The Spinner and the Slipper (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Loss

The green-eyed man watched with interest as the mortal hours slipped by. He watched how the two sisters tossed and turned, uncomfortable and unhappy in the room Eliana had so carefully prepared for them. He watched as Eliana herself slept in the small storage room she had turned into her own bedroom, her sleep deep, but her brow wrinkled in concern as though her dreams worried her.

The following morning that worry did not leave her face. This surprised the green-eyed man, since Eliana’s nature was ordinarily bright. Was she so distressed by the presence of her new stepmother and stepsisters? Or was it some other concern he sensed in her expression?

The miller prepared the cart horse for his ride into town, and all the ladies of the house gathered on the doorstep to see him off. The two sisters did not look up or offer him even the faintest wave. His new wife gave him a frigid kiss on the cheek, but any residual chill was warmed by the sweet kiss Eliana gave him immediately after.

“Papa,” Eliana said, reverting to the name she had called him when she was quite small, “are you sure you must ride into town today?”

“Absolutely!” he replied, pinching her cheek affectionately. “We don’t need to feed this great beast any more of the donkey’s good meals. Someone will give him an excellent home, and I look forward to bringing back gifts for all of you.” His smile included the whole of his family, but only Eliana tried to return it.

As the green-eyed man watched through the crystal, the miller mounted up and set off along the woodland road. His new wife and stepdaughters withdrew into the house without a word, but Eliana remained on the doorstep for some time, watching until long after he had ridden out of her sight.

What could be disturbing her peace so singularly? The green-eyed man wondered. He allowed his gaze to move away from her and to follow her father instead as he traveled through the forest. He sensed no danger near the miller. Could it be that Eliana’s senses for such things were stronger than his own?

Her mother, after all, had been highly attuned to unusual perceptions.

The green-eyed man sucked in a quick breath. A premonition—possibly the same one that had disturbed Eliana since the night before—struck him only moments before disaster. He could not act in time even if he wished to.

For a tree branch broke and crashed onto the road just inches in front of the cart horse’s nose. The beast screamed and reared up suddenly, and the miller tumbled to the ground.

He struck his head on a stone and lay still.

Blood pooled in a red circle.

Helpless, the green-eyed man watched as the horse turned and bolted up the road, back toward the miller’s house. “Eliana!” he whispered, his breath fogging the surface of the crystal ball. “The poor dear girl . . .”

Two days later Eliana found herself walking back from the churchyard, following many paces behind Mistress Carlyn and her daughters. Her heart felt like a stone in her chest, its heaviness so great, she struggled to lift one foot after the other.

Behind her, the miller rested in his new grave beside the grass-grown grave of Eliana’s mother. Eliana could only hope that their eternal souls were reunited in heaven even as their mortal remains were reunited here on earth.

Too many thoughts pressed at the gates of her mind, crowding against each other so that none could get through, leaving her in a foggy haze of pure misery. The loss of her mother had been devastating, but the love of her father had supported her through it. But with Papa now lost to her as well, whom could she turn to for comfort?

The three figures ahead of her shed no tears. They exchanged tense whispers, their voices too low for Eliana to overhear, but she knew that they did not mourn the miller’s loss. Once more she found herself struggling to stifle resentment. After all, they did not
know
him as she did. Mistress Carlyn had met him only a few weeks earlier, and Bridin and Innis could view him only as the usurper of their own dead father’s role. How could they possibly comprehend what his loss truly meant? How could they when they did not love him?

The walk home from the village church was only two miles, but it seemed much longer to Eliana. The forest shadows hung oppressively above her, and the whole world seemed to mock her with sunshine and greenery and flowers. By the time she neared the mill yard, even the familiar sight of the big mill wheel struck her as somehow cruel. How could it go on turning? How could the stream go on flowing when her world had suddenly come to such a crashing halt?

Her stepmother and stepsisters waited for her inside the cottage. Practically strangers. But what could she do? Stand out here in the yard for the rest of the day?

Her fingers moving without conscious thought, Eliana touched her mother’s gold necklace and rubbed the dainty gold ring. They seemed to warm under her touch, and with that warmth she felt a sudden glow of love deep down inside her—a mother’s love that never dies and never truly goes away.

She knew then what she must do. She must enter her father’s house and face those three strangers. She must reach out to them with her heart and love them, her new, strange family. She could not bear to live in a world without love, and if they would not love her . . . well, that was their business. She could only do her own small part.

With this determination bolstering her spirit, Eliana approached the cottage door. But Mistress Carlyn stepped into the opening and blocked her way before she could cross the threshold.

“Eliana,” Mistress Carlyn said, her voice freezing the warm summer air before her very lips. “It seems to me that a young girl in mourning should not adorn herself in flashy golden trinkets.”

Eliana gaped at her stepmother in surprise. Then she looked down at the ring on her finger and touched again the necklace that lay against her heart. “They were my mother’s,” she said softly. “I wear them always to remember her by.”

