"If She Had Ignored the Time: Cinderella After Midnight"

By: Hannah Stiff         Word Count: 1000  Team Buster Forever!!!

The night had been everything she could have dreamed of. The fanfare of trumpets announcing her arrival, chandelier prisms winking off of sword and satin, the beginning notes of a waltz that seemed to sweep her forward and into the arms of the Prince.
  The Prince. Cinderella sighed, remembering his first glance, one which clearly told her she surpassed any duchess or lady in attendance. The next one had been strong and purposeful, moving through the hordes of guests and attendants ‘till he was at her side, a gloved hand extended in invitation for a dance.
  They danced. Somehow their dance led them outside the ballroom and to a walled garden dripping with climbing roses and circling a stone fountain. Here the Prince had drawn her onto a bench, and bending low, murmured such lovely things in her ear as made her half wild with hope and delight.
  She was certain he was leaning in to bestow a kiss when the deep throated call of the castle bell tolled high above them. Cinderella jolted back, her eyes widening in horror.
  “Fear not my sweet,” soothed the Prince, drawing a hand around her waist. “‘Tis but the herald of a new day, the beginning of my happiest morn.” She scarcely heard him and jumped up at the second ring.
  “Then it is midnight!” she exclaimed, a hand to her cheek.
  “And what of it?” The Prince stood with her, smiling blissfully.
A third bell chimed, and she heard in its voice the warning. She must fly or be seen as she truly was.
  And yet, the girl looked up into her suitor’s face, did not the ancients say love was blind? The fourth and fifth knells rang out as she slowly resumed her seat, a shiver running through her. “The night wind chills you I fear.” The Prince caught at his cloak and threw it around her shoulders.
  “Perhaps.” Cinderella felt her heart race. “Perhaps…I was wondering whether you would fancy me were I a scullery maid in your father’s kitchens.”
  “‘Tis a strange fancy.” The Prince laughed to the accompaniment of the sixth and seventh chimes.
  “But if I were one,” she continued earnestly, “would it make any difference to you?”
  The eighth bell groaned and the Prince’s brow furrowed. “Why ask the question when such is not the case?” he countered smoothly.
 “How do you know?” Her voice caught. “You don’t even know my name.” Twice more the bell clanged.
  “Tell me,” he whispered, leaning in once more as the eleventh bell pealed.
“They call me Cinderella, for my sisters say I smell like the ash I clean with.” The girl’s soul shuddered as the twelfth bell sounded, and silence reigned.
 “Surely you jest,” The Prince smiled, but slowly this time. Cinderella tried to speak, but sensed an odd movement in her hand where she held a fold of her gown. The rich blue silk was shredding, or rather melting. It was as if the intricate threads were slithering away from each other, sliding down the length of her dress, and in their place, the coarse brown cloth of her old skirt. The spell was unraveling.
  “I am the household drudge of my stepmother’s residence,” she spoke tremblingly, tearing her gaze away from the dress to see if the Prince had noticed. His eyes were still fixed to her face, but they were murky now, like a blue sky suddenly clouding over. His mouth curled on one side like the edge of a brittle scroll.
  “I am sure you intended no grievous mischief,” he began in a lofty tone, “but your overtures to my person were quite– Egad! What sorcery is this!” He cut himself off and started back from Cinderella, his features twisting in repulsion.
  A stray lock of hair hit her face, damp and tangled from the day’s labour. She reached up and felt the carefully arranged pompadour loosening and falling down in pieces like dry straw. As she clutched a piece in her hand, she watched in sick dread as her fingers grew calloused and cracked, broken nails like sharp precipices rising up.
  “My fairy godmother told me,” she stopped and inhaled shakily. “My fairy godmother told me I had to leave by the stroke of twelve, or else…”
  “What an odious ruse!” The Prince exclaimed, pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbing at his forehead. His eyes narrowed, and with a forefinger and thumb extended, pulled his cloak from Cinderella’s shoulders. It exposed a bodice torn at the sleeves and stained with soot.
  The girl blushed and felt a sob rise in her chest. “This was not my own doing, for no mortal is capable of such magic.” She looked down and saw the glass slippers she had reveled in fade from sight, her small, cold feet now desperately hiding themselves in the grass.
  She straightened up and lifted her chin. “Does raiment make up the entirety of a woman, Your Highness?”, she questioned softly.
  “That is for the philosophers to discuss I believe,” The Prince replied with a petulant wave of his hand. “At present, I believe this tete a tete has gone on far enough.” He attempted a courteous bow, but it ended in a jerky nod. “I believe you will find your carriage in the courtyard.”
  “No,” Cinderella whispered, a tear cutting a path down her smudged chin. “It will not have survived the stroke of twelve.”
  The Prince stared at her. “Well,” he shrugged, “you can not have traveled very far. This ball was for the inhabitants of the surrounding towns. You will not have far to walk.”
The girl was silent, and then laughed. “She was right.” she mused out loud and laughed again, despite another tear trickling down her face.
  “Beg pardon?” the Prince inquired coldly.
“The spell turns everything back to dirt and rags at midnight. Everything,” she smiled, “including the Prince.” With a curtsy, she flitted out of the garden and into the night.

