*
It’s like a flow of sparkling, scarlet waters.
Of the blood of angels.
Its snakes through the air towards the waiting slipper, melding with it; becoming the part of the slipper that cups the foot’s heel.
The part that at last completes the slipper.
I’m still expecting the Luminous Lady to pull a trick on us.
But still she simply smiles elatedly.
She stares in unfeigned reverence at the gorgeously resplendent slipper in her hand.
Every colour there could possibly be reflects everywhere about it.
‘Perfect,’ the Luminous Lady mutters, awestruck. ‘It’s perfect – in every way!’
I frown.
There’s something about the colours.
Something is missing.
A colour; although I’m not quite sure which one it could be.
It’s a colour that, oddly; well, it doesn’t exist.
Not really.
Not in this world, anyhow.
And yet – it’s supposed to exist.
I’m not sure why I think that; it’s just a sense that–
‘No, wait! It’s not perfect,’ I cry.
*
Chapter 26
The Luminous Lady looks back towards me as if she thinks I might possibly be just a little crazy.
‘There’s a piece missing,’ I declare with a confidence that takes even me by surprise, adding with a nod of my head towards the glass shoe, ‘From the slipper, I mean.’
I thought I’d better add that in case she thought I was the one with a piece missing.
The Luminous Lady smiles like you would smile at an overly anxious child.
‘Oh, the rim, you mean?’ she says; which is particularly strange, as I hadn’t meant the rim of the slipper at all.
I just had this weird sense that the slipper wasn’t complete.
But now that she mentions it, I see that the slipper does indeed have a slightly chipped rim.
In fact, it’s the missing slice of glass that had whipped off my toe when that idiot servant of father’s had tried to force it on to my foot too quickly.
So it’s still missing!
All this searching for all the pieces, and I hadn’t thought of looking for the missing section responsible for my portrayal in the story as a cheat.
The Luminous Lady seems remarkably unconcerned that the slipper isn’t complete after all, even after she has sacrificed her seer’s cup.
‘It’s not one piece,’ she says assuredly. ‘It’s millions of slivers, all infinitesimally small; otherwise, how would it be possible for each and everyone of us to possess a grain of compassion within us? And, unfortunately, it is only that small sliver that connects us all.’
Apsara said she had felt a connection with the lady sitting by the Mirror of What Might Be: is that what she meant? A link brought into life by the presence of the dagger and the mirror?
And what of me? Hadn’t I also sensed that the witch and her cat were one and the same, once they’d each eaten a piece of my finger?
Was that a similar experience?
Though it’s hard to see what compassion has to do with this overly large shoe.
‘I still think anyone turning up at a ball wearing that would look like a kid trying on mum’s shoes,’ I say, if for no other reason than to cover my brief period of musing. ‘I mean, any girl could have ended up marrying the prince if it had been this size!’
‘Oh, it shrinks to fit,’ the Luminous Lady says dismissively.
Of course, Apsara, gives me a stern ‘See, I told you’ glare.
‘It also becomes a pair, naturally,’ the Luminous Lady continues. ‘And will instantly garb you in clothes more becoming of the world’s most gorgeous slippers.’
‘But…wasn't that all down to the Fairy Godmother?’ I ask.
‘You believe in fairytales?’ The Luminous Lady manages to say it as if, once again, she’s talking to a particularly immature child.
‘Well, not everything in them, admittedly,’ I reply ashamedly. ‘But I did think that bit–’
‘Was true?’ She titters a little, I’m sure. ‘Only partially.’
‘But if it really contains so much power – well, then why is it a shoe?’ Apsara wisely asks, managing without even trying to make my own comments appear even more stupid and childish.
‘You know, you really should pay more attention to your legends rather than fairytales,’ the Luminous Lady answers, but this time with a tempering, good-natured chuckle. ‘It’s the Silver – silver was just a term to describe it before the ancients were aware of glass – Sandal of Shala, Goddess of Grain and Compassion.’
‘Hmm, it’s hardly a sandal,’ I point out before I can bite my tongue and stop myself from saying something else that will turn out to be ridiculously stupid.
Wouldn't you know it, the Luminous Lady stares first at me and then at the slipper as if I’ve just once again proven that I’m the oddest person every to grace this planet.
‘Isn’t it?’ she says, closely observing the slipper as if, to her, it is indeed a sandal, and I’m some fool who imagines it to be something else.
Why do I feel such a buffoon in front of this woman?
‘Obviously,’ she says graciously, ‘it appears as you wish or expect to see it; which is indeed a facet of its powers. And to think; it hasn’t been seen whole like this for thousands of years!’
Hah!
Now who’s the one who should be paying more attention to fairytales?
‘Actually,’ I say, utilising the most magnanimous tones I can muster, ‘it was whole up until, oh, just a short while back now.’
‘Didn’t I say you pay too much attention to fairy tales?’ she titters. ‘This is the original; the one that will make the prince fall in love with the belle of his ball. And so, thank you for your help in bringing this to me.’
She slips her hand into the ‘sandal’.
