There Is No Happiness

Chapter 4

     I can't move. It's been a couple days now since my whipping, and I still can't move. Lady Tremaine has locked me in my room and has had kept me here. Shes hired kitchen help, and a maid to clean while I'm down. She sends a mute girl to my room to give me food, and to clean my wounds. Every time she walks in, there is a new look of horror on her face as she sees the cuts and slashes laying on my back and shoulders.

     I know she means well, and she's doing as she's told. But the look on her face every time she gazes at me fills me with a sick feeling. Today she hasn't come up yet. Meaning Lady Tremaine has her busy with other chores, or is beating her as well for something small and meaningless. Hopefully this girl can get out of here before things get worse. She doesn't need the kind of abuse I get.

     I hear footsteps coming toward my door. Hopefully it's the girl and she's alright, but to my surprise, Anastasia walks in with water and clean bandages. She quickly closes the door and locks it so no one can enter. She sits down next to me and looks me in the eyes as I stare at her.

     "I had to see for myself if this was true. I may not like you Cind- I mean Ella. But no one, not even my worst enemy, deserves this kind of treatment." Tears come to the front of her tear duct then drop down her cheek. I've never seen her cry over something like this. The only time she cries is if she doesn't get her way, or her clothes have been borrowed by her sister. The look on her eyes pains me. I don't like seeing her feel sorry for me, its not in her nature.

     "Stop crying. Your eyes will get puffy and then what will be asked of you?" my voice is cold and distant. I want nothing more than this conversation to be over. "Your mother will wonder where you are, find you here crying, then possibly beat you like I did. Maybe even kill you like she did your late father." her face is struck and her mind goes cold. She stands there in horror of what I just told her and I can hear the rage building up in her throat.

      "What do you mean?" her voice quietly asks me, like she's preparing for me to say I'm joking. But the thing is, I'm not.

     "Don't you think I wouldn't find out eventually? How your father passed? How his death was the result of a years worth of poisoning. Lady Tremaine, your disgusting mother, doesn't know how to hide anything. I clean her room everyday and she doesn't think I would find it." The look on Anastasia's face is in astonishment and bewilderment. "Oh don't tell me you didn't know that your mother was poisoning your father with every meal he had?" Her eyes answer my question. She bursts out of my bedroom and disappears. All I can here now is her crying as she descends the staircase.

     In only a split moment do I feel sorry for her. If I just found out after all these years that's how my father died I understand. But my sorry fades away. I close my eyes and drift off to a peaceful sleep, waiting for the mute girl to come and clean the wounds I can't clean myself.