The Wicked Stepsisters

Once upon a time, Anastasia Tremaine started crying as soon as she sat up in bed. Not even sleeping in until dusk worked to avoid her miserable life. In her dreams, Anastasia could almost feel the warmth radiating from a pair of arms wrapped around her, a sensation that assured of her how cherished and loved she was... But eventually she had to wake up, and then the loneliness caught up to her.

Anastasia picked up the razor blade she kept in a snuff box on her bedside table. She drew up the sleeve of her pyjama top and stared at the crisscrossing red lines that littered her forearm, the hand that held the blade hovering above them. No, she didn’t need that. She needed human contact, that was all. Anastasia returned the blade to its place and wiped away the tears on her cheeks.

At last she left her room, without changing her clothes or fixing her ginger bed-head. She hurried down the long corridor, for the imposing tall windows and the rainy gloom engulfing the house through them made her scars itch.

It was a relief when Anastasia reached her destination: a door on which hung a ‘DANGER’ sign, in odd juxtaposition with the panelled oak wood around it. "Driz?" she said and simultaneously opened the door.

An unidentified object zoomed past her, missing her right ear by an inch.

"Anastasia! How many times do I need to tell you to knock?" said her sister. She shoved past Anastasia to retrieve the projectile from the corridor, her messy, dark hair untwisting itself from the bun it had been tied into. "This is not just a joke.” She pointed at the sign. “I could've hurt you."

Anastasia shrugged and walked into the bedroom. She sat on her sister’s bed and leant on the lavish array of fluffy pillows that contrasted bizarrely with the collection of weapons and torture devices filling the rest of the room. "What were you doing, anyway?"

"This" Drizella replied by shutting the door to reveal a dartboard on its back. Only on it were not stuck darts, but deathly-looking throwing knives.

"Bomb phase is over, then?" asked Anastasia, unvexed.

"Not sure. These finally came in the mail today and I wanted to try them out. Would you like to try them out?"

Anastasia took the knife her sister offered. She eyed the object with wonder, lightly running her fingertips down the blade... It was so blissfully sharp; she couldn't help but imagine what it would be like drawing shiny red beads from her skin, providing the comfort of a lover ­– even if a cold, metallic lover.

"Anastasia, do you want to try it out on the board? Or on other people?" Drizella said slowly, as if talking to a toddler. It was obvious to her what was going on her sister's mind.

Anastasia gave Drizella a sheepish glance and before she knew it the knife was no longer in her hands.

"Enough of this for now," said Drizella.

Drizella grabbed her laptop. She opened it to reveal a browser window with tabs including her favourite song, I don't like Mondays, and the dodgy sales communities she got her weapons from. Those were ignored, however, and Drizella decided to check the social network she seldom used.

"Game request, game request, weird stalker uncle..." she muttered as she scrolled down her accumulated notifications. “...game request, party invite..."

"Wait!" exclaimed Anastasia. "Is that Albert Charmington-Smith's party?"

Drizella went to the event page. "The Charmington-Smith Halloween Ball. Apparently he’s going to pick a girl to get engaged to him, what an entitled posh creep. And you're invited, too."

Anastasia’s heart beat so loud and fast she wondered if her sister could hear it. Naturally, Drizella couldn’t, and it was instead the redness creeping into Anastasia’s face that made her sister say, "Oh, please, don't say you fancy him..."

"I don't, I barely even know him!"

"That didn't stop you the last two thousand one ninety-seven times you obsessed over a guy." Anastasia knew it was true. Drizella went on, "Maybe you should actually give it a go for once, instead of sitting there blushing."

"He wouldn't want anything to do with me. He's practically royal."

"Exactly, the perfect match for your fairy tale fantasies." Anastasia opened her mouth to protest, but Drizella cut her off, "I'm taking you to this ball thing."

At that moment someone did knock on the door before entering. Drizella opened it. On the threshold stood a weedy girl with a tired face framed by matted blond hair: Ella, the Tremaines’ would-be stepsister, if her father had not died right before his wedding.

“What?” Drizella demanded.

“Dinner’s ready,” said Ella, and made no move to leave. Her gaze was fixed on something behind Drizella.

