Ella, by Jessica E. Kaiser, 7/9
Ella was nowhere to be found the night of the ball. To my surprise, Mother was up out of her bed, putting on her ballgown as Durren chivvied us into putting on our own dresses and getting ready. Gerthe and I crammed our feet into the slippers provided by the dressmaker, who had clucked over our looks, unable to decide what color other than our usual brown might not make our sallow skin look even more sickly. The slippers were too small, of course, as all our shoes were, but we managed to get them on, with Durren at the door, saying, "Come, ladies. Analiese is ready. Why are you not?"
Neither Mother nor Durren seemed to wonder at Ella's absence.
When we got to the carriage and realized that Mother had the same blank, expressionless face that we had seen on Durren for the last three weeks, Gerthe and I exchanged looks which said all that neither of us dared to speak. We settled ourselves into the carriage and under the skirts of our gowns, Gerthe clutched my hand. I did not know whether she was comforting me or I her.
The night ahead was a terrifying mixture of anticipation and fear. The earl's son would be there, I would see him again, and low in my stomach throbbed that hot pulse that I'd discovered upon first sight of him. But no one knew where Ella was. Mother and Durren were automatons, merely going through the appropriate motions as we arrived at the castle and went up the stairs to be announced. All the witchweed was dead, and all of the dried witchweed had vanished.
I did not know what would happen, but I think perhaps I suspected. I must have suspected, because in the end, I was not surprised at all.
Per his father's command, the earl's son danced with every woman--and every child waiting to become a woman, as Gerthe was--who attended the ball.
Gerthe was one of the first women he danced with, and as I watched him whirl her around the floor, I knew that I was seeing what everyone else would see when it was my turn. He was tall, but she towered over him nonetheless. Our lack of dance training and the tight slippers made her clumsy. My poor sister, who was so graceful in the forest and even in the untended gardens surrounding the witchweed path, clownishly stumbled across the dance floor. The earl's son held her as far from him as he could, and winced every time she stepped on his toes. Polite to the end, he limped back over to where I stood with Mother and Durren to return Gerthe to her family.
As he walked away, I looked at Gerthe's face, and I knew that she wanted him as I did. The desire shone in her eyes, was obvious in the flush on her cheeks, and above all, showed in the way she kept smoothing her dress over her hips.
Perhaps some would have been jealous, but of what would I have been jealous? I could not have him. That much was obvious to anyone. I had seen him bathing, and soon he would come and ask me to dance, doing his aristocrat's duty. Then he would choose his bride, and save for the occasional chance-caught glance, I would never see him again. No, jealousy would have been ridiculous.
And yet I felt it, all the same, when partway through my dance with him, there was a slight commotion at the door. He looked away to see what was happening. I trod on his foot in his moment of inattention, and winced myself at having caused him pain. The earl's son did not appear to notice.
"I'm so sorry--" I began, and then I realized.
He was walking away toward the door, leaving me standing alone on the dance floor. My cheeks were on fire with shame. Gerthe's feet were not as wide as mine, but they were longer, much longer, and she had stepped on him many more times than I had. Was I insufferably unattractive compared even to my sister, to whom I had thought I was nearly identical?
Too shocked to return to my family, I stood and stared after him. Due to the crush of people near the door, at first I could see nothing, but at last, I saw the shimmer of his blond hair again. As he moved out of the crowd, I could see glossy black hair next to his shoulder, and then a moment later, a perfectly petite figure in a pink ballgown.
Ella.
I thought that I would cry from the misery and the jealousy, but I did not. Gerthe came and took my hand and led me away, back to Mother and Durren. They were whispering to some of the other guests about the "mysterious woman" with whom the earl's son danced.
"She steps so lightly, it seemed almost as though she must be a faerie sprite," Durren said softly to one of our neighbors. Mother nodded in agreement, and they began to discuss how lovely her hair was.
They did not recognize her. I looked at Gerthe and mouthed, "Ella?" With a toss of her head in the direction of the woman being swept through intricate dance patterns, she nodded. Why were we the only two able to recognize her? At that moment, my eyes met Ella's. The earl's son was holding her to him as though he would never let go, and when she realized I was looking at her, she smiled at me.
A small, smug smile.
Then I knew. We could recognize her because she wanted us to. Ella needed to be sure that someone knew what she had accomplished tonight. Even though my sister and I were worthless to her, at least she could rest assured that the magnitude of her coup would be known to someone.
On their thirteenth circuit of the ballroom, Ella made a quick little motion with her hand. Screaming once, Mother collapsed to the ground. Without needing to look, I knew that she was dead. Still I did not cry, and neither did Gerthe. We held each other's hands while everyone gathered around Mother's body. Because we were still looking at Ella, we were the only ones who saw that she flung something into the mouth of the earl's son. I smelled that same smell that had been in the sitting room when Durren became her creature, the same smell that had been pervasive in Mother's bedroom for weeks now, and in the moment of distraction that she had created, Ella vanished.
She left behind a glass slipper.
