Cinderella Is Dead(78)

On the adjacent wall is a vanity with a mirror covered with a black cloth. A portrait of Cinderella hangs above it, but it’s much different than the one in the main entryway. Here, she looks straight ahead, no hint of a smile, her mouth pressed into a tight line.

I hold the lamp up. Light cuts through the darkened room, illuminating an open closet filled with beautiful dresses. I walk over and run my hand over the folds of the luxurious fabrics. In the rear of the closet hangs a dress separate from the others: a plain frock frayed around the hem, its long sleeves tattered at the wrists.

Unlike the other dresses, it looks like it’s been worn a million times. A picture starts to form in my mind. The dust on every surface, dresses hanging in the closet, the eerie silence.

This room belonged to Cinderella.





35





I back away from the closet as an oppressive sense of sadness washes over me. This is her gilded cage, her pretty prison.

On the wall next to her bed hangs a small painting no larger than the cover of a book, showing a man and a woman standing behind three young girls. They all smile and the girls hold hands. The tallest of the three has red hair. This must be Gabrielle. I ache for what was stolen from them, but now is not the time to mourn the past. Getting to Cinderella’s journal is the only thing I can think of to do. She knew something we don’t.

I pull open drawers. I look under her bed and in her closet but find nothing. Would it still be here after all this time? Maybe Manford found it and destroyed it long ago.

I move toward the doors of the washroom but feel a tug at the back of my dress. I spin around to see that my hem is caught on the corner of the little table next to the bed. My dress has pulled it away from the wall, and as I bend to free myself, something catches my eye.

On the back of the table, a small rectangular object sits in a small groove behind the single drawer. I reach down to pick it up, realizing it is a small book. Opening the cover, I see that the words are written by hand in black ink. A journal. My heart ticks up as I read the first page.



I skip ahead several pages.



My skin pricks up as I reread the passage. He drained her, slowly, over time to punish her. My hands tremble as I continue reading.



I turn the pages as if they are made of glass. I’ve stumbled upon something sacred. The words of Cinderella herself, in her own hand. In the last pages, the handwriting becomes nothing more than scribbles. I squint against the dark to read the passage.



The noise of a door opening in the hall stops me. I tuck the diary away between the shell of my dress and my corset. Someone is walking toward Cinderella’s room. A gold candlestick, caked with cobwebs, sits on a table by the door. I pick it up. It’s heavy as a brick. Raising it over my head, I listen as the footsteps come closer. Whoever it is pauses just outside the door. I hold my breath.

Right down on his head.

The door creaks open, and in the dim light, I see the guard’s eyes. He blinks, confused, as I bring the candlestick down with all the strength I can muster. It impacts his head with a sickening thud, and he falls into a pile, his knees and elbows jutting out in an unnatural way. I quickly hook my arms under his, dragging him into the room and closing the door. Breaths rattle out of him as if his throat is filled with liquid. After rolling him onto his side, I check his pockets for the keys to the cells but find nothing. When he wakes up, he’s going to sound the alarm.

I drag him into the closet full of beautiful dresses and close the door. I push the vanity and the small table in front of it and leave the room. Candlestick in hand, I race through the hallway until I come to another staircase.

This one spirals all the way down below the main level of the palace, and as the light from above dims, a gust of cold, fetid air meets me. The sounds of hushed voices drift up, but I can’t make out the words. I descend the stairs to find the mouth of a long, dark tunnel.

The dungeon is a narrow hallway with barred cells on both sides. Only one lamp lights up the far end of the dank space. A guard is seated in a chair with an older man standing over him.

“I don’t have the money,” says the standing man.

“Then we don’t have a deal,” says the seated man. “Four gold pieces each. No bargains. King’s orders.”

The old man storms off, stomping up a short flight of stairs at the other end of the hall and slamming the door shut.

A faint whisper from the cell behind me catches my attention. Six or seven people of varying ages huddle together toward the back. A man steps forward, tall and gaunt. I can see his bottom ribs jutting out from under his tattered clothing. His face is covered in a mass of unkempt beard. He stumbles forward and props himself up on the cell bars.

“Sophia?” he asks, his voice thin and weak.

I can’t believe it. “Luke?”

He puts out his hand, and I glance down the hall. The darkness gives me some measure of protection as I take his skeletal hand in mine.

“Oh, Sophia,” he says, collapsing against the bars.

I kiss the back of his hand as tears sting my eyes. “Luke, what did he do to you? I thought you were dead.” I was sure he’d been executed. But it looks like the king has allowed him to languish in the dungeon, waiting for his body to collapse in on itself. He only shakes his head.

“Such is the fate of forfeits,” he whispers.