“What are you staring at?”

“Are you two going to the Halloween ball? I thought you didn’t do socialising...”

“That’s not your business,” snapped Drizella.

“Especially since you’re not going,” Anastasia completed.

Ella did not reply, but the sisters noticed the glint in her eyes before she turned and left. They exchanged meaningful glances and Anastasia felt her stomach clench.

“I don’t think I feel up for dinner,” she groaned.

 “Of course you do” said Drizella. “You’ve already stayed in bed all day, I’m not letting you end up like Mum.”

*

Drizella skipped merrily down the carpeted staircase, throwing dirty clothes from a hamper all over the carpet, the hand-carved banister and the Persian rug decorating the entrance hall. With gusto she dumped the last few garments on the antique buffet hutch in the dining room and then took a seat at the table, with a satisfied grin on her face.

Anastasia trailed behind her sister, too worried to partake in their usual shenanigans. During the meal she chewed on her lip more than she chewed any food; in an attempt to lessen her bad mood, she entertained herself by sprinkling breadcrumbs all over the table.

At the end of the meal, the entire house heard a yell of “Ella!” And then, sure as a cuckoo clock, a dishevelled woman sporting a black dressing gown and heavy bags under her eyes stormed into the dining room. The sisters’ mother.

 “What is this mess all over my house!?” she demanded. “I have been kind enough to take you into my care even after you all but murdered my fiancé on the eve of my wedding, and all I get in exchange in ungratefulness! It makes me wonder whether my resources might be better employed elsewhere rather than in your education...”

Though that monologue had become part of the household’s routine, the Tremaine sisters still giggled behind their hands, and Ella still needed to say under her breath, “’S not my fault the car crashed; not my fault bikers are fucking insane.”

“Mum, tell Ella she can’t go to the party.”

“Ella, you can’t go to the party,” the woman repeated half-heartedly, as though her energy had been used up. Then she left, undoubtedly to crawl back into her hole of grief.

Drizella sighed. “I won’t let her ruin your night,” she said to her sister, who resumed biting her lip.

*

Drizella descended squeaky clean vacuumed stairs, passed the just-beaten Persian, the polished hut and dining table, and the tidy kitchen. She stopped at Ella’s tiny pantry-turned-bedroom.

“Ella!” Drizella barked, going in. Ella jumped and nearly dropped her mobile phone. Drizella continued in a sweeter tone, “Still awake? Surely you’ll want to be well-rested for college tomorrow; a future doctor can’t afford to stay up so late doing...” Drizella snatched the device from Ella and saw on its screen the page for the Halloween ball. “Ah, dreaming of an event which you will not attend.” And she tossed the mobile back to its owner.

Ella turned in her bed to look Drizella in the eye. “You know what, I’m fucking sick of you, and your sister, and your mother, when she’s awake, treating me like I’m not even human! I am going to that party.”

“Really?” Drizella drawled. “I don’t think Mum would be interested in financing the career of a rebellious party animal...”

“I won’t keep letting you use that to control me! I’ll get a job, a scholarship­, a loan–” Ella gesticulated wildly, and Drizella cut her off by grabbing her wrist midair.

“Listen here,” said the elder Tremaine girl. “There will be no need to take that risk.”

“W–”

“Because if you go this party, I will make sure you never graduate.” Drizella increased her pressure on Ella’s arm. “Don’t you remember what happened the last time you fucked with my sister?”

“I didn’t do–”

“You know I’m crazy, Cinderella. So you do anything to Anastasia again and I’ll tie you up and kick you into a lit fireplace this time!”

And with that, Drizella let go of Ella and strode out of the room.

*

Anastasia's week of preparations for the Halloween Ball consisted mainly of stressing over how she could possibly avoid making an awkward mess of herself in front of the most coveted boy in town; stressing over what she would wear to impress that boy; and stressing over what Drizella would wear, as her jokes about gory makeup were very suspicious.

When Saturday night finally came, Anastasia was relieved when her sister came out of her room in a black dress with bat wings sewn to the sleeves and a pointy-eared mask that covered half her face. “How’s this for a wingwoman?”

