Cherry and Atticus Meet Cinderella

chapter 17

Green lasers filled the air as time was changing. Cinderella wasn't dancing with the prince anymore, their honeymoon and marriage never happened. Cinderella never gave the Grand Duke her glass slipper. It was all almost as if that time were being erased to happen for later as the Tremaine family was going back in time. 

The magic stopped and everyone woke up to the day of the shoe search, the day after the ball when Cinderella, Cherry and Atticus were running home before midnight would hit and everything would go back to normal for them. The girls looked out the window as the Grand Duke arrived to their house and they were all now familiar with the situation.

"The Grand Duke!" Anastasia cried. "It worked!"

"Magnificent," Lady Tremaine chuckled. "And no one knows except us. Get ready, this is your second chance, don't waste it."

"Where are Cinderella, Cherry, and Atticus?" Anastasia asked.

"They're exactly where they were the first time." Lady Tremaine told her, glancing upstairs.

Cherry, Cinderella and Atticus were in their room, unaware that their fate was going to be changed today. Jaq and Gus dashed to them to alert them of the Grand Duke. 

"Something doesn't feel right." Cherry spoke up.

"What do you mean?" Atticus asked her, holding the good glass slipper as the last one was left behind at the palace last night. "We know Cinderella fits the slipper."

"I know, but something feels very wrong, I just can't put my finger on it."

"Ah, you're probably just nervous and excited about today. Our lives are gonna change forever."

Cinderella smiled at them. "Atticus is right."

"You just ended the world with that sentence." Cherry teased.

"Cinderella!" Atticus whined.

They all heard a ruckus downstairs. Once Cinderella was free, she and her orphan friends looked downstairs to see Anastasia gushing about the glass slipper. It had perfectly fit on her foot! That couldn't be right, Fairy Godmother made sure that the slipper perfectly fit Cinderella, not Anastasia! Cherry was right, something is rather wrong.

"I'm gonna get my prince!" Anastasia beamed.

"Grace and poise, my dear." Lady Tremaine told her daughter.

"I hereby declare that we have found the Prince's bride-to-be," the Grand Duke announced. 

His assistant blared his bugle.

The Duke glared at him, then continued his announcement to the house-hold. "We must return to the palace at once!"

"NO!" Cinderella, Cherry, and Atticus cried.

"It can't be!" Cinderella knew there had to be a problem. 

"Would your Grace excuse me?" Lady Tremaine requested properly. "I must have a word with my...maid and her orphans..."

Anastasia watched her mother leave to them. She was very happy she got what she wanted, but she looked a little guilty about it once she saw how disappointed her step-sister and adoptive siblings looked.

"You look confused, dears." Lady Tremaine smirked at them.

"How could the slipper fit Anastasia?" Cinderella asked, turning pale. "I danced with the Prince. That was my slipper! Here, I have another one," she put her hand in her pocket. "I'm the one he's looking for!"

"Now, I told you all something's wrong, but no, no, NO! You all never listen to me!" Cherry spoke up.

"You may have danced with him, you may have even thought it was love," Lady Tremaine taunted them. "But the slipper fits Anastasia, that's who he's marrying. Whatever you all think happened last night was a dream." She grabbed Cinderella's slipper and threw it over the staircase, making it plummet, fall, and smash into millions of pieces, much to their misfortune.