The Guild Fanucci

Cinderella | Part I | Part II | Part III |

Cinderella, Part III
© 2005 George Reed

No mortal hand that made me, fashioned out of crystal clear…
No mortal hand would trade me if they felt I would stay near…
No magic can undo me as my form is always true…
Unto the one who calls me forth as crystal heart or shoes…

It came, one age, the Faerie called and begged of me a boon…
She had need of clarity beyond the midnight moon…
The Faerie had of old been known to bring me from the mist…
Whenever truth of soul or path without me would be missed…

At this point in all of time I dwell within a hand…
A herald takes me for his prince to search throughout the land…
He trudges on from keep to keep regardless of the strain…
The Prince decreed that his search must never be in vain…

Drifting back in time a space I feel the Faerie’s Call…
As she bade to come hence and journey to a ball…
The calling here is not complete until true love is won…
And free from care and ministers a journey is begun…

So I was bound to embrace a maiden’s lovely feet…
And with a gown magnificent I make her look complete…
But do recall I am of glass and nothing but a shoe…
The beauty seen through me is naught but maiden’s shining through…

My maiden saw the mirror and gave forth a stifled cry…
If any soul could see her they would never wonder why…
The maiden was a Lady with the beauty of a Queen…
The maiden was a Lady and in short a Prince’s dream…

No crown of any kingdom has set foot in such a coach…
The maiden Lady saw it and looked like she saw a ghost…
“What magic brought this to me…”, I heard her wonder then…
So grand was this conveyance to take out and back again…

The Ball was in full music when the carriage brought us nigh…
The guards before the palace gate stepped backward with a sigh…
The maiden Lady gracefully traveled up the stair…
Wondering at hands of fate that somehow brought her there…

A shoe cannot smile, though I would have at the sight…
Of seven score of nobles gasping to our left and right…
Maiden Lady gracefully stepped down onto the floor…
Princely eyes had followed her hither from the door…

I glowed with light eternal as the prince came up and then…
He kissed the silken hand and gazed up at her eyes again…
Music came from somewhere as the prince swept her away…
I felt with deep assurance that the maid was here to stay…

Something here was not as I would have all things to be…
I felt a darkened presence sending thoughts of hate to me…
Little could I ponder this as somewhere in the night…
My thoughts were torn asunder as the clocks began to strike…

The maiden faltered in the dance and gasped and backed a step…
“I cannot stay past stroke of twelve!” she cried out as she left…
The prince had hold of one hand and she stumbled on the stair…
And when she had recovered, she was gone, but I was there…

Taken up in princely hands I wondered what to do…
And whispered then into his mind, “I only fit the true…”
He left the hall with me in hand in search of heralds now…
He would send me out with them to find his love somehow…

At length we came into the hall of once delightful keep…
A place where all of gentle spring seemed in eternal sleep…
A darkened heart of Minister scowled through fell eyes…
Insisting that his daughters, two. each try me on for size…

The first one tried me on and sadly had too great a foot…
She cursed and swore most terribly as father glared and shook…
The second took me up and then her smallish foot went in…
She shrieked and looked down at the hoof where once a foot had been…

I whispered in the herald’s mind…”go and seek the third…”
The minister stopped and stared for somehow he had heard…
He snatched me from the heralds hand– threw me at the hearth…
I lay a million points of light shining in the dark…

The maiden came into the hall and the herald smiled…
Minister mocked her then and said with his eyes wild…
“There is no shoe to try on so your claim you’ll never prove!…”
I whispered from the hearth, “Nay nothing stops the truth…”

I rose in myriad points of light above the maiden’s head…
And though a shoe I once had been, I was a heart instead…
A crystal heart upon a chain of everlasting gold…
Fitting for a queenly neck, protecting her from cold…

The Minister they sent away, banished from the land…
The Prince is now the King and rules, beloved close at hand…
She always kept in secret place the other crystal shoe…
Around her neck I’ll long abide as ensign of the true…

No mortal hand that made me, fashioned out of crystal clear…
No mortal hand would trade me if they felt I would stay near…
No magic can undo me as my form is always true…
Protecting well my charge as a crystal heart or shoe…