“Hm, I don’t know, let’s see your wings in action...” Anastasia joked, and walked past Drizella towards the window, intending to open it. Something beyond the glass caught her attention, however: Ella, in a pink party dress and mask pacing back and forth and nervously shaking her wrist.

Anastasia gripped the sill tightly, fearing she might faint. “What is it?” asked Drizella. “He’s going to like you, sis, we’ll make him,” she said soothingly.

Anastasia only shook her head in response, which prompted Drizella to go look through the window. “Oh, no, she won’t! Come on, Anastasia!”

Drizella stormed down the stairs and out of the house, her sister diligently following. Ella jumped when she saw the two approaching.

“Are you waiting for someone, Ella?” the older Tremaine asked with malice.

Ella licked her lips in hesitation, but she proclaimed defiantly, “Yes! I’m waiting for my ride to the Halloween Ball.”

“I thought I’d made it clear that you are not going,” said Drizella.

“Like you even stand a chance to be chosen by Albert!” Anastasia mocked.

Drizella sneered. “Indeed, where did you get this dress? Is it second-hand?”

Anastasia joined in the teasing: “It’s probably all moth-eaten, I bet just a little tug...” She clutched Ella’s sleeve. “...and it falls apart!” And she tore from the dress.

Drizella laughed with glee, clearly proud of her sister. That encouraged Anastasia, who continued ripping the fabric ferociously, relishing Ella’s useless protests, until the disobedient girl was but a sobbing mess kneeling on the floor in her underwear. Anastasia thought she resembled an ugly newborn bird in a nest of shredded tulle and disgusting synthetic satin.

“Take that as a favour, Cinderella,” said Drizella, “if you did go you’d get roasted in the literal sense!” and the Tremaines left merrily in the eldest sister’s treasured 34 Ford V8.

*

The Charmington-Smith mansion looked stunning. It was an imposing Georgian building with many windows and pristine white walls. The path and the stairs leading up to its great double doors were strewn with glowing, elaborately carved jack o’ lanterns that gave the place a magical atmosphere.

The inside of the building was decorated as magnificently as the outside, with elaborate iron candelabra lining the halls leading to the ballroom, where silvery cobwebs hung from a hundred crystal chandeliers and curtains of thick, purple velvet framed the windows.

However, as Anastasia immediately found out, it had been stupid to expect something more like the masquerades in The Phantom of the Opera or The Mask of the Red Death. Mind-numbingly loud electronic music pounded all around the room; scantily clad masked youths, many of whom held cups of unidentified beverages, rubbed themselves against one another – and that was supposed to pass for dancing. Anastasia began to regret leaving her house.

“Let’s take a table at the back...” she all but begged.

“Anastasia, you want to be noticed, not–” Drizella started, but something caught her eye that made her change her mind. “I mean, sure, let’s sit at the back.”

Not without some effort, the sisters made their way through the sea of wild teenagers. When they sat down Drizella was wearing a smirk Anastasia found rather unsettling. “What?” she asked.

“Look who’s over there, sis.”  

Anastasia looked in the direction Drizella nodded. She caught a glimpse of the shiny-haired, blue-eyed Albert Charmington-Smith  at a table next to the sisters’, but the many females surrounding him made the self-doubting Tremaine quickly turn away.

“I could never compete with these girls, Drizella, I could never be like that.”

“Indeed, my sister could never be a fake-tanned slag,” said Drizella. “But Albert doesn’t seem very impressed with them.”

Anastasia looked again at Albert’s table. This time she saw that he was reading a book and making no effort to stifle intermittent yawns, while the girls failed to catch his attention. Squinting, Anastasia was able to make out the title of his book: ‘René’.

Drizella nudged her. “Go get him!”

Anastasia bit her lip. She began peeling off her nail varnish and occasionally taking furtive glances at Albert, whose state remained unchanged. When Drizella’s faith was almost fading and Anastasia’s fingernails were completely bare, the younger Tremaine said, “Oh, alright,” and got to her feet. “If it goes wrong I’ll just take cyanide.”

Drizella stood up to lecture her suicidal sister, but at that moment the entire party froze.

