Senior Reading
So people have been asking about which portion of my thesis I read for the Senior Reading… Well, here it is:
A twitch played across her face and her lips worked themselves into a smile. She had smiled and giggled and danced at the ball, but this was the first time in years that she had smiled as herself, as the young girl who had been forced into servitude by her own family. Cinderella heard the moans and groans even though hands and walls and doors muffled them. She crept closer and closer to her stepsisters’ bedroom. The door stood slightly ajar and Cinderella pressed her body against the doorframe and slowly peered into the room.
Marguerite sat on a wooden chair in the middle of the room. Her mother stood over her holding a knife from the kitchen. Her sister, Suzanne, stood propped in the corner, covering her astonished mouth with one dainty hand. Marguerite stared down at the floor and at the objects that lay there. A small glass slipper, the one that Cinderella had lost the previous night, and five toes that still wriggled about. The toes danced a final jig as they were drained of all life and blood. At last they stood still and all was quiet except for the small whimpers that escaped from Marguerite’s mouth. Cinderella glanced from Marguerite’s face to the floor and then up to her foot. Her toes had been hastily hacked off with the kitchen knife. Blood splashed onto the floor from Marguerite’s mangled stumps. Some pooled in the bottom of the slipper and the rest oozed down the cracks between the floorboards.
Marguerite paled and her face lost all sign of expression or emotion. She sat sat and stared at her foot. When she regained control of her voice, Marguerite started sputtering and wailing.
“But… but… Mother! You promised me that it would work. You promised it would work. You said ‘Marguerite, your foot is only a little long. Just let me cut off your toes and you can marry Prince Charming.’ You assured me that limping for the rest of my life would be worth it to marry the damn Prince. “ Her head drooped and tears began mixing with the large pool of blood.
“I’m sorry, dear, I guess I was wrong. Looks like your foot wasn’t too long after all, it was too wide.”
Suzanne, the younger of the stepsisters, shivered in the corner. Cinderella could tell from the determined gleam in their mother’s eye that Suzanne would be next. Cinderella thought about stopping this odd massacre, Suzanne had always been at least a little nice to her. But just how nice had she really been? Sure, she hadn’t hit Cinderella as hard as her mother or her sister had, but Suzanne had still beaten her. Suzanne had made Cinderella do her bidding for so many years now that Cinderella. She thought it simple. Her stepsisters were finally getting what they deserved.
Their mother shoved Marguerite out of the chair with one hand and snatched at the hem of Suzanne’s dress with the other. Within seconds, Suzanne was in the chair and Marguerite was sprawled out on the floor. She dragged herself to the bed, propped her back against the edge and stared at her mangled right foot and sobbed hideously.
“Suzanne, dear, you know this is going to hurt, but just think. A little bit of pain and then you can be a princess. You can have whatever you want, do whatever you want and you will have hundreds of servants instead of just that lazy, little Cinderella. “ The woman didn’t even bother to clean the blood off the knife which had already started to dry and crust.
Suzanne closed her eyes and pressed her foot into the slipper. The collected blood in toe of the glass slipper squelched as she continued to push. She held her breath and tried to slide her foot in, but then her heel caught on the edge of the shoe. Suzanne gasped and frantically mashed down on her foot. But it was just slightly too big, much like her older sister’s foot. Her mother kissed the back of Suzanne’s head and shushed her. Big, sloppy tears spilled out of Suzanne’s eyes.
The knife dug into the flesh easily and with a quick jerk Suzanne’s mother ripped off her daughter’s heel. Suzanne’s eyes bulged and she screamed in agony but then quickly stopped herself. She shoved her foot back into the glass slipper, still slick with the mixed blood of the sisters. It was a painful fit, but it fit nonetheless. She stood experimentally, wobbling and sobbing. The shoe rubbed up and down against the raw wound. She only managed to take one or two steps and collapsed.
Cinderella barely stopped herself from giggling at the horrific and ridiculous sight. All three women still wore their wigs from the ball the previous night, but the wigs had slid out of place and were perched precariously upon their heads. They had appeared as magnificent creations of pins, jewels, and curls in the moonlight but now in the daylight they looked like demented woodland creatures. Marguerite’s face was covered in tears and snot and smeared blood. Suzanne wore an expression of determination and anguish, sweat poured profusely from her forehead and she wiped it away slowly as she steadied herself against the wall with her other hand. Their mother surveyed the room, triumphant. Cinderella wondered how she expected this rouse to work; somehow Prince Charming wouldn’t notice that Suzanne had had her heel cut off for the shoe to fit? Cinderella wondered how they could be so completely stupid.
