Dark Cinderella

“Have courage and be kind,” that’s what her mother had always told her. All her life Ella had tried to follow her mother’s advice, yet when met with the hurdles her step-family threw at her she struggled. She had endured all of their quips, including the horrible nickname they gave her- Cinderella. However, this was the last straw, the straw to break the camel’s back. Her mother’s dress, all that Ella had to really remember her by, was destroyed. Ripped to shreds by her “family,” it was all too hard for her to take.

She ran to the patio outside her estate and wept. She didn’t expect the tears to come so readily but her eyes flowed like rivers until she was quite out of breath. As she turned to go back into the house and try to occupy herself so as to forget momentarily about the disastrous night she noticed a small woman sitting behind her. “Excuse me, miss, could you perhaps help me? A crust of bread perhaps, or a bowl of milk?”

Being the person Ella was, not wanting others to suffer as she suffers, she obliged and got the woman a bowl of milk. The woman gulped it down quickly and without any manners whatsoever and then proceeded to thank Ella for her generosity.

“Thank you Ella.” The woman’s words felt strange to Ella and she realized the woman had addressed her by her first name.

“How do you know my name? Who are you?” Ella asked.

“I am your Faerie Godmother,” the old woman said, and with those words her old age and rags melted around her to reveal a stunning gown, made of silk as dark as the night sky and adorned with little gems like stars. This woman was obviously a faerie, but not the kind Ella had imagined in her childhood. This faerie was dark, twisted, and dangerously beautiful.

“You… you’re here to help me, aren’t you?”

“Of course, my child. Your family has treated you most horrendously and I am here to set things right.”

“Set things right?” Ella asked.

“You shall go to the ball,” the woman said, “in great style and those who call you Cinderella will pay for all they have done. You will outshine every woman at the ball and the prince will fall in love with you and marry you. It is my will as a Faerie Godmother that this becomes so and I will see to it personally that your step-family suffers dearly for their crimes.”

“No…” Ella muttered. “I will see to it that they suffer.”

This is what Ella had waited for her entire life. She had prayed and wished for her mother and father to rescue her, for anyone to rescue her, but no one came. She had eventually gave up hope and even gave up trying to live by her mother’s words “have courage and be kind.” No, Ella was not kind anymore. She was vengeful, and this Faerie Godmother had appeared in just the right moment. Together, the two women would take down the Tremaines and Ella would rule the kingdom for herself, ensuring that no one be subjected to the enslavement that she had to endure. She would see to it that no one in the entire world would suffer as she had. She was no longer Ella. Now, she was Cinderella. Not Cinderella for the cinders of the fire by which she slept, but Cinderella for the cinders of the bodies she would burn.