Phoenix and Ashes

She, of course, knew exactly what Howse was going to do. She was going to nap on Alison's bed—much more comfortable than her own. Since this was exactly what Eleanor wanted her to do, she simply waited until she couldn't hear any more movement overhead, then went to the kitchen and knelt beside the hearthstone.

The flames of the fire flared up as she breathed the first words of her spell, and a half dozen Salamanders burst out of the heart of the fire to slither up her arms and entwine themselves around her neck.

Slowly, carefully, Eleanor insinuated herself into the complex weave of the binding spell. With a word here, and a tweak there, she stretched it, rearranged it, suggested to it that its territory was not merely this house and grounds, but the entire county. She felt the spell respond, sluggishly, but by no means as slowly as it had the first time she had done this. Make this your boundary until midnight, she suggested to it.

With a shake, like a reluctant dog, the spell grumbled, stretched, and settled into its new configurations. With a final word to hold the new shape in place, she came out of her half-trance, and got to her feet with a feeling of distinct triumph. A spell, properly speaking, was a process and not a thing—but the ones that Alison had set on her certainly felt like things—things with lives of their own, and rudimentary personalities. Unpleasant personalities, but that was only to be expected.

She cocked an ear to the rooms overhead, and heard nothing. Eagerness took over, and unwilling to wait another moment, she slipped the latch of the kitchen door and closed it behind herself, then flew out of the garden gate and down the street to Sarah's cottage.

Other than a couple of men entering the Broom pub, there wasn't anyone else about. However much excitement the ball had generated in the Robinson household, for the rest of the village this were no differences between tonight and any other Saturday. Which was just as well, since the last thing she wanted was a lot of coming and going that might disturb Miss Howse's slumber.

Feeling excitement and anticipation rising in her and threatening to boil over, she ran for all she was worth. She had not dared, until this moment, truly to believe that she was going to be able to do this. So many things in her life had been taken or thwarted that she had been afraid to put too much hope into this moment—

—this moment when she would live, for a few hours, the life she should have had. When she would be herself, Miss Eleanor Robinson, not Ellie the maid-of-all-work, with nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of drudgery in the house that should have been hers.

She managed to control herself when she reached Sarah's door, enough so that she paused, caught her breath, and after a preliminary tap and the expected response of "Come!" she opened the door quite demurely.

Only to gasp with shock, surprise, and delight at the vision that met her widening eyes.

"Like it, do you?" Sarah asked, a twinkle in her eyes and a pardonably smug expression on her face. "Not a bad job, if I do say so myself. And I do!"

Arrayed on an improvised dressmaker's-form made of a broomstick and a stuffed sack, was every little girl's dream of a fairy dress, the sort of thing that bedazzled young eyes believe in when they see the Fairy Princess at the Christmas pantomine. Only this gown was real, and not cheap muslin and machine-lace.

It had been a sort of ivory the last time Eleanor saw it—now it was a soft rose pink. "How did you change the color?" she stammered.

Sarah rubbed the side of her nose, and looked suitably smug. "Do you know, there's an old spell in my grimoire that does just that? Temporary, of course, but temporary is all you need, and after I took some thought about it, it seemed to me that a fairy princess was a better costume choice than Princess Victoria. The wings I made; you know what I always tell you—it's easier to change what's there than make new. I expect there won't be another fairy princess in the lot; those girls have forgotten magic by now, and think they're too old for fairies. You'll look nothing like yourself."

Little bouquets of rosebuds ornamented the skirt, here and there, and a garland of them ran from the right shoulder to the left hip. A pair of tiny, pink gauze wings sprang from the shoulders in the back. Waiting on the table was a wreath of rosebuds to wear in her hair, and a pair of pink silk opera gloves to cover her work-roughened hands. The left, of course, had only three fingers.

"What am I going to do for shoes?" she asked, suddenly, aware that her clumsy and well-worn walking shoes would ruin the entire effect of this exquisite gown. "And stockings—"

"Ah, that's where a little more magic and illusion come in," Sarah replied, with a sly wink. "Strip to your shift, my girl. I have some work to do yet."