“The stars?” His father looked at him as though he were mad.
Nicholas nodded. “I saw her do it once. They talk to her, but no one else can hear. Apparently, they would warn her of storms and pirates and other dangers.”
Xander opened his mouth as though to speak but closed it again. Shaking his head and muttering to himself, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “So . . . you’re saying the Shadow wants her gift? But Nicholas, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were always so sympathetic to the plight of the gifted before.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm. I need you to be absolutely truthful with me.” He leaned over the table. His words were a whisper. “Are you absolutely sure the Shadow wants her for her gift? Because if it’s for our secrets, those will change soon enough. They always do in war.”
“No. He wants her for her gift.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because Jackson never said the Shadow wanted Elaina. He said the Shadow wanted the girl who talks to the stars.”
His father fell back a step. “So he won’t stop looking. But . . . what could he want with a girl who talks to stars?”
“Use your imagination, Father.” Nicholas stomped over to a little porthole window. “Whatever it is, I can assure you that it will be nothing beneficial to the rest of our kingdom or to Solwhind. But I am not about to sit around and wait to find out. I’ll set sail on a local fishing boat tomorrow and travel to Solwhind myself. There, I’ll—”
“No.”
Nicholas turned. “What?”
“No.” His father shook his head. “You’ll not be going anywhere. I’ve apparently lost an asset I never even knew I had. I’ll not be losing another in search of it.”
“I am going,” Nicholas said. If he had to search every corner of the sprawling city, he would.
“You are going to return to the palace with me. I will speak with Alastair. We’ll go about this rationally, and I’ll send out the proper men in search of her.” He met Nicholas’s glare. “But you’re staying put. And if you even think about disobeying me, I’ll have you arrested and locked in your chambers.”
Nicholas gaped at him. “You’re willing to entrust the kingdom to me, but you threaten to lock me up?”
“I will entrust the kingdom to no one who insists on disobeying my orders. We will deal with this properly. Remember that tonight, when you’re tempted to sneak away again. You’ll do her no good locked in your chambers.”
Nicholas threw the door open and stomped outside.
It was growing dark by the time he reached the place Elaina’s intended boat had been docked. Sitting down at the empty spot, he dropped his legs over the side and let them dangle the way he had seen Elaina do anytime they were near water.
As tempting as it was to jump up and board the first ship that was headed to Solwhind, for he knew that despite his father’s orders, boats were still slipping in and out between harbors, he knew better. Elaina wouldn’t benefit at all if he got himself in trouble with his father. He might be the prince, but against the king’s word, he stood no chance of escape.
“I seem to be destined to fail right now,” he said as the stars appeared above him, one by one. “And I can’t deny that I deserve it. Still . . .” He paused, closing his eyes. “I’m trying to do the right thing. But I could really use some help.”
33
Truth in the Stars
Elaina had just closed her eyes, it seemed, when someone was in the attic shouting for everyone to wake up. She tried to stretch, sore from sleeping on the hard wood floor, but that hurt even worse.
“Which one of you is the girl with no name?” the strange woman snapped. Without waiting for an answer, she clumped over to Aspen and grabbed her by the wrist. She yanked her up to her knees. “Are you her?”
“That would be me.” Elaina pushed herself into a sitting position.
“Huh.” The large woman looked down at Aspen. “Are you Aspen then?”
The girl nodded quickly.
“You’re both coming with me.” She lumbered over to Elaina and grabbed her by the arm as well.
It took a lot of effort on Elaina’s part not to wince as the woman pulled them down the stairs, her grip as tight as a vice. By the time they reached the bottom, it was a miracle that neither Aspen nor Elaina had fallen and broken bones.
“My name is Penelope, but that’s just for Madame. You may call me Miss Penelope. You, nameless one.” The woman picked up a broom and shoved it at Elaina. “Sweep. And while you do, watch the water and lard. Take it off the fire when it starts to simmer. And Aspen, scrub these plates until they shine.” The woman shuffled over to a table in the center of the large kitchen, where she began to beat a lump of dough, muttering about what a poor state those ungrateful servants had left the place in.