The Unraveling of Memaw Jude

Stuart was a little grey cat, Memaw’s best friend and confidante. She told Stuart all her secrets. He’d never tell. She trusted him. He often lay purring in her lap in the evening as she watched reruns of The Price is Right.

Memaw Jude was her name, and she was a founding member of the Little Ladies Orchard Society of Saginaw, or LLOSS for short. Every year, the society meets to celebrate the contributions made to the community. It was a festival, a really lively party. The whole town came. It was silently mandatory. Shame was a guaranteed consequence.

For this year’s festival, Jude was going to use her finest red yarn, the exotic piece she picked up twenty years ago in France. She went with Alfred when he was still alive, her late husband of fifty years. The yarn was to honor her twenty-fifth year as head chair of the LLOSS, but also Alfred.

Jude opened the closet doors to her knitting supplies. She grabbed the basket with the thimble, the needles, and the thread. She looked up and down her towering shelves of perfectly organized yarn, sorted by color and size. The red yarn was to the left of the blue yarn and to the right of the yellow. Primary colors.

Rouge De Franco, read the label. Its gold edges glittered in the light.

She placed it next to her rocking chair as she ventured to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of tea. Jude came back into the room, ready for her meditative session of knitting.

The yarn was gone.

“Oh no!” Jude wailed. The festival was merely days away, and she had to use the yarn from France. She just had to.

The screen door in the front was swinging subtly in the wind. So subtle, in fact, that Jude never noticed it was open. She just began looking for her red French ball of yarn.

Meanwhile, outside, Stuart the cat had managed to grab the Rouge yarn and was roaming the yard with it bunched in his mouth, his little fanged teeth piercing it.

Jude looked in the closet first, the most obvious spot. Maybe she imagined placing it on the table. She crawled on the carpet, looking behind her shelves.

She kicked the shelf when she found no luck. The wood cracked, and the entire section of red yarn collapsed to the floor. Jude ran out of the closet and slammed the door shut.

Where could the yarn be?

Stuart, meanwhile, had wandered to the stop sign way down at the end of the street. The ball of red yarn had briefly stuck to his paws, causing it to unravel as he curiously ventured across the street. The ball held together, mostly, but the car on the cross street was almost certainly not amused with Stuart and his yarn. The driver honked and flailed his arms.

Jude turned her back against the closet door and gasped as she let herself slide down it to the floor. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“No. Not again. I won’t lose it again this year…” Jude said aloud to no one.

Stuart was now in the neighborhood across the street. He still had the ball of yarn, but a pile of fresh garbage piqued his interest. Stuart set the ball down, partially unraveled, and dove headfirst into a trash bag, ripping it to shreds as garbage flew everywhere.

A pigeon flew down, the red drawing it in, and grabbed the ball of yarn with its feet. Jude’s much-needed, perfect ball of French yarn was now flying high above the neighborhood. Who knew where it would end up now?

