Happily Ever After, Ltd. - 12. Shoe Day

Over the hills, the Cinderella sun was rising, but it was nothing like the real sun. No actual light seemed to come from it. It looked more like a polished gold coin. The hills in the distance seemed like stage props, cardboard cut-outs that could easily be kicked over. Even the birds, Ryan noticed, weren’t real birds but flattened M-shapes drifting back and forth across the sky. However, even though it was more like a screensaver than a view, Ryan tried to enjoy the serenity while it lasted.

A servant came in with a breakfast tray. Ryan poured himself a cup of tea, which tasted like dirty dishwater. There was a small basket of very stale-looking scones and a jam jar containing a fizzing acidic paste. Ryan picked up a scone and nibbled the corner of it. It crunched like sand between his teeth.

Soon enough, familiar footsteps approached. The King and Queen came in.

“Good morning, son,” the King said. He seemed calmer than he’d been the night before.

“I hope you slept well,” the Queen said. “I dreamt all night of grandchildren, hundreds of them. I think that’s a good omen that you’ll find your bride today!”

“Great,” Ryan said.

“Son,” the King said, “are you quite sure this is the method you want to use to choose a bride?”

“Yes, I’m positive,” Ryan said.

The King sighed. “Very well then. It seems rather illogical to me.”

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying,” Ryan said. “Heaps of people have the same shoe size and surely I would be able to recognise her.”

“No, it makes perfect sense,” the Queen said. “We all know women with dainty feet are the most beautiful. My feet are particularly dainty.” She lifted her dress and extended her leg from beneath it, showing off her small foot.

There was a tap at the door. It was Bjorn. Ryan had no idea if he was relieved or distressed to see him. “Your Majesties,” he said, giving Ryan a small wink. “Your horse and carriage awaits.”

“Fine,” Ryan said. “Let’s go find my dainty-footed bride.”

*

Dave was woken at seven o’clock by a seagull crashing into the window. The bird had broken its neck and slid messily down the glass, and was now laying in a bloody heap on the ledge outside Dorothy’s window. Dave was still sore from the darts and the fall – but on the whole, he felt surprisingly good having slept. For the time being, he felt calmer about his confinement. After splashing some water on his face, Dave turned Dorothy’s chair around, to watch the sunrise through the gore-streaked window.

An hour later, Burnham came in, his gun raised, half-expecting that Dave had been up all night planning another attack. Dave rolled his eyes and Burnham sheepishly put his gun away.

“Sleep well?” Burnham asked.

“Like a log,” Dave admitted. “Like a tranquilised log.”

Burnham had two coffees and a large brown paper bag. He dragged a chair up beside Dave and handed him a coffee.

“Maria went to the bakery downstairs,” Burnham said. “There’s a few muffins and stuff in the bag. She got one of each.”

“Great.”

“Was everything comfortable?”

“As far as being held captive in an office goes,” Dave said.

“And your neck and shoulder?” asked Burnham.

“Just don’t do it again.”

“Then don’t give me another reason to.”

They sipped at their coffees and watched the city coming to life, twelve floors below. Office workers looked like ants on the sidewalk, and matchbox-sized cars were already losing their tempers at each other in traffic.

“Ryan is okay, right?” Dave asked eventually.

Burnham reached over and took a copy of Cinderella from the desk. He opened it at the middle and handed it to Dave. “If you want to know if he’s okay, read it.”

Dave looked down at the page open in front of him.

The Prince set out to try the glass slipper on all the ladies of the land.

“All the ladies of the land?” Dave said. “How many are there?”

“Hundreds.”

“And Ryan has to try the shoe on all of them?”

“Every last one.”

“Shit,” said Dave.

“Shit indeed,” Burnham said. “Welcome to Shoe Day.”

*

By day, Ryan could see much more from the carriage window than he had the night before. As he crossed the drawbridge, the village below looked like a postcard drawing. All along the cobblestone roads, there were cottages, green meadows, little ponds. As Ryan got closer, however, he saw that the pretty picture was yet another illusion. There was no real grass in the meadows, only rolls of green carpet. The streams and lakes were just blue plastic sheets stretched out over holes in the ground. Closer still, Ryan saw that the cottages themselves were wooden cubes, with squares cut out for windows and two sloping boards on the roof.

