Anastasia and Drizella didn’t seem to have any idea, either, but they nervously tittered along.
“You couldn’t have possibly managed to go to the ball in that. Whom did you steal from?”
“What?” Cinderella blustered, stunned. She bit her lip, trying to calm herself, but her voice shook. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Lady Tremaine sniffed. “The gown, the earrings, the carriage—the glass slippers.”
Drizella was the first to react. “Her? It couldn’t have been her.”
“Mother!” chimed in Anastasia with crossed arms. “She’s the girl with the glass slipper? You can’t be serious.”
“Indeed.” Lady Tremaine’s icy gaze did not leave Cinderella. “It seems we’ve all underestimated her. But she has made a grave error.” She raised a commanding hand to her daughters. “Search the room.”
“No!”
Cinderella lurched to stop her stepsisters, but they were too fast. Drizella pushed her away, nearly throwing her against the wall. In a wild frenzy, the two tore apart Cinderella’s bed, pulling off the sheets and grabbing the scissors on her dresser to slash through the mattress.
Despite her determination to stay calm, Cinderella panicked. The scene was an echo of the prior night, when her stepsisters had ripped apart her dress—her mother’s dress that she had remade—broken her green bead necklace, and cruelly tormented her until she had burst into tears. Every time she thought she was strong enough to endure their malice, they found new ways of hurting her.
She couldn’t let them find the glass slipper. It was all she possessed of her time at the ball—the only reminder of a rare, treasured moment of happiness. The only thing that could actually help her obtain a new life.
“Stop, please!” cried Cinderella, trying to pry the scissors from Anastasia’s hands.
“Mother!” Anastasia yelled.
Cold fingers encircled Cinderella’s wrist, sharp nails digging into her skin. As her stepmother dragged her back, Cinderella’s eyes widened with alarm.
Drizella had found the missing glass slipper.
“You were right!” she shrieked. “Mother, this is—”
Lady Tremaine extended her hand. “Give it here.”
Before Drizella could obey, Cinderella twisted out of her stepmother’s grip and scooped up the slipper.
Her stepmother’s face darkened. “Cinderella, give me the slipper.”
“No.”
“At once, Cinderella.”
Cinderella didn’t budge. The royal proclamation had stated that the prince would marry the girl who fit the glass slipper he had found at the ball. If she gave hers to Lady Tremaine, Anastasia or Drizella would claim it, bring it to the palace, and lie to the king that they had danced with the prince. Even if he didn’t recognize the women—which, surely, he wouldn’t—it would be a powerful bargaining tool.
Firmly, she repeated, “No.”
“Very well, then,” said her stepmother, strangely calm. “Drizella, Anastasia.”
Coming from both sides of the room, the sisters lunged for her, and Cinderella’s mind reeled with panic. She couldn’t let them have the slipper. As they tore at her, shouting, “Give it here!” Cinderella suddenly knew what she had to do.
Mustering as much strength as she could, she raised the glass slipper high above her head, watching the iridescent glass catch the light outside and sparkle like diamonds.
Then she flung it at the wall.
It shattered into a thousand pieces.
Drizella shouted, “Look what you’ve done!”
Breathing hard, Cinderella barely heard her stepsister. The sight of her shattered slipper stung, and a sharp ache rose to her chest. The shoe had been her key to finding the young man from the ball again, to making a new life for herself outside Lady Tremaine’s domain. Now that it was no more . . .
Cinderella gritted her teeth. Now that it was no more, her stepmother couldn’t use it to her advantage.
“Mother!” Anastasia cried. “How could she?”
“I don’t understand how she got the glass slipper in the first place—”
“Silence!” Lady Tremaine cut in. Then her voice became lethally soft. “Girls, step outside, please.”
“But, Mother!”
“I will not repeat myself.”
In a huff, Drizella and Anastasia paraded out of the room and shut the door. Once they were gone, Lady Tremaine stepped over the pile of glass shards and regarded Cinderella with an icy gaze.
“So. You lied to me.”
“Stepmother, you can’t possibly think that I stole—”
“I don’t care where you got the dress or the shoes,” Lady Tremaine interrupted. “Or how you managed to go to the ball.” Her pale green eyes narrowed. “You have overstepped your place for the last time. Look at yourself—you are nothing. An orphan and a servant. Who would want you? Certainly not His Royal Highness.”
The words cut deep, and Cinderella struggled to keep her tone steady. “I—I’m my father’s daughter. Your stepdaughter. I’m a member of this family.”
Her stepmother gave a hollow laugh. “A member of this family? Your imagination is to be commended if you truly believe that.”
Cinderella’s lip quivered. “Why do you hate me so much?”
“Hate you?” Disbelief, then amusement glittered in Lady Tremaine’s eyes. “What makes you think you’re worthy of my consideration, let alone hatred?”
“But—”
“Have I ever beaten you, Cinderella? Or starved you, or publicly shamed you? That’s what they do to girls at the orphanage.”
Mutely, Cinderella shook her head.
“I locked you here because you were deceitful. You lied to me and my daughters.”
“I never lied,” Cinderella argued, gathering her courage. “At every turn, I’ve done what you have asked. I’ve cleaned, I’ve cooked, and I’ve never complained. All I wanted was for you to think of me as one of your daughters—”
“How could I think of you as a daughter of mine?” Lady Tremaine barked. Calming herself, she went on, “Until the day I met you, you’d never done a day’s work. Do you remember what you said to your father?
“ ‘Papa! You brought me a mother.’ ” Her stepmother scowled. “As if I were a thing to be brought, an object to be shopped for.”
Cinderella did remember. In her joy at seeing Lady Tremaine, the words had gushed out of her mouth. She hadn’t meant them as an insult. “I was happy to meet you. I didn’t mean—”
“I remember how you looked down on my daughters. You, with your fine dresses and music lessons. Your riding clothes and flowers and little songs for the birds and that dog.” Lady Tremaine scoffed. “The first thing you did was mock me and embarrass my daughters in front of your father.”
“I didn’t—”
“Of course you didn’t know. You presume ignorance is innocence. I’ve had to build my life from nothing. Give my daughters a place in this society. But you, you scoffed at our old clothes and Drizella’s teeth, Anastasia’s hair.”