“I know. I bet it’s somewhere in the kitchen. I bet I took it with me and left it there,” Jude said aloud.

She ran to the kitchen in a frenzy. So fast that she slid when she tried to stop on the slick wooden floors. She grabbed the island counter to steady herself.

The pigeon flew into town, right over Main Street. It swooped down between the booths lining the closed-off road. Some sort of celebration, it seemed. Apples were plastered on every booth and banner.

The pigeon let the yarn fall when it grew tired of carrying it. It landed in the street next to El Papá’s Taco Loco Taco Truck. When it hit the ground, the ball became smaller as the dangling string stretched longer.

Jude threw open every cabinet in her kitchen. Every dish clattered out. Every pan overturned. Every pot was searched through. She even opened the fridge out of desperation.

Maybe, she thought.

A kid and her dad stood in line at the taco truck.

“Dad, look!” the little girl shouted.

“Not now, Amelia. Pick what you want.”

She bent over and pulled the string. The little perfect ball of yarn was no longer a ball.

Jude sat defeated in her destroyed pantry, a box of cheese puffs in her hands and orange powder on her fingers. She licked the dust off as she pouted.

Stuart the cat came back in the way he left, the screen door still breezing in the wind. Jude patted him on the head, and he purred as he curled his grey tail.

Amelia, the little girl, balled the yarn back up after pulling it out in its entirety.

Jude washed off and went to bed. She hoped she could forget about the dang yarn tomorrow.

Amelia held her dad’s hand as he walked her to her grandma’s house. She was excited to show her the amazing new ball of yarn she found.

“Memaw! Memaw!” Amelia cried joyfully.

Jude just smiled when she hugged Amelia tight.

Stuart purred when the red yarn caught his eye.

I was an old kitchen rag unraveling. It all started when I very slowly began to realize that my younger sister was extremely unhappy. But the day I woke up and found her gone, was the day that I began to see myself unraveling.

The nightclub shook with loud music and wild dancing. Drinks flowed. Women in heavy makeup leaned over tiny tables in red light. I suddenly felt very old. 

Where were their parents? Why were these people living these lives of sin? The alcohol, the 'easy' living, the cigarettes, there was no happiness here. 

"Why am I here?" I asked aloud. 

"To keep me from being lonely," answered a grinning man. 

My cheeks felt hot. "Sorry, I was talking to God. Please excuse me." 

He blinked, then laughed as I moved past him. Probably thought I was nuts. Perhaps I was. But I had to see her. 

Scarlett Valentine 

"Where's that blond?" Asked one greasy looking man, like he had too much pomade in his black hair. 

"What blonde?" Asked his companion as he shuffled the cards. He didn't look up. 

"You know the regular singer they've got here now!" Said the first man, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. 

"The new singer," said the second man. "Right. Easy on the eyes that one." 

"She should be out by now," complained the first one. 

My skin crawled. Lowlifes, probably thugs Daddy would have told me. How dare they discuss her like that! 

And yet, in this cesspool, how would they have talked about any woman? 

I sighed and hurried away. They couldn't even remember her name! 

I heard the talk of several other tables. It seemed like no one remembered the name Scarlett Valentine. No one believed it meant anything. How could it when it sounded false? 

No, Rosemary was the name that meant something. Rosemary was real. 

I didn't belong here. And God saw me here in this cesspool. He was here with me. He knew that I didn't want to sin. My cheeks burned. How could she stand it here? Could I persuade Rosemary to leave this cesspool with me? 

"Presenting Scarlett Valentine!" 

The curtains opened and there after months of silence, there she was, Rosemary. My throat ached and I didn't know if I wanted to cry or scream at her. She sang about breaking hearts. Well—here was mine.

Rosemary moved like she belonged to the light itself—arms like silk, hips swaying in practiced rhythm.

I cringed. 

She smiled beneath the lights, but her eyes were hungry. Life at home was quietly unraveling like a hem coming loose and she had walked away holding the end of the thread.

She paused at the sight of me and frowned. Sweat crept down my back in thin, ticklish lines. Was she happy to see me? Or did she just want me gone? 

