Cinder Maid

Untitled Part 5

Cinder worked hard the morning before the first ball. She worked from sun up to sun down. Cooking, cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping, it was all on the list.

While she worked she tried to figure out why she was so eager to go to the ball in the first place. At first she assumed it was the idea of it that was appealing. The dancing. The lights. It sounded wonderful. The more she pondered over it she realized that the prince was the reason she wanted to go.

He’d seen her while she was helpless and beaten by a patch of ice on the road. He’d seen her as a nobody on the road. She wanted to see him while she was at her best.

Even for as long as she worked, though, she wasn’t able to get finished in time.

She stood at the window looking out at the sun set with tears running down her cheeks. “Cinder,” Wendy said. “I need help with my corset.”

Cinder nodded and followed her to her room.

She spent the next two and a half hours straitening skirts, tightening corsets and doing hair. Lily, like always, was the fastest to get ready. She didn’t wear a corset and her make-up was light and her hair was simple.

“Cinder,” she said while Cinder was doing her hair. “Will you be okay?”

“Yeah,” Cinder said, lying through her teeth.

Wendy and Ella were totally different stories. Wendy’s ruby hair was “delicate” and needed “special” attention. Many chemicals and moisturizers went into her hair. She wasn’t as thin as her sister so her corset took more work. And her dress was complicated. So many skirts and the frame was… enormous. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Ella’s make up took the most of her time. Being about thirty-six years old she wanted to “hide” her age as well as she could. Layers and layers of everything in the house went onto her face. She spent forty-five long minuets in that room just doing that. The whole rest of the time she tied and straitened all things crimson.

“I would like to thank you,” Ella said as they finished.

“No thanks are necessary,” Cinder said coldly.

They stood at the door waiting for the carriage about fifteen minutes later.

“Don’t worry,” Lily said. “This ball can’t be that fun.”

Cinder half smiled at her stepsister. “I will be fine Lily.”

“I know,” Lily said looking down at her feet. “I just -”

“It’s okay.”

Lily looked up with pleading eyes. Cinder felt bad. She knew that sounded rude but being bugged about the ball wasn’t going to help her get over not going.

“Lily,” Ella said, “The carriage is here.”

Lily nodded and followed her mother and sister out the door to the carriage.