Cinderella’s Sister
My step-sister, Cinderella,
is tall, has golden hair and narrow feet, whereas I am small, dark, and large-boned.
When I am old, I shall have a toothless grin; I’ll look like my mother, who
died last week. Cinderella and I have both lost our mothers, and I feel her
sadness now as my own.
She is the older sister, but
she never took care of me. I suppose I should understand how difficult it is
for a girl to look after her younger sister when she wants to play ball with
her fiends, excuse me, friends. Or when she wants to gather berries in the
forest, or maybe kill a pig.
Each of us has been given a
few chickens to watch, but she is not good at that, so I do it for her. And
still she does not love me: she wants to go to dances, to eat white bread, to
dress up in gauzy gowns, to ride in a gilded coach with four horses. What will
become of her?
Perhaps she will move in with
me when I marry. Donald has proposed marriage. He is only a little stupid. He’s
hard-working, kind, owns a farm, wants to stay here always. I am happy to stay
here and take care of Father, whose cough is worse. Cinderella yearns to travel
to cities and palaces. I wish I wanted more, but I’m a homespun girl, whereas
she is silk and roses. She rapped on my bedroom door this morning and brought
me a violet for my hair. I was embroidering a pillowcase with flowers and the
motto “Forever Love.” She begged me not to tell Father that she was walking
into town, where she was going to dance with a charming boy.
I heard Father coughing.
Perhaps he caught what Mother had. I decided to make a soup for him, carried up
potatoes and carrots from our cellar; I would slice them later. I would kill a
chicken and make a broth.
I was barefoot and stumbled
as I chased my smallest chicken. I should never have named her Goldie; now it’s
harder. I decided to use an ax because I did not want to touch Goldie to wring
her neck. I placed her small body on the stump in our yard, and I held her with
my foot, while I brought the ax down on the neck. Goldie squawked and trembled,
and my ax chopped off my little toe.
I howled to the deep forest,
but it did not answer. I fell to the ground and wrapped my foot in leaves. I
hobbled into the house. My father woke up and embraced me. He said he would
rush to get the herbal woman to come look at my wound. I joked that now I would
fit into Cinderella’s narrow shoes. The tears streamed down his face. He shook
his head and patted my cheek. He really does love me.
CP
Cezarija Abartis' Nice Girls and Other Stories was published
by New Rivers Press. Her stories have appeared in Monkeybicycle, Wigleaf, and New
York Tyrant, among others. One of her flashes was included in Wigleaf's Top 50. Recently she completed a novel, a thriller. She teaches
at St. Cloud State University. Her website is
http://magicmasterminds.com/cezarija/
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