Ella Tremaine's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Ella left the shreds on the attic floor and ran downstairs. She did not stop at the door. She crossed the yard and pushed through the garden gate. The manicured hedges rose around her. Roses bloomed in the formal beds, red and pink and white, all planted by hands that had never planted anything for her. She dropped onto the stone path and cried into her knees. Her mother's dress was gone. The palace doors would never open for a servant in rags. "Crying will not sew silk." Ella's head snapped up. A woman stood between the flower beds. She had dark hair and pointed ears, and she wore a white gown stitched with gold. She held a slender wand tipped with a shining star. She had not come through the gate. Ella would have heard the gate. "Who are you?" Ella climbed to her feet. "This is private ground." "I am Agathe." The woman looked at Ella's wet face without softening. "Your godmother. Your mother named me before she died. I have watched a long time." Ella wiped her eyes. "I have no godmother." "You have one now." Agathe stepped closer. Her gaze moved over Ella's stained apron. "They tore the dress. I saw. You mended it stitch by stitch, and they ruined it in seconds." Heat rose in Ella's chest. "Then you know it is hopeless. I have nothing to wear. The road is closed. There is no way in." "You are wrong twice." Agathe raised the wand. "Kneel by the roses." Ella hesitated, then knelt where a white rose leaned over the bed. Agathe touched the star to it. Light gathered along the vine. The thorns and blooms twisted loose from the soil and rose into the air. They spun around Ella, briars and petals braiding together into a path of light that curled up past the hedges. "That road will carry you to the palace," Agathe said. "Thorns and pearls. It runs only tonight." Then she turned the wand on Ella herself. The star touched her shoulder. Ella felt the fabric change against her skin. Her torn apron thinned and spread and turned to silver. The stains vanished. A gown poured down to her feet, pale and shining, finer than anything her stepfamily owned. Ella stared at her own hands. "How long does it last?" "Until midnight. Not one breath past." Agathe lowered the wand. "When the last bell strikes, the gown is rags again. The road closes. You will stand wherever you stand, as you truly are." "Then I must be back before it strikes." "You must." Agathe did not repeat it. She stepped back into the shadow of the hedge and was gone. Ella looked at the glowing path of thorns and pearls. It climbed into the dark toward the palace. She had a gown. She had a road. She had until midnight, and no minute more. She lifted her skirts and set her foot on the light.