As the years passed Lady Tremaine’s mind began to warp in its bitterness and rage. Her singular focus was getting at least one of her daughters married, all to raise them out of the squalor they had been subjected to for more years than she could recollect.
Anastasia and Drizella, too, started to change. As their mother fell deeper into madness and despair, they started to regret how they had treated Cinderella. They saw the story differently, through the eyes of young women rather than children. They would sit up in their rooms at night talking about their childhood and putting all the pieces together. They realized Cinderella wasn’t being horrible to their mother as they thought in those early days; she, too, was just being controlled by her cruel and horrible father. But the most startling revelation they made in those late-night conversations was something they could never share with their mother. Besides, they had long ago stopped trying to make their mother see Cinderella’s point of view. It only sent her into a fit of rage. So they kept this secret close to their hearts, and they did what their mother told them to do. They wore the white wedding gowns and listened to her ravings. It wasn’t until they had grown so weary of living like wraiths in a haunted château that they finally decided to stand up for themselves. Their mother’s future might be lost, but they could still fight for theirs.
It was a day like most others. It started with Lady Tremaine sitting in the dingy front parlor of her château. The room was dark, but shards of light pierced the moth-eaten curtains, making the dust and cobwebs in the room sparkle.
Their mother was ranting, and Anastasia and Drizella were doing their best to avoid her. They were in their rooms but could hear their mother’s voice echoing up the stairway.
“I’ve ruined everything. I’ve ruined my life and the lives of my daughters, all for a man who only had enough love in his heart for his dead wife and his daughter.”
Lady Tremaine was talking to a plump black-and-white cat who looked at her lazily as she spoke.
“We have been trapped in this house since that horrible Cinderella was spirited off by the prince and made his bride! My daughters and I should be in that castle, not that simpering fool of a girl!”
The cat blinked and continued to listen to his lady.
“She was an insane girl, talking to mice, dressing them in handmade clothing. It was disgusting! I wonder, how does the king like his queen filling the castle with grubby little mice?”
“Mother, who are you talking to?” It was Drizella. She was standing in the shadows, avoiding the blinding shards of light coming in through the moth holes of the curtains.
Lady Tremaine narrowed her eyes, trying to see her daughter. “Come into the light, my dear, so I can see you.” Drizella stayed where she was. She was like a statue. She stood stock-still, too afraid to let her mother see her. “Do as I say, Zella! Do it now, and stop acting like a vampiric fool, and come into the light!” Drizella slowly inched her way out of the shadows. “I want to see all of you, girl! Not just the tips of your shoes!”
And then it became clear why Drizella was hiding from her mother. Lady Tremaine’s face turned scarlet with anger. “Ah, now I see. We’ve talked about this, Zella. And what did we agree upon the last time we spoke on this matter?”
“I’m never to come down those stairs without dressing properly!” said the frightened young woman.
“Precisely. Now get upstairs and change your clothes this moment!”
“Mother, please! Don’t make me put that dress back on!” Drizella looked desperate, but her mother’s eyes became wider as her anger grew.
“How are you going to attract a husband if you’re not dressed properly?” Her booming voice sent the many black-and-white cats that populated their moldering, vine-covered château scattering. “Get upstairs and put on your dress right this moment!” Drizella looked down at her feet as her mother continued to yell. “Zella! Go! I don’t want to see you again until you’ve changed into your dress! And send down your sister!”
The lady of the house watched her daughter disappear up the stairs.
“Foolish girl!” She threw a threadbare velvet pillow across the room. “Sorry, my dear,” she said to the startled cat. “Come here, Lucifer, I’m sorry I frightened you. Come to Mommy.” The cat swaggered grumpily over to his mistress. “Don’t look at me like that. I said I was sorry. What are we going to do about those girls, refusing to wear their best dresses, refusing to find husbands so we can be lifted out of this squalor?”
“Mother, are you talking to the cats again?” It was Anastasia. Her ginger ringlets hung long and loose down her shoulders, framing her frightfully pale face and matching her vivid red lip paint. “You remember that isn’t Lucifer, don’t you? He died many years ago.”
“How dare you say my sweet baby died? You aren’t dead, are you, my dearest?” Lady Tremaine stroked the smug black-and-white cat, pretending to forget her daughter was there. “Don’t listen to that silly girl, Lucifer. You’re just fine.”
“Mother, we’ve talked about this. He just looks like Lucifer.”
“Stasia! How many times do I have to tell you that I’ve named him after his father! Now stop treating me like an addlebrained fool!” Lady Tremaine’s face contorted in rage, but when she finally fixed her gaze on her daughter, the sight of Anastasia in her wedding dress seemed to snap her out of her madness. “Oh, my darling girl! Just look at you! You look so beautiful! Stasia, you will be our savior, unlike your horrible sister! Where is she? Zella! Get down here this instant!”
Drizella slowly made her way down the stairs. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her black eye makeup smudged. “My gods, look at you, Zella! You’re beautiful!” Lady Tremaine stood up and admired both of her daughters, who now stood side by side in tattered and stained wedding dresses. They looked frightful: pale and sickly, as if their skin never saw the light of day. “Look at my precious girls! Like living dolls of perfection!”
“Moth
er! You can’t be serious.”
“What do you mean, Zella? Lucifer, do you see something wrong with the way my daughters look?” The smug cat blinked his eyes. “See! Lucifer thinks you look beautiful! Any man who walks into this house will think you look beautiful!”
“Mother, please!” the girls said in unison. “Let us at least wash these dresses?”
Lady Tremaine turned her attention back to her cat, cooing at him and stroking his ears. “And suppose an eligible young man came to the house while your dresses were hanging to dry and you lost your chance forever? Never!” she said, returning her attentions to her cat.
“Mother! Eligible men don’t come here anymore; they haven’t for ages!” Anastasia said. “Do you know what they say about us in the village? What must Queen Cinderella think each time she hears how you act when the deliveries come from the palace!”
Lady Tremaine erupted; her anger was explosive. “Don’t you ever mention that girl’s name to me! Never! Do you understand?”