Cinderella: A Different Story

Hello everyone! Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving!
This post will probably be rather long, so if you don't feel like reading all of it that is completely fine. ;) 

Last year I had to write a story for my English class, and one of the options was writing a story based on Cinderella, specifically on the stepmother. This got the wheels in my head turning, and that is where this story came from (in case you wondered). This was before I had seen the new Cinderella movie or Ever After, which some friends recently introduced me to this summer, and I REALLY love these movies, guys! They're SOOO good (especially Ever After). *ahem* Anyhew, (getting sidetracked here), that is the "story behind the story". And now, for the story. :)

          Cinderella: A Different Story

     A long, long time ago, there lived a widowed woman with two daughters and a step-daughter. They lived fairly happily for many years, until the step-daughter got it in her head to marry the prince...This is where my story begins. 

     A dark shadow moved quietly up the steps, the old, crooked stairs creaking eerily. I held my breath, scarcely daring to breath. Would I be discovered? No. Whoever it was kept walking up to what used to be Cinderella's room in the attic. Quietly, I slipped into the downstairs bedroom, and snuck from there to my mother's room. She was gone, it must have been her going up the stairs! Oh the joy! Now I could get what I had come for and leave. I looked frantically around the room. Where was it? Ahh! There it is! I tucked it up under my cloak and hurried stealthily out of the room and out the back door. From there I ran to the dark shadows of the trees. There, I lit my candle, and got ready to read. Even in the candle light I could see that my hands looked red, and they still hurt from the blisters put on from days of hard work. Sometimes I wish that I could run away like Cinderella did, and live happily ever after with a handsome prince in a castle, but that was not to be. I needed this evidence in this little book to finally get away from this place once and for all. Carefully, heart pounding, I opened the little book to the beginning. This is what I read. 

             

      June 26

 I have agreed to marry Lord Tremaine. It is the only way I will ever be able to get my hands on any fortune whatsoever. My girls need to have the benefits of a life lived to the fullest, one that they have never had or remember having ever since their father died. My poor Edward, he was so sick during his last days. Drizella was only 5 when  he died, Anastasia only 3. It has been three years now, and although the sorrow is  still there in my heart, I must do what is best for my girls. I do not love Lord Tremaine, but I will try to be a good wife to him, and mother to his little girl, Ella. 

Well, this is NOT what I was expecting to read, I hurriedly turned to another later entry in the book.

    February 28

I have finally come to love Lord Tremaine. He is a good man, and I am finally happy again. My girls love their new "Papa", and little Ella is a true sweetheart, and I now love her as much as I do my own. 

     July 9

 I am about to burst with my secret, so I must tell it here. I believe that a new little Tremaine will come sometime around the New Year. I haven't told Henry (Lord Tremaine) yet, but I am so excited about this that I don't know how I can keep in my news much longer. Oh! To have a baby to cuddle again, maybe a boy this time, but another girl would be fine, too. I can't wait to see the look on his face! Oh! I love him and all my girls so much.

         September 4

I feel like an empty shell of who I once was. I lost the baby. It was a boy. I named him "Henry" after his father. I never told the girls about him, only Henry. We now both share this sorrow. I hear the girls happily laughing together outside. I am so thankful that I have the three of them through this difficult time. I don't know what I would do without my beloved Henry Tremaine.

      January 6

I can't even believe that this was the time that little Henry should have come into the world. It seems so long ago, yet like just yesterday. My best friend died yesterday, and we went to the funeral today after church. The king himself came to pay his respects to this leading woman in society. I will dearly miss her. 

              April 11

 My days are now filled with flowers that Anastasia, Drizella, and Ella constantly shower me with. Over the past years, I have noticed that Ella especially has a kind, caring spirit. One day she found me crying over little Henry, and she promptly hugged and kissed me and told me how much she loved me. She later brought Drizella, Anastasia, and herself, and they had made little cards to give to me. Later, they tried to all make me my favorite dinner. There were egg shells in the biscuits, and the ham was a little overdone. The beans were still crispy, and the water was warm, but it was the most wonderful meal I have ever tasted, knowing that it was made with love by my three loving little girls. 

