Phoenix and Ashes

She had been an indifferent seamstress before Alison arrived; why should she be any good at it, when she'd never had to so much as turn up a hem in her life? But she'd been forced to learn, mostly by observing the maids, for Alison had no intention of parting with a single penny to keep Eleanor clothed—and of course, once all of the maids were gone, Eleanor added the task of mending her stepsisters' clothing to the rest of her chores.

By then, she had learned on her own garments, as they grew shabbier with each day. Hems came down, seams ripped, and when one did all the rough work of the house, sooner or later things got torn. All of her current clothing dated from 1914 and before. Most of it was looking like something even a gypsy would be ashamed of, and the best of it was shabby.

Well, there's one blessing, she thought, as she sat out in the garden, sewing as quickly as she could. There's not a lot of material in a modern skin, compared to the ones I just cut up. If I'd been living fifty years ago, this would take days.

The old linen was soft and heavy, like a damask tablecloth, and if the color had faded from its original indigo to a softer blue, at least it had faded evenly and the color was still pretty. And she could use the time while her fingers worked to continue to puzzle out the cryptic things she had read in the alchemy books last night.

She began by trying to puzzle them out, rationally and logically but as the needle wove through the heavy linen, it became more of a meditation. Fire . . . flame . . . heat. The heat of passion ... of love and anger. Righteous anger, carefully controlled. Anger as a weapon. Could love be a weapon?

A weapon—well, perhaps not, but armor, certainly armor! And as a shield. . . .

It was hard to get past her own education, in a way. Young ladies weren't supposed to think about anger, or passion. Young ladies—

Young ladies weren't supposed to think about a great many things, but she had never let that stop her before.

It was long past the time when what young ladies were "supposed" to think about was changed.

Passion. Passion was dangerous; passion overcame reason. Yes, it could, but only if you surrendered your own will to it. That was in the alchemy books, too. If your will was strong, and your heart listened to your head, passion could be a great force for good. Passion could drive a person to do more, far more, than she thought she could. Passion became strength. . . .

She thought about the book that had held drawings of some strange cards, cards unlike the playing cards she was used to. The card called "Strength" was a picture of a beautiful maiden gently holding the jaws of a lion shut with a single hand. That was passion in control of will, the heart obeying the head. Fire yearned to blaze without control, and yet, under the gentle guidance of will, it was a willing servant. Not tame, but tempered. . . .

The needle flashed in the sunlight, the seams grew of themselves. It was a pleasure to sew out here in the sun, and by just luncheon, she was finished. As she surveyed her handiwork with pleasure and a little pride in her accomplishment—three years ago she would haven't even have been able to sew up the hem!—she couldn't help but wonder that if she wore these up to the meadow, would Reggie notice?

Ah, what am I thinking? Why should he notice what I wear or don't wear?

She shook off those thoughts, changed into her new outfit with a sense of making another little step back toward that world she had been evicted from, and ate her luncheon with her nose firmly in her alchemy books. One of the authors was very taken with a magical discipline called the Kabala, but the moment she tried to puzzle that out, she felt her eyes practically watering. If her mother had ever mastered that school, there was no sign of it in the notes she had left, and all of the numbers and letters and strange words just made Eleanor's head ache. She went back to her medievalists. The book with the drawings of the cards attracted her profoundly; she couldn't have said why, because she wasn't interested in the so-called fortune-telling abilities of the cards. No, it was more as if they could tell her something about the powers of the Elements in a more understandable way than that Kabala book.

It was not exactly pleasure-reading. She had to reread most paragraphs several times, and then pause and think about what she had just read before she went on. She didn't manage to get through more than a couple of pages at that speed. So when teatime approached, she packed up her basket with a sense of reprieve.