Until Midnight

A Dark Fairytale Retelling

The rustling outside my window rattled me from sleep. I strained to throw back the embroidered coverlet, then slipped my feet into my crocheted slippers. Approaching the glass panes that took up the expanse of the wall, I looked out at the view of our manor garden. I expected to see deer come to forage through our meager crop, or worse, a wolf from the Black Forest to hunt the deer. The wolves were always strangely drawn to our home, even when there was nothing to hunt. I sighed as my eyes fell not on an animal, but on my stepsister.

She lilted and swayed to an unheard beat, her dress in tatters and a vine draped around her like a shawl. It seemed the difficult day for her was yet to end. Her bare feet, splattered with mud, swept through the mossy ground in softly turning, graceful arcs. My eyes darted, seeking out dangers lurking in the nearby woods. Relief surged as I completed the visual sweep, it appeared there wasn’t any current threat to the lovely maiden waltzing in the moonlight.

“Please, go retrieve her,” my mother said from behind as I left my room. “If I try...well, after earlier I doubt she can listen to me.” Her voice was clipped with sadness, and careworn lines etched deep in her face as I glanced at her.

I nodded and gave her a small smile, then turned to descend the wide, sweeping staircase. The floor below was now clean after the spectacle from that afternoon, polished by the actual servants who—thankfully—did not spread stories of my troubled stepsister amongst the villagers.

At least with whatever this current narrative my stepsister was playing out she appeared content. It was a shame to have to bring her inside after the more upsetting scene that had happened earlier in the day. Finding her on the smooth marble floor had been disturbing to say the least: madly scrubbing muddy water in wide swaths. She had screamed with a tear streaked face and bloodied knees claims that my mother had forced her into servitude. But then, this day was always hard for the poor girl. The anniversary of her father’s death was hard for us all, yet for her, it was unbearable. Today marked ten years. Ten years of fits of rage, irrationality, and imagined situations so wild it sent my other sister hiding in her room until it was over. The former’s howl-like cries had echoed through the manor as she spewed falsehoods. This was not how we would have expected to celebrate our nineteenth birthdays. Though, without a dowry and barely a shilling to our names, being out in society was an impossibility. The addition of my stepsister being so tormented all but eliminated any chance of suitors for us.

“Please, come inside. It is getting cold out here,” I called softly to her from the French doors that opened to the unruly brambles. The leaded glass windows had already started to frost. She paid me no heed as she drifted through the patch of overgrown, ripening squash.

Her vacant, glazed eyes barely registered me as I approached.

“But the ball is not over yet. It’s not midnight. Until midnight, she said I can dance until midnight,” she responded absently, her voice nearly childlike in its tone, her shapely build a mismatch to her voice.

“Who said?”

“The magical woman who gave me this beautiful dress,” she answered, as she lifted the vine and shredded sides of her cotton frock.

“Ella, please come in.”

She froze mid-turn. Her eyes flashed as she shot her now-sharp gaze to me. “I told you,” she hissed, baring gleaming, long canines in a sudden feral display. Her piercing sight honed in on my bare neck. I retreated a step as I gasped. She started to advance, stalking with predatory, wolf-like intent. The next moment, she was upon me, those bright teeth ready and scraping my skin. “How many times must I tell you, my name is Cinderella.”