The outlaw choked on his drink when he spotted her. Ella grinned, and walked over, her hips swaying. She held out a hand, and he took it instantly.
Everyone followed their movements and brave men came towards them.
“She’s my partner, friend.”
Ella felt abhorrence burn into her body from various haters as she made her way outside. She raised a hand in goodbye to the outlaw, and headed along Main Street, her heart beating in time to her spurs.
Galloping hooves came towards her, and Ella spun, unhooking the Winchester. The outlaw was riding towards her, bent low over the neck of his horse. Ella couldn’t move fast enough—he opened an arm wide and scooped her into his arms. She struggled in his tight grip, until she tumbled headlong into the dirt. Buttons flew from her waistcoat. Her right boot slid off in the tussle, and without a backwards glance, Ella dashed through a narrow alley, where his horse couldn’t follow. She ran as fast as she could, until she reached the homestead. She threw herself through the door and leant against it, breathing heavily.
The next day, the outlaw began making visits to the homes of the town, in search of his femme fatale. Eventually, he rode his steed to the Cinder homestead. When he knocked on the door, Ella was in the kitchen, plucking feathers from a chicken.
His voice reverberated in the hall: “I believe a lady lost this last night.”
Mr. Cinder watched his stepdaughters glance at each other, before a small scuffle broke out over who would try it on first. Ella peered from the doorway, as the elder sister took the boot. She started to push her foot into it, but she squealed as it got stuck at her ankle. Sighing in frustration, the stepmother started to push even harder, until the sister’s face turned a deathly pallor.
The second sister snatched the boot off of her. She slipped it on and squealed with delight.
“It fits! It fits Pa! Oh Ma, I’m going to be married now!”
She gave the outlaw a broad smile and dashed for his arms. Unfortunately, the boot thumped forwards and the sister took a tumble. She twisted her ankle as she landed and tears sprang to her eyes.
The outlaw ran a hand over his stubble. She was there somewhere, he darn well knew it.
“Do you have any other daughters at all, sir?”
“There’s my first born. Ella. But I’m afraid that she’s busy at the moment—”
“I want to see her, sir.”
Ella nearly hit the cupboard as she backed up anxiously. Her father stuck his head around the door, and gave a thin smile of hope. He ushered her into the sitting room. The bird thumped onto the floor, feathers scattering everywhere.
She refused to meet the outlaw’s curious gaze, as she rubbed her hands on her already dirty skirt. She gave a clumsy curtsey and took the boot that he now held in his hands.
She slipped it on and rotated her foot. It fit perfectly. She peeked through her lashes at the outlaw’s growing smile. Her stepmother was spluttering nonsense words, and the sisters had started shouting.
Hands began clapping. She spun to see her father smiling warmly.
“Excuse me… Please.”
Ella rummaged in the kitchen cupboard, where she found her other boot. She’d stashed it beneath a pile of rags and stained linen, somewhere she knew her father or step-family wouldn’t dare go. As she held it in her hands for a minute, a grin as stupid as one of her stepsisters spread. She slipped her boot on, and took the rifle that hung inside. She ran a hand lovingly along the barrel, before hooking it onto her back.
When she returned, every jaw in the room hit the floor. The stepmother was still chattering awkwardly, while the sisters were sobbing uncontrollably in the armchair, holding their ailing feet.
The outlaw strode towards her, and pulled her into his tight grip. He stared into her eyes, searching for her very soul. His lips sought hers, and he kissed her with an intensity that burned. She kissed him back, unafraid of what her father or her miserable old stepmother thought about her. No longer did she felt like a scullery maid, but a true Cinder woman.
They walked hand in hand from the house, where a great beast of a horse was tied to the gate post. Her relations followed, no matter how weak or injured. They grunted, “Ella Ella Cinderella,” like the buffalos in the further fields.
The outlaw slipped his hand from hers to untie his horse. A black stallion. Wild and untamed, like the outlaw himself. He climbed into the saddle, offering his hand to Ella. With one foot in the stirrup, she bunched her skirt above her knees, all manners forgotten. She nestled behind the outlaw, breathing in his scent of alcohol and cigarettes.
