Homecoming
by the Marvelous March Hare

The castle was quiet.

The letter she was writing seemed suddenly insignificant, so she got up from her chair. Looking around, she frowned. The place was dirty…really dirty. Or maybe that was just how she had been beaten down to think. Get to work, scrub it until it's perfect, why are you so lazy, clean it again.

Clean it again. Clean it again. Clean it again.

She could have cleaned it purer than a saint's soul and she would have had to clean it again.

The mice had settled in to their regular day time peace, having learned that living in a castle, though absent of cats and mice-catchers, still required at least the wisdom to stay out of sight during waking hours. Pluto was asleep at her feet, and (being as it was Saturday) the servants and staff had already finished their duty and were excused for the day. The king and his son were out hunting, and she was truly, for the first time since coming to the castle…alone.

It was an old feeling, one that she had almost forgotten.

She walked out of her room, breathing in the stillness of the hall. The curtains were opened, allowing for light to pour in unhampered. She walked down the long path, the Sun gracing her for a moment and leaving her, gracing her and leaving her, gracing her and leaving her.

She breathed in, and the silence was deafening. She breathed out, and the roar was mute.

She began to work.

Her first job was to collect the supplies. She raced to the servant's quarter, and her eyes hunted for her objective. Mops, buckets, towels, soap. An apron, a hood, some gloves, and she was gone. She found the well, and drew water. With a full bucket in each hand and one on her head, she balanced the tools she needed on the buckets, and walked up several flights of stairs till she got to the hall again.

The familiar ach in her lower back began as she herself began to work, an old injury she had garnered over the years, along with the pain in her knees, and elbows, and wrists, and everywhere where her body connected. Her husband knew this, and forbid her to stress herself anymore in fear of permanent injury.

After he said that, she was afraid to tell him that she was sure she was going to get arthritis at 25.

The hall had collected some dust, and would collect more until the servants were back Monday morning. She began there, cleansing the dirt until she could no longer find speck. She cleaned the windows, their frames, the lining, the walls, the carpet, the vases and painting frames. She moved down to the next hall, and repeated hall after hall. Once the halls were cleaned, she got to the stairs, cleaning the railing and the carpet step by step, piece by piece.

A familiar mew hit her ears, and she snapped at the cat. "Leave me alone, Lucifer. I'm not in the mood."

She stopped, and jerked her head backwards. It was Lucifer alright, looking as ratty as he ever could. He was lean, having lost much of his laziness once the money ran out and he had to eat something more agile than milk. Without the mice, he probably moved on to birds and other small creatures.

For some odd reason, Cinderella was proud of him, yet also with a grace of bitter satisfaction. He was no longer a king, but a pauper in a court that had lost its glory. He had to work for his life, and that did not please him.

Needless to say, the meeting was unexpected.

"If you come to eat table scraps here I would suggest you move on." She said, a rare cruel spark coming from her. She remembered well he almost prevented her from achieving her dreams.

The cat mewled back at her in a fit, but he merely moved up on the stair she had just cleaned and sat his dirty self down.

"No so fun now having to work now, huh?" she spat.

He looked at her with rage at first, but then smiled.

"Yeah, I know. I'm still cleaning someone else's messes." She threw her towel down, and pointed an angry finger at him. "But at least it's my own choice!"

He shrugged with a smile, and stretched. He was getting comfortable in his new spot, closing his eyes and rolling on his back, but as long as he was not in her way Cinderella did not mind... too much.

"So, what brings you here anyway?" she asked, curious as to what would bring Lucifer to the door of the one he had once lorded over and now had to bow down to (when others were looking).

In a way, she already knew. The last time she had seen her step-family was with an armed bodyguard. She had her things taken away, bidded a polite and heartfelt goodbye with a "Good luck" at the end, and left with her step-mother's silent hatred burning into her back. As soon as she was gone, she had someone, a young spy of 20-something with a knack for looking innocent, to spy on her old home. Anastasia left after a while once she figured out that being married to a noble man would not make her happy. She found a baker man to marry and was doing quite well with that, her first child on the way. Soon after the news of the marriage, Drizella left, calling her mother an old coot. To Cinderella's surprise and joy, Drizella got married to the innocent-looking spy, not for his looks or money, but because he was the only one who treated her with respect (even though he was really checking up on the family). She now does a brilliant job managing his small estate, too small to please her mother, while he is off on dangerous assignments. Out of understanding and respect, Cinderella made sure that spy did the least dangerous assignment she could find for him, and allowed to freely come home to his wife as often as he wanted when not working.

Lady Tremaine was to her knowledge still sulking alone in the old mansion like a chained dog beaten with a stick.

Cinderella suddenly realized what she had wanted to do for a long time now.

She got up, brushed herself off, and looked down at the cat. "Let's go home."

Lucifer did not argue, but simply rolled on his legs and got up.

Cinderella did not bother to change. Her casual palace dress was now dirty, but that was fine. She wanted to meet the monster she had left behind as herself.

She wanted to forgive, to let go of the evils that still hung on her and move on. At the same time, she wanted to see her…to see her bleeding…to see her begging for mercy. Even if the old hag didn't admit it, Cinderella still wanted to see it...

The gate to her father's mansion was unlocked and left open, but no one wanted to come in. The place was treated like unholy ground, a place where a family abused the child who became their princess. Cinderella could see, even from the gate, where rocks had been thrown over the stone walls and at the house. Holes in the window, cracks in the walls, a fountain with a broken swan.

