Dearest Cinderella (2 page)

I commend your beautiful
illustrations. Might I ask who it was and what grievous act they
committed against you to incite such cruel punishment?

He smiled to himself and
carefully put the book back in its place with the pen, taking care
of the way he hid it unlike the author. From the penmanship he
suspected the author to be a female. He supposed that he'd never
know the answer to his question, it wasn't likely that she'd keep
her diary in the same spot now with the knowledge that her hiding
place was compromised. Prince Mark led his men through a few more
drills before leading them away and back into the kingdom where he
continued, to his slight vexation, to think about that ugly drawing
and the detail poured into that poor pig. During dinner he found
himself smiling and when they all sat down to listen to Marius
Darle, a renowned composer who'd travelled specifically from
Germany to perform in front of the king, he couldn't stop his mind
from wandering back to that tree and imagining her reaction to his
words. He hoped she would reply but logic reminded him that he was
being fanciful and that certainly wasn't a desired trait of the
future king.

The next morning, when
Cinderella arrived at the tree at the same hour as every day
before, her heart stopped as she noticed the way the soil covered
the burrow. There was something different that she couldn't quite
recognise, this was confirmed when she read the alien words on the
next blank page. She paused for a moment,

"Surely not..." She studied the
handwriting, was it possible that she'd forgotten writing those two
sentences? She asked herself. "What an odd thing to write to
myself." She didn't write anything in her journal that day, instead
she penned a hesitant reply.

I so hope that I have been
forgetful and it was indeed I who penned the words above, but in
the unlikely case that I am in fact mistaken, then I would like to
inform you that you are being dreadfully rude. It is impolite to
read another woman's journal.

She tore the page out of her
journal and dropped it alone into the hole. If indeed there was
some mad person going around and writing in other peoples journals
then she'd rather them not be able to read all of her thoughts for
a second time. Cinderella quickly hurried home to hide the journal
before the house woke up. She was not so fortunate; waiting on the
doorstep was one of her two twin sisters.

"Where have you been?" asked
Rebecca, her sharp voice mirroring that of her mother's
perfectly.

"Just buying some eggs from the
village to break our fast," Cinderella said, uttering the first
thing that dashed into her head.

"Where are they?" Cinderella
looked down at the ground, berating herself for coming up with such
a silly excuse.

"I forgot them." The look of
suspicion on Rebecca's face was her answer as she turned on the
spot and strutted into the house, seemingly having decided that it
wasn't worth her time. Cinderella groaned and walked through the
house behind her, straight to the kitchen where she picked up the
eggs she'd bought the previous day.

"Fool, fool, fool," she muttered
under her breath as she stored her diary in the cabinet above the
fridge, behind some boxes. She wet her fingertips at the dripping
tap and patted her hot cheeks. As she went about making food her
head swam with embarrassment. Embarrassment over someone coming
across her utmost personal thoughts, reading about her and her
letters, flicking through her drawings. She wondered who it might
be, how they'd even found her diary, why they'd been in the forest.
There were many questions that she couldn't answer for herself. The
most important one, who were they and would they use the
information in her diary against her? The next morning, earlier
than usual, Cinderella hurried to her tree to see whether the
mystery person had replied to her. Her heart beat in her throat as
she dug her piece of paper out from the soil and read.

CHAPTER

TWO

His royal highness, Prince Mark,
was acting very strange. Over breakfast, of which he ate very
quickly, he didn't utter a word. His eyes, they observed, seemed
very eager. After breakfast, when one of the royal carriages had
been drawn, he travelled to the stables where he took one of his
many horses and rode into the woods. He wondered, as his horse drew
closer to the tree, why he was taken so by the diary and whether it
would still be there. Indeed, whether the author might have even
seen his reply. He dug through the soil and to his dismay could not
find the diary. At the bottom of the hole however, sat a single
dirty and crumpled sheet of paper. He unfolded the paper to find a
small message written at the top of the page. It hadn't occurred to
him that she might assume she'd written the message. Perhaps he
should have signed his name. He laughed at the thought, if she'd
been upset over the idea of another finding her journal he could
only image her reaction to finding out her future King had read
it.

"Clever girl," he muttered under
his breath when he realised that she'd taken the diary with her and
left the pen.

Mark read over the words several
times before sitting next to the tree to process them. Two facts
immediately presented themselves. The author was a female and she
most certainly was not pleased. Mark drummed his index and
forefinger against his thigh as he considered how he should reply
before settling on something and placing the led on the paper. He
wrote,

I apologise for my rudeness, it
was very ungentlemanly of me. Please accept my humblest apologies.
If it is to be any consolation I assure you that I only glanced
briefly when I happened to be assaulted by your drawing. At which
point I was compelled to congratulate you on your mastery of the
art. Tell me, what situation could lead a woman to hide her diary
in the woods?

The Prince returned the paper to
the tree and lent against it once more, tilting his head up to the
sky. He stayed there for an hour, watching the clouds slowly drift
across the sky behind the branches of the tree. He told himself
that he was reluctant to return to the castle because of the girl,
that she might return and they could meet. On some level it might
have been true, but if he was honest the Prince was more eager to
avoid his mother and father. As of last month, when he'd turned
five and twenty, they'd been berating him to find a Princess. The
task of finding a girl suited to becoming the future queen was one
that Mark did not relish nor did he particularly care to hurry. A
conversation didn't go by without their constant reminder that he
was the heir and needed to secure the royal line. He could see the
disappointment in their eyes. Every time they asked him to host a
ball, he would stand in the corner and watch as others conversed
joyously around him. When a female with enough courage asked him to
dance he would of course grant one to her, but there was a limit to
how long he could fake cordiality before his family noticed. The
Prince had no tolerance for prancing about, pretending to have fun,
when he found nothing remotely amusing about dancing and balls in
general. Try as he might to hide it from his parents, he was more
than aware of his failure as a Prince and a son.