Everyone stared open-mouthed at the entrance of the room, through which walked in a dazzling young lady in glittery golden shoes, a white dress with a lace bodice, and a matching lace mask hiding her face, framed by elegant blond curls.

Even Albert seems interested in her. It was not long before he abandoned his reading and, flanked by what looked to be his butler, invited the girl to dance.

“He’ll switch partners, eventually,” Drizella consoled.

Anastasia, however, after hours of watching Albert waltz with the mysterious girl and discreetly clawing at her own forearm under the table, mumbled in defeat, “I’m done with this bloody party, we shouldn’t even have come.”

“Yeah, I’m done, too,” Drizella agreed, looking upwards. “C’mon.”

“Wha–” Anastasia gasped when her sister snatched her arm and started scurrying somewhere.  “Where are we going?”

Drizella’s only response was a mischievous laugh. As she was led up a staircase, Anastasia realised their destination was the balcony around the ballroom.

 “We’re gonna end this bloody party,” said Drizella.

“Just don’t make it literally bloody, yeah?”

“No promises, sis.” Drizella took a matchbox and a sealed pipe with a fuse from her beaded evening purse.

Anastasia’s eyes widened. “Drizella...” she whispered.

“Bomb phase is not over.” She lit the fuse.

It a nanosecond before the bomb was thrown that Anastasia realised who ser sister was aiming at. “You’ll hit Albert too!” she lunged at Drizella, who missed her target. Instead, the bomb exploded in the crowd of party-goers watching the couple at the centre of the dance floor.

*

Instantaneously the ballroom erupted in chaos: people screaming and running for the doors all at the same time, those injured in the explosion being carried out and leaving blood trails in their wake, the mansion’s security guards scurrying in the opposite direction, and booming shouts of “Jeevfred, don’t lose the girl!”.

The Tremaine sisters blended into the frenzied crowd for cover, so they could leave unnoticed.

Sitting in the car, Anastasia found that her adrenaline had already worn off. She tried to keep her composure around Drizella, but when they got home Anastasia immediately locked herself in her bedroom. She spent most of the night with tears dripping from her eyes and blood dripping from her arms.

*

 “Where is breakfast, Ella?” Drizella shouted, barging into Ella’s bedroom to find her still in bed.

“Wha– Wait, what time is it?” asked Ella, startled.

“Half past eleven, you useless idiot! And what is my axe doing in here? I told you to polish it yesterday!”

Ella got out of bed and began to stutter, but she was interrupted.

“Driz?” Anastasia appeared at the doorway with a blotchy face and wet eyes.

“Oh, hello, Ana,” replied Drizella. “I thought you’d sleep in today...”

“I was, but I saw this!” she sobbed, handing Drizella her mobile phone. “They’re looking for the girl who danced with him, he’s gonna marry her!”

“But that shoe could be anyone’s, Anastasia...” said Drizella, but then something caught her eye. “Or...” she walked up to the trunk where Ella kept her clothes and pulled out the white garment poking out of it. It was the dress the girl who had danced with Albert Charmington-Smith had worn.  “It was you! You danced with Albert all night!”

“Not her! He can’t marry her...” Anastasia sunk to her knees and stared catatonic at the floor, repeating a distressed mantra of “Not her, not her...” while tears ran generously down her cheeks.

Drizella, on the other hand, let go of the dress, seized Ella by the throat and pinned her to the wall. “How dare you disobey me and get in my sister’s way! I’m throwing you in the fire, Cinderella, where you belong!”

 “The d-doorbell,” Ella croaked.

Anastasia snapped out of her trance. “It must be them!” she exclaimed.

Drizella threw Ella aside. “Anastasia, you find the other shoe and then lock her up!” she said. “I’ll buy you some time.”

Anastasia looked at Ella’s dainty feet. There was no way the petite girl’s shoe would fit her, Anastasia. So the younger Tremaine devised a better plan than finding its pair, and, after locking the door, she went upstairs.

*

The elder Tremaine girl made her way to the entrance hall to let in Albert and his butler. The butler, who introduced himself as Jeevfred, explained that the owner of the shoe was to get engaged to the Charmington-Smith heir, and Drizella forced herself not to interrupt the man’s loquacious speech.

