Member-only story
Cinderella in Mourning
What happens when happily-ever-after is temporary?
Prince Charming died right after the stroke of midnight, barely moments into the morning of his third wedding anniversary to the beauty the kingdom had christened as Cinderella.
But Ella Morgenstern was no longer a scullery maid sequestered to the servants’ quarters in the household her father had cultivated in the years before sickness took him. Gone were the stepmother and stepsisters who had made Ella’s existence one of the nine circles of hell for ten years of her life. Away were the foggy memories of a mother who had loved her, a lullaby that had sustained her, and fantasies that had kept her going through the worst of it.
But now gone was her dear husband — Charmont, silly thing that he was with his whims and wiles — barely a trifle into the lifetime they were supposed to have shared.
Ella was the one to find him cold and unresponsive in their bed, and no amount of crying brought breath back to his lips.
The maids in the castle laid out beautiful garments the morning of the funeral. Black gowns — austere, cold, drab. Seeing the dark shades made Ella almost cry anew. They reminded her of the house — so long ago now, it felt — in the days after her father had passed.
