Henry’s thumb dug into the dip of her hip, and suddenly she could hear not just through the walls to the businesses next to the bistro, but two, three and four businesses down the strip. Too many people spoke at once, each one as if they were standing right in front of her. The world began to spin in sickening shades of white as Henry’s shirt blurred before her.
She could smell leather from the shoe store a few businesses down. There was the smack of asphalt that hit her nose, coupled with the stink of exhaust from the many cars in the throes of a traffic jam. Ella heard a man laughing as she choked on his cloying cologne.
Suddenly, it wasn’t just her Listening and Scent that reached out, but now a third sense was added into the mix.
Ella gasped as Henry’s shirt doubled and tripled in her vision. She whined in duress when she saw clear as day the Baron stepping out of the smoke shop. She knew that was a five-minute drive from the bistro, and couldn’t reconcile how she could see him, much less how she was sending out her senses so far away. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in the men who were still in the smoke shop, talking about who knows what sort of diabolical plans. She watched while he snapped his finger at his driver, as if the man was a dog.
It wasn’t until the car horn blared from several blocks away that the walls of the bistro began shaking. Henry cried out, along with the patrons in the dining room and all along the strip. The crash of several objects toppling off shelves only added to the chaos, which didn’t come to a stop until Ella’s knees buckled.
Henry went from holding the wanting woman in his arms, to scrambling to keep her upright. “Ella? Ella!”
She fought to stay conscious, though the noises were so disorienting that a break from it all might’ve been a welcome respite. “Henry?” she shouted, unable to pick out her own voice from the cacophony.
With every second that passed after the romantic tryst died down, Ella’s Listening began to return to normal. The cars that were blocks away slowly faded, then the business four doors down, then three, then two, and finally, she heard only the sounds of her own heavy breathing, and Henry’s worrying as he lowered her down to sit on the floor. “What happened?” He pulled out his phone as he knelt before her, cupping the back of her head so her forehead could rest on his shoulder. “I’ll call a doctor.”
“No. No doctors. I’m alright.” She touched her temple, and finally her Pulse slowed its sickening pace. “Oh, make it stop.”
“Make what stop?”
“The spinning.” When she could finally focus on Henry’s face, she took in the tenor of his terror. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”
“Of course I’m scared! I’ve never held a woman in my arms while she fainted, and I’ve got to tell you, I’m not a fan. What happened?”
“I didn’t faint,” she corrected him, slumping against the shoulder he offered to steady her. She didn’t fight it when he shifted to sit beside her, and guided her head to rest on his chest, her hand fluttering to his taut pectorals.
When the breakroom door flew open, she turned her head and closed her eyes, childishly hoping the man in the black suit coming into the room wouldn’t see her.
“Henry, are you alright? I don’t know what that was, but maybe we should go.”
Henry shielded Ella with his body as much as possible. “I’m fine, Victor. I’ll come out when I’m ready. Can you do a check in the neighboring businesses to make sure everyone’s okay?”
“Of course. Stay here, then, until I come back.”
After Victor exited, Henry guided Ella’s head to rest against his shoulder again, their backs pressed to the wall as they sat with their knees bent and leaning in to rest against each other. “What was that, Ella?”
“That happens sometimes when I get worked up.”
“Explain it to me. Surely I’m not the first man to audition for a kiss from you.”
“No, but it’s never been like that. Usually I just get a headache, and my Pulse goes a little wonky. This was far more intense.”
Henry found the grace to snigger, combing his fingers through her curls to soothe her. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead to center the swimming look in her eyes. “You should see a professor for that, or a private tutor or something. You made the walls shake! Surely someone can help you.”
“No one can help me,” she said with palpable heartbreak. The fissure she’d long tried to spackle in with denial or a plucky can-do spirit was exposed, and she wished for a blanket the size of Avondale to cover her untold crimes. Tears built up like too many piles of dirt that meant to bury her in her shortcomings. She’d wanted to steal a moment—just a moment—where she could be a woman on a date with the man of her choosing. Ella chided herself for being greedy and pining for a kiss. She’d wanted some freedom, but she knew her life wasn’t her own. It belonged to Lady Tremaine.
