3 Wishes

Chapter VII: Prince Edmond

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This, by the way, was not an exaggeration. Along with a couple of scullery maids and a kitchen boy, I washed dishes, swept floors, laundered clothes, set them out to dry, helped prepare lunch, washed more dishes, ironed clothes, and churned butter. I also shoveled ashes out of the fireplaces and did my best to clean the chimney. That was my job alone, and by the time I was done with it, my hands, arms, face, and hair were smeared with greasy soot. The stepsisters breezed into the manor while I did that job to watch me and comment on my appearance.

"I rather like her hair black," the tall one said. "It matches her complexion quite well."

The plump one gave me a simpering smile. "Fine ladies always powder their faces. Ella uses cinders—that's why she's our cinder-ella."

I mostly ignored them whenever they were around. During the day, they did nothing as far as I could tell, except steal some candles from the cupboard, light them, and then take them out behind the barn, where they played guess-whose-straw-will-burn-quickest. I'm serious. Then they moved on to twigs, pinecones, and beetles. They spent most of the afternoon igniting things. This apparently is what hoodlum teenagers did back before street corners were invented.

While I worked I sent whispered pleading messages to Cherly and worried that my parents were panicked about my disappearance. She never answered.

The second day was worse. Not only did I have the same chores, but I also had to clean the garderobes, which is a fancy way of saying outhouses. I couldn't bathe—and trust me, I needed to after cleaning the garderobes—because unfortunately no one had had the sense to invent indoor plumbing yet. All I had was a bowl of water, a rag, and a hard, scratchy, foul-smelling block of something that they told me was soap, but it didn't resemble any soap I'd ever seen. They gave me a threadbare dress to wear and a pair of flimsy leather boots that didn't fit and smelled as though, their last owner had died while wearing them.

I learned that I lived in a land called Pampovilla and that my stepsisters were named Mathilda and Hildegard. When they weren't burning things they spent most of their time ordering me around. I hoped that one of the king's footmen would show up with the announcement of a ball. I counted on it, but no one visited.

Day three went about the same. The cook yelled at me as much as, if not more than, my stepfamily did—something. I might add, which has totally been overlooked in Grimm's version of the fairy tale. It should have been a story about the wicked stepmother, ugly pyromaniac stepsisters, and a trollish-looking short-tempered cook.

Day four was only made interesting by the fact that Mathilda—the brunette one—accidentally set her hair on fire. It involved a great deal of screaming on Mathilda's part, and it could have led to serious injury if I hadn't been nearby with a bucket of pig slop. I threw it over her head to douse the flames. As usual, she didn't appreciate my efforts on her behalf, I spent the night in my room without supper.

More days came and went by in a blur of chores. My back and arms ached from the workload. Where they weren't blistered, my hands became dry and chapped. I wanted to cry every morning when I woke up, stiff and itchy from my straw mattress.

By the third week, I missed my home, my parents, and my friends so intently that it felt like a thick stone had wedged itself in my chest. I longed for a hot bath. Electricity. American food. I even missed little things that I'd taken for granted before. Carpet. Clear drinking water. Cold milk. My tennis shoes.