The audience never noticed. She smiled anyway, bright and false beneath the lights, then vanished behind the curtain.

I waited. 

When she reappeared off stage, I flew toward her. I had rehearsed my words all night. They scattered the moment I saw her.

“Rosie!”

“Ruth," she sighed. "You don’t belong here."

“Neither do you! Please come home," I appealed. 

Rosemary closed her eyes for a moment. Up close, beneath the powder and stage lights, she looked exhausted.

“You still don’t understand,” she said quietly. “I can’t breathe there.”

Out of everything I had imagined her saying, this wasn't it. Couldn't breathe at home? I felt my face go cold and then hot. 

"And you can breathe here? This place is awful!" 

"Of course it is!" She snapped. 

Then she caught herself. "I'm still climbing the ladder, Ruth. This is only a short stop on the way to easy street." 

My shoulders slumped. "Rosie, please. These people don’t care about you.”

“Neither did anyone back home,” Rosemary replied. “Not really. You loved me, Ruth. But you wanted me small.”

"Small?" I repeated, my fists clenched. "I love you for who you are, these lowlifes don't even know your name. You are nothing to them."

"Little Ruth." She put her hand on her hip and used that low, throaty voice she knew I hated. She was performing again, like I was one of her admirers. 

"You don’t understand how this business works,” she said, tapping my shoulder lightly. “I sing, they clap, they cheer, they send flowers by the armful. They pay enough for room and board, and I never have to scrub floors or mend stockings again.”

"What's wrong with the work I do?" I asked, hotly. “And flowers from strangers — what are those worth?”

“More than pity.” 

That one hit me in the gut. 

"What is all this nonsense!" I cried. "Why did you change your name?”

Rosemary sighed like I was tiresome. Then she lit a cigarette.

She smoked now?

I stared at the little orange flame as though it might explain how my little sister had disappeared and this woman had taken her place.

She took the cigarette out of her red mouth. "You are asking me to return to a dumpy little prison." 

Dumpy little prison! I didn't know this woman anymore! 

“You don’t understand what I am here. You, Ruth, are a follower. But me?” She smiled thinly. “I’m a leader. Even in this awful little place, all eyes are on me.”

The smile lingered a moment too long.

“You’re just jealous,” she continued, too quickly now, “because everyone is watching me and you don’t have what it takes to stand up there.”

"If you’re so happy here,” I asked quietly, “then why do you look like you’re coming apart?”

Rosemary’s expression hardened instantly.

“Oh, don’t start.”

She turned away, crushing the cigarette into an overflowing ashtray harder than necessary.

“You think one look at me gives you the right to judge my entire life?”

“Rosie—”

“No. You walk in here acting like some worried saint, but you’ve always thought you were better than me." 

"That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?” She laughed sharply. “Little Ruth with her sensible shoes and her sensible life. You think because you’re miserable quietly it makes you virtuous.”

Her voice cracked on the word virtuous.

I bit my lip and looked away from her. I felt myself unravel a little further. My strength left me. My legs wobbled.

I leaned against the table next to me which was thankfully unoccupied. 

I had come all this way believing that if I could only find Rosie, I could bring her home again. But standing there beneath the powder and lights, I finally understood that home was the very thing she was running from.

My heart hurt so badly I could scarcely breathe.

Still, I swallowed it down. I would not cry here.

I smoothed my skirt with trembling hands. Such a foolish thing to do. As though neatness still mattered.

“I see,” I said softly.

The words sounded terribly small. 

For a moment neither of us spoke. The music from the stage throbbed faintly through the walls. Someone laughed somewhere down the corridor.

Rosie shifted her weight. I think she expected me to scold her again. To plead. 

But what difference would that make? She had never listened to me before, she wasn't going to start now. I was so tired. 

I nodded once because I did not trust my v

oice anymore, then turned toward the door. Then I paused. 

I nearly said, Come home when you're ready.

But the words would not come.

So I left.

The Unravellers

The Londonderry Times had a special four-person editorial team to unravel and disect slightly more complex stories. They called themselves The Unravellers, much like a pop or rock band, but with investigative journalism as their main focus. The group's origins and name were possibly a surrogate for early and now dormant or dead dreams of playing in a band for their own living.

