Meadow Faeoria's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Meadow reached the seam in the field where the road down began, but she did not step through. The thread behind her eyes still showed the cottage. Cinder at the table. One glass slipper. Half a loaf of bread. Meadow sat down in the grass and kept watching, because she knew what came next. The stepfamily would come home from the palace. They would look for the girl they had left in ashes. Hooves on the road. A lantern swung past the cottage window — no, past the road beyond it, headed to the stepmother's house across the field. Meadow tightened her grip on the wand. Cinder was not there. Cinder was here, in iron walls, eating bread. The stepfamily would find an empty hearth and an empty bed. Through the thread, Cinder lifted her head. She had heard the hooves too. She stood, walked to the slipper on the table, and wrapped it in a rag. She slid it under a loose stone by the hearth. Then she pulled her hair back, smeared soot from the cold grate onto her cheek, and opened the cottage door. Meadow sat up. "No," she said. "Stay." Cinder could not hear her. Cinder walked out into the field, barefoot, toward the house across the way. She was going home. On her own feet. Before they could come looking and find the cottage. Meadow understood. If the stepmother found Cinder missing, she would tear the country apart. If Cinder walked in the back door in rags with soot on her face, the stepmother would only strike her and go to bed. Meadow watched Cinder cross the field. The pale hair caught the moonlight and gave her away as anyone who looked. Cinder kept walking anyway. She reached the kitchen door of the stepmother's house as the carriage pulled up in front. Inside the house, through the thread, Meadow saw it happen. The stepmother swept in, still in her ball gown, mouth already open to complain. She saw Cinder at the hearth, raking cold ash. She stopped. She looked Cinder up and down — the rags, the soot, the bare feet — and her face changed from suspicion to contempt. "Still here," the stepmother said. "Of course." One stepsister laughed. The other yawned. They swept past Cinder to the stairs. Nobody asked where she had been. Nobody looked twice. Cinder kept raking. She did not lift her head until the last door closed upstairs. Then she sat back on her heels and let out one long breath. Meadow lowered the wand. The thread stayed open, steady. Cinder had bought herself another day. The slipper was hidden under a stone in an iron cottage across a field. The stepfamily suspected nothing. Meadow stood. Tomorrow the prince would start looking. Tonight, for the first time in hours, Cinder was safe.