only those doubly blessed with looks and fortune could pull off and still be considered charming.

Their younger sister, Princess Margaret, looked to be about my age. She had the same conceited expression as her brothers, and their good looks as well. Her blond hair was piled on her head with blue ribbons that exactly matched her velvet dress.

She glanced around the manor and let out a sigh. “I suppose it will do for the night.” If her brothers noticed her rudeness, they didn’t say anything. They divided their time between talking to the WSM and ordering their groomsmen around.

Edmond, my Prince Charming, didn’t look at me. Not even once.

A dozen tables had been set up in the great room and the meal started as soon as the royals dressed for dinner. We, the servants, hauled in a never-ending supply of food for our guests. Roasted pig. Roasted lamb. Roasted swan. We also carried in breads, cheeses, pies, and a sugary gelatin-like statue that had been molded into the shape of a castle in their honor. The WSM had hired musicians to play and I tried to hear her orders over the music. She sat on the left-hand side of Prince Edmond, a fact that seemed to elevate her importance in her own eyes, and she gave orders with extra disdain thrown in.

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Once while I walked past the table with a pitcher of mead, Prince Edmond held up his goblet and said,

“Serving wench, my glass is empty.” When I didn’t move fast enough he snapped his fingers at me.

Real charming. I filled his glass and he turned away from me without giving me any more notice.

On his right side, Prince Hugh lifted his goblet to me as well. “Be quick about it, wench.” I bit my tongue and filled his glass too. Then I turned my gaze back to Edmond, who, for all of his impatience a moment before, hadn’t taken a drink yet. Really, I was so unimpressed.

Hildegard walked up beside me. She had apparently come to talk to her mother, or to flirt with Prince Edmond, but since she was watching him and not me, she bumped into me as I turned to leave.

The mead in my pitcher sloshed over the edges, spilling mostly on the floor but also splattering both of our dresses. As I steadied the pitcher, trying not to spill anything more, she reached out and slapped me.

“Oaf!” she yelled. “Look what you’ve done to my dress!”

The WSM turned to me, her gaze all spikes and dag-gers. “Ella, your clumsiness will not be tolerated.” The next moment she looked over at the prince and her voice 89/431

smoothed over with honey. “I’m so sorry, your highness.

Did any spill on you? I promise the girl will not go unpunished.”

Edmond wiped at his embroidered tunic, though I doubt anything had splattered there. “Very good. I find that servants are like dogs. Left undisciplined, they become worthless.”

The WSM turned back to me, her lips set in a tight smile. “Well, Ella, what do you have to say?” I knew she expected me to beg for lenience, to apolo-gize over and over again. But I’d had enough of these people, this life, and everything to do with it. “I am clumsy,” I said. “Constantly spilling things. In fact—oops!” I held out the pitcher and emptied its contents over my stepmother’s head.

She gasped, sputtered, then shrieked as the mead flowed from her hair down her face, and then soaked her dress. A group of the knights at the next table over laughed uproariously at the sight of my WSM wiping strands of hair out of her face and jiggling in her seat, as though this would stop the liquid from running down her back. But the only sound from the royal table was Edmond, who said, with a tone between smugness and reproach, “Undisciplined and worthless.” 90/431

I didn’t wait around to hear further critiques. I dropped the pitcher on the ground, hiked up my skirt, and ran. My WSM shouted, “Stop her! Stop her at once!” Neither Hildegard nor any of the servants did though.

Whether out of fear of me or admiration, they stood openmouthed while I rushed by.

I sped out of the manor, past the barn, and into the forest. I had nowhere to go and no way to live, but anger pushed me instead of fear.

How, even for a moment, could a fairy think someone could wish for this sort of life? And why wasn’t she answering me when I called?

I wasn’t exactly sure where fairies lived, but I had the vague idea that it was inside mushrooms. So I walked around stomping on every one I saw. When that didn’t do anything I kicked the trees. Since my boots had never been sturdy to begin with, this probably hurt my feet more than it hurt the trees.

“You’re supposed to be granting me wishes!” I called.

“You can’t just leave me here!” And then I heard Chrissy’s voice behind me. “You know, Cinderella is supposed to have a sweet disposition. I turn my back on you and you’re drenching your elders and kicking poor defenseless trees. Is that really keeping in character?”

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I spun around. She wore the same tank top and miniskirt I’d seen her in before, with her sunglasses in place even though it was dusk.

I clenched my hands into fists. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for three weeks straight.”

“I told you I was going shopping. I’m still not done and I get, like, forty messages from you on my godmother cell phone. Has anyone ever told you that you need to develop a little patience?”

I glared at her.

“No? Well, let me be the first then. Get some patience—it will help you out in life.” Yeah, I could put that on the list right behind my milking skills, which were also woefully undeveloped.

“Who goes shopping for three weeks?” I asked. “Exactly what kind of sale is that?”

Chrissy slipped her sunglasses onto the top of her head and gave me a condescending look. “Time isn’t the same here as it is in your world. You obviously don’t read fantasy books or you’d already know that sort of thing.”

“How much time has elapsed back home?” I asked.

“Well, ideally with these wishes you could live here for years and only seconds would have passed back in your world. Then when you wanted to, you’d come home 92/431

physically unchanged.” She examined her nails instead of looking at me.

“But . . . ,” I prompted.

“Well, that was one of those areas that I didn’t do so well on in school. I never could get time to stop spinning, just to slow down. For every week that passes here, an hour passes back in your world. That’s not really so bad. Your parents are still downstairs at your house watching TV. They won’t miss you until tomorrow morning, and the way you sleep in and then hole up in your room, well, that should give you months here. Then you can decide whether—”

“I don’t want to stay here for months,” I said. “All I’ve done here is work like a dog. No, I take that back. Dogs don’t have to clean out the toilets. I’ve worked like . . .

like . . .”

“Cinderella?” she asked.

“Yes, but with no ball in sight and a prince who is an arrogant jerk.”

She shrugged. “The ball is in about eight months. It wouldn’t be the full Cinderella experience if you only worked a few days and then got to go to the ball. Anyone can do that. It takes no long-term suffering at all.” I held out my rough and calloused hands toward her.

“And who said I wanted to be long-suffering? I don’t remember wishing for that.”

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“If the prince is going to rescue you from your dreary life,” she continued, “it has to be dreary in the first place, doesn’t it?”

Her logic made me sputter. She actually thought she’d done me a favor by turning me into some sort of serf.

“My life was plenty dreary as it was, and besides, I didn’t wish to be Cinderella in the first place. You never let me finish telling you what I wanted.” Her eyebrows arched up. “Well, excuse me for having other things to do with my time besides listen to your love-life woes— I told you I needed to go shopping.” She tossed her hair off her shoulder and pulled first one, then two more shopping bags from her purse. At last she pulled out the scroll and opened it. “You said, and this is a quote, ‘I just wish my life could be like a fairy tale with a handsome prince waiting for me at the ball, and that somehow when I met him, everything would work out happily ever after.’ ”