Cinder-Ugly Read online

  I nabbed the key from the bowl and let myself out of the nursery. In the dusty hallway beyond, I stood for a moment breathing deeply, heart racing in my chest. From here, all the sounds intensified—the music flowed up the stairs at me and the laughter tinkled like metal chimes.

  I crept down the stairs—the rear stairs, these were, not the grand front set—holding hard to the balustrade. I slid like a shadow through the hallway at the bottom, past the door of the kitchen which heaved with frenetic activity. No one noticed me, and I went on, drawn to the light and beauty like a moth to flame.

  Beauty. No one can estimate its importance until deprived of it. I did not mind so much myself being ugly—well, I lie. Perhaps I did mind, but I had at least grown accustomed to it. But I missed color and brightness, even the sight of my sisters in all their finery.

  Now I stepped into the grand sitting room, assaulted by it all. A rush of sound, heat, and more color than my senses could quite assimilate.

  Guests crowded the room, dancing, laughing, and chattering. Everything glittered, from the jewels they wore to the crystals on the chandeliers. The music seemed to glitter also, to cascade like broken glass.

  I paused just inside the doorway as if struck across the face. Whatever I might have imagined while shut away upstairs, this surpassed it. I stood as if rooted, my breath caught in my chest. For several precious moments no one noticed me. Waiters threaded their way among the joyous guests; I might have been invisible.

  I could not see my parents anywhere. I think I had some mad notion that I would find them and they would see how well I looked in my borrowed costume and realize how mistaken they’d been in failing to include me all this while.

  It didn’t happen that way, though. Instead, one of the nearby guests noticed me. He drew his companion’s attention to me and they both laughed.

  Let me reiterate: for all my other failings, I was not a stupid child. Even though I didn’t want to believe it, I knew at that instant that they laughed at and not with me. Their faces jeered at me, and in an effort to get away from them I stumbled farther into the room.

  Face after face swiveled toward me. Laugh after laugh sounded. The decibel level in the room seemed to drop till I heard only laughter.

  Of the members of my family, Robin saw me first. He hurried over, a look of consternation on his face, and knelt down to take me in his arms.

  I still remember how that felt—so seldom was I held by anyone—and how welcome the sense of shelter seemed. But my brother, at fourteen, could in truth do little to shelter me. And next to hurry up, to my everlasting regret, came my mother. She loomed above me and Robin, quite possibly the most sublimely beautiful of all the women present, and began to screech.

  “Ah! What is she doing here? Russel! Russel!”

  My father, thus summoned, hurried up also. He wore his fancy black suit with the mayor’s sash fastened across his chest, and his expression lent me no reassurance. Father had been known to strap Robin and paddle my sisters—though, granted, only for grave offenses.

  It came to me I had indeed committed a grave offense.

  He and I stared at one another out of almost identical eyes.

  “Erikka,” he told Mother, “I am sure she merely heard the music and wished to see—”

  Mother, in no mood to be appeased, spat at him, “Get her out of here. Where is that nurse, to let her get away? I will strike the woman off!”

  I switched my gaze from my father’s face to my mother’s—flushed dark, it appeared almost purple, and for the first time ever she did not look beautiful. Her emotions had twisted her image into one almost as ugly as mine.

  Robin straightened, still holding me in his arms. He pushed my head into his shoulder, exchanged one look with Father, and walked straight from the drawing room.

  By the time we got upstairs, I wept with disappointment, with fear, and with the creeping humiliation that on some level always accompanied me. Robin roused Nurse, who swatted me soundly for my escape. Father soon followed and spoke to Nurse in a fierce, low tone, some of which I overheard.

  “You are to keep the door locked, especially when we are entertaining.”

  “Master, I did keep the door locked. She must have got hold of the key, the imp! She grows ever so devious and disobedient with age.”

  “Nevertheless, she is your responsibility. If you can no longer handle it, we will find someone who can.”

  Nurse, dismissed? Huddled on my bed where Robin had placed me, I shuddered. I might not love Nurse, nor she me. But she was all I knew—a large part of my narrow world. She might be replaced by someone who would beat me daily instead of delivering the occasional swat.

  Nurse said, “She needs a good talking to, that’s all. Leave it with me.”

  Father and Robin left, and Nurse did speak to me, all the while she strapped me with a leather belt across the backs of my legs.

  “Something for you to remember,” she declared before she left me, taking the key with her.

  All that might have been bad enough, but my mother arrived sometime later, near dawn, after the party had ended. Still dressed in her finery, she pounded on the door and woke us both. Nurse let her in.

  Mother raged up and down the room. She railed and berated Nurse, spewing words like venom. I do not remember all she said, but her message sounded loud and clear. She did not wish to see me—not ever, if she could manage it. Never while entertaining. By the time she left sometime later, I had indeed learned one important lesson:

  My mother was not always beautiful.

  Chapter Three

  Mother and Father argued about it the next day. I heard bits and pieces of the quarrel because it became very loud and spilled into the front hall. Words floated all the way up the stairs to my ears.

  My parents did quarrel sometimes, if Father objected to one of Mother’s demands as too outrageous or expensive. She would storm and weep, and he inevitably gave in. This seemed different. It hushed the house, which is what allowed me to hear so much.

