Just Call Her Syndre

Chapter 1 | The Truth

I had long ago figured out that fairy tales were just that: tales. Stories. Ideas hatched in the minds of those who had the time and leisure to concoct silly notions of Princes and Princesses falling in love with commoners who are kind, considerate and different from the normal highbrow society people they frequented.

Can I be honest for moment? It's total bullocks. There is no prince on a noble stead who's coming round the bend to rescue me and if he did, he'd certainly be surprised. Or better yet, disappointed. I still can remember the first copy of Cinderella that my mother ever bought. She was so proud and happy, bringing home the love story in video and book format.

All I heard for three weeks after it came home was her soft, husky voice lifting and falling to gain infectious voices for the characters. Cinderella was a pretty girl with so much kindness in her that it garnered the attention of the prince with little to no effort and then, magically, after the death of her mother and father she received a beautiful dress and heels. If I flipped to the page in the tattered book now I'd see the billowy blue dress with butterflies on the neckline with the matching glass heels.

As if. 

What woman in her right mind would wear those death contraptions? And in glass? To a ball nonetheless? Poppycock and bullocks is what I say. But, I'd be lying if I say I didn't miss the sound of my mother's voice encouraging me to go above and beyond. I'd be lying if I said that her death hadn't ripped my soul from its foundations. 

It took weeks for me to realize that I'd never get to angrily stomp and give a glare up into her brown doe eyes over something silly and immature. She was better than me. My anger and hostility had been met with kindness, understanding and a smile so bright it even dissolved the anger held by my father. He'd pull her close and kiss her on the forehead every time he came home from work. As a family, we'd sit at the dinner table and he'd ask me about my day before launching into some cockamamie story about how the boss' son screwed up a big account. 

"You'd get a lot more done if you'd clean instead of daydream, Syndre-Lynn."

The gravel-like toned voice of my stepmother always yanks me from my dreams. I turned from the silverware I'm polishing to look up at her. She's standing across the room with her back ramrod straight. Her pale skin is blemish-free, due to her heavy handed makeup. Lips so red they'd attract attention from space are pouted and turned down at the edges in disapproval.

I eye her gown with equal distaste. It's ankle length with wrist long sleeves lightly billowed at the shoulders and winding pieces of material sticking out at just under her breasts. The skirt billows out her waist in a cone and is touched daintily at the ankle with delicate strips of ivory lace. I'd never seen a woman who didn't look good in red and white, but here she stood before me.

"I always get a lot done, ma'am." I answered, turning to polish more forks and spoons with even less gusto than before. "If I didn't, this house would be an even bigger pigsty."

Her angered gasp was the only indication I had that she heard me before the heavy slam of the door shook the dining room. I stared at the familiar room with a mixture of longing and disgust. It was a large room, oval shaped with eight large frames evenly space on either wall. One side featured my father's side of the family and other side, which used to show my mother's side, now proudly boasted the grotesque family related to my stepmother and step siblings.

Oddly enough the dining room table is long and rectangular with sharp edges. It seats 12, five on each side and a single chair at each end. Our old antique chairs with hand-carved slopes and figurines were replaced with updated, more subtle chairs that were black and white with a simple grey cushion.  The wallpaper used to be yellow and green with friendly fairies dancing along their way. When my stepmother moved it she quickly had it patched over with bold wallpaper featuring broad stripes of matte black and shiny silver.

I have hated this room since.

Tucking the last of the silverware back into their pockets, I stood and carried the heavy case back into the kitchen. The quiet clacking of the silver pinching against each other was the only sound in the opulent kitchen, breaking the noise of my beating heart in my ears. I turned around in the very center of the room, burning away the renovated look and replacing it with the old.

My stepmother had blown the entire room outward, removing the walls separating the kitchen from the breakfast room. No longer did we have a small table with four chairs in a room next to our sunroom, it was now one large sunlit zone. The peeling wallpaper had been stripped and replaced with teal paint and the brick floors now shone with white marble.

If I step forward I would bump into the 20 foot island she had installed and on the other side are commercial grade appliances: stove, fridges, microwaves. You name it - my father paid for it. And the place where our little breakfast nook sat for so many years - is now a pantry filled with useless and more inedible foods. The heavy box in my hands fits snugly into the built-ins of the pantry, and makes a low whining noise as I push it back to its final resting place.

"Taking a nap again, Syndre?"

Demetria, the first of the triplets, stands just outside the pantry door. Her dress is less severe, in a light pink with ruffles on her collar and wrists. But her large breasts are suffocating under the corset she wears to make herself appear thinner. I grimaced at her, but paint a sweet smile on my face as I step out of the pantry.

"Or maybe she's sneaking food, Demi." Allandria, the second of the triplets is around the corner next. Her dress matches Demetria's, but is in a powder blue. It makes the sides of her neck puff out and her face look green. I snicker at the thought.

Demi's eyes light up,  and she sends Allandria a quick nod of aggreeance. "Yeah, I think you're right, little sister. She does look a bit fat." Demi tapped my flat stomach with a flick of her wrist. "You should lay off the food for a while, maybe I should tell mother to not feed you a few days."

My feet smacked against the tiles of the floor on my way out of the door.  Demi's sentence made me stop and turn to look at her. A look of total disgust flitted across my face and I threw her a classic sign of disrespect with a single finger. "Maybe you should lay off the food before we go broke trying to feed a second heifer."