Mistress Carlyn’s eyes narrowed. She did not need to speak for Eliana to clearly read her expression, which said with more power than mere words:
Why should you have pretty jewelry when all of my own daughters’ fine things have been sold away?

“Take those off at once, Eliana,” Mistress Carlyn said, and held out her hand. “Give them to me.”

For a terrible moment, anger flared in Eliana’s gentle soul. She clutched the necklace tightly, felt the pressure of the ring band about her finger. She wanted to fight, to lash out at this woman who was not her mother, who would never be anything like a mother to her!

But then she recalled her own mother’s dear voice: “
Real gold loses its luster if those who own it cling to it too tightly. You must promise me, if someone asks you for either this ring or this necklace, you will give them what they ask right away, without question.
”

A sob welled up in Eliana’s throat. But she swallowed it down and, without a word, unclasped the necklace and slipped the ring from her finger. She placed both into Mistress Carlyn’s outstretched palm.

Her stepmother closed her fingers over them and stepped back into the cottage. As she did not forbid Eliana to follow, Eliana stepped inside, her shoulders hunched, her head bowed. Bridin and Innis sat on low stools near the hearth, their arms wrapped around themselves as though cold, though the day was warm. Mistress Carlyn approached the two girls, and Eliana knew she intended to offer them the gold ornaments as gifts to lighten their spirits.

But even as her stepmother opened her fist, Eliana saw her pause. She lifted first the necklace then the ring up to her face for closer inspection.

Then, much to Eliana’s surprise, Mistress Carlyn spat a vicious curse. “Painted!” she said. “Painted clay! Cheap trinkets, not worth a penny.”

With this, she flung both of Eliana’s treasures into the ashes of the cold fireplace, where they landed in little clouds of dust.

“Come away from there, girls,” Mistress Carlyn said roughly to her girls. “Upstairs with both of you. Bridin, I want you to help your sister move her things out of your room and into Eliana’s. No child of mine will have to
share
a bedchamber!”

“Where will Eliana sleep?” Innis asked meekly, possibly the first words she had spoken since arriving at the miller’s house days ago.

Mistress Carlyn shot Eliana a cold look. “She can sleep in here, close to the hearth. She’ll be comfortable enough, I’m sure. It’s not as though she is
used
to nice things.”

Bridin and Innis exchanged glances. Neither dared look Eliana’s way. At a sharp word from their mother, they jumped to their feet and hastened up the stairs, and Mistress Carlyn followed close behind to see that they obeyed her properly.

Eliana felt as though the ground gave way beneath her. She half knelt, half fell to the hearthstones, her hands plunging into the cold ashes. One hand found the necklace, the other, after some searching, the ring. She pulled them both out, blowing away the grime and rubbing them on the sleeve of her mourning dress.

Painted clay? Perhaps they were. She saw now, as though for the first time, how chipped the paint was, how ugly they were, when one bothered to notice.
Real
gold
, her mother had called them, but perhaps she didn’t know what real gold was? Mother wasn’t a fine farmer’s wife like Mistress Carlyn, after all.

“I don’t care,” Eliana whispered. She slipped the necklace back around her neck and slid the ring back onto her finger. “They’re
real gold
to me.”

Her tears fell hot and fast, splashing into the ashes and trailing streaks through the soot on her face.

The green-eyed man blinked several times. What was this strange pricking in his eye? He frowned, shook his head, and put up a finger to catch that which fell down his cheek. A tear? Was it possible that he could actually weep for a
mortal
?

“Whatever have you found that enraptures you so?”

The green-eyed man startled so violently that his tear went flying, crashed to the floor, and split into a million tiny fractals. A shame, truly, for faerie tears are worth more than a kingdom. He turned on heel and drew himself up to smart attention, offering a salute even as Her Sovereign Majesty, Queen Titania of the Faerie Folk glided across the chamber toward him.

She was the most glorious woman imaginable, so beautiful that even the green-eyed man, who had seen her innumerable times, still caught his breath at every new glimpse of her. Each of her movements flowed like a bubbling brook over stones. Her hair was long and luxurious, as golden as a waterfall in the setting sun, and countless wild flowers adorned her head.

“It must be a fair sight indeed,” said she, drawing near to peer into the crystal ball for herself, “for it has held you captive so long that my kingly husband has started asking after you.” Her luminous eyes studied the image revealed of Eliana kneeling in the ashes and weeping into her hands.

Queen Titania frowned, though the crease in her forehead and the downturn of her lips did nothing to mar her perfection. “A mortal?” she said, turning a gaze of compelling inquiry upon the green-eyed man. “What is the meaning of this, good captain?”

The green-eyed man saluted again, his mouth momentarily too dry to speak. “I—I made a promise,” he said at last. “A promise to watch over this mortal maiden, to go to her if her life should be imperiled and to intercede as I may.”