Anastasia Tremaine's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Anastasia won the seamstress. She was measured first, and the first silk was hers. Now, on the night of the ball, she sat before her mirror and faced the part she could not order from a seamstress. Her hair would not hold. She had pinned it three times. Three times it fell. Her mother's rule was plain. Whoever looked best earned the match. Drizella had a maid dressing her down the hall. Anastasia had no one. She stared at the loose pins in her lap and thought of the only person in the house who could fix this. Ella scrubbed the floors of the manor that Anastasia's mother had taken. She wore rags. She ate last. And she could shape a bun better than any paid hand, because she had done it a hundred times for people who never thanked her. Anastasia found her at the bottom of the stairs with a bucket. "I need your help," she said. "With my hair. Please." Ella looked up. Her hands were red from the water. "Please," she repeated, like the word was strange in this house. "That's new." "I know how they treat you." Anastasia's face went hot. "I don't ask right. But I'm asking now." Ella dried her hands on her apron. "Sit." Back at the mirror, Ella worked fast. She gathered the hair high and twisted it into a smooth crown. Her fingers moved without pause. She pinned the volume up and set two curls loose at the sides, soft and gold. It was better than anything the maid down the hall could manage. "You've done this before," Anastasia said. "For your sister. She never sat still." Ella pushed in the last pin. "You do." Anastasia stared at herself. She looked like a girl who could stand in a palace and be chosen. "Why help me? After everything." Ella met her eyes in the glass. "Because you asked. Nobody here does." She stepped back. "You're the only one who ever notices I'm a person." The words landed hard. Anastasia had spent years staying quiet while her mother worked this girl to the bone. She had watched and said nothing. That silence felt like a stone now. A cane rapped the doorframe. Lady Tremaine stood there in purple, her own hair coiled tight. Her eyes went from Anastasia's crown to Ella's raw hands. "So the cinder girl made you presentable," she said. "Good. Use what you have." She turned to Ella. "You are not finished downstairs. Go." Ella left without a word. Anastasia opened her mouth to thank her. The door was already shut. Anastasia rose in her gown, hair perfect, ready for the ball. She had what she needed to compete. But she had gotten it from the one girl she had failed to defend, and she could not stop seeing Ella's red hands on the stairs.