Dancing on Glass

Fine Like Sugar

Cinderella hit the ground hard, scrambling back in horror as a devastating fear struck her heart and almost stopped it.

She stared in white-hot shock as the rat took it final, convulsing breath before dying.

Seconds later, a second, skinny rat made an appearance, making a tentative dash for the chocolate and Cinderella struck out automatically, catching the rat in the chest and it scampered away in insulted surprise. She didn't even register that it was the rat she had saved Giselle from.

She scrambled to her feet, made a dash for the door, then doubled back and lifted the cup in her skirts, like touching the chocolate with her fingers could harm her, before dropping a tea towel over it in hopes of deterring any other unsuspecting vermin from lapping up their own demise.

She then ran to the kitchen.

Hurling the cup into the bin, she struggled to force her keys into the lock with her shaking hands and wrenched it open with such force she almost knocked the door into her jaw.

She stared at the bottle of rat poison.

It was still untouched.

The sight made her blood run cold.

Because if it hadn't been the rat poison itself that had killed the rat... there was only one other thing in the house that could do it. It was horrendous. Another way to kill vermin. It was even used in some medicines when tightly controlled. Common in all grand homes and yet should never, ever be touched.

Fingers trembling, she reached past the bottle to the very back of the cupboard and felt the glass of the tiny bottle the white power was stored in.

The innocent looking powder, fine like icing sugar.

Taking a breath, she pulled the bottle out and almost dropped it.

The bottle had been tampered with.

And that scared her more then any fear she had known before.

Because, in that bottle, was strychnine.

And suddenly Cinderella was seeing a whole new side to her stepmother.

The woman she lived with was no longer just nasty, or unpleasant or cruel.

She was dangerous.

Very, very dangerous.

She stuffed the tiny bottle into her apron pocket then grabbed the larger bottle of rat poison. Unsure what to do with it, she stalled. She didn't want to pour it down the sink and contaminate whatever water source it ended up in. She didn't want to pour it out in the garden in case animals ingested it.

In the end she ran to the side room then down into the underground tunnel her stepmother locked her in and she poured the entire content onto the dirt floor before kicking as much loose dirt over it as possible. She then returned to the kitchen and threw the bottle away before running to the backdoor and wrenching it open.

Her arm almost came out of its socket with the force she used to pull against the fact that the door didn't open. She stared at it.

It was locked.

But it was never locked unless she locked it

She tired again, hoping it was just sticking.

Nothing.

She tried again and again but it was locked!

Abandoning that exit she ran to the front door, knowing that, because Edgar wouldn't have retired for the night yet, the front door would not be locked.