbed it, thinking he’d take me by surprise.

      Laughing again, as he came at me; only cruelly chuckling this time.

      This way, see, I get to practise my use of the double daggers.

      It's a win win, isn’t it?

      *

      Wow, what a first class bitch, you must be thinking.

      What the hell’s stirred up her hornet’s nest?

      And you know, I don't even have a dreadful childhood to blame.

      My dad, my mum; they were just great.

      Just about perfect, in fact.

      My sister, too – she was wonderful.

      We always did things together.

      Always enjoyed being with each other.

      So, maybe they’re dead, right? you’re thinking.

      Or maybe the prince and his men; maybe they got up to no good when they were visiting all those girls in all those castles and palaces?

      And so now I’ve got this weirdly warped mind, and I’m seeking revenge on those I hold responsible?

      Nah!

      It’s none of the above, I’m glad to say.

      Mum and Dad, they’re still in our castle.

      Sis, well; she took the usual way out for a girl in our sad little world and got herself married, popping out a darling little kid not long after the wedding (but not so close that it might’ve caused a bit of a scandal!).

      As for the visiting entourage of the prince, if they’d tried on anything untoward in our castle, they’d still be packing out our dungeons.

      So, what’s the reason – why am I hunting all these guys down?

      I’m afraid it’s quite simple.

      I just want that damned slipper!

      *

      The Mail Coach passes along some of the most deserted tracks in the kingdom; like it’s just begging to be robbed.

      It not just the mail and its packages calling out to me; it’s also the passengers, those wealthy enough to afford a ticket but not the phalanx of guards you need to pass safely through an area like this. They put their trust, see, in the fact that anyone who stops a mail coach will be mercilessly hunted down by the king’s men.

      Even so, the coachman trusts more on the speed of his horses than any number of king’s men setting out to avenge his death. Even safely hidden out of sight amongst the thick bushes lining the edge of the road, I can hear the pounding of the hooves as the already sorely pressed team is urged on to ever-greater bursts of speed, the coachman wiling

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1