Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

3 The Slave Maiden

Finally, Snow White woke up in her own dream.

She was standing in front of a mirror in her chamber, alone with blood dripping from her lips. This Dreamory, influenced by the word ‘Phoenix’ was taking place two centuries ago. Her reflection in the mirror was a seven-year-old Snow White.

She had no time to think about whom she had just bitten or whose blood dripped from her lips. What mattered now was that Loki hadn’t appeared yet, and she had an eerie feeling she had no control over this dream. She tried focusing, her tips of her fingers on her forehead, trying to shift the dream to another time or place of her choosing, but she failed.

Of course, whatever Carmilla sent Loki for in this dream, she wouldn’t risk Snow having control over it. Loki must have used another kind of Baby Tears or a different spell that prevented the dreamer from manipulating the dream. Right now, Snow White was another spectator in this dream like anyone else, and the consequences could be dire.

“Shew!” Carmilla burst into the room toward her daughter. Tabula Rasa, her servant, followed her. “How could you?” Carmilla said.

Stiffened, Snow White stared back at her. The golden hue in Carmilla’s eyes reminded Snow White that Angel had turned her into a vampire already.

“And who brought that damn awful mirror in the room?” Carmilla stopped in her tracks, shying away.

Tabula Rasa hurried and adjusted the mirror to face the wall. Snow White assumed that Carmilla hadn’t met Bloody Mary yet in this memory.

“Didn’t we talk about you biting people?” Carmilla shook her daughter violently. “Do you have any idea how important it is for our kingdom to have their kingdom as an ally?”

“What did I do?” Snow White said reluctantly. She felt like an actress dressed for the part, but not having read the script.

Carmilla rolled her eyes and sighed.

“She’s talking about you biting the prince, Princess Shew,” Tabula said, lowering her head with respect.

Oh, we’re back again to when I bit the prince?

“And don’t tell me he was yummy,” Carmilla stabbed a warning finger in the air.

“But he was yummy, mummy,” Snow White tapped her feet, trying to play the part, and trying not to laugh at the coincidental rhyme.

“Mummy?” Carmilla blinked her eyes, illuminating her long eyelashes. “Where did you hear that word? Don’t ever mention mummies around here.”

“Oh,” Snow White put a hand on her blood-dripping lips.

“I don’t care. I want my yummy prince,” Snow White distracted them by playing bratty little princess.

Carmilla stood up again, impatient and disapproving of her daughter’s behavior as if she hadn’t been turned into a half-vampire herself. “Clean her up,” she told Tabula. “I will deal with her later.”

“But I’m afraid she’ll bite me, my majesty,” Tabula said. “I don’t want to end up like the prince.”

Tabula knew our family’s secrets?

Carmilla stared back at the door for a moment as if she wondered what really happened to the prince. Had he been turned into a vampire? Was he cured or dead?

“I understand,” Carmilla said. “Send one of the Slave Maidens to clean her up.”

Snow White didn’t know what a Slave Maiden was.

“Thank you, my majesty,” Tabula said. “I will send one of the girls to wash the princess.”

“And you, darling, control your cravings,” Carmilla told Snow White. “A prince for dinner should be enough,” Carmilla smirked and looked away. It was as if she were making fun of her. Like mother like daughter, both of them were bloodsuckers.

Tabula followed Carmilla.

Snow White tried to use her powers again to shift from one scene to another in the dream, but all was in vein. She wondered what kind of dream this was. It felt like being stuck in a movie theatre, not allowed to leave your seat until the credits rolled.

It confused her why the word ‘Phoenix’ sent her back to this part in her life. What did the Phoenix stand for?

She decided to look around for a clue, but stopped when the beauty of the dresses in her wardrobe caught her attention. As she rummaged through the wardrobe, she wondered why she had no recollection of the events in this dream. Was this a part of her past life, or was it some kind of a hallucination?

“Princess?” a sweet voice knocked on the door.

A young girl, a year or two older than Snow, entered the chamber. She had blonde hair, tinged fiery red. Shew squinted. The red in the girl’s hair was more of an aura than a highlight. It was almost not there, like some kind of ghost waving around the girl’s head.

The girl was tiny. She wore ragged clothes, which seemed like they had been blue once, now smeared with ashes. She had a reluctant smile, one that would have been beautiful if not wrinkled by the tension and fear showing on her face. She took small and careful steps toward Shew as if she were a Geisha, her head lowered, hands laced with a towel dangling from them. It was obvious she feared the princess.

“I’m here to help you wash, princess,” she knelt on the floor.

Snow White patted her and pulled her up to her feet. Even then, she still had to pull the girl’s chin up so she’d look her in the eyes. An inevitable sadness lurked there.

“Call me Shew,” she said.

“Could I ask you to walk to the bathroom so I can take off your clothes and wash you, Princess Shew?” the girl asked.

Shew complied, almost hypnotically. The girl began wetting the towel and cleaning the blood dripping from her lips.

Something inside Shew told her she knew the girl from before. It was like Déjà vu or a repressed memory. She could almost swear this was a real memory that had been blocked from her somehow.

“What’s your name?” Shew said.

“Cerené,” the girl said proudly as if it was the only thing she owned. Her blue eyes glittered while she explained the proper pronunciation of her name, “Chi-re-ney. You could add a light ‘h’ sound at the end if you like. It makes my name sound like a sigh,” she blinked her eyes once.

“Nice to meet you, Cerené,” Shew said. “I’m—”

“The Princess of Sorrow,” Cerené said with a thin smile. She still looked worried. “I heard the Queen call you Shew like you just asked me to, but I always think of you as Joy.”