Elaina glanced at Aspen, but the other girl quickly ducked her head and began to scrub the dishes vigorously. Elaina looked back down at the broom in her hands somewhat doubtfully. She knew how to scrub the deck of a ship until it shone, but she had never used a flimsy broom like this one before.
“Well don’t just stand there gawking at it.” Penelope called. “Start sweeping!” Then she paused, her eyes getting wide. “Don’t tell me you’ve never swept a floor. What were you before? Some sort of high and mighty noble?”
Elaina gritted her teeth and began moving the broom back and forth. At first her movements were choppy and succeeded only in stirring up dust and making Penelope cough and curse at her. But as she continued to work, Elaina found a more comfortable rhythm and better movements that actually moved the dirt over the stone floor, rather than just throwing it up into the air.
“You lazy little oaf!”
Elaina jerked her head up to see Penelope snatch up a rag and wrap it around her hand. With the rag, she pulled the pot from the fire. “You let the lard burn!” Penelope set the pot down then grabbed Elaina by the shoulder, making her bite back a cry as the woman’s nails dug into her flesh. She had to bite back a groan, too, when she saw the burnt mess inside the pot.
“Now I’ll have to make it all over again, and Madame will be cross. Here. If you can’t do anything else right, take the cinders out back. Felix will show you where to put them.” She handed Elaina a bucket of ashes and nodded at the side door. Elaina took them grudgingly and turned to march out. However, she didn’t see the broom that had fallen to the floor when Penelope had grabbed her, and she tripped. Ashes filled the air. Elaina coughed and choked and gagged as they filled her mouth and nose.
When the air had cleared some and Penelope’s curses had ceased, Elaina was finally able to open her eyes.
Matilda was standing before her with a smirk. “I think we’re found a fitting name for our nameless girl,” she said softly.
Elaina looked up at her miserably, still unable to speak for the dirt in her mouth.
“And what would that be, Madame?” Penelope asked, crossing her arms with an equally smug expression.
“Cinders.” And with that, Matilda turned and glided out of the room.
* * *
The rest of Elaina’s day was little better. Exasperated, Penelope gave her a cleaning rag and told her to go outside and beat the skirt of her dress with it so Elaina wasn’t sending up puffs of cinders every time she moved. Elaina did her best, but she knew the shade of blue would never be the same.
For some reason, this saddened her more than she would have thought appropriate for a dress.
During tea, she failed to leave the parlor fast enough and had the privilege of being laughed at and taunted by Matilda’s two daughters, Alison, a little mousy thing with a nasal voice and nervous hands, and Dinah, a tall girl with broad shoulders and a mean backhand, as Elaina quickly discovered. After the three ladies had enjoyed their tea, Elaina was politely informed that when everyone else got their meals that night, she would be receiving half of hers for her laziness.
It wasn’t until the sky had long been dark and
everyone else had been sent up to the attic that Elaina was handed her single roll of bread. Too tired and hungry to think about decorum, she started to shove it half into her mouth until she saw Matilda watching her from the doorway. Holding the woman’s gaze, Elaina deliberately held the bread away from her mouth and broke off a small piece and chewed it slowly. Matilda watched her for a minute then moved on without a word. Elaina waited until she was gone, then crammed the rest of the roll in her mouth.
It was good timing, too, for no sooner had Matilda gone than Penelope was back. She held out the broom once more.
“You’ll sweep once more for your mess this morning. I’ve been stepping on ashes all day. Then you can go to bed, and I wouldn’t suggest tarrying. If you thought today was hard, wait until you see what I have for you tomorrow.”
