Too Brief a Blessing

Once upon a time a little girl lived with her Grandma and her little brother in a cottage in a village. She was ever so happy, even if she never played much with other children, and although she knew that they had things called Mummies and Daddies, well, you never miss what you never had. Then she went to school, and learned that nowhere is prejudice more rife than in an English village. to be told that her dead mother had been no more than a tart (which she thought was something that Grandma baked) was bad enough, but why did being darker than other children at school make her different?

Maddie grew up, of course; she heard it, suffered it, bore it, survived it, moved on and out, the scars on her soul by then decently hidden. She discovered that Cinderella wasn't a fairytale, but that, in Handsome Princes at least, handsome doesn't mean perfect, nor is Living Happily Ever After a foregone conclusion. And the village hadn't finished with her, either. It drew her back - to die. Twice!