And then she vanishes.
*
Chapter 27
‘Where’d she go?’
‘Back in time, I suppose,’ Apsara says sagely, frowning intently as she tries to make sense of everything that has just happened. ‘Don't you see? You were right about it refracting time!’
‘She said this was the original slipper…’
‘So she’s gone back in time…’
I slap my forehead hard, wishing I could knock more sense into my stupid brains.
‘You mean we’ve just helped Cinderella become queen?’
Apsara nods.
‘That woman; she’s the Fairy Godmother!’
‘Why us? Why’d she need us to bring her the slipper?’
Apsara shrugs.
‘Maybe her powers are limited? Maybe it’s just sheer chance that we set all this in motion, by bringing all the pieces together?’
‘Or, maybe – you know, the book? The Glass Kingdom? Maybe, you know, she’s gone back in time to place that amongst my things! Making sure I’d bring the slipper to her!’
Apsara pauses to think about this.
‘The question is though: why you? Why did she need you to do it?’
‘Connections again?’ I say brightly. ‘Cinderella’s in my father’s castle…so…er…’
‘Still doesn't really make sense, does it?’
‘Then we have to stop…no, wait! Do we have to stop her?’
I’m suddenly filled with doubt.
I quite like the way I’ve turned out, to be honest.
I like who I am – and I never really did before, truth be told.
All that bowing to people who visited the castle.
All that ‘preparing for marriage to a suitable suitor’.
I mean, I would be okay with getting married as long as I had the upper hand: know what I mean?
Like, I wouldn’t even mind marrying that dopey prince if it meant that as queen I had real power around here.
Power to make changes.
&nb
sp; And you know what?
This Queen Cinderella, whoever she is – well, she seems to have managed that.
Yeah, I’ve got to give her that.
Apsara has politely waited while I pondered this.
She smiles, like she can tell from my expression what decision I’ve come to.
‘But your parents? The story?’ she asks, taking on the role of Devil’s advocate.
‘Well, it is just a story,’ I say resignedly.
*
There are no longer any servants around to either help or hinder us as we step outside of the palace.
The blood-red glow of the palace walls shines everywhere about us, as if we’d been caught up in the midst of the most fabulously crimson sunset.
I spin around on my heels to take another admiring look at this magnificent building.
And the strange thing is, the palace is far more magnificent than ever.
*
Chapter 28
The towers stretch so high, it’s impossible to see where they end, the glow of sunlight and glittering gems being too bright for your eyes to put up with for too long.
The rubies have been enhanced with delicate patterns of other precious stones, one tower having been graced with spiralling coils of sapphires, another with more frond-like curls of emeralds.
It really is quite, quite beautiful.
When I turn away to look back towards the land, however, I can immediately see how it has all been paid for.
The rolling, cultivated fields we had passed through only moments before are full of bedraggled people of all ages being worked hard by uncaring overseers. Here and there I can see that there are new growths that have spouted up from the soil; crucifixes and gallows, bearing the wracked bodies of those who had no doubt attempted resistance.
‘Something’s gone badly wrong,’ I say, doubtlessly unnecessarily as Apsara couldn’t have failed to see the change that has occurred.
She grimaces, even as she reaches once again into that damn bag of hers
‘This isn’t how the story told it, you mean?’ she says bitterly.
I’m not expecting what she produces from her bag.
It's the Glass Slipper.
*
Chapter 29
The Glass Slipper isn’t as large as the one we just lost.
Neither is it quite as small as the one I remember being asked to try on.
‘Let me guess!’ I exclaim excitedly. ‘You managed to swap the slippers?’
It abruptly dawns on me that swapping the slippers might not be such a good idea after all.
‘No, wait! That would mean you’re responsible for all this?’
Apsara shakes her head.
‘No, I’m not responsible for all this!’ she snaps irately. ‘And I didn’t swap the slippers!’
‘But if you’ve had this all along…then why the heck did we spend all that time creating another?’
‘It’s not the real one!’ Apsara says. ‘Besides, I wasn’t sure why I had it.’
‘To sell in your shop, maybe?’ I irately sneer.
Why has she been hiding this from me?
‘Of course not! I mean, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it. I didn’t have it until I made that connection with the lady sitting in front of the mirror.’
‘The slivers! Along with you touching the dagger, and the mirror, that’s why you had a connection her!’
‘Possibly,’ she says, turning the wonderfully glowing slipper around in her hand. ‘However it worked, she somehow told me I had to take this copy; but she either didn’t have time, of didn’t want to tell me why!’
‘Then – we can use it to go back in time? To stop the Luminous Lady, or the Fairy Godmother, or whoever she is, causing all this?’
With an airy wave of a hand, I indicate the impoverished labourers working the land.
‘Did you see how she did it? How she used it?’ Apsara asks, continuing to curiously study the slipper as she turns it around in her hands.
I frown, trying to recall how the Luminous Lady had handled the slipper before she’d vanished.
‘She just sort of held it; and then vanished,’ I say.