Henry held her like that until she calmed in his embrace, remaining beside her, no matter how long it took. For all the hiding and running from him she’d done, she was finally in one place, trusting he was strong enough to hold her while she teetered on the edge of falling apart. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at her eyes, though she hadn’t permitted a single tear to fall. The gesture was clear, though: should she let herself cry, he would be there to hold her, preserve her pride, and hide her away while she struggled to keep her dignity afloat. “Please, Ella. Let me help you.”
“You can’t tell anyone what happened. It wasn’t me. I didn’t mean to make the walls shake!”
Henry was patient, but firm. “Of course it was you. But I won’t rat you out. I barely understand what’s going on, so there’s no story to tell.”
Ella heaved out a gust of relief. “Thank you. It’s important that I keep my secrets.”
Though he knew better than to try and kiss her, he still wanted to be as close as humanly possible. With only a noise of surprise from her, he drew her onto his lap, keeping her head resting against the firm haven of his chest. He didn’t speak for several minutes, but contented himself to hold the woman he hadn’t been able to shake. “I’ll get you a cell phone, so you can call me when you start to get overwhelmed with your Pulse, or even your normal life.”
Ella stiffened. “No. You can’t buy me things.”
“It’s not for you. It’s for me. I don’t like worrying. Giving you a way to ask for help is purely selfish on my part. I want to be the first name you call if the world freezes over, and you actually admit you can’t do this alone.” He squeezed her bicep. “I need it.”
“No,” she said, resolute that she wouldn’t be a burden. “What you need is people in your life who aren’t cursed. You need people who can help you, not ones you have to scrape off the floor. So embarrassing.”
“Ella, don’t fight me on this. I don’t like Lady Tremaine, and I think even less of her now that I’ve heard some of your stories. What I need is you, blue eyes. More of you. Always and only you.”
Ella warmed to the nickname, burrowing into his arms as if that was the one place where she belonged. “Henry, I…”
“Please,” he whispered.
She didn’t answer him for a long time, but contented herself with the quiet that fell between them as she traced her fingers down his sternum, allowing the soft rise and fall of his chest to lull her into a state of calm. “If this is what you really want, then yes to the cell phone.”
He gusted out his relief. “Thank you. Tell me it’s not just me feeling this thing between us. Tell me I’m…”
Ella brushed her fingers over his cheek, savoring the feel of his skin. “Always and only you,” she admitted, echoing his earlier pledge.
Henry’s chest puffed as he held her tight, ignoring the bustling of the kitchen just outside the door, and the worries of the diners. The impromptu earthquake had shaken the block, but left the two of them steadier than ever.
9
What the Baron Requires
Having a cell phone o
f her very own felt like a secret that burned in her soul and made Ella a little more brave. She’d been texting Henry every night after the household went to sleep for several weeks, and relished the thrill of something so rebellious. He still asked regularly if he could bring in a tutor to help her, but she insisted she couldn’t do so without massive fallout. She confided in Henry enough to tell him that any mention of her Pulse made life very difficult for her at home, so there was no use fussing about it.
However, the small scandal of the cell phone and sneaking around with Henry gave Ella just the push she needed to step outside of the tight cage she always kept herself in. Instead of making sure her animals stayed out of sight, she allowed the birds who braided her hair that morning to sing her songs around the house while her stepsisters were out, and her stepmother was in her bedroom.
Lady Tremaine stalked out into the kitchen with an irritated scowl tugging at her bony features. “Ella, if I have to tell you to keep your creatures out of my sight, then clearly I haven’t made myself someone you fear. Would you like me to remedy that?”
