When they arrived home Cinderella was already making soup. It was full of vegetables and meat ready to mend their upset tummies. Carrots, onions, celery, garlic, and potato. It also had pigeon meat and and another serving or two of rat poison.
Cinderella was glad to see the ladies too sick to stay at the ball any later. It meant her plan was working and she would soon have succeeded in freeing the world of these retched monsters. Madam's symptoms weren't as bad as the mistresses, which made Cinderella nervous. She hoped it would still work on old women.
Cinderella served them their soup while they rested on the couches. They didn't have the energy to climb the stairs to go to their rooms..
"Everything will be okay if you just eat this soup. I made it special for you." she directed melodically.
By the next morning Madam was also relegated to her bed as well. They were all weak and pale, almost green. Cinderella suggested they take a small walk around the garden to get fresh air. Madam glared at her.
"You really are a buffoon, aren't you." she wheezed, "Unlovable, hideous, disguti-h-h-hing twit" She coughed out a small amount of blood.
Cinderella took the opportunity to speak over her, "Not everyone thinks I'm ugly. Emmerett McCune thinks I'm beautiful."
Madam rolled her eyes. "You have such an imagination." She patted her mouth with a tissue, "No one can see past your callused hands and your scarred back. I have made sure of that!"
Cinderella looked at the woman who was once her step mother. "You did all this to make me repulsive? Are you jealous of me? Of my mother? Well-" she pulled the sapphire amulet out of her shirt, "my mother is proud of me. She granted my wish to let me go to the ball."
Madam was shocked to see such an exquisite piece of jewelry. "Who did you steal that from?"
"My mother left it for me."
"Your mother never had jewelry that expensive."
"No, I mean at her grave. I'll show you."
Madam scowled at her. "You want me to leave my bed to see your mothers grave. You really are the stupidest child."
Cinderella left to check on the other girls.
Anastasia was lying on the floor with her lower legs on the seat of the couch while Drisella was curled up in a ball at the one end of the other couch. She had vomited on her pillow at the other end. Cinderella stroked the hair out of Drisella's clammy face.
"Don't touch me, freak."
"I don't know why you always call me that."
"Uh, what else am I supposed to call you? Slave-girl? You're a freak."
Cinderella straightened, "Your mother says you will feel much better if you get some fresh air. She wants you to sit in the garden with her. Would you like me to help you walk out there?"
"Ugh! Why does she ask so much of us?" Anastasia slowly pulled her knees to her chest and rolled to her side. Her stomach gurgled.
"Come now, you don't want to make her cross."
Cinderella helped them walk outside. They walked all the way to the shed before Drisella slumped to the ground and whined, "Where is she?!"
"Well actually, I wanted to tell you about something amazing that happened to me. She pulled out the necklace again and told them, My mother sometimes grants my wishes. She brought my mouse back to life when I was a little girl, and she gave me a dress and this necklace so I could go to the ball!"
"I guess I could call you crazy. A crazy freak." Drisella almost laughed.
Cinderella ignored her and said a wish out loud. "I wish you ladies would be my friends. I wish that we could be sisters. I wish we could all love each other. And if you will, I wish for you to recover."
This time both girls did laugh.
"We could never love you. You're disgusting." Anastasia mocked.
"So you can't see past my scars and imperfections?"
"What is there to see? That's all you are."
At that, Cinderella got something from inside the shed. It was the glass slipper. Anastasia's face drained of whatever color was left, and she glared at Cinderella.
"Where did you get that?"
"Mr. O'Leary gave it to me on my last day of work with him."
Anastasia lunged for it, but Cinderella shoved her to the ground.
"That's mine! Emmerett said he would marry whomever had that shoe! Give it to me!"
Cinderella's face scrunched with with puzzlement. "He wants to marry me?" She was surprised, flattered, and then concerned.
"You are the ugly ones." She said to them. "You treat me like you hate me and expect me to do everything for you. Well, I've had enough."
Then she stabbed Anastasia's right eye out with the heel of her glass slipper. Anastasia shrieked, lifting her hands to the wound but blood spilled through her fingers.
"Now you wont have to see how repulsive I am."
Too weak to run, or even walk, the sisters crawled to each other screaming and crying and leaning into each other.
"You are evil." Cinderella declared, Standing over them triumphantly, holding the bloody shoe. "And evil can't win."
"What is this god-awful racket out here?!" Madam scolded as she stumbled out to find her daughters.
"Mother!" "Mother!" The girls called, hoping to be rescued.
Cinderella smiled, knowing her plan had worked. She slipped into the shed to wait for her. As Madam got to the side of the shed and could see the sight of her daughters holding their faces covered in blood she hurried to them.
"What is God's name has happened here?!"
Cinderella emerged from the shed, this time with the same rope she uses to tie the chickens feet when she butchers them. "Step Mother, you joined us out here near my mother's grave. How gracious of you."
Madam turned her head to look behind her at Cinderella, then her body pivoted and her arms spread out protectively in front of her children. Cinderella laughed this time. Amused by the powerlessness of these people who have had so much power over her through her entire life.
"You foolish woman. You think you can save them. You are the one who taught them to be like this. I gave them a chance and they wouldn't take it. Now you all must perish."
Madam lunged at Cinderella but Cinderella caught her in the lariat loop of her rope pulling tight to restrain her arms. Then she secured the other end on the hook hanging from the shed. She then tied her feet and retrieved the ax.
"The first time I ever had to kill someone it was at your request." She said as she paced along Madam lying on the ground. "It took me a long time to perfect it, but over the years I have learned a lot. I learned how to tie their legs and slit their necks."
Madam gulped.
"Mostly I learned that you are evil. And there's no more space for evil in this world."
Cinderella played with the axe as she spoke, easily holding the handle in her right hand and bouncing the flat end in her left hand.
"Do you remember when you told me to cut off my toe?" Cinderella asked, and then let the head of the axe fall on one of Madams feet. Three screams erupted at the action. "Come now, Step-Mother, there is worse pain. The pain of losing a parent is sharp. Sharper than this axe, even. I have lost two parents, even three if I count you."
"I was never your mother."
"No, you weren't. Were you?" Cinderella got the pairing knife from the shed and knelt down next to Madam. She leaned over her face and asked, "Why have you always hated me?"
"Pff. What is there to love. Your father was a scoundrel, but he loved me. We got pregnant with Anastasia before he knocked up your mother. Then you stole him from me. Thank goodness your mother died, or-"
Cinderella slit her throat. She would not listen to her mother being disrespected. She stood and turned to the sisters. Drisella passed out. Anastasia was sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh stop it. You never once heard me cry and I've gone through a lot worse than you have."
Cinderella unhooked the rope from the shed and started pulling it, dragging Madam's body to a pit that she had prepared for their grave. She shoved it in with her foot and walked back to the house.
_________________________________
• Phosphine is a gas formed when water or acid mixes with rat poison that contains
zinc phosphide.
• Zinc phosphide is a chemical compound of zinc and phosphorous.
• When rats swallow poison with zinc phosphide, it mixes with stomach acid and turns
to phosphine gas.
• Phosphine has no color.
• Phosphine can smell like garlic or fish, but it can be in the air even if you don’t smell it.
• Phosphine stays close to the ground when it is in the air.
You can get headaches, nausea, and diarrhea.
• You can get dizzy or drowsy.
• You can get chest tightness or a cough.
• You can have trouble breathing.
• Your gums can be pale and can bleed
• shock,
• convulsions,
• coma,
• a weak heartbeat, or
• low blood pressure.
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