The Dark Tales — Cinder(Ella). My next appointment was with an 18-year…
By: Devika Mehta
Tags: Psychology, Fiction, Short Story, Fairy Tale, Conversations

My next appointment was with an 18-year old girl. She was definitely not one of your typical high school going teenagers. She was different in many aspects. The biggest one being that she was being prosecuted for a high profile murder case. Her lawyer had submitted an appeal to the court to get a psychiatric evaluation done for her before the case went to trial. The presiding judge had agreed and appointed me as the psychotherapist. It was now my prerogative to provide a profile of her; based on which, the court would decide if she should be admitted to a psychiatric facility for treatment, or tried for the alleged murder in court.

Before her appointment, I had researched the case itself. I was given access to the police reports and all the statements. It was best not to look at any newspapers or tabloids before meeting her. There were a variety of theories in all of them — entirely depending on the stand they wanted to take.

Her name was Cinderella. She had been charged with the murder of her stepmother. Six weeks ago, she had, allegedly, poisoned her. She was the one who had called the police and reported it. However, since she was the only one at home, the police had taken her in as the prime suspect. She had not protested or defended herself during the entire process.

I was looking forward to meeting her. Maybe I could get some insight into what actually happened. That definitely wasn’t part of my job. But, I was definitely curious about what had gone down.

She was escorted to my clinic by two policemen. As per doctor-patient confidentiality requirement, they would have to wait outside for the entire hour of the session. She came in handcuffed, but I requested the policemen to remove them. I needed her to feel comfortable enough to talk with me. She came into the room and shut the door behind her. I motioned for her to take the leather chair near the fireplace and then settled myself with a notebook across from her.

Cinderella was very observant. She calmly looked around and took in her surroundings. And then she looked at me as if she was looking for something specific. She gave me a small smile that indicated that we were ready to begin.

“So, Ms. Flowers, we’ll be recording our session today. Please rest assured that it would only be for my analysis and report and would not be shared with the court or anyone else. I hope that is alright with you.”

She nodded and said, “Yes, I understand.”

“Great. Do you mind if I call you Cinderella?” I asked.

She smiled again, and said, “I prefer being called Ella. Cinderella was actually what my stepmother called me because I was only allowed to sleep on the floor near the fireplace and was almost always covered in soot. My parents had named me Elizabeth and always called me Ella.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. Ella it is then.” I smiled back and asked, “So, would you like to tell me a little bit about yourself? About your parents, your childhood.”

Ella settled back into the chair a little, and said, “I had a very happy childhood. My parents were lovely people, farmers, living a simple decent life in the village. Growing up, I was always close to nature. Living amongst plants and animals, enjoying the earth to the fullest. We were always a small family and content with what we had.”

“That sounds really amazing,” I said.

“Yes, it was.” She said wistfully.

“I understand your mother passed away when you were nine. What happened?” I asked.

She closed her eyes as if trying to remember. When she opened them, they were full of tears. She said, “It was an accident. There was a well near the edge of the fields. She used to go there daily, just to take rounds and see if any work needed to be done there. She slipped, hit her head on a rock, and drowned in the pond. By the time we went to look for her, it was too late.”

“I am sorry,” I said.

“Well, it was a long time ago. But I think that’s when everything changed.” She paused, but I didn’t say anything. So she continued. “My father was a wreck for a long time. He couldn’t go back inside their room. It became difficult for him to stay in the house. He started going to town a lot. He used to go before also to sell our goods to the merchants. But now it had become a daily affair. I was practically raised by our housekeeper who used to help my mom with the house and kitchen work. Once she fell sick, so my father had to stay home. It was the longest day for him. That’s when he got it into his head that he should remarry so that I would have a mother. There would be someone to take care of me. So, he proposed to a widow he had been meeting in town. She had two daughters from her previous marriage. So, my father thought that she would be a good mother for me. Little did he know what would happen. I don’t think he even knew her that well. She basically invoked the marriage proposal out of him. And then, well, they got married and she moved into our home with her two daughters.”

Ella paused to take a breath before continuing. “It was all well for the first week or so. My father still couldn’t stand staying at home for too long. So, he continued with his trips into the town. Then, a couple of weeks later, two policemen knocked at the door. When I opened it and looked at their expressions, I knew something terrible had happened. They told me that my father had had a heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital but it was too late. They left after giving me his belongings. I don’t know for how long I sat on the threshold of the door. We had his funeral the next day.”

She paused again. I offered her a glass of water. She took a sip. Her hand shook a little while placing the glass back on the coffee table. I didn’t say anything to give her some time to settle down again. She looked at me with sad, forlorn eyes and said, “When we came back from the funeral, my stepmother rounded up all the people working on the farm and at our home and fired them. She asked them to gather their things and leave immediately. She had a way of saying things. You couldn’t really argue or reply. Those who tried had never managed to have their way. Anyway, it was the start of what would be my story for the next 7 years.”