Elaina took the broom but waited to begin until Penelope had gone. Sweeping was agonizingly slow compared to all the other work she had ever done, even net mending. But then, Elaina had done those other jobs all her life. She couldn’t recall the first time she’d swabbed the deck or patched sails. And none of those jobs were light labor. Why then, was housework so hard?
By the time Elaina finished sweeping, the clock had struck, and only two hours were left until midnight. She pulled herself up the stairs without the slightest idea as to how she was going to do such work for another day, or even a week. When she reached the fourth level, however, her ears picked up another sound.
Exhaustion temporarily forgotten, Elaina went again to the single door. Once again, it was locked. But this time, there weren’t merely whimpers coming from the other side. This time, there were cries.
Rebellion seized her. Anger at Matilda and anger at the Shadow prompted her to run back down the stairs. The kitchen was empty, so Elaina sorted through the dishes until she found a long thin pick of some sort. Taking it back up the stairs, she put the pick inside the lock and moved it around until she heard the lock click, thankful that Lewis had taught her to pick locks when in curiosity she’d once locked herself out of her own sea chest.
Elaina pushed the door open a few inches. “Hello?”
The sound of crying greeted her, along with several smells that made her stomach turn. Before walking any farther into the dark room, she darted back down the stairs to grab the first lamp she could find. When she returned, Elaina pushed the door open wider and searched for the source of the crying.
Inside was a large room, about as large as the attic above them. It had once been grand, with dyed carpets in reds and blues. But the reds had faded to pinks and the blues looked gray. A giant four-poster bed had been pushed into the far corner next to a window that faced the wharf. Several dusty trunks lay in different parts of the room. But none of that was what caught Elaina’s attention.
An old woman sat in a chair. She moaned and her head rolled back as Elaina ran to her side. It was obvious from the state of her hair and the stench of the room that no one had tended to her in days.
“What can I do?” Elaina asked, kneeling at her side.
“Water,” the old woman croaked.
Elaina jumped up and ran back down the stairs once again. Her legs protested, but urgency pushed her on. She took a ladle of water from the water bucket, but then thought better of it and grabbed the whole bucket instead.
When she was back up in the room again, Elaina tried as gently as she could to ladle water to the old woman’s lips. Getting her to drink was difficult, though, as the woman continued to moan about how someone named Atta had never come.
“I . . . I don’t think Atta lives here anymore,” Elaina said, pressing the ladle to the woman’s dry, cracked lips. “But drink this, please.”
By the time Elaina had calmed the woman enough to get her to drink and eat a little of the bread she’d found in a cupboard in the kitchen, wash her face, change her clothes, and help her into the bed, the clock had struck one hour until midnight. Elaina’s vision spun with exhaustion and hunger, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep until the woman was properly cared for.
From the former finery of the room, and from the decently stylish nightdress Elaina found for the old woman to change into, she could only surmise that this was Matilda’s mother. There was a proud arch to her brow and just the touch of an accent Elaina couldn’t name that were too similar between the mistress of the house and this abandoned old woman, or Cynthia, as she claimed her name was, to be ignored.
And if Elaina had thought Matilda cruel before, nothing had quite prepared her for the horror of finding the woman’s own mother locked away in a forgotten part of the house.
As Elaina finally lay down in her little corner of the attic, she hurt more physically than she could ever recall hurting in her life. Her bones felt hollow, and they ached as though someone had beaten them with a shovel. Muscles she hadn’t known existed felt stretched and bruised, and her stomach made her nauseous with hunger. But deep down, there was a slight calm.
Not enough for her to sneak to the window and admit to the stars that they were right, of course. But enough for her to smile a little as she fell asleep. She hadn’t escaped, but she had defied Matilda. The stars had been right. Someone needed her.
Two Years Later . . .
34
Different
“I’m about to take a great gamble with your daughter today.” Elaina sang as she began to brush Cynthia’s hair.
“Oh?” There was a smile in Cynthia’s words. “And pray tell what that will be.”