Ella stood up from the floor she was polishing and looked her stepmother in the eye. “You’re welcome to tell them to go, but I’m not sure they’ll listen to you. I know the rules. No one is to know I can talk to them. But as it’s just you and me, I think they’re alright to hang out here and watch me work. They’ve even taken to preening the knots out of Drizella’s hair ribbons for her.”
“Can they polish the floor? Because that’s what I’m hoping happens. Can you manage that without vexing me every second of the day?”
“I’m nearly finished, Lady Tremaine.” Though she could’ve cleaned the floor with magic—commanding the rags to work without use of her hands—Lady Tremaine preferred Ella on her hands and knees. Any hint of Ella using her abilities was a threat to the ecosystem in the house of tension.
“Good. And set another place at the table for dinner. The Baron will be joining us, so it would help if the place looked like someone actually cleaned it regularly. Bird poop on the table isn’t acceptable.”
“Of course, Lady Tremaine. I’ll make sure the birds are out of the house before the Baron shows up.” Ella got back down on her hands and knees and continued scrubbing out a scuff on the floor. She would normally keep any conversation to the birds, but today she was feeling bold from all the private texts between her and Henry. “You know, if you like, I can ask the birds to sing you a song. Whatever song you want to hear. It might calm your nerves before the Baron shows up.”
Lady Tremaine blinked down at Ella, confused at the kind offer. Several emotions vacillated across her face, and Ella prayed she would land on pleased. Oh, how she wished for anything to make Lady Tremaine truly happy. Perhaps then the superior woman wouldn’t be so bent on making the world around her more miserable.
It wasn’t excitement, but pure malice that played in Lady Tremaine’s eyes when she finally landed on an emotion that suited her nature. “Have them sing ‘My Loveliest Girl’. I haven’t heard that tune in ages.”
Ella’s intake of breath was a mistake, but couldn’t be helped. “No.” It was an outright defiance, which Ella knew wouldn’t go over well. Even without her newfound boldness from her secret affair with Henry, she still would’ve put her foot down.
Lady Tremaine’s haughty eyes narrowed, and her tone lowered to the deadly one Ella knew well to fear. “What did you say to me?”
“No. That’s my song, and you can’t have it. They’ll sing it for me when I want to hear it, which is never.”
The birds chirped their agreement, knowing that Ella loved the song her father had sung her every night before bed. Since his death, she couldn’t bring herself to hear it. It was the perpetual knife lodged in her chest, and she wouldn’t allow Lady Tremaine to touch it. There were so many things Lady Tremaine had taken from Ella, but she would not let the song be on that list.
Ella didn’t rise when Lady Tremaine neared, her heels clicking across the floor slowly to drag out the ominous pounding of Ella’s heart. She didn’t speak, but grabbed Ella by her ponytail and dragged her down the hall toward the utility closet.
Lady Tremaine’s Pulse was Submission, and she didn’t hold back as she stamped out Ella’s kicking legs with a few waves of the drug nature had given her. The birds were in a frenzy, chirping and swarming around Lady Tremaine’s head. When she batted one of them out of the air too roughly, they backed away when their comrade hit the wall with a sickening thud and didn’t get back up.
Ella let out a terrified scream for the bird, whose only crime was singing.
Lady Tremaine shoved Ella’s limp body into the closet, banging her stepdaughter’s head against the wall. “You’ll stay in here until I’m satisfied you’ve learned your lesson. That will be the last time you defy me, child. I hope you enjoyed it.”
Ella couldn’t even cry out when Lady Tremaine slapped her across the face after shoving her in the tight space. Lady Tremaine hefted Ella up, because the utility closet was too narrow for anyone to sit in if the door was closed. Ella’s body was weary, and trembled unnaturally as the door swung shut and locked, encasing her in utter blackness. She didn’t like the dark, but knew there was no mercy for such things as fear.
It wasn’t until the song her father used to sing to her wafted under the door from Lady Tremaine’s playlist that Ella began to panic.