Ripping her bandana from her head, she threw it into the dirt, and her curls sprung wild and free. She swiped the outlaws Stetson and angled in jauntily. She waved to her beaming father, and her sulking stepfamily, while her other hand kept a firm grip on the outlaw.
Ella slapped the stallion’s backside. They reared into the air, the horse’s bray drowning out the sobs of the sisters.
“Yee haa!” she cried, as they galloped into the sunshine.
Frosted Hearts
Leah D.W.
The black envelope sat atop her pillow, crisp and clean, with a white wax seal. Ellie stood in her bedroom’s doorway, one hand on her racing heart and wide eyes only on that envelope. No one had brought it to her country home and no one had placed it neatly in her room. The letter never came in such a mundane manner. No, it only appeared when the receiver was worthy of attending the event—an event of a lifetime.
Ellie swallowed her scream as she dived for her bed and grabbed the letter, scattering her peach and cream pillows and wrinkling the pale pink blanket draped across her bed’s neatly made covers. She didn’t care; not about pristine bedcovers or lemon fragranced pillows. All that mattered was the letter, that single note that she clutched to her chest.
“Keep calm, El,” she spoke to herself, eyes shut tightly. “This isn’t a dream. Finally, I can go. I can go!” and then she squealed while hugging the letter and kicking her legs up in the air.
Naturally, her brother was the first to arrive at her door at hearing her excitement. Cool and always calm eyes of ice blue peered inside her room and after scanning the boring curtains flapping in the afternoon breeze and the boring window bed where her stuffed animals sat all in a neat line, his gaze rested on the piece of onyx in his sister’s grasp.
“Why are you acting like a loon?” he asked her, stepping inside with hands tucked into his trouser pockets. Black of course, a colour that had taken over his entire wardrobe. “Crazy isn’t your colour, Sis.”
“Get out!” Ellie tossed a stuffed bear at him. “Let me and my craziness have some privacy.”
“What’s that?” he leaned against the wall, tussled fair hair hanging in his eyes. “A love letter? Is that John nutcase stalking you again?”
Ellie rolled her similar blue eyes at her brother. “It isn’t from just any old person, Ayden. It is from her!”
Ayden lifted an eyebrow, boredom slowly setting over his handsome face. Ever since he’d turned sixteen, even Ellie could see the beauty of their mother in her brother’s features. His boyishness had all but disappeared, displaying the man he would grow up to be. She could see why all of her friends suddenly adored Ayden, but he was still the same person on the inside. He was still just her brother.
“How could you not know?” Ellie flopped a bit on her bed in an attempt to escape from the blanket, then hopped onto her feet. Brushing a hand down her white casual dress, she tossed a stray strand of yellow hair out of her eyes before approaching her brother. “It is from Madam Nix!”
Her brother chuckled, but he kept staring at the item in her hands. “You mean The Snow Queen?”
“Oh, she isn’t as bad as rumours say,” Ellie huffed. “Just because she doesn’t leave her estate doesn’t mean she is an ugly old witch.”
Ayden held up his hands in defence. “Never said witch. I just find it odd that someone with so much money hides away in that place. It is crawling with wee
ds, has broken windows and is haunted.”
“It isn’t haunted.” Ellie rolled her eyes again. “She just likes being alone. I can understand that.” She peered at her closet where her hidden collection of romance novels was tucked away.
“She gives everyone the cold shoulder, El,”
“Well I don’t care,” Ellie turned back to her bed and went to sit down, her feet swinging above the polished floorboards. “It looks like she is having another one of her famous parties and I was invited!”
With fumbling fingers, Ellie slowly broke the wax seal and opened the envelope that contained the letter. Her brother watched silently as the young girl pulled out a blood red piece of paper. Both brother and sister frowned when they saw that the paper was completely blank.
“I guess that party won’t be happening then,” Ayden pushed away from the wall.
