Roses and Black Glass: a dark Cinderella tale Read Online Free Page B

as Isabella
felt then, but the dead girl downstairs could rest assured: she would be seeing
no more of Christian Charming.
     
    5
     
    Cindy put on
her night dress and pulled back the covers on her bed.  She had said goodnight
to her father and taken a warm bath to wash away the blood and soot.  The bath
had felt good to her after a long day of working in the cold mortuary. 
    She had just
prepared the body of Kate Hensen, a woman who died of a long illness.  The
funeral was set for tomorrow at eleven a.m. at her father’s advisory.  Soon
after, she had found out that Mrs. Hensen had been Christian’s aunt.  Cindy
found herself satisfied that the reason he was there was not to see her
step-sisters.  The way they both swooned over him made her want to vomit more
than the smells from the corpses.  She only wished she could have seen them
falling over themselves like she was sure they had done.  To be so hungry for a
man’s attention was shameful.  She would never be caught doing it.
    And yet…
    Christian Charming… 
Their meeting today had not drifted far from her mind all evening.  She had
thought he was handsome as soon as she had looked up to see him standing there
in the basement hall.  She was quite curious as to who he was underneath that
beautiful exterior, but as soon as he had told her his name, she knew him.  He
was the one: the topic of all Isabella and Charlotte’s rambling.  They had even
spoken of him earlier today while they made the servants ready their finest
dresses.  Now that Cindy had seen him, she hated herself for falling under the
spell of his eyes, and refused to acknowledge it.
    Sighing, she
walked to the iron cage on the table beside her bed and looked inside at the
fattened rat there.  He was slick and black with little black eyes that looked
at Cindy lovingly.  She had rescued him from a trap near the attic, and he had
been her pet ever since.
    “Hi,
Augustus,” she said, sticking her finger through the bars.  The rat sniffled it
with its pink nose. “I hope your day was better than mine.  I met a man who was
completely full of himself.  He was the worst I’ve ever seen - yet there was
something about him.  He was pompous, no doubt.  A total windbag, it’s true,
but those eyes.  That dark hair…  He was perfect on the outside – though how
could I have expected less.  Did you know he is the one that Isabella and
Charlotte are always fawning over?  It’s funny: I don’t want him – no, I don’t
want him – yet I can’t bear the thought that he’d be with the pig or the mule! 
Such a waste.  Perhaps I just don't want them to have what they want.”
    Cindy looked
over to the rodent, who was giving her his full attention through the bars and
wiggling his nose.  As she looked, she could see his ears moving carefully,
hearing sounds she couldn’t hear.
    “What is it?”
she asked, but expected no answer.
    In a quick
dash, the mouse turned and ran into the safety of a glass cup she had turned up
inside the cage.  Almost as soon as he had hid himself from view, there was a
pounding on Cindy’s door.
    “Open the
door, Cindy!” came the call.
    Cindy rolled
her eyes and lay down on the bed, ignoring the knocks.  She knew who it was,
but didn’t care what she wanted.
    “What do you
want, Isabella?” she asked.
    “Open the
door.  I have to talk to you,” she insisted.
    “Go to sleep,”
Cindy insisted, laying an arm across her eyes.
    “Open this
door or I won’t give you a moment’s peace!” the girl said, beating on the wood
again.
    Cindy rolled
her head to look toward her pet.  “She’s probably not lying,” she said to him
secretly.
    Cindy pulled
herself up angrily and walked across the cold floor in her bare feet. 
Isabella’s noise was sure to wake the whole household, and she wouldn’t stop
until she was appeased.
    “What do you
want?  You’re going to wake the whole house!” Cindy said in a harsh whisper
after she had pulled the