Cinderella walked onto the front yard, with a wary Lucifer at her side, and looked over the fence to the backyard, where countless hours were spent tending and caring the animals. The chickens had fallen to starvation and had fallen on to each other, so that only handfuls were left while the rest littered the ground. The stable was empty because Cinderella took the only horse with her. The grass was unkempt, and the hinges to the fences and doors were rusted without anyone to oil them. The bushes were untrimmed, and the trees were growing over.

Tremaine had come from a middle class family of landowners, but while that would have been good to satisfy most peasants Tremaine had always wanted more. She married for money, but how she earned the trust of Cinderella's father was beyond her. However, it was often said by old family friends, ones that Cinderella was able to contact after finally being set free, that her father was a quiet, odd man prone to solitude and difficult to understand. The loss of his wife, the socialite, the one who made friends with everyone, the light of his life, was just too much for him it seemed. As Cinderella figured, he felt inadequate in providing a complete family for his daughter. This is why he probably married Tremaine, because despite her harsh nature she already knew how to take care of girls and was efficient in everything (but love, as was later revealed). But Tremaine could put on a mask when needed, and in his need he reached out to her, sacrificing his happiness as a way to help Cinderella grow up with a mother.

One of the old family friends she met told her that madness such as her father's odd nature ran in the blood.

Cinderella had her mother's charm in winning friends, but at times she felt like her father, distant from the world. Having grown up as she did, she worked harder than most peasants and only ate a little better. She never knew being courted by a charming, if egoistical, young boy, or dancing in the village festival or at one of the massive balls. She never ate a piece of pie, only the bits she could sneak off with. She never knew what it was to work at her own pace, or to chat and hang out with others girls, to be with people who were actually happy to see her and not demand something from her.

She passed through the front yard and onto the main hall, the cat only entering after Cinderella did. The curtains were drawn, and Cinderella had to open them to see the mess. As expected, everything downstairs was dusty, and musty. The furniture was either decaying or broken and decaying. The house's precious china was smashed to pieces in various directions. Drizella had a massive scrap with her mother before she left, something that the young spy had downplayed when he told Cinderella, probably out of respect for Drizella.

Cinderella grew up working, and she grew up tough. She learned that friends are the ones who would sacrifice themselves for you, and she learned to give just as much back. She learned to never quit. She grew up learning to keep your tears to yourself, and that the only way to get things done was to do them until they were done. She knew what it was like to work, and to never stop working, never stop moving. Rest was for those who got all their work done, and the dead. She grew up learning what it was like to kneel before those who never once lifted a finger for you, and never would. She grew up in the darkness, only the beasts of the sky and earth ever came and played with her.

She walked up the stairs, but Lucifer stayed at the bottom step. Cinderella almost asked, but decided against it. The old cat had been with Tremaine for years, and to see Lucifer at Cinderella's heels instead of her own would send Tremaine mad.

The upstairs was quiet, not even the sound of snoring. Cinderella passed by the two former abodes of her step-sisters, and arrived at Tremaine's domicile. She took a few deep breathes, reached for the doorknob, and pulled.

The door only budged. Cinderella pulled at it again a few more times to check if it was locked, and then quietly, and then more assertively, said "Stepmother".

Suddenly, a very poignant, and revolting smell, came to her nose, having sneaked out with the pulling of the door.

Cinderella jumped back, and covered her nose. "Oh…no."

The queen had fallen off her throne, never to rise again.

Cinderella turned around, and thought of just walking out. It did not seem right, however, to just leave. Cinderella looked to her side. Down the hall, a turn or so later, and she would be at the stairs to the attic.

She walked to and up those stairs. She heard a sudden leap, and saw that Lucifer had joined her.

"I'm sorry." She said, but Lucifer said nothing, merely walking by her.

Cinderella got to her old room, and opened it. It was no different than how she left, save the bed being stripped down to the mattress, something that must have happened after she left. When she did leave, Cinderella had taken everything she wanted from her old life with her; Tremaine had nothing to destroy or keep until she died just to mock her former slave.

The lone maid, cold and in many ways alone, walked over to the window where she stared countless nights to the castle. It was hard to believe…her dream came true.

It was not a dream anymore. She was no longer sleeping. She was free to make friends, free to dance, free to play games, free to drink and eat whatever she wanted, free to have a family and grow old and die with her husband surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

She had only one chain left to break.

Finding some old, dry logs, she piled them up in the main hall and throughout the rest of the house. She found all the liquor she could find and threw it in each log pile. She cut all the overhanging branches and anything sticking anywhere close to the house. She found every last piece of flammable material, oil and gas, kindling wood and dry cloth. She found a box of matches, and lit each piece on each log pile.

Then she ran out with Lucifer on her tail.

From the front yard, she heard, and then saw the fire. It began from every part of the house, and met throughout until the whole house was a raging conflagration, a dancer of crimson red, orange, and yellow. The smell of burning wood, the sound of cooking brick, the sight of smoke rising to the heavens.

Slowly, like the rising ashes, a weight left Cinderella, to meet the clouds in the sky. The chains were gone, along with the pain, the hardships, all the memories.

Cinderella was a piece of coal, forged by the fires of her life. She would not burn away, not for anything or anybody, glowing until the day she could no longer.

Picking up Lucifer, she walked away from the house that was not a home, and never looked back.

Thank you for reading, please review if you would like. Stay safe and have a wonderful day!