“I don’t understand,” Ellie stared at the redness, not finding a speck of ink in sight. “I can’t get into the party without an invite.”
“It is probably a joke,” Ayden shrugged and turned to leave. “I guess John will be getting another bloody nose from me for doing this to you.”
Ellie only watched as her brother stalked away, heading to his bedroom right on the other end of the hallway. When his door slammed shut, she sighed and fell back across her bed. The red paper stayed clutched between her fingers as she stared up at the ceiling, the rays of pale sunlight dimming as afternoon turned to evening.
Yellow and faint pink stretched across her room accompanied by growing shadows that lengthened and swallowed the white of her walls and gown. Ellie stayed as still as a statue, refusing to let her tears fall from her blinking eyes, as her room grew cold and shadows filled the corners.
With a huff, she finally sat up and frowned. The breath that left her lips escaped in puffs of white. Shivers ran up her spine and cascaded down her arms. Ellie rubbed at her skin, forgetting the red paper on her blanket, and went to her closet to get a jacket. Strange, she thought, that it would be so chilly in the middle of spring.
Shrugging on a grey fur coat that fell down to her knees, Ellie snuggled into the thick rabbit fur and turned back to her bed, where she was stuck in place in awe at the sight. Moments before, her blanket had been crumpled and the pillows had limply laid everywhere, but suddenly they sat stiffly atop her bed of…snow.
She took a step forward and reached out to touch the thin layer of snow caked on her bed. It was icy cold, the flakes melting on her fingertips to drip at her feet. Sucking in a deep frosty breath, Ellie’s eyes widened and she dived in. White puffed up all around her as she dug for the red paper that must be an invite.
It just has to be! Why else would something like this happen? Maybe the rumours about her being a witch were true. How exciting!
Ellie dug and dug, her hands turning pink from the cold, until she found the piece of red that stood out like blood spilt across the snow. Picking it up, she hurried away from the cold and brushed the last remaining flakes from the page as her fingertips buzzed. Eyes of pale blue stared at the invite, and letters of gold shimmered across its soggy surface.
“It’s real…” Ellie read the invitation to attend a midnight ball at the estate. “It’s real!”
She danced around her room filled with winter air and stood before her window that had a pattern of frost across its clear glass. Ellie only smiled at her reflection of curling yellow hair and pale lips, before she turned to her door.
Of course Ayden was there in an instant. She had made sure to squeal loud enough for him to want to investigate her happiness. “Guess who is going to a party?”
“Are you still obsessing about that?” Ayden closed her bedroom door and went to read the letter. “And you are going?”
“Of course!” Ellie was already pulling out gowns from her closet with glittered shoes and fur jackets.
“Why?” Ayden noticed her room. “How long was my nap?”
“We are both going,” his sister stated. “Go put on something fancy and meet me outside. The estate isn’t far away, so we can just walk.”
Ayden watched open mouthed as his sister looked at a blue gown, wrinkled her nose and picked up a yellow sundress. He chuckled when she then tried to match the sundress to a pink feathered scarf.
“I thought you said this was a ball,”
“It is,” Ellie smiled.
Ayden smirked. “Then why are you going as a pink and yellow chicken?”
He had enough time to duck out of her room before the scarf could leave a few ruffled feathers on his face. With a small chuckle, he headed toward his room to get dressed. He hated parties and would rather create a new song with his piano or even watch the cat snoring in his sleep, but he couldn’t allow his sister to go to that strange place on her own. Ellie was stubborn enough to ignore his pleas for her to stay, so he went into his room and picked out a random outfit.
He dressed silently, listening to Ellie’s humming, and didn’t look up at the dust sheets covering everything he owned. He hadn’t slept, or actually lived, in his room for years. Ellie didn’t know, but he slipped out each night to be with his inner demons in the stalls that no longer held their prize winning horses.
