Revisions of fairy
tales are popular today. There are journals and anthologies of them,
and as a writer I’ve done written some. I’ve published revived stories about
Rumpelstiltskin, the Magic Mirror from Snow White, A Christmas Carol by
Dickens, Sleeping Beauty, and others. This particular story was on old French
fairy tale, very well-known due to the cartoon version of it (which I saw at
the theater when I was a kid), Cinderella.
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| Cinderella, Poor |
“Cinderella”
follows a familiar fairy tale pattern. The mother dies and is replaced by a
cruel stepmother. In Cinderella’s case, she is made a servant answerable not
just to her stepmother but to her stepsisters. This trio treats her with contempt
until a fairy godmother appears, enables her to attend a
royal ball, and she ends up marrying the Prince. They lived happily ever after,
but my story begins where the Grimm story ends.
Yes, Cinderella is
happy. She loves her husband. She bears four healthy children. Still, she finds
that life at the palace is not all gold and glass slippers. She learns how
people start rumors about her, accuse her of everything from unchastity to
sorcery, even plot attempts upon her life. She uses the survivor skill she
learned growing up to thwart them. Secure
in her position as queen, however, she wonders about her mother. She summons a
woman she loves and trusts, Élodie, and asks her if she knows the identity of
the fairy godmother who used magic to free her from her former life. Élodie
says she doesn’t know, but the two of them are aware of a sorcerer named Burnell who can tell
them. Élodie warns Queen Elaine (Cinderella) that she must be careful:
if it is known she has consulted with Burnell, her enemies will use this against
her.
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| Burnell |
Elaine has
occasion to go to Burnell’s town when her husband, Oslac travels to another
country. Burnell appears to her and warns her that Bertrand, the Grand Duke of
the Land, is plotting to take control of the kingdom and has suborned a servant
girl to murder her at breakfast. He also says her mother’s name is Alura, she
is not dead, and that she in fact is the Fairy Godmother who dispensed the
magic that made Elaine queen. When she asks where she is, he simply says, “All
things are revealed to her who seeks.”
Things unfold just as
he says. A servant girl tries to kill Elaine. The Grand Duke says she and her
husband have been killed and he is taking control of the country. He also has
captured her children.
Elaine takes
decisive action. She rides from village to village rallying militia. Loyal
troops join her. She rides to the fortress where Burnell told her her son was
being held by Bertrand’s brother, Guthrun (her other children are being kept at
a nearby convent). By appealing to the loyal troops there, she frees her son
and effectively ends the revolt. Her tenacity shows in the action she takes
after the loyal troops rally to her: Two
of Gudrun’s troop had been killed already. The loyal soldiers brought the ones
still alive and decapitated them in my presence. I fought with all my strength not
to vomit or swoon at the sight of it (I had sent Auturic back to the convent).
I ordered the heads of all the traitorous men sent to the place and to the
Grand Duke.
Guthrun was still
alive. I ordered my troops flay him. He was not hurt so badly that he would not
feel it. I would send his head and his hide to the Capitol.
My actions later
earned me the epithet, “the Bloody Virgin” which made me laugh because by the
time I order those killings I had been fucked from one end of my bedchamber to
the other and had given birth to four children. Still, it stuck and became a
by-word. Others called me Queen Elaine the Just because I had ordered the
executions in response to the crime of treason. That caught on as well, and I
became known by both titles through the years. Paradoxes come at us in this
manner. It’s something that keeps life amusing.
The revolt
collapses. Elaine and Oslac return power and co-rule the kingdom. She still
wonders if she will be able to find Alura, her mother.
Later, an incident
occurs in the north that puts her contact with a sorceress who is able to take
her to
her mother, who is under an enchantment and asleep. Elaine is unable to
wake her mother and decides it would be proper to let her sleep. The Sorceress
appears to her and tells her she has done right and a council of magicians will
awaken her mother. She returns home.
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| Sheena, the Sorceress |
Here is where I
came up with a beautiful twist. Shortly after she arrives home she receives a
note from her mother telling her where she is staying. Elaine goes there, sees
her, but when she does she gets the idea that she is growing smaller. Her mother
tells her that through magic she will give her daughter the true desire of her
heart. Elaine realizes she has reverted to the girl she was at age five, when she
lost her mother. With her child’s body, she approaches Alura and puts out her
arms. Alura picks her up and gives her heart’s greatest desire:
Nights when I lay
on my bed of reeds by the hearth, exhausted from work, lonely, miserable from
the insults, taunts, and mockery of my stepmother and stepsisters; hungry and
dirty; despairing and, like any other child, wanting to be cherished, I would imagine
sitting on my lost mother’s lap in a rocking chair by a warm fire. I would
imagine her holding me and loving me. I would imagine how sweet and beautiful
that would be. I envisioned warmth and sanctuary. Many nights I drifted off to
sleep with this picture in my mind. I imagined it even when I grew into
womanhood. I went to sleep with this vision in my mind the night mother came to
transform me so I could attend the royal ball.
And now the dream
had become reality.
Queen Elaine—Cinderella—receives
her heart’s desire. Her mother assures her that she will return her to her
adult self. The circle will be completed. She will return to her adult life,
this time with her mother at her side.
The story appeared
in an anthology, The Fairy-Tale Wisperer. Get a copy here.
For another revised story, this one from the New Testament, read The Prophetess. Here is a link to the novella: The Prophetess.
Enjoy!
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