  The truth is, I did not hear the beginning, which must have taken place in the sitting room. Only when it spilled into the hallway could I hear.

  “Erikka, you cannot keep her hidden away forever. Last night proves that. It is not fair, for one thing.”

  “Not fair? To whom?” Mother wailed.

  “To the child.”

  The child. Even while he defended me, Father would not call me by name.

  I stole a look at Nurse, who also listened while trying hard to appear as if she didn’t.

  “Get away from that door,” she snapped at me. “Or do you want another strapping?”

  I did not; the welts on my legs already made it hard to stand. I crept away, but both my parents now seemed impassioned. We could still hear almost everything.

  “What about being fair to me?” Mother cried, perhaps predictably. “I have three beautiful children—”

  “Four. You have four, Erikka.”

  “I have three beautiful children! All the world knows them. They’ve forgotten she exits. I will not remind them.”

  “You intend to keep her locked away forever?”

  “She is safe. Looked after.”

  “She is eight years old. It is no life for her.”

  “You do not care about me! You have never cared.”

  “That is not true. But to keep a child locked away, lifelong, is a sin. What about when we are gone, tell me that? What will happen to her then?”

  “Her sisters will look after her.”

  Oh, God help me!

  “Her sisters will marry and perhaps move away.”

  “Her brother, then. Or…let’s do this, Russel—let’s make provision for her elsewhere. That’s it—we’ll send her away. To a convent, perhaps.”

  “You are mad.”

  “You know it’s the right thing to do. See to it, Russel.”

  The quarrel ended then, though its ramifications remained with me. My sisters soon arrived and taunted me w
ith the information I’d already heard, that I would be sent away. For days after, I waited for the blow to fall, certain I would be banished into an unimagined, outer darkness.

  But Father surprised us all. For the first time in memory, he stood up to Mother. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, he came to the nursery and informed Nurse I was to be brought down for dinner.

  I will remember that particular meal till my dying day, every detail of it. Nurse decked me out in one of Nelissa’s cast-off dresses and combed my hair into a semblance of order. The fact that it still hung limp and mousy helped nothing. She scrubbed my hands, swiped at my worn shoes, and trotted me downstairs at the appointed hour.

  My parents sat at either end of the big, polished table—a place where I’d never before been seated. Granted the seat next to Robin, I found myself opposite my sisters, who shot me sly and disparaging looks, their noses in the air as if they smelled something unpleasant.

  After one horrified look at me, Mother turned her eyes away and did not so much as glance at me again. Obviously in high dudgeon, she refused every platter the maids presented to her, which made it impossible for me to eat, in turn.

  Father attempted to make conversation. He asked me about my lessons. I answered in mumbles, and my sisters promptly took over the discussion, bragging about a party to which they’d been invited. Only the most elevated of their friends would be there—anyone, basically, worthy of existence.

  I do not think I did anything wrong during that meal. I minded my manners, used the proper fork—Nurse had taught me that much—and failed to spill anything. Yet before the pudding made an appearance Mother arose, threw down her napkin, and swept out.

  She could not stand to be in the same room with me.

  Perhaps Father reached the same conclusion, for his next effort placed me in the kitchen—a room Mother most certainly never visited. Perhaps he considered it a compromise on his part—I could get out of the nursery, yet Mother would not have to see me.

  And in the kitchen I stayed for the better part of the next ten years, till the heart of this story begins.

  In essence, I suppose, I became a servant in my own home. I graduated from the nursery to one of the narrow rooms on the third floor such as the maids inhabited. Nurse retired and lived in the nursery, nominally still in charge of me.

  I spent my days in the kitchen scrubbing vegetables, preparing fish, and sweeping the hearth. Those who came and went in that domain more or less accepted me. New arrivals probably did not know me for a member of the family. Cook treated me neither kindly nor otherwise; after the first year or two, she assigned me chores like everyone else. If I performed them well, she refrained from striking me, for which I felt grateful.

  Rarely did I see the other members of my family. My sisters came into the kitchen sometimes to cadge tarts or pastries and lord it over me, boasting about their wardrobes and their conquests.

  But I knew most of what went on and lived vicariously through the members of the household. Gossip ran rife in the kitchen, and I had leave to listen to it.

  Robin, seldom at home, had joined my father in business. He reportedly courted a young belle to whom he might soon be expected to propose.

  My sisters had plenty of beaus and, as might be anticipated, played them off against one another. Neither had as yet accepted any of their numerous proposals. For rumor also had it the Prince—whose castle stood at the top of the hill like the town’s crowning jewel—meant at last to take a wife.

  Mother had ambitions for her daughters. Lord knew they had ambitions for themselves. The Prince, whose name was Rupert, had been away many years touring the continent, and as a consequence remained largely an unknown quantity. Townsfolk remembered him as a dutiful boy—a handsome, dutiful boy. My sisters focused much on his appearance. But he’d taken his education elsewhere, completing it by seeing the world.

