“Welcome to our home! I’m Lady Iris and these are my daughters, Petunia and Rosemary,” she said, and the taller one curtsied, followed by the shorter one. The stairs creaked so loudly beneath her it was hard to hear what she was saying.
“Hello, Lady Iris,” Red said. “I’m Queen Red Riding Hood and these are my second cousins, Hamlet and Ophelia.”
The twins cringed at the sound of their aliases. “Pleasure,” Conner said and gave Red a dirty look.
The stepmother nodded cordially but her eyes held many questions. “Yes, I recognized you from Princess Hope’s first birthday celebration at the palace,” Lady Iris said.
“Oh yes, of course!” Red said, surprised to share the memory. “I remember meeting you there as well!”
“We didn’t stay very long,” Lady Iris explained. “It’s hard leaving home when people boo and hiss at you wherever you go.” She laughed even though no one found it funny. “Won’t you please join us in our sitting room, Your Majesty?”
Red and the twins followed the stepmother and her daughters into the next room. The stepsisters tried picking up the house as they went, but there was so much clutter the twins didn’t see why they bothered.
The sitting room had blue walls and white seats. It would
have looked like a bright blue sky had it not been covered in a thick layer of grime; as it was, it resembled an overcast day. They all sat down and dust filled the air. Conner held a cough the best he could.
“You must forgive the state the house is in,” Lady Iris apologized. “My girls and I are useless when it comes to housework and it’s hard to find help when you have a history like ours.”
“I imagine,” Conner said.
“So what brings you to our humble abode, Your Majesty?” Lady Iris asked.
Red had no idea where to start. Saying that she wanted to build a country home that resembled the one they sat in would have been an obvious lie.
“Well, I… I… I…” Red said. “Ophelia? Why don’t you explain?”
Red and Conner turned to Alex, completely putting her on the hot seat. Alex looked up at the stepmother with a lie forming in her head, but she was distracted by several paintings of animals that lined the walls.
“What beautiful paintings!” Alex said, changing the subject. “Whose work are they?”
Petunia’s mouth fell open; she wasn’t used to being complimented. “
I
painted those,” she said with large, excited eyes.
“Petunia is quite the gifted painter,” Lady Iris bragged. “She does animal portraits mostly but she’s been working on landscapes.” Her voice was smooth and dreamy, as if she were a saleswoman.
“I like animals,” Petunia said enthusiastically, so happy to
talk about herself. “I usually paint the ones I see outside my window—sometimes they’re pets, sometimes they’re pests—animals have always liked me, too; there’s something trusting about me, I guess. Anyway, it gives me something to do.”
Red and the twins nodded politely.
“Well, that’s
exactly
why I’m here!” Red said. “I’ve recently adopted a
wol—
excuse me—a dog, and I was hoping you could paint a portrait of him.”
Alex and Conner were sort of relieved and sort of mortified by Red’s sudden ad lib. Petunia’s bottom lip quivered. “Really?” she asked. “I would love to!”
“I LIKE TO BAKE!”
Rosemary yelled—desperate for attention herself. The outburst caused the others to jump in their seats. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout! I just like to cook and would love to cook for you if you’d let me.…”
“Rosemary is an exceptional baker,” Lady Iris boasted. “She cooks all our meals at the house.”
“Well, someone has to, otherwise we’d starve,” Rosemary said with a laugh, although it wasn’t funny. Laughing through misery must have been a family trait.
Both of the stepsisters were so excited to show off their talents they could barely sit still. Lady Iris, however, was still looking at her three guests skeptically.
“What do you usually bake?” Conner asked Rosemary.
“Rosemary, why don’t you go prepare a batch of your mushroom biscuits for our guests? And Petunia, why don’t you go to your room and gather other samples of your paintings to show Her Majesty?” Lady Iris said.
The stepsisters leaped to their feet and collided into each other, running opposite directions in the house. They could hear the stairs creaking as Petunia ran up to her room. Rosemary disappeared behind a swinging door into the kitchen—for a split second the twins caught sight of the stacks of dirty dishes piled inside.
Once her daughters had left, Lady Iris dropped her cordial face and glared at Red and the twins with a suspicious stare.