The next morning Cinderella
hesitantly unfolded the piece of paper, expecting only her hand
writing to grace the paper. To her astonishment she found the
Prince's words. Anger filled her at the conformation of another, a
gentlemen no less, or so he promised, reading her utmost personal
thoughts. She wanted to hit him, how dare he read her journal. Oh,
he assured her that he'd only seen the drawing, but what could she
trust of a rascal who breached her privacy so? Immediately, several
scathing retorts appeared in her head and begged to be written but
she reigned herself in and searched for the pen so that she might
compose a more formal yet still rightfully scathing answer.

A situation that I can assure
you merits none of your interest, nor attention, whatsoever. Who
may I ask are you? Or shall I just continue calling you the fiend
from the woods?

Post script: I can assure you
that the subject of my drawing deserved her portrayal. I cannot say
the same for the pig however.

With that, she left the letter
to begin her day. On the way home she found, to her utter dismay,
that chatting with her mystery stranger was rather invigorating. It
wasn't just the idea of communicating with someone who wasn't after
their dinner or mending clothes. Nor was it that someone was
replying when she wrote letters now, it was the hope of friendship
apart from her life. Something hers that her stepmother could not
control. The question, however, was whether the man in the letters
was to be trusted. Had he been telling the truth about only seeing
the drawing? Surely the temptation would be great. It occurred to
her that he'd asked her a question of which she might have replied
with the exact same question. What situation could lead a woman to
hide her diary in the woods? What kind of situation would lead a
gentleman into the woods? The forest could be dangerous to those
who didn't know its paths and features. He must have been well
acquainted with it to remember the old oak. Cinderella deduced that
he must be a local, for they were the only ones who ventured into
the forest, without a veritable army, to ensure they made it back
out before night fall. At night the forest was a completely
different place, filled with all sorts of fearsome creatures that
slept during the day so that they might cause absolute havoc in the
night. Cinderella wondered, as she set about making breakfast for
the house, whether she might have met the fiend from the forest.
Perhaps he was a gentleman from in town; there were many noble
families just east of the forest that could easily venture into it.
Maybe he was one of the royal family's many diplomats and advisors.
She spent the rest of a day in a fanciful daze, wondering what he
looked like. Was he very old or too young? Did he have a belly or
was he balding? Was he even a gentleman as he'd promised?
Cinderella acknowledged that even if he wasn't, she was in no
position to judge what with the lies surrounding her birth and her
living situation. She smiled at the idea of him, on the other side
of town, maybe in a quaint little town house, wondering who she was
and asking the same types of questions.

Cinderella had one thing
correct, he was thinking of her but he was far from living in a
small quaint town house. The castle amassed a small town of itself
and currently the Prince sat in one of the many sitting rooms in
the front of the palace being berated by his mother over his lack
of social and romantic life.

"Mother please, let us not
rehearse the same argument" he sat on the chaise lounge tapping his
fingers against his thigh and fixing his mother with a look of
utter boredom. Indeed it was an argument they'd long rehearsed. The
lines never wavered, not did the plot ever change.

"But where are you friends,
Marcus? You used to be so talkative in your youth, what
happened?"

"Mother, I'm only five and
twenty, hardly far out of my youth."

"Your father and I won't always
be here, a king cannot rule by himself, he needs someone by his
side. I cannot bare the idea of you ruling alone." Tears sprung in
her eyes as she gazed down at her only son, her lonely son who had
everything she could have provided him but was still unhappy. He
masked it well, always keeping a strict facade of indifference.
Mark stood up, noticing his mother’s state, and went to sit by her
on her own sofa. He took her hand in his to comfort her and
whispered so that only she could hear it. The servants turned their
faces away to give them privacy.

"I will try harder, I promise."
She patted his hand over her own and smiled up at him.

"I love you dearly my son."

"And I you."

"Your father is holding a ball
in your honor to mark your birthday, he will invite every eligible
female in the country and royalty from others. I expect you to
choose a bride."

"Mother-"

"Please Marcus, for me." He
sighed deeply and leaned against the back of the couch and
said,

"I will consider it."

CHAPTER

THREE

There were very little things in
life that surprised Cinderella, granted, the constant religion of
her day left little room for surprises. Welcome or otherwise. What
did surprise her, however, came in the morning. On her way to the
oak tree, diary in hand, prepared to bury the book under another
tree, she intercepted the mail upon its way to the mailbox. She
thanked the man, handing him a shilling and returned to the house
to deposit the letters on the bannister. As she ascended the steps
she read through the letters until she paused at one addressed to
herself. How could it be? She asked herself as she opened the
envelope and slipped a small ornately decorated and expensive
looking sheet of paper out. Her eyes scanned the words excitedly as
she read;

You are cordially invited to
attend the Kings ball in celebration of Prince Marcus' twenty-sixth
birthday
.

It was to be held at the palace
and looked to be a very grand affair indeed. The prospect of
dancing in a beautiful dress among all the lords of the land filled
Cinderella with such excitement and joy that she almost forgot for
a second the complication her family would create. After she'd left
the rest of the correspondence inside, Cinderella departed, diary
and invitation in hand, in a very good mood. She reached the tree
and opened the envelope hesitantly, still expecting to find only
her own words. She was mistaken again. Cursive filled the rest of
the page,

I'm sure they justly deserved
the illustration. I can only hope that I never do anything bad
enough to warrant my own drawing. You may call me Jon, might I
enquire after your own name though I know it would not be entirely
proper, but what part of our correspondence is? My mother has
recently made it clear to me that I do not interact with people the
way I ought. I apologise again for looking through your journal,
might we turn another leaf, as they say?