Cinderella's Sister

I was a maid in my father's house. I had been disowned at an early age for destroying a relative's home in fire, and now I worked as a maid for my parents. My father was a Duke, my mother a Duchess, my sister a Duchessa, and I was a scullery maid.

Soon, I was to become worse. I had a son that I named Jacob. I was fourteen, unmarried, and utterly disgraced. For some reason, my parents kept me on as a servant. My son they took pity on, and claimed he was their own. He would be raised as an heir to the estate.

Just after Jacob was adopted into the family, my mother died. She died of pneumonia, but people claimed it was due to childbirth. Jacob slid right into the family with no one the wiser.

When Jacob was six, my sister, Aryal, took him out wandering around the grounds. She was only ten, yet she felt entirely responsible for him. I had been separated from him, and she had raised him. When he died that day due to a horrible accident, I felt like what was left of my heart had been torn to pieces. I can only imagine the pain my sister must have felt, after she had practically been his mother all these years. I debated leaving then, but I felt it was necessary to stay and make sure the rest of my family stayed safe. Even so, I slipped into a deep depression.

Three years passed. My sister was thirteen, I was twenty. The entire household had gone into mourning after the death of the heir, my son. My father finally forced himself to remarry: a young heiress, extremely rich and with two young daughters of her own. The woman was cruel, and her older daughter was no better. The two were inseparable and perfect copies of each other. The other daughter was quieter and had a soft spot for animals, but she never spoke up.

When my sister was fifteen, my father died. My sister was left alone in the house with her stepmother and two stepsisters. She was degraded to a servant, the last of our family to be lost. She struggled along and slowly made friends with the younger of her two stepsisters.

My sister turned eighteen. I was twenty-five. I left the household and married the glass blower. He was kind, and I loved him. That year, the king announced a royal ball would be held for his son to choose a bride.

I watched the preparations as the two stepsisters got ready for this grand ceremony and took pity on my sister. Years before, I had created a dress for myself. It was white, with delicate embroidery. I packaged it up tightly in an old bag that I owned. Then, I turned to my husband. I begged him to buy me some delicate shoes that I would give away, but we did not have the money. Instead, he chose to attempt to make shoes.

He did manage to create a pair of slippers, even though they were bubbly. I thanked him deeply and promised that I would find a way to pay him back, even if I had to bring the shoes back for him to sell.

I delivered the shoes and the dress to my sister. Then, I waited. The night of the ball, I saw a horse come out from the back of the manor where my sister worked. A pale figure with dark, streaming hair was urging the horse on in the direction of the castle. I smiled to myself.

The next day, I learned that the prince had decided to marry the strange young lady in white. She had not left her name, but she had left one of her shoes behind. I scowled, for now I had to tell my husband that he probably would never get the shoes back.

Eventually, the prince came to the home where my sister was with her two stepsisters. He tried the shoe on the foot of the older stepsister, and of course, it didn't work. However, when he tried it on the foot of the younger stepsister, it fit perfectly. Apparently, my sister had small feet that I hadn't accounted for.

The younger stepsister married the prince, and my sister ran away into the forest. I tried to trace her, but I never could. It seemed she would never know the truth of who her "fairy godmother" was, and would never know me as sister.