Ella, by Jessica E. Kaiser, 2/9
I learned what marriage was. Marriage was leaving my home. Marriage was leaving the forest I loved so much to go and live in a town, one much bigger than the tiny village I never saw until I was in the back of a wagon filled with witchweed, looking at it for the first and last time. Marriage was staying at inns for weeks, meeting dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people, all of whom gawked at us but spoke only to each other.
Marriage was going into the town, where women whispered behind their hands as we drove past.
Most of the comments were well-hidden behind those smooth white hands. One busty blonde matron was not so discreet, and I heard what she said to the nearly identical woman standing beside her. ". . . No better than she should be, I know that! Those two daughters, and no husband, dead or alive, to give them a name!"
"Well, now, Mistress Westwillow, what think you of your new home?" Durren asked Mother.
We had stopped in the cobblestone-paved yard of a large stone house. Until we left our peaceful little thatched cottage, riding in the wagon, I had never heard of cobblestones. The house was impressive. Impressive, yet stiflingly dismal in a way I never could have explained. I knew before we stepped down from the wagon that when I entered, the house would be cold. When I took Gerthe's hand, it was as clammy as mine.
"Lovely, just lovely, Durren." Mother said the words, but I could hear the lie in her voice.
Durren could not hear the falseness, or he did not care. Smiling at her, he said, "Shall we introduce Mathilde and Gerthe to their new sister?"
Silence. Gerthe and I stared at each other. Had he just said we had a new sister? How could we have a new sister? Gerthe was my sister, my only sister. Mother, frozen in place, her hand partly outstretched toward Durren, had an expression of utter shock on her face. Her eyes flew to Gerthe and me, panicked apology in them.
"You didn't mention that you had a daughter," Mother said in a strained voice. Her face was pale from shock.
Durren smiled at her and said, "I was saving it for a surprise."
From the first moment I saw her, I hated Ella. She stood in the great hall, so close to the fire that it almost seemed as though it would consume her. When we entered, her back was to us. I had only a vague impression of a pink, ruffled dress before she turned around and flung herself at Durren.
"Father! You were gone so long!" His arms closed around her, and they held each other for several long minutes before he kissed her on the lips and stepped back. Something about the way he touched her bothered me. Perhaps it was the tenderness. Perhaps it was that his careful, loving embrace with his daughter was entirely different from that he used with my mother.
As soon as he released Ella from his arms, Durren took her hand and turned toward us. "Ella, my love, I've brought some people here to meet you."
Until I saw Ella, I did not know what beauty was. High cheekbones topped a precise but not sharp jaw and chin. Her skin was so smoothly white she put rose petals to shame. Black hair, darker than any I'd ever seen, hung in luscious waves down to her waist. Ella was petite, the top of her head not even reaching Durren's shoulder, and he was not a tall man.
Mother, Gerthe, and I were as different from her as we could be. The three of us were nearly identical, as I said, three peas in a pod. We were tall--Mother had to lean down to look Durren in the eye--with broad shoulders, small breasts, narrow hips, and thick waists. Our hair was a blondish-brown that drew no one's interest. In the light of the forest, our skin was vibrant, warm with health and happiness. Here in this stone mansion, Gerthe and Mother were sallow and jaundiced next to Ella's glowing white skin, and I knew that I would be the same.
Ella stared at us. Shyer even than I, Gerthe stepped behind me slightly, trying to avoid the intensity of that stare. Ella looked me over from my flyaway hair to the feet I had always thought of as sturdy but which I now realized were gargantuan. With a curl of her full lips--I wondered why I had not realized my own were so thin--she dismissed me. It took her only a moment to make the same assessment of Mother. Turning her blue eyes to Durren, she said, "Who are these people, Father?"
"This is your new mother and these are your new sisters," Durren said.
My mother's hands were shaking. Durren neither noticed nor cared, his attention entirely focused on Ella.
Ella looked at us again.
"I do not want them," she said, in her lyrical voice.
Mother opened her mouth, and Ella turned away, her hand still in Durren's. Without a word, she left the room, taking him with her. Not once did he look back at my mother.