             May 9 

 I have more exciting news! This time, a new little Tremaine will be coming to stay around the beginning of November. I have already been to see the doctor, and he sees no reason why this little one shouldn't be healthy. Henry and I are thrilled. We have decided not to tell the girls until about a month before the baby will be born. Tomorrow is Drizella's 7th birthday. I can hardly believe that I have been married to Henry for two  years already. It has seemed like ten years, and our love has just grown and grown. Ella  is now 6, and Henry says that she looks just like her mother. Anastasia is 5, and has lost her two front teeth. We got a kitten the other day, and after he clawed up the furniture in the parlor, Henry decided to call him "Lucifer". Well, time to go. I need to go make supper. 

            September 1

  I lost the twins. It was a boy and a girl this time. We named them Izabella and Charles. Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with me. Why can't I have children anymore? I see Henry looking at Ella more often, and he is starting to spend more time with the girls than me. I wonder if he loves he other deceased wife, Ella's mother, more than me. He says that Ella looks just like her. I try not to be jealous, but the child is so pretty now at the age of 6, that that can only mean that her mother was a stunning beauty, probably lovely in character, also. I try not to be jealous, but I'm struggling with these feelings. I still love Henry so much. I know he still loves me, I just don't know if I can stand to look at Ella all the time and know that she represents a woman whom Henry loved who was perfect in every way. 

            March 6

     Henry died yesterday. He had been sick with the scarlet fever for the past week now. Anastasia came down with it as well, but she got better with no side effects. The rest of the girls were sent away from the house so that they wouldn't get sick. In his last days his mind wandered. He called out for Elaine, his first wife. He didn't call for me. With his last breath, thought, he told me that he loved me and the girls, but he stretched out his arms then with a smile, and murmured "Elaine" as he died. I can't help but think that she won, and that she has stolen my beloved Henry. I have no children to remember him by, all of them are in the ground with him. I can hardly stand to be near Ella. She reminds me every walking and sleeping minute of what I have lost, and of her mother who took away. I think I'll move her up to the attic. That way I won't have to be so near to her. 

           June 6

  Several years have past since my last entry. Drizella is now 14 and Anastasia is 12. They are both my pride and joy. I know that maybe I spoil them sometimes, but they are all that I love and live for. That girl who lives in the attic and cleans and does the chores is now 13 and, I'm afraid, even in her old, raggy housedress, much more beautiful than any of my girls. I believe that I will have to lock her up there when company comes over, I don't want people asking about who she is. She is not my daughter. The only reason that she is still in the house is for Henry's sake. For that terrible Elaine, who took my husband away and mothered the girl, Cinderella ( I have long since stopped calling her by her affectionate name "Ella") is now banished to the attic, and made to clean and work every day for her keep. My daughter's violin teacher is here, I must go now. 

I was in tears by now. This was my mother's life. Her thoughts, and I never knew or remembered much about most of what was written here. For the first time I felt a little compassion for my mother, and even for Cinderella, knowing that they both had been through a lot, and some responded to their grief in the wrong way, and some in the right way. I felt ashamed to have brought my mother's journal out here to read, hoping to find incriminating evidence against her so that I could persuade her to let me go on the trip that Maybella had asked me to go on. Ashamed, I hurried back to the house and slipped the diary back where I found it, the room still empty. I remembered that mother was up in the attic, and so I tiptoed up there and peeked through the crack in the door. There, I saw her on the floor crying and rocking herself back and forth, holding one of my stepfather's shirts and Cinderella's pillow. I knew she probably felt like everyone would leave her, and then I knew that I wasn't and wouldn't go on that trip next week. I stepped into the room and knelt down and gave mother a hug. There, we both cried. Our tears mingling together over what could have been.