I had read about this in her file. It was part of the background description. Her stepmother had fired all the help and made Ella do all the work. She removed her from school so that Ella could do all the household chores. The farm slowly degraded and ran wild without anyone to maintain it. Her daughters didn’t do anything. All the work, cooking, cleaning, upkeep of the house, fell on the tiny little shoulders of an 11-year-old girl.

After a beat, I asked, “So, what happened next?”

“Well, I really don’t know. It’s not that everything is hazy or I don’t remember it. But I honestly don’t know how to describe it. I remember every detail from that day. That ominous night when all hell broke loose.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “There was a will. None of us knew about it. My father had left it with his closest friend, who was also a lawyer. He had instructed him to share it with my stepmother and me on my 18th birthday. It’s almost like he knew something had to be done for me. For my future security.”

“On the day of my 18th birthday, as requested by my father, Mr. Daniels came to our house. He told us about the will. I won’t go into all the details. It basically said that when I turn eighteen, the entire farm, the house, the land, everything would legally belong to me. You can imagine the extent of my stepmother’s shock. She was enraged. She yelled at Mr. Daniels and accused him of making up this will. I think he knew this was going to happen. Because he just stood up, smiled, and said, that the next condition of the will requires her and her daughters to leave the premises with immediate effect. My father had put in this condition — depending on my stepmother’s behavior towards me, how she raises me in the event of my father’s absence or death, she would be entitled to a certain amount of money. My father had also instructed Mr. Daniels to reach out and check with all the people who worked at the farm and the house before coming in. All of them gave their candid thoughts and shared all the facts with Mr. Daniels. And that was the last straw. He had witnesses who would state that my stepmother had behaved in the most abysmal way possible with me. It was beyond what anyone could have imagined — that she would stoop to such a low level. Mr. Daniels said that he wished he had done all the interviews and checking before. He would have brought in social services and addressed the situation sooner.”

She paused at this point to gather herself. I couldn’t help thinking — if only. If only, Mr. Daniels had checked on her a few years ago. If only, he had reached out to all the people working at the farm and house initially itself. He probably blamed himself for not checking in earlier. I wondered if Ella blamed her father for not telling her about Mr. Daniels or the will. Maybe she was too young to understand about the will. But at least, had she known that she could reach out to someone somehow, that might have helped. I tried to stay an impartial outsider. But it was becoming really difficult to become objective about this particular case.

Once Ella had composed herself, she said, “Well, you could imagine my stepmother’s reaction. After the initial outburst, she was completely out of words. Stuttered incoherently for a few minutes; something about buying witnesses, random things on those lines. And then, she simply collapsed in the chair and stared silently at the floor. But Mr. Daniels had a few more and even bigger ‘updates’ to share. They had been investigating my father’s untimely demise on Mr. Daniels's insistence. As it turned out, a deeper investigation was required. My stepmother had not allowed the police and coroner to do a post-mortem. Since I was too young, I did not have a say in this obviously. And anyway, I was too shocked to even comprehend anything then. So, there was no post-mortem then. However, Mr. Daniels managed to convince the investigation bureau to look into it further. Since he suspected my stepmother, he convinced them to keep her in the dark. It took them a long time to put all the pieces together. When they finally did, it wasn’t a pretty picture. Turns out, she was what you call a ‘black widow’. When they dug into her past, it turned out that she had been married at least thrice before my father. And each of the marriages had ended with the husband dying of apparently natural causes. Because of her extremely extravagant lifestyle, none of their inheritances lasted more than a few years. When they investigated further on the cause of deaths of all of her ex-husbands, they found out that they were being poisoned over a period of time. I don’t know all the scientific details, but the poison essentially affected their heart muscles which then led to a massive heart attack. Had there been a post-mortem, this poison would not have been detected.”

“It took them so long to connect the dots, to unravel her past, because none of the families wanted anything to do with her anymore.”, she continued. “They just did not want to deal with it. They had lost their loved ones, money, but had decided to move on. Initially, they didn’t suspect anything. But later, when they were asked, specific incidents did surface. Nothing illegal. But mainly about her behavior, the influence she had on her spouses.”