‘No clue there, then,’ Apsara replies dejectedly, hesitating slightly as she prepared to slip her hand into the shoe. ‘Maybe she just placed her hand in – no, that doesn’t work.’
She glanced about her, as if she had been expecting to be transported somewhere else.
‘Your foot, maybe?’ I say. ‘That is what you’re supposed to do with a shoe, after all.’
‘And she did say it shrinks to fit,’ Apsara agrees, with maybe the merest hint of ‘told you so’.
‘It won’t fit me,’ I point out. ‘It’s up to you to try it on.’
She’s already slipping a foot out of her own bedraggled footwear. She leans on my shoulder as she places the slipper on to her foot.
‘We’d better be touching anyway, in case it does work,’ she says.
It doesn’t work.
Where still standing here. With Apsara wearing an odd, higher shoe; one that, despite its reasonably small size, is still big on her dainty foot.
‘I feel like a twelve year old trying on mummy’s shoes,’ she says miserably.
‘Just like I said,’ I say.
‘You know, I don’t think this copy can be magical, come to think of it,’ she adds more dejectedly than ever.
‘What makes you think that? Apart from that your standing here wearing an odd shoe?’
‘It’s taken from the mirror, isn’t it?’ she says as she slips out of the glass shoe, slips on her own, older shoe. ‘Which means it lacks a dimension; the very dimension we were hoping to use.’
‘Time?’
She nods.
‘Although, maybe because the real slipper has such control over time, that’s maybe why I could retrieve a copy of it from the mirror; you know, potentially it could exist anywhere, and at any time.’ She holds the slipper in her hand once more. ‘But this is a copy that is itself timeless.’
‘So what use is it to us if–’
I stop, listening out to the crash of hooves on the road leading to the palace.
The hounds have heard it too, rising to their feet.
It’s a large squadron of the king’s men, galloping towards us at full pelt.
‘Halt, halt in the name of the Queen’s Men!’ the officer at their head hollers out to us.
*
Chapter 30
It’s not as if we could escape if we tried.
The soldiers are far too close, riding far too fast.
We’re not even mounted.
Amongst the rapidly approaching riders, there’s also a gleaming coach. The Queen’s Coach, albeit now far more resplendent than I remember it being before.
It’s so weighed down with jewels and gold, it requires a team of what must be twenty of the finest horses I’ve ever seen.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Apsara slip the glass shoe into the layers of her blouse; thankfully, it’s small enough for her to hide it there.
That’s how she must have taken it from the tower without me seeing it.
We make no signs of resistance as we’re surrounded by the Royal Troops. Following our lead, the hounds don’t protest either, even as the riders warily gather about them, containing them within a corralling of tightly packed horses.
Despite the gleaming lances lowered towards them, the riders would present no problems for the hounds, or for Bess; but thankfully they retrain what must be their instincts to attack, to flow through the ring of soldiers as if they weren’t actually there, for they don’t wish to draw attention to their special natures.
A handful of troops urge their mounts to trot closer to us, lowering their lances as they approach, pressing the sharp blades of the lance-ends close up against my back, my chest.
Obviously, they regard me as being more of a threat than Apsara.
She’s just a sweet little girl, after all
.
All their wary attention is directed at me, while she’s just about ignored.
The officer who had commanded us to halt leans forward triumphantly in his saddle.
‘You’re under arrest, for sedition against the Crown!’
*
The ring of riders surrounding Apsara and myself is much larger than the one corralling the hounds and horses.
A section of the ring diligently opens up, allowing the entrance of the now more languidly moving coach. The drivers of the coach pull it to a halt such that the door is directly facing us.
Gaily liveried servants leap down from the back, one dropping a set of steps into place as another opens the door.
The queen alights.
I’ve never met Queen Cinderella, so I’ve no idea what she looks like.
However, I can definitely say this isn’t Queen Cinderella.
Yes, she’s dressed in the most regal of robes.
But this queen is the woman I’ve previously called the Luminous Lady, or the Fairy Godmother.
‘The missing piece!’ she rages as she furiously charges towards us, waving the slipper before her such that it sparkles in the light. ‘I want the missing piece!’
*
Chapter 31
The slipper is smaller than when she’d taken it off us, having now been worn by Cinderella of course.
And yet, no: it’s not as small as I remember it, not when I was asked to try it on.
It’s the same size, in fact, as Apsara’s useless copy of it.
‘You checked it; you said it was perfect!’ I point out, not a little bewildered by the Luminous Lady’s insistence that a piece is missing.
Yes, now she holds it up close to me, I can indeed see that the rim remains chipped.
But that’s exactly how it looked when she’d taken it off us, when she’d carefully inspected it.
What’s her problem?
‘It’s been worn,’ Apsara says firmly, determinedly stepping forward to take the slipper from the woman’s furiously trembling hand and more closely inspect it. ‘You can’t return it.’
‘Of course it's been worn!’ the Luminous Lady storms. ‘That’s how I know a piece is missing! It allows me to go back in time – but not forwards! That’s why I’ve had to wait all this time before I could arrest you two scoundrels!’