COINCIDENCE – LILY 1

At the start of every century, young maidens, somewhere on this earth, experience magical events which change their whole lives. The stars would align in their favor to recreate ancient folklore in their lives.

For some, the story is finding out that you’re the fairest maiden in your kingdom, being hated by your stepmother, getting adopted by dwarves and marrying a prince. For others, it is being woken up, after sleeping for a hundred years, by a kiss from a charming prince. On rare occasions, some maidens find themselves locked up in isolated towers guarded by dragons or comforted by insanely long hair. Once in a while, fables are heard of maidens who live under the sea only to visit the surface and fall in love with human royalty.

There were many more stories such as these ones. Now, when these stories repeat themselves, they tend to sometimes have slight deviations. However, the usual end point is happily ever after with a handsome caring prince or prince-like man.

Some people in my time tend to ignore the truth in these stories. I, on the other hand, lived for these stories. This is because I couldn’t help but feel that I was one of the chosen few maidens in the whole world to encounter a magical happily ever after.

As a child, like most girls my age, I dreamt of becoming a princess. It was my life ambition. At the time, it had been wishful thinking and I never tried to delve into facts of my actual chances of becoming a real princess.

I was born into wealth but my father was not royalty. My father was an adventurer and merchant. He worked directly with kings from many kingdoms as a middleman. This brought a lot of wealth into our home. I lived like a princess, actually. I was an only child whom my parents adored. I received almost everything I asked for and lacked nothing. My parents were careful in raising me so I had manners. I grew up to be respectful and polite.

In my early preteen years, tragedy struck my home. My mother passed away from an unknown disease. She was a picture of perfect health. Her illness came as a shock. In those days, our doctors had not yet discovered my mother’s disease and thus, did not have a remedy for it. My father and I were crushed by her passing. My father became distant. He started travelling for longer periods of time without keeping in contact. I did my best to tackle depression from losing my mum, hurt from the distance my father created and maturity to maintain our family’s house.

Life became even worse after my father returned from his annual spring adventure. He had left home the spring of the previous year, the longest period of time he had ever been away. On his arrival, he looked more haggard than I had ever seen him. It broke my heart but it didn’t stop there. He had brought a woman with him. I was about 14 years old at the time, old enough to take care of myself and our home. This strange woman has two daughters and sometime, in the past year, she had gotten married to my father.

This new development hurt me so much, but I dedicated my energy to taking care of my father. No other person seemed to care about him. My stepmother, Lady Méchant, and her daughters, Anastasy and Brizel, were more focused on squandering my family’s remaining wealth. They maintained a high social status and threw magnificent parties. They busied themselves with being the local champions of my small village while I took care of my dying father. The doctors were also unable to detect my father’s illness. I knew he was going to leave me soon and I was dedicated to staying by his side to the very end.

My father passed after I turned 15. Lady Méchant and her daughters didn’t even pretend to be grieved. They took swift action to turn my life around. All the servants my family had were sent away and all their duties were placed on me. I became a slave in my own home. To comfort myself, I read the childhood stories my parents used to read me to sleep. This is where my theory began.

I began to notice a pattern in the stories from my childhood. During whatever free time I had, I began to gather facts from the works of other writers, philosophers, and professors. It was a slow procedure because I was mostly occupied with house work. I also began to study celestial cycles and their alignment with human destiny.

This brought hope to me, especially after my father’s death. Life seemed to be bleak but the folklores convinced me there was a magical future waiting for me. From my discoveries, I found out I was a reincarnate of a maiden called Cinderella. My life seemed to match all the stories I heard about her.

We had too much in common. Just like me, she lost both her parents at a young age and was left with an evil stepmother and stepsisters. My stepsisters’ names were even similar to that of Cinderella’s! She was a hardworking and lovely young lady and I believe I shared those traits with her. After all, I worked endlessly to take care of my family’s house and I did it without rebellion. In stories about her, she was assisted by a magical creature or close family friend to attend a ball where she met the Prince, fell in love, lost a shoe, and later got married to the prince.

Obviously, these events hadn’t occurred in my life yet. All I had to do was to be good and wait for a royal ball open to the public, to roll by my village. The only thing that seemed to be an obstacle in way of reaching ‘magical happily ever after’ was a prince. Of course I knew a prince had to be available for me but the royal family, which ruled over my village, was highly secretive.

An accident had apparently happened about a year before I was born and the royal family had closed off their gates to any visitors from my village and our kingdom as a whole. I knew the royal family had heirs to the throne but that was it. No one had any info on what happened before the gates were closed or within the royal castle. No one knew what the royal family looked like anymore. In fact, it was so extreme that anyone who worked in the castle building never left. They even had a graveyard within those walls!

I knew nothing about the prince so I decided to create an image of him based on the description of Cinderella’s Prince. I imagined he had chocolaty-brown hair with matching brown eyes, a strong jaw, chiseled cheekbones and sweet cherry lips. As a charming prince, he’d obviously have handsome (not bulky) muscles and a slight build. He’d also have to be taller than my 5’6 feet, with four inches or more, not too much taller though. I imagined him with a charming smile and sparkling white teeth. I wouldn’t mind if he was blond or had a different eye colour. Besides, I looked nothing like the three different Cinderellas I read about. My shoulder-length dark brown hair contrasted the blond, almost golden, hair they all had. I also had jade eyes unlike their electric blue eyes.

I wasn’t too worried about these minor details. I knew for sure that a handsome charming prince was waiting for me behind the castle’s gates.