“You have such lovely daughters,” Red said with a tight smile.
“Save it,” the stepmother said sharply. “I’ve lived in this house alone with my daughters for years—I know Petunia is a lousy painter and Rosemary is an even worse cook. Why have you
actually
come here today?”
They didn’t answer her. Red and the twins didn’t have to look at one another to know they were all sporting the same doe-eyed expression.
“I see,” Lady Iris said after they didn’t respond. “You’ve come to mock an old woman and her daughters, then, have you? Come to laugh at the black sheep of the kingdom? How dare you, especially at a time like this.”
Lady Iris struggled to get to her feet so she could escort them out. “I’ll show you to the door,” she said.
“Why did you do it?” Alex asked abruptly.
Lady Iris turned back to her. “Excuse me?” she said.
“I bet that’s not a question you hear very often, but I’ve always wondered why you were so cruel to Cinderella,” Alex said. “Why did you dislike her so much?”
“Alex, how is this helping our cause?” Conner whispered to her, but she waved him off. Lady Iris stared her down, searching for a malicious motive behind her question, but Alex didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. Lady Iris went to the side of the room to a small fireplace. A very dusty portrait was hung over it. Lady Iris took a deep breath and blew the dust off the painting. It was of a very attractive and dignified man with auburn hair and a full beard.
“Who is that?” Alex asked.
“My late husband,” Lady Iris said. She stared up at him with her back to the twins. “Does he look familiar?”
The resemblance was so blatant they didn’t have to think twice; Cinderella was the spitting image of her father.
“Ella has always looked just like her father,” Lady Iris said. “Her father nicknamed her Cinderella when she was a toddler because she loved playing in the fireplace—she would cover herself in so much soot and ash she was unrecognizable. When her father died I found it unbearable to look at her face. I forced her to do countless filthy chores around the house, covering her appearance so she wasn’t a constant reminder of what I had lost. Now the face I had spent so many years trying to hide is one of the most recognizable faces in the world.”
The stepmother slowly caressed the wedding ring she still wore on her left hand. Red looked at the twins out of the corner of her eye. They were all three thinking the same thing:
They had found her most prized possession.
“So you don’t
hate
her, then,” Alex thought out loud. “It wasn’t jealousy, it was
heartache
.”
Lady Iris lowered her head. “I’m twice the widow but half the woman Cinderella is,” she said. “When the way I treated her was revealed to the rest of the kingdom and my daughters and I became hated across the land, Cinderella had the fence built and had the guards placed around our home so we’d be protected. She visited and apologized to
us
. Can you believe that? After all we had done to her, she felt guilty about what her marriage to Prince Chance had done to
us
.”
“In your defense, it seems like the story has been exaggerated a bit,” Conner said. “Your daughters aren’t
ugly
, for example; they’re just average looking.”
The stepmother sat back down across from them. “Indeed,” she said. “The kingdom has always loved mocking us. I heard a rumor that after the ball when the prince visited, my girls tried cutting off parts of their feet to get them to fit inside the glass slipper.
Such nonsense!
”
Lady Iris looked at them vacantly—she had nothing else to tell them.
“Well, is that all you were after, then? An old woman’s useless confession?” she asked.
“Not to add salt to the wound, but that hatred is actually why we’re here,” Conner said. “This is going to sound crazy, but we’re on a bit of a quest—”
“Conner, I don’t think it’s smart to tell—” Alex tried to say.
“Why not? It’s not like we’ve got anything to lose at this point,” he said and continued with his explanation. “We think we’ve found a way to defeat the Enchantress. It requires us to go on a bit of a treasure hunt. Your ring is one of the items we need.”
“
Excuse me?”
the stepmother asked, appalled by the request.
“Your granddaughter’s life is in danger,” Alex said. “Don’t you want to help her?”
Lady Iris looked away to hide the shame in her eyes. This was evidently a sore subject for her. “
Grandmother
is not a title I consider myself worthy of,” she said. “A
grandmother
is the mother of a child’s mother—and I have never been a mother to Cinderella.”
The room went quiet. The stepmother had to calm herself down from the emotional declaration.
