Cries from the Glass
When the clock struck midnight, that pink, pumpkin-shaped carriage disappeared. The fairy godfather and his horses floated into the dark blue sky until they became one with the stars, no longer visible to human eyes.
Drella’s ballgown bounced wildly as the common girl galloped down the tower steps. Her shiny glass slippers clinked and clanked like a musical number racing toward its finale. The instruments inside the castle were still blaring, and the songstress inside wailed, only adding to the drama.
The purple butterfly that always accompanied Drella fluttered in her hair, soundless paper pages flipping in a miniature book as it frantically looked back, wishing there were anything it could do. The gold seams began to pluck themselves from the gown.
Dink. Dank. Clink. Clank.
One slipper landed on its side three steps from the bottom, abandoned as Drella rushed toward the backwoods. Her ballgown slowly transformed back into torn garments.
She turned back once more and locked eyes with the prince she had dreamed of dancing with. Then her face disappeared into the trees.
Far off, Prince Winsome stood frozen at the entrance to his parents’ ballroom, his gloved hand still extended in mid-air.
“Ghosted again?” his pageboy jabbed.
Winsome forced a smirk, still trying to impress all the guests peering from behind him.
His mother elbowed him and motioned toward the steps. His father nodded in agreement.
“Keeper, what are you standing next to me for?” Winsome shouted. “This isn’t comedy hour. Go grab that slipper. I need to find that girl.”
“As you wish, my liege…”
Keeper rolled his eyes and cantered down the steps with eager obedience toward the precious shoe.
It glimmered ever so brightly. As Keeper bent down to retrieve the slipper, a spectacular rainbow of light burst from the stone stair beneath it, washing upward over his face. The glass was fractured into countless sharp angles that gleamed like a cluster of tiny mirrors, each facet holding the reflection of a different beautiful princess.
One miniature mirror showed the girl who had just danced with Winsome and run off. But the other faces, trapped silently within the silver shards, were ones he’d never seen.
Keeper picked up the slipper. Before he could tuck it safely into his dinner jacket, a chorus of tiny, muffled voices whimpered from inside the glass.
“Help me!”
“Don’t trust him!”
“It’s a trick!”
Don’t trust who? the pageboy thought.
Maybe he was hearing things.
As he lifted the slipper and returned to the top of the stairs, he saw the stars flickering in the sky. The moon appeared to blink.
Finally, at the top of the stairs, he knelt down, as was his custom, and presented the lost slipper.
Before Winsome could touch it, his mother snatched it up and held it like a prize, inspecting every tiny detail. Her fingers traced the sides of the slipper.
She grinned. “There, there. You’re not going anywhere.”
The pageboy’s eyes widened.
Something was off. And he was determined to figure out just what it was.
He was the Slipper’s Keeper.
Enter the World of Ivan Sled Press
That was your special introduction to the next chapter of my journey as an author.
Before the press release goes out to the world, I wanted you to see something first.
Ivan Sled Press is the new literary imprint of Crumb Trail Publishing, created to give the stranger, shadowier side of my storytelling a home.
The story above? I just made it up.
But it gives you a window into the kinds of stories coming next year.
I’ve been writing on and off for 20 years, and many of my stories are filled with fantasy, folklore, and a bit of a darker edge. Nora Escapes the Bakery was the first children’s book I ever wrote and the first story I carried all the way through publication. Publishing Nora gave my inner child a voice, and I will always celebrate that accomplishment.
But Nora was never meant to encompass or define every part of my imagination.
I still yearned for a place where my original stories and retellings could lurk around. Crumb Trail Publishing is a bit too whimsical for that, so I created an imprint.
Once Overlooked Comes First
The first path we’ll travel down will be a series I’m creating called Once Overlooked. It will be a handpicked collection of deconstructed fairy tales that focus on a character, object, or theme that doesn’t usually get much attention.
Story of my life, right?
For example, what really happened in the woods with Little Red Riding Hood? Was the wolf really wrong?
Why does nobody talk about the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk? She was sold for five magic beans. Jack was basically a thief, so what if he was lying about the cow too?
What if the person who picked up Cinderella’s slipper had a window into what was really going on? What if that future happily-ever-after was a sham?
I mean, The Slipper’s Keeper has a nice ring to it.
Just some things to think about.
I’ve always loved fairy tales and fables. I also love stories that, while not technically fairy tales, have that same familiar, almost mythic quality: Wicked, Laila and Majnu, and even Romeo and Juliet. They are stories we think we know, which makes me want to pick them apart.
I’d be doing my inner child an even greater injustice if I kept all those stories tucked away, including newer ones that have been sitting in my Google Drive since the pandemic.
In a few hours, a press release announcing Ivan Sled Press will go out to the world.
But I wanted you to get something different first.
What I Want This Space to Become
I’ve been an inconsistent Substack contributor, and too often I’ve treated this space like a commercial break between whatever else I had going on. A change is coming.
Instead of simply repeating a press release, I wanted to give you a brand-new story that could actually become a book one day.
Along with that, I want to go down rabbit holes with you about mythology, culture, healing, identity, and things forgotten. I’ll share what I see from my corner, and I want to hear what you see from yours.
So here’s to more fun entries from yours truly.
I hope you’re as excited as I am about Ivan Sled Press. I cannot wait to share what the first official title will be.
Until then, tell me this: Who do you trust least in The Slipper’s Keeper so far, and why?
What’s tea?