“Well, last night she was boasting to a friend that there is only one cart in the market that sells tolerable peaches. And, she said, she would know that cart’s peaches from any others should they touch her lips.”
“I can guess where this is going.”
Elaina laughed and put the silver filigreed brush back on the vanity before draping a heavy jade and silver necklace around Cynthia’s neck. “After her little speech, I was sent to the market for some sugar for your granddaughters’ upcoming tea, and while I was there, I noticed that Matilda’s beloved peach cart was nowhere to be found.” She turned Cynthia to face the mirror on the vanity. “So today, should the cart be gone again, I will be forced to find her precious peaches somewhere else.” She wrinkled her nose at the two women in the mirror. “I might have to find the one that sells peaches with worms.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard since the crown has managed to cut us off from the world. But don’t be too flippant now. The last thing you need is another switching.” She glanced up and down Elaina’s figure with her milky blue eyes. “You just recovered from the last one.”
“I’ve had worse.” Elaina bent and pecked the woman on the cheek. “Now, what do you need today?”
Cynthia fidgeted in the chair. “Unfortunately, as fine as my silk stockings are, even those get holes.”
“Very well. I’ll give them to Gram and see what she can do with them. Anything else?”
“Try to stay out of trouble.” Cynthia caught Elaina’s hand as she started for the door. “I mean it. Don’t make me watch my daughter abuse you again.”
Elaina glanced down at the bruise on her hand. “That one was actually Alison.”
Cynthia’s grasp tightened. “What for?”
Elaina rolled her eyes. “A young gentleman who had come calling on her addressed me. I dared to raise my eyes to respond to his question.” She felt indignation rising in her throat but pushed it back down. It would not do to start the day in anger. “I suppose she was a bit jealous.” Then Elaina forced a smile and leaned in for a hug. “But worry not about me. I will get your stockings done by tonight if I can.”
She had just closed the door when a large shadow blocked her path to the stairs.
“Good morning, Dinah.” Elaina adjusted the load of laundry on her hip. “What can I do for you?”
“You gave Alison my gown.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
But Dinah reach
ed down and grabbed a handful of Elaina’s hair. Elaina had to restrain herself from shoving the wench down the stairs. Instead, she forced herself to look demurely at the ground. Alison’s bony fists left bruises, but Dinah’s thick forearms could break bones. She’d done it to Aspen once.
“I know she put you up to this,” Dinah said, pulling Elaina’s face up to hers. Elaina tried not to breathe in the pungent perfumes the young woman wore. “If it happens again, I’ll make sure you hear of it.” She shoved Elaina onto her back, and Elaina didn’t move until Dinah’s thick black hair had disappeared down the stairs. Then she stood, dusted herself off, and continued her journey to the kitchen.
In the two years that had passed since Elaina had come to live under Matilda’s roof, she’d eventually settled into a routine. And though at first Matilda had not been happy in the slightest to learn that Elaina had strayed into a part of the house to which she had not been invited, she’d quickly realized that Elaina would be much more useful there than not. So taking care of Matilda’s aging mother had become Elaina’s responsibility along with the rest of her chores.
Cynthia had complicated Elaina’s plans far more than she had ever dreamed possible. Escape had continued to linger in the future, just out of her grasp, but every time she thought of leaving, she knew in the back of her mind that the old woman probably would not survive more than a week in her absence. Her granddaughters never went to visit her, and Matilda acted as though her mother had already died. And though Cynthia had hardly been warm to Elaina’s attentions at first, they had eventually found a kinship in the common knowledge that Matilda despised them both.
Still, when the brothers had escaped during that first month of captivity, Elaina had promised herself she would follow. Several months ago, on her twentieth birthday, she had even gone so far as to store away enough food for a few days in one of the empty wardrobes in the attic. But every time she saw a chance to go, there was Cynthia.
Cinders, Stars, and Glass Slippers: A Retelling of Cinderella Page 25