  Rumor also had it the kingdom now faced the very real possibility of war with the neighboring realm of Cardonay. My sisters, of course, cared nothing for this. But tradesmen sometimes mentioned it to Cook in passing, citing present uncertainties for the scarcity of the goods she’d ordered. They said Prince Rupert had returned to help his father the King—who failed in his health—prepare for war.

  I will admit such a possibility seemed very vague and far away to me. The world itself seemed vague and distant. I’d not been farther out of the house than the garden in many years. What did the affairs of the King mean to me?

  I did, though, once hear Father and Robin discussing the possibility of a war. They were in the front parlor, having just entertained a number of other businessmen, and I entered the room to collect glassware and remove the dainties that had been put out. Deep in discussion, neither of them paid me any heed.

  “—do you think will come of it?” Robin asked as I went in. “Can it be averted?”

  Father rocked on his heels and jingled the coins in his pockets. “I do believe Octavius has tried.” Octavius being our King. “Ortis is a madman. He builds his army with single-minded purpose and, it’s said, has gathered men from throughout his lands.”

  “While we continue to carry on as if nothing is happening,” Robin put in ruefully.

  “I believe King Octavius has contrived to ignore the threat. I hope not to detrimental effect.”

  Robin lowered his voice. “You think we will come under attack?”

  “We might.”

  “Surely now that Prince Rupert has returned he will do something about raising our defenses?”

  “So we can but hope.”

  “Father, you met with him at that private reception, did you not? What did you think?”

  I paused, hands full of glasses, and awaited my father’s response. This would make rare gossip indeed for the kitchen—not that I often joined in sharing such tidbits. Usually I just listened.

  Father grunted. “He’s been trained in warfare, of course. But he seems young to be in charge of an army. And if it comes to that, he will have to take his father’s place. Octavius is much too ill to take the field.”

  “Dying?” Robin asked.

  Father did glance at me then, as if noticing me for the first time. “Nearly finished there, Cindra?”

  Robin, heeding me not, went on. “In your role as mayor, Father, you may be one of the few who can get near the Prince and advise him. Perhaps you might set up a meeting, seek to take his measure.”

  “Perhaps.” Father sighed. “Your mother wishes to plan a reception. If the Prince is determined to marry—and it seems he is—she wants to make sure his eye falls on both your sisters.”

  Robin groaned. “Might be a fine test, that.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “It should show us whether the Prince has any sense.”

  Father and Robin exchanged a look I did not entirely comprehend.

  “If Rupert means to marry, he’d better do so quickly and beget an heir. His very future is uncertain. But I think he will reach higher than the daughter of a mayor. Such marriages are usually political, are they not?”

  “Yes,” Robin agreed, “which makes me grateful I’m not a king’s son.”

  Chapter Four

  You would not think it, but the subject of romance received much discussion in the kitchen. The maids, none of them wed, thought a good deal about marrying and leaving service. And Cook had her eye on the butcher, who often came to the door ostensibly to discuss her orders. Even I—who knew nothing about courting beyond what my sisters had imparted to me—had to admit those discussions held more flattery than details about cuts of meat.

  Prudence, the head maid and the eldest among us, believed she knew much about men. She it was who went out to the market with her basket on a regular basis and bought the things Cook needed. She was also who—when Cook was well-occupied elsewhere—told the rest of us about the facts of life. Mary and Phyllis, the two other maids, listened to her with giggles.

  I only half believed anything she said. She had a ton
gue that flapped at both ends, and most of what she told us seemed far too preposterous.

  I knew men and women kissed each other. I had seen my parents kiss on rare occasions. And I supposed babies must be got somehow. It could not possibly happen the way Prudence insisted.

  To listen to her, though, every male at large in the market wished to get up her skirt and perform the lewd act she described. She apparently moved from stall to stall quickly, virtually fighting them off like rabid dogs. This even though Prudence could not, by any means, be considered beautiful. She had a round, chubby face that seemed always to be greasy, and a round body to match. As she put it, men liked something on which they could get a hold.

  Were Prudence to choose a husband from among these salivating suitors, she said he would have to be a man of independent means with his own thriving business. Then she could get out of the hellhole that was the kitchen.

  Me, I had no hope of escaping the kitchen and no hope either of romance. I did, of course, have my books, and some of them mentioned love, but only in the most gentle and discreet manner. The love about which I read had absolutely no relation to anything Prudence described.

  I would not wish to read of it, otherwise.

  But beyond the pale, there would be no marriage for me, and no children, even though in a vague sort of way I sometimes longed for both. At least so I believed before I met the stick boy.

  One of my duties—and one I enjoyed the most—was tending the kitchen garden. It gave me a chance to get outside even though, the garden being walled, I could not so much as see the street. I loved the feel of the sun on my back and the scents of the herbs Cook sent me to pick, saying the other girls’ fingers were too clumsy.

  In that summer rife with talk of war and lovemaking, the garden thrived. I remained knelt down among the basil the first time I saw the stick boy.

  Or should I say the first time he saw me?

  Tradesmen were in the habit of lifting the gate and walking into the garden directly, and thence to the door of the kitchen. The stick boy—whose name I later learned to be Nathan—first appeared on a warm afternoon and, unprecedented in the past, he paused and spoke to me.