Ella Tremaine's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Ella walked the last stretch home in the dark. Her bare foot ached on the cold ground. One glass slipper stayed pressed to her chest. She had to reach the manor before her stepmother's carriage. If Lady Tremaine found her outside, in these rags, the questions would start. She slipped through the garden gate and up to the manor's worn stone steps. The house stood quiet. No carriage yet. She let out a slow breath and went in. She climbed to her attic room and hid the slipper under a loose floorboard. Then she pulled her hair loose and rubbed ash on her hands, so she looked like she had worked all night. She went down to the kitchen and set the tea things ready on the little wheeled cart. When the front door finally opened, she was pouring water, plain and dull, the servant they expected. Drizella came in first, still in her green ball gown. She dropped into a chair and snapped her fan shut. Anastasia followed, her pink skirts crushed from the long ride. "How was the ball?" Ella asked. She kept her voice light. She rolled the tea cart forward. "A waste," Drizella said. "The Prince danced with no one who mattered." "Some girl," Anastasia said. She took a cup. "No one knew her. She ran out at midnight. Left a slipper on the steps." Ella's hand stayed steady on the pot. "A slipper?" "Glass," Drizella said. "The Prince kept it. He means to find her." Ella poured. She did not look up. "Find her how?" "He'll try the slipper on every girl in the kingdom," Anastasia said. "Whoever it fits, he marries." Drizella tapped her fan against her palm. "It will fit me." Anastasia watched Ella over the rim of her cup. She said nothing, but her eyes stayed too long. Ella felt the look and turned to wipe the cart. Then the door opened again. Lady Tremaine stepped in from the cold. She did not sit. Her gaze moved across the room and stopped on Ella. "You are awake late," she said. "The tea, ma'am," Ella said. "For when you returned." Lady Tremaine came closer. She studied Ella's face the way she had studied the girl at the palace. "You have ash on your hands." "I was cleaning the grate." Her stepmother said nothing for a long moment. Then she looked down. Ella's left foot was bare. The right wore a worn cloth shoe. "Where is your other shoe?" Lady Tremaine asked. Ella's throat went tight. "It tore. I threw it out." Lady Tremaine held her eyes. She did not believe it. Ella saw the doubt harden into something worse. Her stepmother now knew a slipper waited at the palace, and a girl had run from the Prince. And here stood Ella, one foot bare, hiding something. "Finish your work," Lady Tremaine said, and left the room slowly. Ella gripped the cart. The Prince was hunting her. And now her stepmother had begun to hunt her too.