After the wedding, Cinderella went to live with the Prince in his palace. All went well for a week or so: lemonade and long naps under the juniper tree, foot massages, open-mouthed kisses, and soft, roving hands. Cinderella was so enthusiastic she accidentally ripped three pairs of the Prince's pants in her rush to get at him. But it was O.K. He had plenty of clothes.

Then she started disappearing at night. The Prince woke up one morning to warm summer sunlight and an empty bed. The servants made a thorough search of the palace, from the dungeon to the attic, until the scullery maid found Cinderella asleep in the kitchen.

"She's in the hearth!" declared the maid. "Fallen asleep in the ashes underneath the cooking pot!" The Prince gathered up his little bride, washed the soot from her face, and took her upstairs. "I must have been sleep-walking," said Cinderella, rubbing her eyes with a fist. The next night she disappeared again, this time baking six dozen biscuits before curling up underneath a pot of country-style gravy.

Again and again she left the Prince's bed, scrubbing the floors at night, washing windows while everyone slept. Each morning the Prince would find his lovely wife asleep in the ashes and Cinderella would have no memory of having washed every last dish in the palace.

Despite the guards placed at the couple's bedroom door, Cinderella began sneaking out of a palace window and cleaning the homes of the sleeping villagers. Once she walked six miles in bare feet to her step-sisters' house (they'd been living in a run-down Airstream trailer ever since the wedding). When the step-sisters woke up to a clean home and a stack of blueberry pancakes the next morning, they asked themselves, "Who has been here?"

Their question was soon answered when they found Cinderella digging in the garden with her hands. "Oh, Fairy Godmother," called Cinderella, her eyes glassy, her face streaked with mascara and dirt. "It's almost midnight and there are no coachmen to turn into mice! My slippers are missing and I can't find any pumpkins to take me home."