Ella, by Jessica E. Kaiser, 9/9
Beginning the day after Durren died, the day that the three of them--Durren, Mother, and Gerthe--were buried, I tended the witchweed. I found the seed that Mother had brought with her in addition to the live plants, and I nursed it into full, blooming health. This time, it worked.
Perhaps witchweed responds only to the hand of the woman who planted it.
Perhaps someone, somewhere took pity on me, and allowed it to grow.
I do not know. But grow it did, although it took months before I was sure that I had enough. The neighbors left me alone during that time. I think they were grateful. They knew that I was mourning, and the loss that the town viewed as tragically unexpected made them pity me, but I was not and never had been liked by them. My choice of isolation must have been a relief.
Eight months went by before I was certain. I waited until I heard the servants gossiping about how the earl's household had gone away for a house party. Then I took my witchweed and I went to the kitchen entrance of the castle.
The maids thought it was touching, I think, that I wanted to leave a present for Ella. When I left the castle, I got into the wagon with the rest of my witchweed, and I left. I would have gone back to my forest, if I knew where it lay, but that was information no one could provide me.
Ella died, of course. The moment she walked into the entryway with its clinging vines of witchweed, she collapsed, and of course the earl's son carried her up to her bed. Where else would a man put a woman who had fainted for causes unknown? At first they thought perhaps she was with child, and so they loosened her stays, washed her face with cool water, and waited for her to wake up. The living witchweed festooned her bed, her chamber, her wardrobes.
She did not wake.
A peasant like me might have suspected it, but what earl's son would have familiarity with a common weed? Or a witch? He spent every moment next to her bedside and remained as healthy as ever, save for faint purple shadows under his lovely green eyes. Perhaps one of the maids might have wondered about the plants I delivered, but it was so very obvious that no one was affected except Ella.
I am told that when she died, the lovely green eyes of the earl's son lost their blankness.
One of the traits that witchweed has is to blur the memory, not of those who live within it or who tend it, but of those who live outside its realm. They remember only what happened prior to the growth of the witchweed. Everyone remembers the lovely woman at the ball and the search for she who could wear the glass slipper.
No one remembers what happened after. None except me, for I am the one who grew the witchweed, the one who planted it throughout the castle's grounds.
I visited once, to be sure. I had to know that despite the stories traveling through the countryside, Ella was dead. She is. The earl's son is deeply in love with his second wife, a somewhat plain woman with a warm smile and blonde hair. He never speaks of Ella. The witchweed I planted has overrun the castle now. The old earl dislikes it, so I heard, but his son said that it comforted him, and so it stays.
Forever.
My mother was not a witch. But in addition to the seeds I found among her things, I found a little book. A book that told me how to ward against a witch, with a handwritten note in the margin indicating it worked only if the witch was not in the house at the time.
Jessica E. Kaiser lives in northern Indiana, presumably as cosmic payment for having committed a grievous sin she no longer remembers. Hobbies include acquiring education, reading, baking, teaching English comp, and belly dancing. She has previously had fiction published in Forgotten Worlds; Loving the Undead, an Anthology of Romance…sort of; Yog's Notebook; and Triangulation: End of Time; Neo-Opsis; Allegory; and Flashing Swords, and is a reviewer for The Fix. Life goals include world domination—if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself—and leaping tall buildings in a double bound. Ketchup (Heinz only, thank you very much) is her favorite condiment and she abhors small talk.
"The original source of "Ella" is, of course, the Grimm Brothers' "Cinderella," with elements from the Disney version and others. I don't remember when I decided to write a retelling; it may have been inevitable from the first moment I wondered why the stepsisters were so cruel. Perhaps it was the realization that every story has two or more sides, one for each character involved, that made me begin writing. Or perhaps it was even simpler than that—the glass slipper, the prince, the instant love: together, they could be such a good story, but the omniscient, distanced narrator of the Brothers Grimm means that the story never grabs us quite as much as it could have. "