Chương 11: The Witch and the Raisin Thief

I could hear Cinderella's soft sobbing, so I followed the sound. She was out in the garden, laying her head on the stone bench and crying. I could see her clearly through the glass door. Cinderella rarely cried. Despite who she was, despite how she was treated every single day, I almost didn't remember her ever crying. Or getting angry, for that matter. No matter what stunt I, my sister, or my mother pulled, she would mostly just smile and obey kindly. If we pushed her, she'd sigh, and if we really pushed her...

well, she would cross her arms with an almost comical look. And sad? Yes, she got sad, but somehow she always became cheerful again in short order. And just as her smiles and laughter were enchanting, her crying too could break through the coldest, darkest of hearts. And yes, I would know, because I happen to possess exactly that particular type of heart. Watching her cry like this was really getting to me. And I didn't even like the girl! Well. Enough with the silly sentiment. Let's just watch.

She cried and sobbed, and also murmuring to herself. I could hear her, just barely.

"It's just no use," she sobbed.

"No use at all. I can't believe, not anymore. There's nothing left to believe in. Nothing." Yes, those were some sad words. But don't you worry, Cinderella, something good will happen very soon. If I were to guess, a young gentleman, who happened to be walking nearby, would hear her soft sobbing. He would jump over the fence and hold his hand out to her. She would be surprised, maybe scold him for his audacity, but he would say some charming words and she would smile.

And this gentleman would happen to have a fabulous spare dress and a carriage to give her a ride. But he couldn't dance with her at the ball, because... because… he is married! Come on, mysterious gentleman... Any moment now... Yes, that is what should have happened. But it didn't. Instead, it was something else entirely. At first, the leaves and plants began to sway wildly, caught in a sudden, unnatural gust of wind. Then came a small twinkle of light, glowing without any source, like a firefly. And then...

An old woman was there! I stopped looking and rubbed my eyes, hard. She was just... standing there with Cinderella! But she hadn't been there a second before! What... how?! I gasped. Stay quiet, you! Get a hold of yourself. Today I saw rodents and birds singing and tailoring a dress. By any reasonable right, this was the most maddening thing one could witness in a single day. But there she was: an old woman with white hair and blue robes, and they were talking. She pulled out some glistening, sparkling stick...

was she singing now? Then she did something with that stick, and one of the pumpkins in the garden walked over to them. It grew and grew, changing shape until it became the most gorgeous carriage I ever saw. By golly, I could swear the King himself, not even the Emperor, had anything that looked nearly as exquisite as this! And all of this only for Cinderella? A simple wooden carriage surely would have sufficed! Oh, but I wanted to ride in it!

Imagine arriving at a ball in that thing; it was bound to draw every eye. At this point, I didn't need much more in the way of clues. I knew what the old lady was. A witch! And the witch didn't finish with the carriage. She looked for something on the ground... it was hard to see. What, were the mice out there? They ran a bit, but she hit them with sparks of magic. As they slowly grew and grew, I saw it was indeed the mice, but... they were changing right before my eyes!

The three of them transformed into the most handsome, regal, white horses! Oh, what was even going on? There seemed to be a fourth mouse, and Lucifer was out there too, chasing it. Then, just as Lucifer jumped on the poor mouse, the mouse had already started to grow and grow until he too turned into a horse. So Lucifer was now standing on the back of a horse! That was hilarious! The horse shook poor Lucifer violently, throwing him right into the water fountain.

Lucifer shrieked and hissed, running away as fast as his wet little paws would allow. Then she did more magic and turned our old horse into... a coachman? And Bruno the dog into a footman, I presume? Oh, that was silly magic indeed. She could have just kept the horse a horse. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Then came the dress. And that was the most magical magic of all.

All sparkling and gleaming and shiny, Cinderella flew up, spinning, and that dress appeared—the one I remembered so well, the one that was talked about endlessly and enviously by every single lady who attended the ball. And the best part? The dress simply manifested right onto her! Which freed her from the unbelievable hassle of actually having to put the complicated garment on herself! So, this was the answer to the mystery.

And like every answer I've gotten these days, it just added a million other mysteries and questions! Why can't I have a simple, reasonable answer for once? So let me get this straight: poor ol' Cinderella is not only beautiful, graceful, and has a voice like an angel; not only commands every rodent and bird around to do her every bidding; but also, by Jove, has an old witch who makes magic and makes her wishes come true. That was simply too much. And not fair, not fair one bit.

Why, I didn't have any of these things! Ah, but I had the repeating days thing. I guess that counted for something. It seemed the magic was done now, all the sparkles and light and what not fading away. Cinderella hurried off to the carriage and departed for the ball, driving away in a trailing cloud of sparkling dust and radiant light. The witch waved goodbye and then just disappeared into thin air. Oh, but I really, really wanted to ride in that beautiful carriage, too!

