Summary

Cecilia has one great love: her forest of hundreds, even thousands of trees that her father left her when he died. Unfortunately, she must marry to come into her inheritance. So Cecilia’s dearest wish is to wed - not so much to gain a husband as to make sure her beloved trees flourish and prosper. For others have designs on her forest, especially the terrible Seneschal, brother of the King and lover of Dame Carla, Cecilia’s stepmother.
How can Cecilia find a husband when her father’s widow has reduced her to a state of servitude? Carla has made her a ragamuffin, working morning to night, washing, brushing, scrubbing, polishing, dusting, laundering, drying and ironing everything in the vast manor house (where all she has is a straw mattress), while the Dame’s two hideous daughters laze around, living like princesses. No-one wants Cecilia. She is too dirty, too unkempt, too impertinent. Yet she has to act urgently: the Seneschal has had her trees marked and plans to cut them down without delay. He wants to use the timber to build the most powerful armada ever to sail the seas. Not content with usurping his brother’s throne, he also intends to become a great warlord, a modern-day Alexander, another Napoleon!
Meanwhile, at the castle, the King is very weak, at death’s door, his strength sapped by a more subtle affliction than the most underhand disease: his son, Prince Charming, is only interested in music and has no intention of taking a wife or fathering an heir. The kingdom’s future is looking bleak. But then in a flash of brilliance, the King decides to summon every maiden of marriageable age to a great ball. The girl who wins the Prince’s heart will become his Princess and future Queen. Naturally, Dame Carla hatches a scheme to make sure the Prince chooses one of her daughters: fat Bertha or tall, skinny Gertrude. She confines Cecilia to the house on the evening of the ball to keep her out of the running. All seems lost for the poor girl: she will never marry and her trees will be cut down.
But just when things look darkest, Cecilia’s Fairy Godmother steps in, bringing her perpetual companion Merlin the Enchanter with her. In two shakes and three waves of a magic wand, Cecilia finds herself at the ball, dancing in Prince Charming’s arms. She is more beautiful, gracious and elegant than all the other girls, who are overdressed scatterbrains to the last After love at first sight, high drama. Cecilia is summoned by her trees and has to race off to their rescue, leaving the Prince with only a glass slipper as a calling card. Despite his previously professed lack of interest in marriage, now Prince Charming cannot rest until he finds his slender-footed beauty, the only one who can wear the slipper.
Life would be far too simple if Cecilia were elevated to her rightful station at once…. if the Prince were charming by nature as well as name… if the Seneschal and Dame Carla gave their blessing to the happy couple… if Gertrude and Bertha were content to be bridesmaids… That sort of thing only happens in fairy tales. In Cecilia’s case, as soon as she is proclaimed royal fiancée, war is declared. The Seneschal and Dame Carla order the Prince abducted and he is left to drown. Cecilia is arrested, tried for witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake. Her forest faces imminent destruction…
The shadow of death looms over everything and everyone.
Forced to step in again, the Fairy Godmother and Merlin put matters right, helped by the lost children of the woods, an old dog and their encyclopaedic knowledge of magic.
Like Macbeth when Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, the Seneschal faces disaster when Cecilia’s army of trees marches against him. He will be beaten by Prince Charming in single combat, conquered by Cecilia’s courage as she heads the rebellion, and defeated by the magic of love, which finally unites the ragamuffin and the charmed Prince.
Finally, everything ends as it began: with music and dancing, songs and the choir of trees, and nature reigning in peace and harmony at last.