Making sure to wear something that didn’t smell of stale hay or dirt, he headed out to meet his smiling sister. She looked older than fifteen in a clingy gown of snow white reaching her ankles and glitter was smeared across her eyelids. Hair in a curled bun on top of her head, Ellie twirled a strand of yellow around a finger as she smiled up at her brother, that piece of red in her grasp.
“You look dashing,” she straightened his tie, which he hadn’t realized he had put on. “Let’s go before Martha finds out we are missing.”
“You aren’t going to tell her where we are going?”
“Why should I?” Ellie wrinkled her nose in a way that upset him. “She is just the help.”
“She raised us, El,” Ayden sighed as he followed his sister out the door. “Mom and Dad left and never came back. If it wasn’t for Martha…”
“Then we would be out on the street with nothing,” Ellie finished for him, not reaching his gaze. “I know that, Ayden. I just want to have this one night where I am not looked at as if I’m a child,” she did then look into his always calm eyes. “I’m not that silly girl anymore that cries about everything.”
His sister plastered on a smile he realized had always been fake since the disappearance of their parents, and she skipped out onto the shadow draped lawn that held no snowflakes or a chill in the air. Ayden followed, always following, the young girl after closing the door silently so not to wake the mother he had known since his tenth birthday.
Ellie hummed a strange tune as she strolled across the freshly cut green lawn, flowers hanging their heads as if bowing to a princess. She turned around and beckoned to her brother to hurry up. “Come on, grumpy pants!”
“Don’t call me that,” Ayden growled, but when his sister looked away he allowed himself to smile. It felt unnatural on his face, but perhaps he could get used to it again. For her.
Brother and sister travelled away from their cosy home, its brick walls crawling with rose vines and pots of flowers hanging from hooks everywhere, until Ayden couldn’t see it anymore when he looked back.
Ellie didn’t look back, not once. She clutched the invite against her racing heart and smiled up at the moonlit trail as she led her brother to the estate of Madam Nix. She could already feel the buzz of the party flowing through her veins, the excitement of being seen at such a lavish affair bringing to her mind ideas of how her life could change in that single instance. Perhaps she would meet a prince and be swept away to a paradise island, or maybe she could showcase her love of dancing to the Madam herself and get a job working with the finest performers in the world.
Smiling and walking with a skip in her step, Ellie kept her eyes on the black horizon, until she spotted the lonely tower attached to the massive estate. She clapped her hands and almost ran toward it. Ayde
n, on the other hand, stayed behind with brows lifted.
The place looked run down and empty. Shadows stared at them from behind dirty windows. Dead and yellowed plants clung helplessly at the burnt black walls, reaching up to the broken roof. The front door stood slightly ajar, but he heard no music or chatter escaping from its depths.
Rushing up to his excited, and obviously blind sister, Ayden grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “Let’s go back home. There is no one here.” Except for a few spirits, he thought.
“I’m not going to miss this party, Ayden,” Ellie ripped her arm away from him and sauntered over to the porch.
Her brother watched as the girl hopped up the two steps and walked right up to the front door. With a sigh and a roll of his ice blue eyes, he joined his sister’s side and stood slightly in front of her—just in case a murderer or monster the witch had created tried to grab Ellie.
Ellie searched for a doorbell, but there was none, not even a knocker on the hardwood door. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she shrugged and pushed the door open. Ayden held his breath as Ellie stepped inside.
“Wait!” Ayden pulled her back and almost tripped over something. It was a golden patterned carpet, black from soot and wrinkled.
He kicked it away and looked up at a large staircase that was covered by the merciless touch of nature. The inside of the estate matched its exterior. Brown and dirty green coloured vines were tangled around the wooden staircase, black dirt covered the steps and dead leaves littered everywhere he looked. Ayden took his sister’s hand and stepped back to leave.
“This isn’t right,” Ellie spoke, her voice echoing through the empty place. The shadows seemed to smile in their direction.
Ayden’s fears spiked and a cold sweat burst upon his brow. He needed to get his sister away from there. Though empty of a party, who knew what could be lurking right around the corner.
Fractured Fairy Tales Page 2