And it looked like it had plenty of space for another passenger. But I couldn't just come out and ask to join her. I remembered the horrible things we had done to Cinderella not half an hour before. Right now, even the kindest and most forgiving Cinderella must hate us from the bottom of her heart. Maybe... maybe I'll ask in some other repetition. When I'm not involved in that... barbaric act. Now Cinderella was going to the ball.

The Prince would spot her while Anastasia was in the middle of her bow and cow-faced smile. He would forget all the other ladies immediately and go kiss her hand like a good dog. No surprises there. But then, just as it seemed all of Cinderella's dreams were coming true, at exactly midnight she would leave it all and run like a criminal! That was the last riddle, and I really wanted to know why. As things stood now, each mystery was only answered with an even madder and more bizarre explanation.

So, the answer here was probably that she discovered a dragon threatening the kingdom, and she had to stop him immediately with the help of another wizard who would make her grow wings. Ugh, I sighed. Well, maybe I'll just ask her when she gets back. She will probably just tell me. Now I was left alone in the chateau—well, the only human, at least. The place was crawling with rodents and birds, busy singing, stealing bead necklaces, making dresses, and what have you. I was hungry.

"CINDE—!" Uh, not here... silly of me. So I need to, like... fetch something for myself. Ugh... It sounds silly, but as the years passed, we came to rely more and more on Cinderella for every basic service. She made us depend on her like this! I wonder if it was her devious plan all along! Now I needed to go to that... scullery place. I went slowly, entering the scullery carefully. The floorboards screeched here; this was the servants' place, after all, and it looked dirty.

And I already knew this room was crawling with pests. I looked down at the floor. In the dim light of the kitchen, I spotted them darting along the baseboards, their little whiskers twitching.

"Ewww!" I said, taking a step back as three of the pests walked along the wall, carrying as many corn seeds as their small hands would allow. The mice were wearing their small clothes that Cinderella made for them, and they were talking amongst themselves in those high-pitched voices. They were discussing... which type of food was better to take and from where. And when they said 'take', they meant steal, as this was definitely our food.

They looked at me, stopped for a moment, then completely ignored me and continued to talk. The audacity!

"I can see you, just so you know!" I couldn't help myself. Then, to my absolute amazement, one of the mice—the skinny one wearing a blue shirt and a tiny blue cap—pulled his tongue out at me! I gasped. Why, the little pest! How dare he! I wanted to say something, but I couldn't think of anything. And anyway, talking to a mouse would be embarrassing in and of itself. I wanted to punish them somehow, but... I must be honest, I was scared of those mice. I couldn't go near them.

They were just ugly, small, and crawly creatures! And no, the human clothing didn't make them cuter at all!

"That's enough, Mary!" said the mouse in blue to a female mouse.

"But... but... I can take more!" she said happily.

"No you can't. Go back, go back, we have enough!"

"Oh, alright," she said, disappointed. Then the mouse wearing blue turned to another female mouse wearing a yellow dress and orange headscarf.

"What's with you Suzy? Come, come!" Oh, that was the one Cinderella tried to introduce to me the other day. Suzy, was it?

"I want to find a raisin!" Suzy squeaked.

"Raisins are sweet, I like them so!"

"Okay, but be careful," he warned.

"Luuceefee is around. He will come and eat you!" he made a scary gesture with his hands.

"Oh, that old fat cat doesn't scare me," she squeaked.

"It will just take a moment." Then the two mice vanished into some hole in the wall, and the female mouse, Suzy, was left alone. She walked here and there, opening cupboard doors, looking at shelves, and sniffing around. The only thing I could think about in that moment was that every piece of food we had eaten all these years came from here, where mice were sniffing and walking all over the place! It was disgusting. Actually, it was a miracle we hadn't died a horrible death from a hundred different mouse diseases.

I watched her. It looked like she had finally found the shelf with the paper sack full of raisins. She started pulling them out, one by one, carefully observing and sniffing each one. She also pulled out a tiny sack of her own and started putting the raisins she liked inside it. It was a slow process. Apparently, only about a third of the raisins were good enough for her refined and exquisite rodent tastes. They were raisins! They were all the same!

Actually, as long as it wasn't poison, it should have been good enough for her, because she was a mouse, after all. And yet she was as picky as a princess. What ticked me off even more was that after sniffing and touching them, she put the ones she didn't want back! That meant the next time Cinderella made raisin pudding, I would be the one eating them! And this was also the mouse that said she hated me and that I was an awful person! I hadn't forgotten about that! I had just about enough of this mouse.

And there was really no need to be scared. She was a tiny creature; the most she could do was squeak at me. In fact, I could just take this large glass bowl... and slowly, quietly sneak up behind her. She was so engrossed in her search for the perfect raisin that she was completely oblivious to my presence. BANG! I trapped her with the bowl! Success! I would take her to my room, sprawl comfortably on my bed, and have a little chat with this prudent mouse.

Not that I had very important or urgent matters to discuss with a rodent. It was just that I was curious, the mouse annoyed me, and... oh, I was really, really bored.