My 18th birthday was uneventful. I hoped the ‘predestined’ ball would happen this year because 18 was a magical year for most girls in the fairy tales. I tried not to get too worried by the delay in my miracle and focused on ensuring my story stayed in line with Cinderella’s. I managed to convince my wicked stepmother and her daughters to call me, ‘Ella’ instead of my original name ‘Lily.’ I felt getting them to call me ‘Cinderella’ in full was a too desperate. Or it could jinx the whole situation.

Finally, in the August of my 19th year, my family received an open royal invitation. The letter stated that the royal family was finally opening its gates to kingdoms and villages far and near for a week-long ball. My hopes soared to cloud 9. I wasn’t a tad offended when Lady Méchant told me I was only allowed to attend if I scrubbed the whole house twice. In fact, I was grateful she commanded me to do it. The same kind of thing happened to the Cinderellas!

I had been planning this day for at least two and a half years! I was more than ready. I wasn’t sure if I had a fairy godparent or family friends who would help me escape and prepare for the ball, so I created ‘a plan B.’ Ever since I began to believe in my theory, I started to save up any money I could get. The money grew to a substantial amount.

A few months before my 18th, I secretly took most of the money to a tailor and had him restore my mother’s wedding dress to suit me and the current fashion trends. The tailor was kind enough to perform the job with my little money. I assured him I would pay the rest when I became queen. He thought I was mad but did the job nonetheless.  Luckily for me, my mother’s shoes fitted perfectly. They weren’t made of glass but they were silver in colour, which was close enough for me. I used my remaining money to hire a carriage.

And I was off to the ball.

My heart pounded with excitement. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I held back tears of joy so I wouldn’t ruin my make-up. My years of enslavement and wishful thinking were finally coming to an end. All my dreams were about to become reality. My life was about to change forever and I just couldn’t believe it.

Another Cinderella success!

The coachman dropped me off at the entrance of the castle and I proceeded to take the long walk up the stairs to the ballroom. I was fashionably late which was perfect. This meant I’d have a grand entrance where everyone would pause and gaze at me. I could already picture their stunned expressions and confusions to who the beautiful maiden (me) was. For sure I’d catch the prince’s attention and then we’d dance the night away and fall in love in the process. I couldn’t help but giggle at my thoughts.

I got to the top of the stairs and everything happened according to plan. The ballroom was designed almost exactly as I’d imagined it. The top of the stairs led to a round balcony which overlooked the dance floor beneath. The royal seating area directly faced the balcony. Everything was golden, red or violet. A large golden chandelier hung from the ceiling and made the ballroom shiny and alive.

As expected, the music stopped and everyone turned to gaze at me once I appeared at the balcony. It took everything in my power not to smirk at how well my theory was working. An usher came up to me and asked for my name and title. He was to introduce me to the curious audience.

“The enchanting Miss Lily!” he called out.

I blushed at his choice of words. The audience began to applaud as I made my way back down the stairs to the dance floor.

I walked straight toward the royal family’s area, to show my respect and snatch away the Prince. From the balcony, I didn’t have a clear view of anyone at all.

As I got closer though, a cold chill began to settle in my chest. My heart quivered as I got a closer look. This couldn’t be happening! The King and Queen looked comfortable on their throne. To their left, a young dainty-looking princess sat and smiled at me. On their right, sat an older princess, about my age.

Where was the prince?!

“The royal family. His Highness, King Arthur II, Queen Ella, Princess Isabel, and Princess Donna meet Miss Lily.” Another usher introduced.

I politely bowed and said, “What of the Prince?” The royal usher gasped and chuckled. The royal family also laughed. I was confused.

“There is no prince in this kingdom!” the usher said and guided me away from the royal family.

No prince. No prince? No prince! What does that even mean? Surely they must all be joking. There’s supposed to be a prince! Everything else is exactly as it should be. For crying out loud, there’s a full moon and my dress is blue! Just like in Cinderella!

Throughout the night I waved off the advances of other eligible men at the ball. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the absence of a prince! I tried to retrace my steps and see if I missed anything that could have sabotaged my chance of a fairy tale. I didn’t pay attention to the ball at all.

However, I got thrown out of my reverie. Apparently, the younger princess, Donna, had met a man at the ball, danced with him and fell in love. Pft. Lucky her. The royal family made a huge scene about disapproving the gentleman. The older princess, Isabel, got so worked up she started shooting ice from her hands.

Then it dawned on me. How could I be so stupid?!

I dedicated my life to a fairy tale that wasn’t in accordance to me. The whole orphaned stepmother/stepsister enslavement thing was only a coincidence. The signs were too obvious and I had chosen to ignore them. For one, I look nothing like a Cinderella. Also none of the Cinderallas I read about ever tracked their fairy tale or attempted to bend fate in their favor or were ever aware of their clichéd lives or were their own fairy godparent for Christ’s sake!

The royal castle was closed off! If anything, that was a huge indicator that I was living in the ‘Frozen’ fairytale!

“Well that was a terrible waste of my time.”

Ironically, at midnight, I had to rush back home. I noticed my stepmother and sisters leave the ball.

This definitely couldn’t have been my story. The stupid silver slippers didn’t even slip off while I ran toward my carriage.

 

 

 Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/en/woods-autumn-woman-girl-meeting-1524606/

COINCIDENCE is used by permission of the original author, Ifeoluwa Ogúnyinka

Author bio:

Sinmisola Ogúnyinka is a pastor’s wife, mother, writer and movie producer. She has a university degree in Economics, and is a Craftsman of Christian Writers’ Guild. She lives with her family in Pretoria, South Africa.

Blog: www.sinmisolao.wordpress.com

Twitter: @sinmisolaog