“Well, it’s not too late,” Red said. “Giving us your ring would be quite the noble act. It’d be the most
Cinderellian
thing you could do. Your status in the community may change when people find out you helped us.”
With this said, the twins could see a spark ignite in Lady Iris’s eyes. They knew if they could speak with her for a little while longer they might be able to convince her. Unfortunately, the kitchen door swung open and Rosemary brought a tray of her mushroom biscuits into the room, bringing the conversation to a halt.
“Who wants mushroom biscuits?!” Rosemary asked happily. The energy had completely changed in the room since she left it and she couldn’t figure out why.
Lady Iris stood again. “You’ll have to wrap them up, Rosemary,” she said. “Our guests were just leaving.”
“Leaving?” said Petunia, walking into the room with several rolled-up portraits under her arms. “But I just found my best paintings.”
Red and the twins rose to their feet, too.
“No, your mother is right. We better get going,” Red said. “After further consideration, I think I may be getting rid of my dog—I have a suspicion he may be a wolf.
It’s a long story
. We’ll be in touch about the portrait if I should acquire another pet.”
The stepsisters’ faces clouded over with disappointment. Petunia threw her portraits to the floor. Rosemary went back to the kitchen and dumped the biscuits into a brown sack for them to take.
“Here,” Rosemary said through an enormous frown as she shoved the sack into Conner’s chest. “Eat them soon. They spoil after the first hour.”
Lady Iris walked Red and the twins back through the entrance hall to the front door. The twins kept glancing at each other, waiting for the other to do something. Alex thought her brother’s method of tackling her might be their only option.
Lady Iris opened the door for her visitors but blocked them from leaving. “Wait,” she said to the twins as they passed her. She slipped her wedding ring off her hand and placed it into Alex’s. “Make sure to tell Cinderella I gave it to you.”
Red and the twins couldn’t believe their eyes, but their spirits soared.
“We will!” Alex promised her.
“Thank you!” Conner said.
“I’m going to personally issue a statement to let people know you aren’t the mean old tart everyone thinks you are!” Red said and hugged her.
The stepmother forced a smile. “Unfortunately, some sins are forgiven and others are never forgotten,” she said. “I’m afraid the only place we could live free of judgment would be another world completely. But one day, long after I am gone, I hope Cinderella can tell her daughter I did something to help her.”
“She will,” Alex said. “Thank you.”
Lady Iris gave a shallow bow, not completely sure she had made a good decision. She shut the door behind them and the twins jumped with joy. Red and the twins passed the guards, who didn’t understand why the three of them looked so happy after spending an afternoon in
that
house.
Red and the twins walked down the path and found Froggy waiting for them at the Royal Pumpkin Remains exhibit.
“Well?” he asked. “How did it go?”
Alex opened her hand and showed him the ring.
“We got it! We got it! We got it!” Conner shouted. “We got the ring!”
An incredibly wide smile lit up Froggy’s face. He picked them both up and swung them around. “Well done, children!” he said and Conner shot him a look. “Forgive me,
young adults
.”
Red was quietly waiting for praise of her own but none came. “I wasn’t too bad myself!” she said.
“Of course you weren’t, my darling,” Froggy said and air-kissed her cheek. “Now let’s get back to the
Granny
and share the victory with the others.”
Froggy led the way back through the countryside to their flying ship. Goldilocks was thrilled to hear of their success, but Jack was nowhere to be found.
“He went into town to pick up some supplies,” Goldilocks said. “He’ll be back soon. But in the meantime let’s see if the Wand of Wonderment is all it’s cracked up to be.”
They placed the Snow Queen’s ice scepter in the center of the lower-deck floor. Alex was still gripping the stepmother’s ring so tightly it dug into her palm.
“How is this supposed to work?” Alex asked. “Is it like the Wishing Spell? Do we need all the items together for anything to happen?”
Conner shrugged. “Let’s find out,” he said.
Alex carefully placed the ring on the floor beside the scepter. The five of them waited impatiently for something—anything—to occur. Anticipation was even getting the best of Clawdius, who was curled up in the corner watching from afar.