The song tormented the parts of her she’d tried to tuck away and never think about. Some memories were too treasured to surface in such a grim place. Her father was precious to her, and now his beautiful song was being used as a weapon to hurt her.
Her father had never hurt her, but in the dark of the closet she felt raw and worn from too many days without him. In her imagination, she pretended the closet was her choice—that she was playing hide-and-seek with her father, as she’d done when she’d been a girl with giggles and dreams. She didn’t want to be a woman without dreams.
The broom closet was too shallow to lay down and too narrow to sit. Each movement was to be indulged in with care, lest she risk the cleaning supplies toppling over onto her. The broom and mop to her right and the vacuum and solutions to her left didn’t leave much room. So she stood in her shame, hungry and wanting reprieve from any number of problems she couldn’t conquer.
The tears threatened to fall, but she kept them locked tight inside of her. The song tortured her worse than the throbbing in her head and the ache in her ribs from the broom’s end that had been jabbed into her side when she’d been so carelessly handled. The back wall was cold but clean, since Ella knew at least a couple times a month she would land herself in here for vexing Lady Tremaine. She could hear her father’s gentle cadence as he sang the song to her, tucking her in and kissing her forehead. Life had been so much simpler back then. Ella recalled crying when her doll’s arm was chewed off by the neighbor’s dog. She longed for the luxury of weeping over something so small and simple.
She wished anything in her life could be simple.
Too many emotions filled Ella, threatening to wring her out like a sponge filled with far too much sorrow. She wanted to weep, wishing she could have the things she needed in life. The song played on repeat all afternoon, slashing the wound open over and over again.
It was four hours before Lady Tremaine unlocked the narrow closet, jerking Ella out by her ear. Ella knew it wouldn’t be all night she was forced to stand there; the Baron was coming for dinner, and Lady Tremaine’s daughters were home. Someone had to make dinner and get Drizella and Anastasia out of their mother’s hair.
“Now, you listen to me,” Lady Tremaine seethed. “If this place is not spotless by the time the Baron arrives, you’ll wish for a week in that closet to escape the beating I’ll give you. We need high class all the way. I don’t want him to assume I’m a fixer-upper. The menu better be top notch. Do not disappoint me.”
Ella kept her head bowed. “Yes, ma’am.” Then she stumbled off toward the kitchen as her knees tried to reme
mber how to bend. She was grateful that at last, the song had stopped playing.
Ella flew through the chores and then started in on the dinner, wondering how she was going to make a meal to impress the Baron with hardly any time to spare. She decided on Spaghetti Carbonara with roasted root vegetables on the side, and set to work to make sure everything was perfect.
The table was set with Lady Tremaine’s wedding china, which was only used for fancy occasions. Ella despised the look of it. The harsh pink of the roses stood out like it had been colored in with a fuchsia highlighter, with olive green vines draping across the center. Ella and her father had joked that the vines looked like they were choking the food. She knew he’d hated these plates, but he’d given his bride what she wanted.
It wasn’t until he passed away that Ella realized Lady Tremaine had used her Pulse of Submission to lure her father into a languid married life of compliance.
There was no hot water for Ella after Drizella’s bath and Anastasia’s twenty-five-minute shower, but she didn’t mind the icy blast that snapped her to attention. If anything went wrong with the Baron, Ella knew there would be no mercy.
Ella dressed in black trousers and a white blouse, knowing that was the dress code for the help whenever important guests came over. Lady Tremaine wanted it known that she was wealthy enough to have a servant, so Ella was paraded out as many times as she wished to display her opulent lifestyle.
When Ella came out of the bathroom, her skunk was sitting on the mattress, asking her why she’d been locked in the closet again. The birds were unabashed gossips, so it didn’t take long for word to spread to her only friends that she’d been locked away yet again. “It wasn’t so bad. I got to do some good dreaming in there,” she lied. “I think we should invent a new language just for us. That way, no one will know what we’re saying to each other.”
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