At the first tiny cube-cottage, they all stepped out of the carriage, and Bjorn went ahead to knock on the door.

“His Royal Highness the Prince has come to try your foot in his glass slipper!” he said. “She the shoe fits will be his bride!”

Ryan wasn’t sure how they would all fit inside the miniature building but the exteriors were deceptive. The door opened and, once Ryan had crawled through it, he found himself in a large cluttered sitting room, where a family of seven daughters were waiting. They all had freckles, a bad case of the giggles, and gigantic feet.

By the seventh daughter, Ryan was already losing interest in Shoe Day, but knew that there were at least another eight cottages on that street alone.

After the first street, Ryan had lost interest in shoe-fitting altogether. His legs were sore from kneeling down on stone floors, trying to squash the small shoe onto big feet. Or, on one occasion, leaving the shoe hanging like a canoe on a miniscule foot.

“Son,” the Queen cried when they encountered the latter, “her feet are so dainty! Couldn’t you consider her for your bride?”

In the afternoon, they arrived at a small house with an overgrown garden full of hens pecking at each other. At the door, there was a large girl in a blue dress and a grass-stained apron. When Ryan got out of the carriage, Bjorn made the same announcement he had been hearing all day long.

“His Royal Highness the Prince has come to try your foot in his glass slipper! She the shoe fits will be his bride!”

The girl looked up, startled. She did not only have a familiar face, she had a friendly one.

“Oh, hi Blanche,” Ryan said.

She looked at Ryan like she’d never seen him before.

“I’m the Prince,” he said. “Remember? You tried to help me find Cinderella last night.”

Blanche lowered her head and curtseyed.

“Can we come inside for a moment?” Ryan asked.

Blanche sank into another courtesy that was taken as a “Yes”. Hers was the humblest abode so far and she was clearly embarrassed about it. It was one room, with one table, one stool, one small bed and, rugged up by the fire, one elderly lady who didn’t even look up when they entered. Blanche rearranged the old lady’s blankets.

“Is that your mother?” Ryan asked.

Blanche nodded.

“And you take care of her all on your own?”

Another nod.

“That’s nice of you,” Ryan said. “That must keep you busy.”

“Indeed,” the Queen whispered, running her finger along a table. “She clearly hasn’t dusted in a while.”

“Shut up,” Ryan whispered. He felt as uncomfortable as Blanche looked. She didn’t want them in her house and Ryan didn’t want to be there. He wanted to get out as quickly as possible. “Um, okay, so give me your foot,” he said, “and we’ll get out of your way.”

Bjorn helped Blanche onto a stool and unlaced her muddy work shoe. Ryan had already seen about three hundred bare feet that day and knew straight away by the thickness of her toes and the curve of her heel that Blanche’s foot was not going to fit.

Ryan slid it over her big toe. “There you go. Maybe you wore it like that.”

“Don’t be a fool,” the King said.

Blanche still said nothing. She stared at the floor.

“Well, that’s that then,” the Queen said brightly. “Let’s move on!”

The King and Queen left but, for a moment, Ryan was too miserable to move. Blanche hadn’t really wanted anything to do with him at the Ball. She hadn’t wanted the royal family to come into her small undusted home. She hadn’t wanted to try on the shoe. All she’d wanted was to be left alone to take care of her mother, but Ryan had forced his way into her home and made her feel fat-footed and judged.

“Sorry about that,” Ryan said to her. “Are you alright?”

Blanche nodded, her eyes still cast downwards.

“Do you need anything?”

She shook her head.

“What about your mother? Does she need doctors?”

Again, she shook her head.

Ryan had forgotten that Blanche was a fictional background character. He had forgotten that none of this was real, because to him it felt painfully real. Blanche was mute, her mother was unwell, their house was dusty and small. It was too depressing not to be real.

Eventually, Ryan went back outside, where Bjorn was helping the Queen back into the carriage.

“You look terrible,” Bjorn said.

“I’m fine,” Ryan lied.

“What was going on in there?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing. You feel sorry for Blanche, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” Ryan said, climbing into the carriage. He tried to push Blanche out of his mind. “Can we go to Cinderella’s now? If I have to touch one more sweaty girl’s foot, I’m going to spew.”