“Mr. Daniels had brought along the police and investigators with him. They came into the house and started going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. It took them hours to go over everything in the house but they didn’t find anything. They asked me if there were any other places on the farm, anything like a shed or an outhouse. I told them about an unused shed near the well in the outer boundary of the farm. Some of the investigators took their kits and went in search of that shed. I was never allowed to go there because it was very close to the well and not maintained or protected and also because of what happened to my mother. Turned out, it was the perfect place for my stepmother to set up her ‘poison laboratory’. She had never stopped experimenting with the combination of drugs and plants and whatnot. It seems that it was her passion to devise new ways of facilitating deceptive deaths. Anyway, once they had seen what was there in her shed, they had enough evidence to arrest her. They read out her rights, handcuffed her, and took her out to the police cars. She obviously lawyered up immediately. That’s when they found out that she had recently sold the majority part of my farm’s land. So, she had a decent amount of money to hire the best defense lawyer. He managed to get her bail within 24 hours. And she was back at the house and went about as if nothing had happened.”

Ella paused again for a breath. At this point, I asked, “What about your stepsisters? Where did they fit in all of this?” She didn’t look directly at me when I asked this. After a definite pause, she replied, “They weren’t really aware of how their mother had managed to ruin four families. It was quite astounding how completely oblivious they were. But as I said, it was hard to disagree with her. She had that effect on her daughters as well. They were spoilt brats, used to a very luxurious lifestyle. But they could never go against their mother. They were terrified of her.”

“Initially, when this story broke and she was arrested, my stepsisters were in utmost denial. They couldn’t believe their mother could be what everyone was making her out to be. But the evidence was too overwhelming to ignore. Before they had not really paid attention to how I was being mistreated. I mean, they didn’t really add on to my troubles. But, they were so scared of her, that they couldn’t really help me openly either.”

“Obviously, they had observed things over the years. They started questioning why they had had to change so many families and cities over the last few years. They started seeing a pattern as they were the closest to all scenes of crimes. When they realized and registered who their mom was and what she had done, I think something broke inside. Something snapped and shattered their illusion. A reality check of this order had another level of impact altogether.”

Ella paused again before going into the most difficult part of the incident. She sighed and said, “Well, somehow, she made bail. I suppose the lawyer she had hired was worth every penny. He managed to establish that she was not a flight risk and while the police investigated on their allegations and got proof that the poison, if any, had indeed been used, and whether it had really come from the shed they had discovered on our farm grounds, and whether she had any hand in concocting the poisons, to begin with. A lot of legal, technical mumbo-jumbo got her out. The police had their work cut out for them. Mr. Daniels had mentioned that he would initiate the work on requesting the exhumation of all the four victims. That would be the first step towards a long, legal battle. They already had some experts chiming in about different types of poison. They were saying that some poisons would not be detected on a person, but after the decomposition of the body, it would seep into the surrounding soil. So, a lot of things were depending on these findings. A lot of unanswered what-ifs.”

“My stepsisters and I just couldn’t comprehend how the court would even allow her to come back. Literally to the scene of the crime. The night she came back, she still had the air of owning the place and treating me as a hired help. She asked me to cook this big, celebratory dinner on her getting bail. And I did it. I cooked up a feast. She ate the extravagant spread, drank her wine, and actually complimented my food. And then, as she sat in her usual chair by the fire, drinking her wine, she gasped and collapsed on the floor. I was in the kitchen cleaning up when I hear the wine glass shatter on the floor. When I came to the living room, I saw her lying there, frothing at the mouth. I didn’t have to go near her to check that she had died. Her eyes were open and glazed, staring through me and seeing nothing. I called the emergency number immediately. The police and emergency personnel came and pronounced her dead. Later on, after the post mortem, they found that the wine she had been drinking had been poisoned.”

“I didn’t poison her. But I honestly can’t say that I am sorry she is dead. She literally got a taste of her own medicine. And truly, I am glad she is no longer alive. Now, no other family or child has to go through what I or at least three other families went through. And that thought gives me peace.”

With that, she went quiet. She was looking at the fireplace with a sense of relief; finally, it was all out. No matter what happened, it was over.

*

After the police officials had taken her, I sat down almost in a daze. I pondered over my session with Ella for a really long time. I probably wouldn’t forget this conversation ever. And for the first time ever, I had more questions than answers. I tried to look at things objectively, to frame my recommendations for the court in an unbiased way. But I couldn’t help but think. How different Ella’s life would have been had she never encountered a black widow as a stepmother? Had her father never remarried, she may have grown up without her mother. But she would not have had to endure all the physical and mental oppression as a little girl. Her subjugation at such an early age had plausibly altered the way she perceived the world. Trusting anybody would become such a daunting task. And one couldn’t blame her for it. Looking at her current state of mind, and why it was such, I sensed that it was more important for her to get the right help. I believed her when she said she hadn’t committed the crime. She was a decent kid who had been persecuted for a really long time. Despite that, she did not have it in her to harm anybody. I could only hope that she would get the right support from her loved ones. With that support, maybe some of her faith in the world and its people could be restored. Her life had been a long, arduous ride, and the recovery would be another difficult journey; but hopefully with a happily ever after.