Dancing on Glass

Little Sister

It was close to midnight that same night and Cinderella couldn't sleep. After hours of rolling from one side to the other, staring up at the ceiling, looking towards the shuttered window and pressing her pillow into her face, she finally threw the covers off, pulled on her thin dressing gown, grimacing against the cold, before lighting a candle and making her way down to the kitchen.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she was almost at the kitchen door when she noticed something was amiss.

There was a faint, faint, light flickering from under the crack at the door and she stared at it for a moment.

Had she left a candle burning?

Opening the door a crack, she peeked in and her heart lurched in her chest at the sight of the shadowy figure sitting at the large table.

It took her a moment to see through the shadows of the dark and her tired mind and see that it was no stranger but Giselle.

Her younger sister was sat hunched over the table, a candle at her elbow, a book open in front of her. She had her head, with its ridiculous buns, propped on her knuckles, slowly flicking from page to page, her body turned away from Cinderella.

Cinderella was quiet for a moment, shocked to see her in the servants' quarters. Confused to see her there. She hated the lower rooms of the house.

"Giselle," she finally said and her sister jumped, slamming the book shut and spinning around, a livid glare on her face as Cinderella opened the door fully.

"What are you doing here?" she spat.

"It's the kitchen, this is my domain, I can come and go as I please," Cinderella replied simply, walking down the steps.

"You don't have a domain in this house, you barely even have a place," Giselle sneered.

Cinderella looked at her for a moment, before calmly setting the candle down on the work surface.

"Does that mean that, should I leave and Dia quits her job, you'll be willing to be down here, working away?" she asked.

"Of course not," Giselle snapped, "Someone such as I has no place in the kitchen! This place belongs to servants."

"Ah, are you saying I'm not a servant?"

"Hah! Of course you are! You're certainly nothing grander, not anymore."

"And thus we come back to where we started. I am a servant, the kitchens belong to the servants, this is my domain and so, I ask again, why are you here?" Cinderella said, her voice never shifting from its calm, steady tone.

Giselle stared at her for a moment, then glared, irritated that Cinderella had just led her around by the nose.

"Why should it matter why I'm down here?" she huffed instead.

"Well," Cinderella said, filling the kettle as she spoke, "It's nearly midnight, you should have been in bed a least an hour ago. You have a dress fitting tomorrow morning before joining friends for tea at one of the galleries then taking a ride through the park."

"I don't want to go out tomorrow," Giselle said, folding her arms.

Cinderella looked back at her in surprise as her stepsister sat hunched back in her chair with a pout.

"Why not? I would have thought you'd enjoy the ride, you love riding."

"What would you know of what I like and dislike? You're just a servant."

"I'm also your sister – albeit a stepsister – you'd be surprised by how much I know about you because I bothered to take note. Tell me, do you ever take note of anything besides yourself?"