*

Burnham had spent most of the day in a small audiovisual booth on the third floor. He had watched the past two months of security footage, on a tiny screen. He had watched the corridors, the control room, even the urinals of the men’s bathrooms. There had been a few moments of interest. Dorothy turning her back on Burnham whenever he walked into a room. Maria poking her nostrils at the photocopier. Liam logging into Facebook with guilty glances over his shoulder. There was nothing helpful. Burnham wasn’t too surprised. If someone had been clever enough to help a terrorist infiltrate Cinderella, they would’ve been clever enough to get around the surveillance system.

It was late afternoon, and Burnham was nearing the end of the footage, when Dorothy came in. “Any luck?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Burnham said, stretching his arms out and cracking his knuckles. “No suspicious activity on this floor during that entire week.”

“Well, that man didn’t pop into the story by magic.”

“I agree.”

“So, what’s your theory?”

“I haven’t got one,” Burnham admitted.

“Poirot doesn’t have a theory?” Dorothy raised her eyebrows. “You solved Grumpy’s murder single-handedly.”

“That was nowhere near as complicated as this,” Burnham said. “Only one dwarf was stupid enough to think he’d get away with murder.”

*

In its early years, Happily Ever After, Ltd had kept a register of all known Fairytale Objectors. Fairytale Objectors were vocal opponents of fairytales. They were mostly Gender Studies professors who lectured first-year students on how fairytales perpetuate negative gender stereotypes. As the years went on, the security department hadn’t bothered to keep the register updated because Fairytale Objectors had never been considered a major threat. Most of them sat behind computer screens and wrote occasional articles that few people read. Even if there was a threat, the Core Book technology was considered impenetrable.

Liam tracked down the register in an old folder. The list of Fairytale Objectors was a very small one, with only one male. Bjorn Berger. Bjorn Berger had studied literature as an undergraduate and then completed his doctorate in literary criticism. According to the university website, he had spent the last ten years doing some sort of research into the “ethical concerns” of children’s stories but, oddly, hadn’t published an academic paper in three years. He had, however, been among the most outspoken Fairytale Objectors, one of the few who’d gotten out from behind his computer screen. He had even been in the news, protesting loudly at beauty pageants or standing outside bookstores handing out flyers to disinterested teenagers.

Digging deeper, Liam also discovered Bjorn’s criminal past. At the age of nineteen, Bjorn had been arrested for creating a complex computer virus. The virus would infect its host computer and retrieve data about any adult websites that had been visited, no matter how carefully the user had tried to cover their tracks. The virus then uploaded the list of websites into a new email, which was then sent to everyone in the user’s address book: spouses, parents, employers, clients. The consequences were widespread. Shame was brought upon everyone, but celebrities, politicians and priests were particularly affected. Bjorn avoided jail only because of his youth. Within online hacker communities, however, Bjorn Berger was heralded as a computer genius. There was no record of Bjorn being involved in any criminal activity since then. Nevertheless, Liam knew that with Bjorn’s background, it would’ve been relatively simple for him to create the virus that destroyed Prince Charming.

Liam had also found a photograph of Bjorn Berger on a university website. Bjorn was standing stony-faced in front of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. When Liam showed Dorothy the picture, she immediately felt a chill. Bjorn Berger was almost a cartoon stereotype of a villain. He was paper-white, with a long narrow face, slanted eyebrows, and a pencil moustache.

“And there’s definitely no way to get him out?” Dorothy asked, for the hundredth time.

“Not unless we know who got him in,” Liam said. “Whoever installed Mr Berger would have used a specific password, as we did when we installed Ryan. The only other option is what we’ve already decided against – disconnecting the entire system. That’s the only way to eject him.”

“That’s out of the question,” Dorothy said. “We need to find who got him in. There has to be a way to find out.”

“The only way that I can think of is by viewing security footage.”

“Burnham’s done that,” Dorothy sighed. “There’s nothing.”

Maria looked up from the Core Book. “They’re on their way to Cinderella’s house!”

“Well, that’s something at least,” Dorothy said, unconvincingly and unconvinced.

*

By daylight, the Manor looked no less grim than it had the night before. Even in the middle of the day, the large stone building still seemed to be under a blanket of darkness. Remarkably, there was no sign of damage from Bjorn’s accident the night before: the fence had been repaired, the muddy skids covered over, and the pumpkin splatter had been cleaned up.

