Cinderella- Fairytale Retold

Chapter XII

The evening after her stepmother and stepsisters left, Ash wandered through the Wood until she came to a massive, low-hanging oak limb. She settled down on the mossy surface, and as dusk fell she saw a doe and two fawns emerge from the underbrush on legs as slender as reeds. The two fawns were still young enough to have speckled coats, but as the summer went on they would lose their spots and become as brown as their mother. They were browsing slowly down the path to the river, but then the mother stopped and raised her head, her large ears perking in two different directions. She swung her head around and looked straight at Ash, her eyes huge and glimmering, and then she took off, leaping away. The fawns followed suit, their hooves crushing the dried leaves as they bounded through the Wood.

Ash shifted on the branch, feeling the tree move beneath her, and she wondered if she would see Sidhean that night. She took the medallion out of her pocket and cupped it in her hands, looking at it, but the stone was opaque and revealed nothing. It was as beautiful and inscrutable, she thought, as he was. Then she saw movement out of the corner of her eye and she looked up, hopeful, but it was not him. Instead, she saw Kaisa coming down the path slowly, as if she were looking for something. At the fork in the path she dropped down to examine the ground, and Ash realized that she was following the trail of the deer.

Ash said, "They went down to the river."

Startled, Kaisa stood up swiftly and looked for the source of the words. "Where are you?" she asked.

Ash climbed down off the branch, and the movement in the dim light caught the huntress's eye. "Here," Ash said. She came onto the path, and it took a moment for the huntress to recognize her, for most of the daylight was gone.

"Oh," said Kaisa in surprise.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," Ash said.

Kaisa shook her head. "It's all right." She paused and then said, "You must live nearby."

"Yes," said Ash. "The house on the far side of the meadow."

They stood in silence for a few moments, separated by a body's length of the deepening darkness, and Ash suddenly felt self-conscious, not knowing what to say. But then there were footsteps coming down the path toward them, and another woman appeared, carrying an armful of kindling. She was dressed like Kaisa, in riding clothes, but in the low light, Ash could not see her face.

"There you are," the woman began, and then saw Ash. "I thought you were going to gather some wood," she said to Kaisa.

Kaisa turned toward her and answered, "I was." She looked back at Ash and asked, "Can you find your way home?"

"Yes," Ash said, and then Kaisa went to the woman, taking some of the kindling from her. Ash stepped back off the trail, looking down, as the two women passed her, taking care to pull her cloak out of the way. As they moved out of sight, Ash heard the woman ask who she was, but she could not hear Kaisa's reply.

She waited until the moon rose before she went home, but though she looked carefully around her, she met no one on her walk back to Quinn House. The disappointment inside her was thick and heavy.

She was in the garden the next day, weeding, when she saw the rider out in the meadow. She straightened up, shading her eyes from the noonday sun with one dirt-smeared hand, and slowly the rider came into focus: a green cloak, a bay horse, a shock of dark hair. It was the King's Huntress, and when she reached the iron gate she called out, "Good afternoon!"

"Good afternoon," Ash replied, surprised, and before she could think, she asked, "What are you doing here?"

The huntress laughed. "I am sorry-I did not mean to interrupt you. I was just out for a ride and I admit I was curious about whether this was the house you spoke of last night."