To Be Deserving — The Wicked Stepmother’s Confession Retold | TaleTreasury

That’s always the story, isn’t it?

A drab, plain girl is suddenly transformed—draped in shimmering silks, adorned with sparkling jewels, her face powdered, her lips stained red like fresh pomegranate seeds. She becomes the envy of the court, the mysterious belle of the ball. No one whispers of her soot-streaked past, of the hearth she slept beside. No—her mystery, her sudden arrival from nothing, makes her irresistible.

It makes me ill to think of it.

The blue dress. The delicate, tinkling glass slippers. The coy smiles, the effortless grace, the blind adoration she inspired from all sides—especially from him, the one I married to secure a future for my family.

Yes, I had daughters. Two daughters. And though they were petty, clumsy, and yes—unfortunately plain—I loved them. The kind of love a mother carries regardless of flaws. Who else would love them, if not me?

I heard the whispers. They called me jealous, a social climber, a schemer. Some whispered darker things—murderess. I won’t pretend it didn’t sting. But every action I took, I took for my daughters. They deserved comfort, status, the affection denied to them by their own father and by a cruel, unyielding world.

When I married into that house, I had hope. I believed the man who loved his first child so dearly would extend that same care to my girls. I watched him spoil his daughter with the finest silks, trinkets, and maids to wait on her every whim. I thought, finally, my daughters would have a father who cared.

But I was wrong. He had no love to spare for them. His daughter continued to receive everything—while mine were ignored, ridiculed even. Each gift, each celebration, each elaborate birthday, felt like a dagger.

Yes. I grew angry.

Yes. I took action.

You ask if the rumors are true. Did I? Was it me? Of course, it was. Every whisper you’ve ever heard—I confirm them. I did what I did with clear mind and full intention. He, like the others before him—Tillsbury, Olton, Jenkins—they all deserved it. Ignorance, greed, selfishness. A woman like me, a mother like me, simply cannot stand idle in the face of such injustice to her blood.

Call it jealousy, call it ambition, call it love twisted into something sharp and dangerous. But wicked? Perhaps. I won’t deny it.

And so, yes—when he fell ill, so suddenly, so gravely—when his heart failed him amidst the cold season—it was no accident.

I watched him waste away, the fire dwindling in his eyes, and I felt nothing but resolve. My daughters deserved the house, the wealth, the life. The girl in blue? She was an obstacle. A pretty, delicate thorn in my side.

But as stories go, I underestimated the girl. Her fairy godmother, her prince, her happy ending. The world does love a tragic orphan turned princess.

And what of me? Did you think I faded away into the shadows like all “wicked stepmothers” do? Oh no. The shadows held no escape for me. The law came. The trial came.

“Lady Tremaine? Please follow me.” the bailiff called.

So here I am. My fate now rests in the hands of those who pretend at righteousness. Will they see my actions for what they truly were? A mother’s desperate attempt to secure a future for her children?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. But wicked? Wickedness is subjective, isn’t it?

All I wanted was for my daughters—and myself—to be deserving.

Moral of the Story

Obsession with status and envy blinds us to true love and kindness. Seeking comfort through cruelty leads only to isolation, not fulfillment.