Wishes may not always be what you think
Assignment: Eleanor Spencer (aka Cinderella)
The first time I saw her, she was covered in soot. She had been recently assigned to me as a potential wishmaker. She was eight. I saw her story in my eyes, orphaned and stuck with a stepmother who wanted her child to inherit the fine house Eleanor now cleaned. A stepsister and a half sister who sometimes looked at her in sympathy, but mostly ignored her out of fear their mother would put them beside the former heir to the duchy.
The tales always vary on exactly what her life was like. But years fade the truth, and happily ever after is different for every one of us.
For me, I could only watch, for even with all my magic, I could not intervene until she wished it.
I kept an eye on her as I did all my charges, but she never wished for anything life changing, except her long dead parents.
Death is not something magic can reverse. And of all the wishes one can make, I could only grant those that truly transformed.
It was her seventeenth year she finally called to me. I heard her wish, a mere whisper on the wind.
I do wish I could go to the ball.
I appeared in her room, a small corner in the attic. Her wish had called me, for if she did go to the ball, her life would change, would transform into the fairy tale it had always meant to be.
She looked at me closely.
"I've heard of your kind," she stated. "Is it true you only come to those whose lives will live forever in stories?"
I nodded once. "I have waited very long for this day."
Her face betrayed her thoughts: why now, and not the first time her stepmother locked her in her room? Or when the tale spread that the first daughter of the Duke had passed from heartbreak? Or any other moment in her life that could have made it better?
Then she closed her eyes, and let out a sigh.
"You were just as bound as I was, weren't you?"
I nodded again.
"If I let you grant my wish, I suppose I'll dance all night with the prince and my heritage will be restored and I' live the rest of my days in the castle shan't I?"
"Something like that," I agreed.
"That's no help at all, I think. I've grown perfectly happy being anonymous. My half sister is much better suited to queendom, and once she gets out of the house, she'll turn into a fine person. Anyway, I already have someone in mind for my match, and I'll never question whether he loves me because of a spell. I do appreciate the visit, but if the fairy godmothers truly wanted a good story, perhaps they might have considered helping me when I really needed it."
"It is your choice."
I left her then.
Maybe I did intervene a little by making the prince realize what a politically astute decision marrying Eleanor's half sister was. And maybe I might have convinced the blacksmith's son to move a little faster. And maybe I might have kept my eye on her just a little longer, just to make sure she got the happily ever after she truly wished for.
When I saw her last, her children were half grown, and she lived in a small house just down the road from where she was born. She had a ready smile, and when her husband came home, her hand slipped into his, and I knew she had found the ending she wanted.