So This is Love (Disney Twisted Tales) - Elizabeth Lim Page 0,12
nothing more than to turn your stepmother and stepsisters into toads and take you far from this place, but that is not how my magic works. I can only set you on the path to happiness.”
How does it work? Cinderella wanted to ask. She had so many questions for her fairy godmother—about magic, and why she’d helped Cinderella go to the ball in the first place. Questions she hadn’t thought to ask the first time her fairy godmother had appeared. But there were more pressing matters at hand now.
“Could you . . . could you unlock the door?”
“I can certainly try.” Rolling up her sleeves, the fairy godmother drew up her wand and pointed it at the door.
The door shuddered, but it would not open.
With a frown, Lenore waved her wand and tried again, but this time, the spell sent her reeling back toward Cinderella’s bed.
Lenore lowered her hood, her dark eyes filled with regret. “As I say, there are limits to my powers,” she explained, tapping her wand on her palm. She clutched the wand tightly, looking once more at the shattered glass. “I’m sorry, dear. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come to you in the first place.”
“Why?”
“My magic is forbidden in Aurelais,” said her fairy godmother calmly. “Oh, I bent the rules a little by putting a time constraint on the spell I used to send you to the ball—rather clever of me—but my wand won’t allow me to risk a spell so large again.”
“Your magic is forbidden?” repeated Cinderella, barely hearing the rest of what she’d said. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a reason my magic could only last until midnight. It was borrowed magic, because magic in Aurelais has been outlawed, and all its fairies exiled. The Grand Duke—the former, that is—he made it his mission . . . oh, it happened long ago. You must not worry.”
“Of course I’m worried! Are you in danger by being here?”
“I should not stay long,” was all Lenore would say. Her godmother cleared her throat. “But there is one thing I can do at least. I can speak with your dog.”
“Bruno?”
Confused, Cinderella glanced out the window. She couldn’t see Bruno from here, but she imagined him downstairs in one of the storerooms, curled up against a rug and dreaming of chasing Lucifer, her stepmother’s cat. By now he must be starving, she thought with a pang of guilt. Since she’d been locked up, no one would have fed him all day.
“Yes, that’s what I’ll do—I’ll tell him you’re in trouble,” Lenore said, determined.
Cinderella wasn’t sure how her dog would be able to help her. “How—”
“And before I forget,” continued Lenore, fishing into her sleeve, “I believe these belong to you.”
Out came the green beads that Cinderella had worn the previous night—before Drizella had snatched them from her—restrung.
“I wouldn’t want you to leave without your mother’s beads,” said Lenore firmly, clasping the emerald-colored beads around Cinderella’s neck.
“How did you—”
“Found them on the ground after you left last night. Your mother would have wanted you to have her beads; that horrible Drizella has had them for long enough. Keep them with you to remember where you come from.”
“I will,” said Cinderella softly. Carefully, she unclasped the necklace and put it in her pocket. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I wish I could have done more.” The fairy placed a gentle hand on Cinderella’s shoulder. “Be brave, my dear. The path to happiness is not always an easy one. Now I must go.”
Then she vanished in a twinkle of lights—leaving Cinderella alone once more.
She blinked, fighting back a fresh wave of tears. “I can get through this,” she whispered.
I won’t be afraid, she told herself. I’ll find a way out, somehow.
Then, trying to steady her racing heart, she waited for her stepmother to return.
The sound of footsteps returned late at night, far later than Cinderella anticipated. She’d fallen asleep on her mattress, but the harsh thumps up the tower stairs jolted her awake.
By the time she lit her candle, her stepmother stood at the door, looking calm and composed.
“I see you’re awake. Good. You have a visitor.” Lady Tremaine turned. “Mr. Laverre!”
A thick-necked brute of a man with a cruel leer appeared at the threshold, and Cinderella gasped.
A bundle of rope dangled from Mr. Laverre’s hands, and his mouth bent into a pitiless smile. “This the girl?” he rasped.
“Yes. Will she do?”
Mr. Laverre looked her up and down. “She’ll fetch a fair price. More than fair.”
Setting his lamp on the ground, Mr. Laverre reached into