Happily Ever After #1 – The Stepsister's Tale

A work of fiction by Dan Stickney

First in a series of occasional vignettes exploring what might have happened after the happily ever after…

Fair warning:  This is not the Disney Version

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I'm told my cell is very lovely.  My maids have described it to me in great detail: the lace curtains, the intricate parquet floor, the fine wood paneling, and the large window that overlooks the countryside and floods the room with light.  I've been assured that the view from this tower is the best in the entire castle.  None of them ever calls it a cell, of course; they're all far too polite for that.  The door to my cell is never locked: why bother locking the door when the stairway yawns just beyond, more fearsome than any dragon?   Still, I do appreciate the window; I spend most of my time basking in the sun in front of it.  Time goes by so slowly these days.  Often, the only sense I have of its passage is when the warmth on my face dies, and then I know it's time to move my chair.

The sun was particularly warm this morning.  I sat there, motionless, until a growing sense of hunger broke my reverie.  Rising carefully from my armchair, I mentally cursed the weakness that prevents me from ignoring hunger, or thirst, and thus ending my suffering.  But I'm no hero; I can't bear starvation.  I could smell fresh fruit on the sideboard, and bread, and fine cheeses, and the sweet wine that I haven't touched since Mother drank herself into oblivion.  Even if I hadn't smelled the food, I knew it would be there: it always is.

I took the eleven steps across the room carefully, limping on my toeless foot and probing the deep Persian carpet with the other to make sure nothing had been left out to trip me.  Nothing had; nothing ever was.  I found the sideboard without difficulty and let my fingers drift along the glass-smooth, french-polished top wondering if I'd find anything out of place, or something sharp left out to endanger my questing fingers, but everything was precisely positioned as always.  Sighing, I located the fruit bowl–silver, it had to be–and selected a perfectly ripe pear. 

I was just turning to return to my seat by the window when my guard entered the room.  "Your Grace!  You should have called!"  I heard the rustle of silk as she crossed to me, felt her strong, gentle fingers on my arm.  Her voice is melodious, her body is willowy, and her hair luxuriant; somehow, I just know that her face must be fair.  She insists on calling herself my lady-in-waiting.  She's devoted to me, always kind and solicitous; sweetly insistent on using that sham title, and assists me gracefully in everything that I do.  I hate her.  She gently guided me back across the room to my chair, and bustled back to fetch me a crystal goblet of water.

I finished the pear without speaking, then tensed as I heard the latch click.  There is only one person who dares to enter my cell without knocking.  The rustle of petticoats as my guard curtseyed was all the confirmation I needed.  For my own part, I remained seated, as is my privilege; fighting down my rising gorge and mustering all of my self-control to keep my face steady below my blindfold.  Again there came the rustle of silk, and I felt the warmth of the sunlight on my face diminish as my visitor took her place on the window seat in front of me.  Eclipsing me, as always.  Still, I did not forget my manners, for I have far too much pride to be petulant.  "Good morning, Your Highness."

 "It's afternoon, Your Grace." she replied in that irritatingly musical voice of hers.  There was no hint of gloating; there never is. 

"Perhaps by the clock, Your Highness, but not by the sun." This would be easier to bear if I could see how time's passage has marked her, see the woman that she is now.  Alas, in my mind's eye she'll always remain the beautiful girl that I treated so badly.

"Ah" was all she said.  "We missed you at breakfast, Your Grace."  The honest concern in her voice felt like a dagger in my gut.

"I find it more…convenient…to dine here, Your Highness."  Her gown rustled again as she leaned back against the window bars.  The bars are a mere precaution, they tell me.  To prevent me from jumping, like my sister.

She twisted the dagger further.  "I'm worried about you, your Grace.  It can't be good for you, sitting up here by yourself all day." 

Somehow, I kept my voice steady. "It's the rest of the palace that I find worrisome, your Highness."  Actually, it's more fearsome than any dungeon; huge, empty, echoing corridors made of cold, hard, unforgiving stone, full of steps and stairs and fountains and other deadly traps.  And where it wasn't empty it was filled with precious, priceless, and fragile objects.  Better I stay in my too-perfect cell, where I at least know where everything is, then to blunder around lost, breaking things.   To think I'd spent my childhood dreaming of living in this very castle.  Girls can be such fools.

"I understand."  It was hard to keep from grinding my teeth because she clearly did understand.  "But surely you must know that Lady Melanie would never allow any harm to come to you.  She'd literally die first.  She's sworn to you on her life."

My breath caught.  "I know."  I stand and cross to the window, my own gown rustling no less sumptuously than the others, the expensive materials luxuriant on my skin.   I try to tell myself that the colors must certainly be as motley as a jester's, to make me look ridiculous, even though I know in my heart that it couldn't be so. 

Unfortunately, Her Highness isn't finished with me yet.  "There's a state dinner in the ballroom this evening, Your Grace.  Please come down."

Please.  Even now she never gives me orders.  If only it weren't the ballroom…that cavernous, horrifying, terrifying, ballroom…where I'd be both hopelessly lost, and displayed for all to see.  I start to tremble, taking a bar in each hand and resting my forehead on the cold iron.  Still, I have my pride.  "I'd be…honored, your Highness."

"Good."  She replied, and made as if to rise

Suddenly I realized that my cheeks were wet.  Somehow, I'd always assumed that I'd lost the ability to cry on her wedding day.  I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, and realized that I could hold my peace no longer. "Why are you doing this to me?"

My gentle tormentor paused.  "Doing what to you?"  She seemed honestly puzzled.

Something seemed to break inside me.  I reached up and yanked off my blindfold, giving her full view of the ruin left behind when her friends the birds had plucked out my eyes.  "Why are you always so nice to me?  Why do you love me?" my voice rose to a scream: "WHY CAN'T YOU HATE ME?"  I collapsed onto the window seat beside her, and buried my face in my hands, shuddering as she wrapped her arms around me, arms still strong from a childhood spent in the scullery, in a gesture of love and comfort that I neither wanted nor deserved.  I flinched as she gently kissed my cheek.

"Poor sister.  All this time and you still don't understand?  I don't hate you.  I can't."  She gave my shoulders one last squeeze.  "After all…if I hated you, I couldn't live happily ever after, now could I?"

Sweet Lady Melanie kindly let me sob on the rich carpet until it was time to go.

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September 24, 2003