Soot & Ashes

Three: Bitter Tides Have Turned

When news came that in a fatal accident at sea Lord Cinders was missing and assumed drowned, a smirk lifted the corner of Mary Cinders lips. No more living in fear of a little girl and her hold on her husband's affections. Finally she would be the master of the house. Miss Ethel Cinders would pay for her disrespect, her cruel treatment of Mary's daughters and for all the times she was made to feel small and powerless.

On this thunderous day she called her daughters from the kitchen and ordered them to clean up, have hot baths and get into their nice clothes. They looked at each other with a shudder of fear rolling up their backs at what their step sister would say, but when she ordered again snappishly they didn't disobey. Ethel had watched from the background and was outraged by the cow who'd just usurped her power.

"I never allowed this!" Ethel hissed, her hands on her hips like a little madam.

Mary Cinders smirked a little more, unshaken by the girls hissy fit. "Indeed no. I did. This is my house and I will do as I like in it, and you will do as I like also, as will my daughters."

"I shall tell papa! You shall get it for this!" She cried, her face going bright red and purple.

Mary took a swipe at the girls face and watched tears well up in her eyes as she gave a look of black death towards her stepmother. "What, what is the meaning of this? You struck me?" Tears flowed from her glittering eyes, "No one strikes me... You're going to pay dearly!"

"Am I, and whose going to make me pay Ethel?" Mary's smile had grown far more evident.

"Father will!" Ethel puffed up her cheeks sourly.

"How ever can he do that, dear? Since he's at the bottom of the ocean, dead." The pleasure in her voice whilst conveying this message was evident as she handed the poor parentless girl the letter in her hand.

"You're lying!" She shouted as she snatched the letter away and her eyes tore through the words written as her heart split in two and sunk in her chest. Her lips quivered as her hands shook and her eyes leaked more tears, now of a much more mournful nature. She shook her head, "no, it cannot be, it cannot be!" She broke down to her knees.

Mary Cinders knelt down for her lips to be nearer her ear, to begin with it looked almost as if it was to comfort, but then she whispered. "It is true, your father is gone. Now this house is mine to run and you shall take all my girls tasks and beatings and their bed on the kitchen floor and a name only fit for a maid of less worth than dirt. Cinders, our name, is apt enough." Then she pushed the girl down so that she fell to being on her back on the floor. Mary stood up, kicked the girls leg pitilessly as she cried in a ball on the ground and walked towards the staircase in the hall. "Get to work peeling the potatoes for dinner, and try not to get any of your filthy skin in the food." She ordered the girl.

Ethel sat up and wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. "No, I shall sit right here until order is restored. I will not accept this!"

Mary walked back over to the girl and yanked her up from the floor by her ringlets and dragged her towards the kitchen. "All you sew, this you shall also reap. You sewed nothing but hate and unkindness, now here's the bountiful wages you deserve!" The woman threw Ethel through the servants door into the kitchen where she hit the hard brick floor and grazed up her palms and knees. There she sat and wept for her sore head, hands, knees and all the bad that was befalling her now.

Back in the hall Soot and Ashes had been present for the whole scene, hiding at the top of the stairs, still in their rags and dusty apparel. They were shaking, holding each other close in fear of their mother who had at first helped to oppress them by standing by and allowing cruelty, but had now become a cruel master herself. They were beckoned down to the hall, of course she looked angry they hadn't changed yet, but she excitedly told them that their troubles were over now that she had control of the house. 

Just like that, everything had been turned on its head once again. Soot and Ashes exchanged a look, unsure and quite perplexed. Their mothers confidence soon wore away at their skeptical thoughts. As it became real, each girl sat and thought about just what this would mean.

Ashes could only think that she would no longer have to sleep on a cold, hard floor. Oh what joy it would be to sleep in a nice warm bed! To grow her hair long again without fear of it being chopped from her head.  Knowing she didn't have to bow or scrape or sneeze from dusting dirty old  banisters and sweeping floors! Her poor little hands would finally find a break, her aching feet rest!

Instead of thinking Soot spoke up straight away, an odd reversal of her nature. "You're not really going to make Ethel do all our work?"

"She made you do work that was not your own, punished you for being in the same house as her. She deserves no less." Mary stuck her nose in the air stubbornly. It was the last time she was going to be told what to do by a child.

"But, doesn't that make us as bad?" Soot frowned.

"No, it gives us justice." Mary replied, coldly.

"I don't think it's right." Soot admitted, glancing down at her feet.

Then she felt the caning of a cold hand swiped across her cheek. "Insolent child! She asked for this! She had the audacity to call you Soot instead of Susan, your sister Ashes instead of Arabella!" Mary Cinders shook with anger as she spoke. "If you'd rather, why don't you go and join her in the kitchen. It can be Soot and Cinders for all I care if you're going to side with the wretched thing!"  

"N-no..." Soot shook her head. Then she sighed, a heavy weight on her heart. This felt wrong.

"Now, upstairs, at once!" Their mother clapped her hands together to shake them from the stairs. They did just as they were told.

All that night they couldn't sleep. They were sure the beds were too soft, the room too warm and that they could hear the sounds of sobbing. Was it Ethel, they wondered?