Finally, she said, “I’ll go first. Anastasia, my sister, should be coming down in a minute.”

When Drizella tried on the shoe, it dangled from her toes, but she made a show of pulling and stretching and trying to squeeze her foot into it. Albert soon had had enough.

He rolled his eyes. “Drizella, it’s obviously not your shoe. Go get your sister or we’re leaving.”

“Oh, well, I guess it’s not. I’ll get Anastasia.”

As soon as Drizella was out earshot, Jeevfred sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

“This is such a stupid idea...” said Albert. “Why don’t we go after whoever bombed the party, instead?”

“That is a matter for the authori–”

“If it were a girl I’d get engaged to her in a heartbeat!”

“Bear in mind that person tried to assassinate you, Master.”

“She was exciting, she was the life of that shitty party, Jeevfred! I don’t know what Father saw in that girl you made me dance with.”

*

There was a loud whack that made Drizella stop at the foot of the staircase. “Ella...” she muttered.

Sure enough, Ella entered the hall from the other side. "Your weapons are effective against locks, too, you know," she said in an undertone to Drizella when she passed the older girl. Ella confidently walked into the sitting room, and Drizella followed.

“The shoe is mine,” Ella declared.

“And who might you be?” inquired Jeevfred.

"That’s Drizella's... cousin, or whatever." Albert vaguely remembered Ella from college.

"No, no, we're not related," said Drizella. "She's the underprivileged orphan girl my mother was so gracious to take in. And she was here, doing the housework, while my sister Anastasia and I attended the party. Forgive her delusions, Albert."

"Why don’t you just stop lying, Drizella?  And I'll prove I was at the party, Albert, if you let me try the shoe."

"Jeevfred, this is ridiculous,” said Albert, “do you and Father really think there'd be only one girl with that shoe size?"

"I also have the other one," said Ella, raising the shoe she had brought down with her as a precaution.

"But she's hardly a match for a young man of your standing, Mr. Charmington-Smith..." Jeevfred lamented, worried.

With an “Excuse me”, Ella took the shoe from the butler’s box and put on both of them – a perfect fit.

"Oh, heavens!" exclaimed Jeevfred in despair. "Your father will not be pleased..."

"That doesn't prove anything,” Albert argued, “she might have bought the same model of shoes!"

"I bet she stole that shoe!" yelled Drizella.

A deranged scream from the hall put an end to the speculating: “It’s my shoe!”

Everyone left the sitting room towards the sound, and what they found was Anastasia coming down the stairs with a limp and leaving a trail of blood on the steps behind her.

Drizella gasped.  “What the fuck, Anastasia!?”

Her sister ignored her; instead she dashed for Ella’s feet. Anastasia pulled Ella’s ankle, dropping her on the hard tile flooring, and grabbed one of the glittery high heels. When she lifted her foot to put it on the people watching her saw that her toes had been cut off.

“See, it’s mine!” said Anastasia, and then was overcome with hysterical laughter.

 “I’m calling 999,” Drizella announced. “And you clean those stairs, Ella!” and then she left the room. Ella quickly got up and went in the opposite direction, to fetch her cleaning supplies.

Jeevfred still had his hands over his mouth, but Albert was beaming. “That’s that I’m talking about, Jeevfred! Passion, ardour, sucking out the marrow of life!”

“Pardon, Master?”

Albert knelt before the giggling girl on the floor “Anastasia,” Albert continued, taking Anastasia’s hand, “would you like to be my fiancé?”

“Of course!”

“But, Master, your father insisted that your fiancé must be the owner of the shoe!” Jeevfred protested, rather nervously.

“Well, Father wouldn’t want me marrying a servant, would he?”

Jeevfred considered that for a moment, then concluded, “No, he would not. I suppose Ms. Tremaine would be a more sensible choice.”

“Then it’s settled!” Albert said and embraced his future wife.

Anastasia fainted into the warmth radiating from the pair of arms wrapped around her, a sensation that assured of her how cherished and loved she was. The blood from her severed foot continued oozing freely onto the Persian rug, but she knew she would live happily ever after.