Phoenix and Ashes

She stared into the fire, and thought, carefully. If this glimpse of limited freedom wasn't some fluke, if incomprehensible fate had at last elected to smile on her—well, her life was about to undergo a profound change for the better.

Her stomach growled, and she smiled grimly. Yes, there would be changes, starting with her diet. Because one of the things that the spell on her did was that it prevented her from going into the pantry late at night to steal food.

In many households, the food was kept under lock and key, but Eleanor's father had never seen the need for that. He felt that if the servants needed to eat, they should feel free to help themselves.

Alison hadn't felt that way, but the pantry still had no lock on it, and while Mrs. Bennett had lived her, it hadn't needed one. The cook had kept a strict accounting of foodstuffs, but that wasn't why there was no pilferage. Mrs. Bennett had kept everyone so well fed that none of the other servants had seen the need to raid the stores.

With Mrs. Bennett gone, however, Alison had changed the spell that bound Eleanor to keep her from the stores. Howse, of course, never appeared in the kitchen, and wasn't going short either, since she shared Alison's meals.

But Eleanor had heard all the servants' gossip, before they'd given notice, and she knew all the tricks for stealing food now that she hadn't known back before Alison came. So if she had even one chance at the pantry—well, she knew how and what to purloin so that even if Alison inspected, it would not be apparent that anyone had been into the stores.

What a thought! No more going to bed hungry—or feeling sick from eating food that had "gone off" and been rejected by Alison because that was all that there was for her to eat. Or at least, there would be none of that if she could bend the spell enough to get into the pantry at least once.

And suddenly, with a great leap of her heart, she realized that within a few days or a week at most, she would have the house to herself, as she always did in spring and fall. The annual pilgrimage to London was coming, when Alison and her daughters went to obtain their spring and summer wardrobes. Always before this, she had found herself restricted to the kitchen and her own room entirely for those few days. But perhaps this spring—

The sound of fashionable shoes with high heels clicking on hard stone broke into her reverie, and she quickly bent to her scrubbing. When Alison appeared in the doorway, striking a languid pose, Eleanor looked up, stony-faced, but did not stop her scrubbing. But she was much more conscious of the fire on the hearth than usual, and to keep her face still, she concentrated on it. The warmth felt—supportive. As if there was a friend here in the room with her. She concentrated on that.

Alison wore a lovely purple velvet tea-gown with ornaments of a cobwebby gray lace, with sleeves caught into cuffs at the wrist. As usual, her every dark hair was in place—and there was a tiny smile on her ageless face. She made a tiny gesture towards her stepdaughter, and Eleanor fought to keep her expression unchanging, as she saw, more clearly than she ever had before, a lance of muddy yellow light shoot from the tip of that finger towards her, and briefly illuminate her.

But she also saw, with a sense of shock, something entirely new. As that light struck her, there appeared a kind of cage of twisted and tangled, darkly glowing cords that pent her in. The cords absorbed the light, writhed into a new configuration, then faded away, and Eleanor sat up straighter, just as she would have if she had felt the compulsion to scrub ebbing.

"That's enough, Ellie," Alison said. "The laundry's been left at the tradesman's entrance. Go get it and put the linens away, then leave the rest for Howse."

"Yes, ma'am," Eleanor said, casting her eyes down, and thinking, wishing with all her might, Tell me you're going to London! Go to London! Stay for a long time, a fortnight, or morel Go to London!

And she bit her lip again to stifle the impulse to giggle, when Alison added thoughtfully, "I believe we'll be going on our London trip in two days, if the weather hold fine. You'll be a good girl while we're gone, and do all your work, won't you, Ellie."

"Yes, ma'am," she replied, getting to her feet, slowly, and brushing off her apron, using both actions as an excuse to keep her head down.