Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2, May 2013 by et al. Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online Page A

the forks, and her full-throated laughter rang almost strident above the polite titters of the court. Once she had laughed so hard that her stays split, to the immense embarrassment of everyone concerned. And sometimes, sitting still in the audience hall, the chill of its shadows penetrated to her warm bourgeois blood, and her mind turned longingly to the cinders and the lentils boiling on the crane above the fire.
    She who had never had an idle moment before suddenly found herself plunged into a vast ennui —nothing to do but preen before the mirror and walk the garden paths, her crown tilted at a precarious angle, while hawk-eyes on every side waited for her least mistake as a signal for lifted brows.
    One afternoon Cinderella disappeared. For hours they searched. It was the Prince himself who found her at last. Far off in a corner of the castle was an old tower room where odds and ends of things were kept—seven-league boots somewhat run down at the heels, a cloak of darkness with threadbare seams, magic mirrors with cracked faces, and miscellaneous charms that somehow didn’t seem to work very well any more. Under the window stood a spinning wheel that had once spun gold out of straw. The treadle had cracked years ago, it creaked when it moved, and here in the dusty attic it had stood for years. Cinderella had found it, and here she sat in the dusty sunlight under the window, spinning and spinning gold. The shadows were full of it, and all about her slippers shining masses gleamed in the muted sunlight. The famous small foot trundled happily away at the protesting treadle, the curly head bent over the wheel and shining gold ran out between her fingers as she worked. The crown titled over her eyes at its most rakish angle.
    “Cinderella!” The Prince’s voice was harsh.
    She started guiltily, and the crown fell from her curls and rolled across the dusty floor. “Cinderella—spinning in the attic! Look at that crown!”
    Blushing, she retrieved the crown and balanced it on her head.
    “Oh, I’m sorry—” she cried. “I–I didn’t mean—”
    “There is nothing for you to say, Cinderella. For all I know I may find you scrubbing floors tomorrow. Have you no sense of values? You are a princess, don’t you understand? A princess! There’s dust on your nose!—Now don’t cry! Princesses never cry. Here—stop—Cinderella!”
    “Yes,” meekly.
    “Stay here till I can find someone to dust you off. If you should be seen like this—now don’t cry!”
    The Prince went out hastily.
    Cinderella sat under the window in silence, with magic heaped about her feet. Slowly all the gold slid out between her fingers until they were empty. Her eyes began to brim. She hid her face behind her hands and wept. The attic was still but for the Princess sitting and weeping with her gold crown on her head; and the tears flashed out between her fingers.
    Presently behind her hands a light began to shine. Startled, she lifted her wet face. The attic was radiant, and in the midst of the light her Fairy Godmother stood.
    “Cinderella, child, why do you weep?”
    It was the same question she had asked in the kitchen at home, long ago.
    “Because they scold me,” sobbed the Princess. “Because I’m miserable! Oh, Godmother, Godmother, take me home!”
    The Fairy smiled, and the radiance brightened until Cinderella’s eyes were blinded with light. She put up her hands to shut it out. There was a deep silence.
    After a while, when the quiet had become unendurable, she uncovered her eyes. It was dark—warmly dark. She sat before the kitchen fire again, snug in the cinders.
    “Why—why—” Cinderella dug her fists into her eyes, and then, somehow, was yawning, stretching like a kitten. No crown trembled precariously on her ruffled curls. She yawned again, luxuriantly, sniffing the boiling lentils that swung above the fire. She laughed a happy little gurgle deep in her throat, and settled down among the warm