The CinderWitch
Here is a reimagining of the girl in the ash, where the magic is a curse and the palace is a tomb.
The Cinder—Witch
The hearth is the only heart this house possesses,
A pulsing throat of soot and orange glare.
She kneels within the grease and grey distressed,
With spiders braided in her tangled hair.
The sisters' laughter scrapes like rusted hinges,
High in the rooms where sunlight dares to creep,
While down below, the frost-nipped shadow fringes
The cellar stones where eyeless rodents sleep
Then came the Godmother
But she didn't drift on wings of gossamer light,
But stepped from corners where the damp rot grows.
A thing of crooked lath and moth-wing white,
With needles hidden in her velvet clothes.
"A Carriage," hissed the crone, her fingers twitching,
As pumpkin rinds began to swell and split,
Not into gold, but membranes, wet and itching,
A ribcage forged of vine and garden grit.
The horses were not stallions, but the vermin,
Stretched long and screaming, fused by ancient debt.
Their coats were slick as peeled and bloody ermine,
Their eyes like blackest beads of frozen sweat.
"The gown is yours," the shadow–woman whispered,
And stitched the silk directly to her skin
The needles bit; the girl's own breathing fissure,
As bone and bodice pinned the spirit in.
The Midnight Rule
The ballroom smelled of lilies and decay,
A velvet trap for prince's sleek and blind.
She danced on glass that sliced the floor away,
Leaving a trail of crimson salt behind.
But when the clock struck twelve, the glamour curdled,
The silk began to shrink and turn to shroud.
The pumpkin-beast back to the soil hurtled,
And Cinders shrieked–but not a sound was loud.
For in the attick now, she sits and waits,
The glass is fused into her blackened heel.
The house is hungry; it has locked the gates,
And shadows are the only warmth she'll feel.
The Prince still wanders, searching for the bride,
But who would seek a girl made out of ash?
The one who keeps the cellar-beast inside,
Behind the door, beneath the whip-crack lash.
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