“Joy?” Snow White asked.

“It’s a nickname I’ve heard your father use to describe you to noblemen. I heard him say you’re the joy of the Sorrows. I like it.”

“Oh,” Shew actually liked the name, although she hadn’t heard her father call her that. The Joy of the Sorrows was ironically destined to kill all the Sorrows someday. “I don’t think you still believe I’m the joy of the Sorrows, do you?” Shew pointed at the blood on the towel.

“Well, you’re rather monstrous,” Cerené stopped with a hand on her mouth, looking apologetic, the towel slipping to the floor. What had she just said? “I—didn’t’ mean…”

“Don’t fear me, Cerené,” Shew said. “You said nothing wrong. I am monstrous,” she glimpsed at her blood-dripping image in the bathroom mirror.

Cerené backed up toward the wall, “please don’t hurt me.”

“I told you I’m not going to,” Shew said.

“You just said you’re monstrous, and I heard you just bit the prince,” Cerené plastered her cheek against he cold walls of the royal bathroom, which must have been bigger than the size of the small cottage where she lived.

“I’m a beautiful monster,” Shew smiled. She was aware she wasn’t acting like a seven year old, but she tried her best.

So this is Dreamory of me, which I am living all over again from the mind of my older self. I wonder if I changed something from this past, if something would change in the future?

Cerené smiled and eased back when Shew stretched out her hand. There was something about Cerené. She came across as too pure to live among the evil lurking in the Kingdom of Sorrow. Shew watched Cerené pick up the towel and begin washing her again.

“So why do they call you a Slave Maiden?” Shew asked.

“Because I am one,” Cerené said, unashamed. “I’m an orphan. I work for a family with a stepmother and two stepdaughters for a place to stay. I also work as a maid in the Schloss whenever they send for me, and I clean the School of Sorrow in exchange for bread.”

“What you just said only explains you’re a poor girl, not a slave,” Shew said.

“Girls like me are disposable. We are sent to do jobs that might kill us because we have no family to care when we die. They don’t even bury us properly in a graveyard,” Cerené said casually. “Some of us are used as bait for vampires on the borders. They send us to lure out vampires so your father’s army can kill them. They don’t care about us.”

“My father does that?”

“I like the King of Sorrow a lot more than the Queen but I heard he is heartless when it comes to war,” Cerené said, feeling she was allowed to speak her mind in front of an understanding princess. Shew knew nobody had ever granted her such a privilege before.

“So you were sent to me because if I bite you or kill you—”

Cerené stopped what she was doing and nodded. Both girls locked eyes for a moment. “And you didn’t mind?” Shew said.

“Mind?” Cerené let out a feeble laugh. “I don’t have the right to mind, princess, or wish.”

“Who said so,” Shew protested. “Tell me what you wish for, and I will grant it to you.”

“You know you’re different from how I pictured you, Princess?” Cerené said. “I didn’t imagine you like this.”

“Neither did I,” Snow White laughed. She wondered if she was really like that in the past. After all, and although this was a dream, she was a sixteen year old from the twenty first century trapped in a seven year old body in the 19^th century, but it was her modern mind that was working here. Although Cerené looked to be eight or nine years old, she talked like she was older too.

“So what do you think of me biting the prince?”

“Oh, well,” Cerené hesitated.

“Speak your mind.”

“Well, I agree he was yummy,” Cerené giggled, covering her ashen mouth with her hands.

“I knew it,” Snow White clapped her hand with Cerené. “So I was right to bite the yummy out of him.”

“In your own sick way, I guess so,” Cerené laughed. “Is he dead?”

“I sure hope not,” Snow White said. “I’d like to bite him again.”

Cerené laughed so hard she fell on the floor. Snow White was happy to make her smile. It was like seeing sunshine in an abyss.

“Come here,” Snow White said, grabbing a towel to clean the ashes from Cerené’s face.

Suddenly, Cerené’s features tensed and she pulled away. “No,” she said. “I can’t wipe the ashes away. I can’t,” she made a fist with one hand.

“Why?” Snow White wondered.

“I just can’t,” Cerené took the towel from her and stood up, preparing to leave. “Would you ask anything else of me, princess?” She asked the question stiffly as if they hadn’t been laughing seconds ago.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Thank you, princess,” Cerené said and left the bathroom. Snow White leaned against the door’s edge, watching her walk away. What had offended her so much? Snow White just wanted to wipe the ashes away.

Watching her walk away, Snow White noticed Cerené wore strange slippers, slightly hidden under her dress. They looked as if they’d been burned and smeared with ashes. The slippers didn’t look like they were made from leather or anything Snow White had seen before.

“Those are strange slippers,” Snow White said, hoping to stop the girl from leaving.

Cerené stopped then turned around slowly. She looked even more worried now, “they are just a poor girl’s slippers,” she shrugged, “nothing special about them.”

“I didn’t say they were special,” Snow White approached her. “I could give you better slippers.”

“No.” Cerené reverted to her shyness again. What kind of secrets did this girl hide?

Snow White didn’t push her. She already knew these weren’t ordinary slippers, but what was the point of insisting to know?

Cerené stopped at the door on her way out again, “thank you,” she said without looking back.

“For what?” Snow White asked.

“For talking to me like a human being,” she replied and left.

Nineteenth century or not, Shew wasn’t fond of drama, but her curiousness about Cerené almost made her forget this was a dream.

Confused, Snow White retreated to the chair in front of the mirror. Looking at her reflection, she was stunned at what suddenly began to happen.

She was aging, and as she watched in astonishment, her body turned into the fourteen-year-old version of herself.