The Stepmother opened the door before they had even knocked, putting on a show of phoney surprise. “What an unexpected pleasure, Your Majesties. Do come in.”

She led them through the entrance hall and into a large room that Ryan was certain had not existed the night before.

“How splendid,” the Queen said.

Sheets of blue silk hung from the centre of the ceiling, making it feel like they were in a small circus tent. Around the edges of the room, a sinister assortment of headless statues stared, but the only other furnishing was an armchair, in the centre of the room. The room had been designed solely for shoe-fitting.

Lucille and Katrine were standing beside the armchair, both tightly-corseted and barefoot. Cinderella was nowhere to be seen, but Ryan told himself not to panic. First, he had to let the stepsisters try the shoe. Cinderella would probably come in afterwards.

Lucille rushed over to curtsey at Ryan’s feet. “What an unexpected joy,” she said.

Not to be outdone, Katrine marched up to him and brazenly pushed her large breasts up against his chest. “Is that the slipper?” she asked breathlessly. “It’s beautiful.”

“Really?” There was a heavy smudge on one side of it and the heel now had quite a large crack in it.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Katrine said.

“Well, in that case, it’s unlikely to be yours!” Lucille said.

“Let’s get this over with,” the King muttered.

Bjorn helped Lucille into the armchair. Lucille lifted her dress much higher than she needed to, showing a long veiny leg and a perfectly-manicured foot. She wiggled her toes impatiently.

Ryan knelt painfully on the marble floor and took Lucille’s ice-cold foot in his hand. He slid the shoe over it and, for a horrible moment, thought it had slipped on perfectly. But it hadn’t; Lucille’s heel still jutted out over the back.

For a second, Lucille’s face became thunderous and Ryan recoiled, expecting her to strike him. She quickly forced a smile, retracted her foot, and rose from the armchair.

“Your Highness,” she said, “I stepped on a bee earlier and it has made my foot swell to twice its normal size. Will you allow me to put some ice on it before trying again?”

“You stepped on a bee?” the Queen asked.

“Yes, while I was out walking,” she said. “Will you permit me a few moments to reduce the swelling?”

Ryan looked over at Bjorn, who shrugged unhelpfully.

“Um, sure,” Ryan said. “Go put some ice on it.”

Lucille glided out of the room.

“Dainty,” the Queen said, “but not quite dainty enough.”

Katrine was next. She sat down in the armchair and lifted her foot up. It was enormous, even larger than Blanche’s had been. Each toe was pink, round and shiny, like the tip of an uncooked sausage. It was obvious to everyone in the room that it wasn’t going to fit, even by holding the shoe in the vicinity of her foot, but Katrine still looked hopeful. Ryan only managed to squeeze two of her toes into it. Katrine narrowed her eyes in concentration, as if she could mentally will her foot to shrink. Eventually she accepted that it was not to be, but was only disappointed for a second. She immediately unlaced her corset and sat back into the armchair, her belly pooching out.

“I’m sure Lucille will be back shortly,” the Stepmother said.

“Well, actually,” Ryan said, “isn’t there another young lady in the house?”

The Stepmother frowned. “Only my daughters and I attended the Ball last night.”

“But didn’t you say you had a housekeeper?”

“Not this nonsense again!” the King said.

“Well, technically the agreement was that we’d try to fit the shoe on every—”

There was a strangled cry from somewhere in the house.

“What on earth was that?” the Queen said.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” the Stepmother said calmly. “I’m sure Lucille just saw a mouse. She can be quite silly about rodents.”

Heavy uneven footsteps came from the corridor. Lucille appeared in the doorway. In one hand, she clutched a large kitchen knife. In her other hand, she held two severed toes, resting in a small pool of blood. Ryan looked down at Lucille’s foot, or at least what was left of it.

“Good heavens!” the King shouted.

The Queen screamed, then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted. Bjorn rushed forwards and caught her.

Lucille lurched towards Ryan, holding her toes out as if offering truffles. Her face was pale and clammy and her lips curled into a wide, demented smile.

“Now let me try that shoe,” she said.

Lucille took another step forward but slipped and fell to the floor. She thrashed around like a fish on a hook and began to laugh maniacally. The Queen then revived and started screaming all over again and Ryan began to wonder if this story was ever going to end.