Oh, she still dreams about once upon a time. You can see her, eyes still as blue as sapphires from the most magical and distant caves, gazing around her tiny, two-person occupancy room and imagining she is still in the castle. Those sweet, golden locks that she folded up in a handkerchief for years now lays flat and gray on slumped shoulders. She stays in bed, as her hands are gnarled as twisting flames, but in bed she can dream.
You see, when the children were still babes, they loved Cinderella as dearly as she still loves the memory of their father Charming. Sometimes she would dress up in her old, servant girl clothes as a disguise and take the children outside the castle walls to the woods. Field mice tittered up to the crumbs of their picnic, and birds landed gracefully on the children's outstretched arms, chirping all the while. Cinderella always put the children to bed herself, instead of allowing a nursemaid to do it, and she read them fairytales and told fabulous stories about fairies and witches. As their father the King grew feeble, the children-Favia, Frederick, Felix, and Farren-became older and grew hungry for power. They had never been dealt any cruelty as children, and yet they began to mutter about their mother as if she were an evil step-mother.
"Why does she spend so much time touring the kingdom and visiting the peasants when she could have been playing with me?" Prince Felix asked.
" Why does she always have to act so peppy, so incessantly cheery, first thing in the morning when I've been up all night practicing how to use a battle-axe?" Prince Farren complained.
"Why do I need a tutor when Mom ain't never been to school?" Prince Frederick moaned.
"Why does she insist on making my clothes? I hate those stupid dresses she makes." Princess Favia bitched.
They created fantasies about abuses like Cinderella, as a young woman, had fantasized about being happy and loved. Of course, the moment their father the King had died, Cinderella was shipped off to a nursing home-in a thoroughly unfantastical, drab black carriage-while the offspring fought amongst themselves for their own personal glass slipper, the throne.
It was quite a hush-hush affair. Royalty are quite able at arranging these sorts of things. The kingdom was in such disarray that the citizens took it for granted that Cinderella really had passed away right after her husband and that the funeral was private. The citizens were really too busy worrying about which awful heir would be their next ruler, the threat of invasion from the kingdom from the north, and the sudden end to all of the former Queen's social programs. It was said that Princess Favia had cried out, "Let them eat pumpkins!" when asked about the starving poor of the ruler-less kingdom. Or, perhaps, it was just a rumor started by one of her brothers.
One of these worried citizens was Cinderella's nurse, Nurse Cordelia. Nurse Cordelia's two daughters were engaged to soldiers who had just been deployed to the border by the Council, under recommendation from Prince Farren. Nurse Cordelia fretted all day long as she changed the bed-pan in Cinderella's room. The name "Cindy Darling" was printed on all of Cinderella's paperwork, and no one had any idea that who she really was. The nurses couldn't stand her, thinking she was as dumb as Prince Frederick.
"Did I tell you I was the Queen?" Cinderella said as Nurse Cordelia sponged her backside.
"Oh, lucky me! The Queen's attendant!" Nurse Cordelia muttered as she finished up.
"You should have seen me! I had the most awful family and they made me do everything for them and they hated me. It was awful! But then I moved to the castle. One day, maybe you or your daughters will get a fairy godmother and marry a prince!"
Nurse Cordelia snorted. "You're a touch off, you know that? Life isn't a fairytale. The only thing my daughters will probably be getting is a telegram from the northern front."
Cinderella exclaimed earnestly, "Oh please you don't think…"
"Hold your tongue." Nurse Cordelia popped a few pills into Cinderella's mouth, and led her back to her bed.
It was a well-kept, expensive nursing home of course. No mice to feed and nothing to clean, which sometimes disappointed the aging Cinderella. She wished she could sew a new dress for the other woman she shared a room with, Miss Marguerite. Cinderella tried not to entertain thoughts of uselessness or loneliness as strongly as she resisted the urge to compare her children to her greedy, vapid step-sisters. She pondered over what she could have done to be a better mother. Did she not spend enough time with Felix, taking for granted that he had so many siblings to play with? Did she spoil Favia too much, letting her enjoy all of the things Cinderella had never had as a young girl? Wasn't Farren a normal noble boy, requesting tutors to teach him about weaponry and war strategies? Oh, dear, she couldn't have helped that Frederick was born more daft then a mouse.
The step-sisters had died years and years ago. Charming had forbidden Cindy from providing for the cruel women in their old age, instead turning her attention back to the charities for the poor she had founded. The step-sisters were too proud to turn to castle-run programs. They went their whole lives expecting to be bestowed with great riches and honors by the King and Queen. In their own way, they were dreamers, too.
Cinderella sometimes wondered if she was being punished for not going against her husband and helping the step-sisters. She had come to the nursing home with her most precious belongings, like the glass slippers and a picture of her husband in a sewing box, but the picture had crumbled and the glass shattered. Really, the slippers were not good for anything. Cinderella's feet had bloated with age, and the slippers hurt her feet. She would have liked a pair of pink fuzzy slippers instead. After she had broken the glass slippers, though, she felt an old longing for them. She felt like she finally understood the way her son Felix always seemed, restless and melancholy.
The other woman, Miss Marguerite, who shares Cinderella's room, likes Cinderella, but Miss Marguerite is too shy to talk to her. She likes to hear Cinderella sing sometimes when she first wakes up, and she likes to hear her talk about going to balls in beautiful gowns and talking to animals. Miss Marguerite gets scared sometimes, though, because Cinderella cries out in her sleep about her poor father and begging her step-mother to have mercy on her. Miss Marguerite doesn't talk; she just tries to smile at Cinderella and watches the television.
The news announcer reported that one of the heirs to the throne, Prince Felix had gone missing, and rumors abounded that a bloody battle-ax had been found in the dried-up moat outside of his bedroom window. Another announcer argued with the first announcer about which of the three remaining heirs would take the longest to destroy the kingdom.
Cinderella's fairy godmother had been very busy planning a coup against all the Charming heirs. She wasn't very plucky any more and mostly just popped up around the countryside trying to find another darling servant girl or boy with enough charm and charisma to rally up the troops. She called Cinderella one time, but Cinderella assured her she was fine, only asking the godmother to send her and Miss Marguerite a cake, if, you know, her fairy godmother had time to bake in the midst of a coup on Cinderella's own children. Cinderella's fairy godmother thought that Cinderella was being obstinate, but sent a very nice German Chocolate cake anyway.
It was a nice afternoon, the day the cake arrived. The packaging was fancy, but there was no sender listed, just "Margie and Cindy" written in fancy script. No one every sent Miss Marguerite or Cinderella anything, so it was a big to-do in the nursing home. Miss Marguerite, as silent as ever but glowing for the day, let all of the nurses and patients share the cake, and even Nurse Cordelia said the cake was delicious. It was as magical a moment as anyone ever got in the nursing home.
When Cinderella allowed herself to really think, she thought that most magic was usually reserved for the young, in those special times when girls start to fall in love and the boys learn how to become men. She thought that she had allowed herself to forget how special the moments of magic in her life were, as she grew older and became complacent with castle life and rearing the children. It was hard to tell herself, now, that the magic was over and gone, as the clock had passed midnight long ago, leaving her alone in the dark hours that were left to her.
The widow Cinderella comforts herself by imagining Charming is still alive and going nursing home to nursing home trying to find the woman whose foot fits a glass slipper, that the guarded thermostat is a fire she can still tend diligently, that if a mouse or a bird did appear in her room, it would become her special friend. You see, even for those who lived it, once upon a time was once upon a time and no more, really.