All the original members of this writing band were still the same, forty years after its formation in the university of Edinburgh.

The band consisted of Curt Founding, the perpetual tweed-wearing bandleader. From the looks of it, it was he who had originally wanted to play in a rock band, but who didn't have the talent, nor the persuasions, to form an orchestra. Curt certainly played the electric guitar, but he and everyone around him considered his ability to manipulate words and unravel mysteries to be infinitely better than his declining ability to manipulate the electric guitar. Curt was content with his fate as a writer and the only thing he had left from his former rock dreams was his long hair, now grey and with a receding hairline.

The singer in the aging writing band was Rebecca Forsythe, mostly pleased with her literary-sounding surname, but she certainly belonged to those who liked to sing. Mainly in the shower these days, a habit not always appreciated by her husband of forty years. Her formerly red hair had turned somewhat grey over the last decade, a fact that bothered Rebecca a great deal. She argumented that it was un-normal for a redheaded woman, shapely or not, in her case less shapely, rather thin, not to go grey-haired. Moreover, it was getting thinner with age. Her rock dreams of course never took off in The Unravellers, but she was mostly pleased with having the opportunity to unravel both pleasant and less pleasant stories. But she would never stop singing in the shower.

On keyboards, the group had their old punk lady, Jessie Whyte. She called herself Northern Scotland's first punk and no one objected. She cheerfully and mercilessly blamed her previous career in punk rock, for her lack of skill with pianos and keyboards. Nowadays, she was one of the short-cut writers with dyed hair, currently "black tuplip", a colour more violet than black, which reminded her of her history. There were some ill-intentioned colleagues in other editorial offices who spread rumours that she liked women, but Jessie didn't care, whether it was true or not. She thought the rumour was punkish.

Last, but not least, in the line of former band members, was the now bald and fat Steven Remsey on percussion and drums. Steven never had no real musical ambitions, he auditioned for the band mostly because he was fond of Rebecca in his youth. Even though he never got closer to her than a quick kiss when the band was formed, Rebecca was definitely not sober at the time, he found a relatively good deal of comfort in being one of her closest colleagues. The drums worked for him without him really knowing what he was doing. He was a natural, and it was enough for Curt to bring him on. On occasion Curt admitted, Steven was the only percussionist that applied.

It was Curt who wanted to play, while the others were more interested in writing. Quite natural considering that they met at the journalist program at University of Edinburgh.

The only gig they ever managed to put on, took place in front of the Scott monument on Princess Street, Edinburgh. There was no crowd, not even their classmates that had promised to show up, but they took tune and banged away. The concert lasted part of one song and less than two minutes, before the police showed up and ended the whole thing to make way for a bagpipe parade. Blown away they were.

But that's how the story goes. When three out of four band members would rather write and do journalism, than play crappy rock music on street corners and shady pubs, that's what happens.

Curt agreed quite willingly to focus on the writing instead of the band when the opportunity to form The Unravellers at the Londonderry Times arose. After all, the main reason Curt started in journalism was because he also liked writing.

The challenge for The Unravellers was, instead of finding chords, to find storylines that others couldn't get going with, to unravel them and solve them. They formed a dynamic writing quartet that constantly took turns with new opportunities in new ways. Not a day went by without The Unravellers finding new paths to new solutions and goals. Nor was there any one in the band of four that constantly took the same role, but in all its uniqueness the roles changed dynamically and without discussion, and one of them stayed behind to finish today’s story, while the others finished the day at the Abbottsford pub a quarter from Princess Street.

The idea maker of this writing band was former chief editor Horace Maccallan of the Londonderry times, gone since two decades. He had an idea of putting four young writers in the same room and provide them with stories that his elder journalist had failed to unravel. The board of directors had reluctantly agreed to Mr Macallan’s suggestion, but since the writers were young, they came with an attractive price tag. Which, in the end, proved a mutual success and forty years later, and four years into retirement age, The Unravellers still wrote their stories, day in and day out.