Cinderella's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Cinderella scrubbed the front steps when she heard the news. A messenger rode through shouting that someone had stolen the slipper from the palace guards. The thief was searching house to house now, testing it on every woman's foot. She dropped her brush into the bucket. Her plan had been to wait. Let the prince bring the slipper to her door himself. That would prove he wanted her enough to search everywhere. But now a stranger held the glass shoe, carried it through the streets like a prize. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and stared toward the main road. A pumpkin carriage sat in the town square, orange and gold and impossible to miss. Someone had placed it there as a stage, a place to hold court while they hunted. Cinderella's chest tightened. The slipper had caught every light in the ballroom the night before. It threw rainbows across the marble floors with each step she took. Now it belonged to a thief who didn't know what it meant. Her foot. Her flight. Her one piece of proof that the prince had wanted to find her. She stood and kicked over the bucket. Water spread across the stone steps. If she stayed here and waited, someone else would claim her slipper, her story, her chance. The prince would never know she existed. She had to go to that carriage in the square and take back what was hers, even if it meant showing her raw hands and dirty skirts to everyone watching.