A wind stirred at the blades of grass around my feet. I thought I smelled rain but I didn’t see any clouds beyond the brown roof of Ella’s home. It might just be the changing seasons I smelled and I already yearned for spring. 

The estate that Ella’s father, a successful merchant and landowner, had built stood tall on the hills of the edge of our village. While it lacked the regular maintenance it had once enjoyed, it was still intimidating. It wasn’t the largest building in town anymore, not since the landowner of our farms had built a handsome homestead for himself. But it was still larger than most, with large windows that shone like stars when the night fell. And no matter how many times I’d run across the grounds, this was always the part that made my nerves tremble. What if one of Ella’s stepsisters looked out one of those double windows and saw me trespassing?

My footsteps were muted by long, sweet-smelling grass and I hopped over the wooden fence that separated the estate from the rest of the world. Then it was ten paces to duck behind an unused shed (in case someone pulled back a curtain) and then another eleven paces to the painted wood walls. I’d done this hundreds of times since we’d met; it was almost like a secret ritual to see her.

The bottom of the window was only a little higher than my waist. I imagined when it had been a busier estate, the cook would have the window open to cool pies. Now, it was covered by a thick white curtain from the inside. 

I rapped lightly on the pane. Moments passed and I listened. There wasn’t anywhere else that she’d be at this time. So I rapped again. After a minute of silence, the curtain was pulled back, and Ella stared down at me. With the firelight behind her, it almost looked like a halo. Or, with the expression on her face, the avenging light of some celestial being about to punish me. Still, she unlatched the window and opened it. 

“Yes?” She said in a tone reserved for the people who bothered her. 

“Are you angry with me?” I asked, out of breath and sheepish.

 

“No,” She said despite her frown. Then she offered her arm out. Though Ella outwardly looked like a firm exhale would topple her over, she easily helped me climb over the ledge of the kitchen window. It was toasty and smelled distinctly of the bacon and butter Ella’s family would have had for breakfast. One of Ella’s hands sat on either of my arms as she rubbed them to try and chase away the chill. “Why didn’t you wear your shawl? It’s almost winter.” 

The idea that my own thoughts were hounding after me probably wouldn’t make any sense to her. So I just said, “I forgot.” Then laughed. Her palm was soft and warm as she pressed it to my cheek. I had to fight the dip my eyelids threatened to take and tried to smile without guilt. 

“It’d be a terrible time to catch a cold,” She scolded. I missed the heat immediately as she dropped her hand. We didn’t have to speak quietly in her kitchen. The bedrooms of her stepsisters and stepmother were floors away so they wouldn’t be able to hear us. She slept in the closet reserved for the brooms and firewood. I hated seeing it and she hated seeing the way my eyes boiled at the sight. So there was less ire in the kitchen. 

Ella pulled the window closed again. A moment was spared where she gazed out at the darkness before she pulled the curtain as well. I held up a hand before she could settle in a chair. 

“I have to take your measurements.” It was the same frown she’d greeted me with as she sighed. 

“You’re still on about that?” Regardless of her tone, she pushed the chair back to the small table. Small ribbons of wood lay spread around a half-carved creature. Its features had yet to be shaped properly so I couldn’t identify it yet. A squirrel maybe, or a fox? 

“Arms out,” I instructed her and then showed her how I wanted her to hold them out. 

“This is a waste,” She said simply. “Aside from the fact that the prince probably has a lover that he’s already intending on crowning.” I guess that was possible, but I wouldn’t think they’d make such a deal out of finding all the eligible young ladies if that was the case. “I’m not interested, Esther. Why would I want to be the crown princess? And don’t just say ‘everyone wants to the crown princess’, either.” 

Well, now I wasn't going to say it. But it was probably true.

“Do you want to be here forever?” I asked her as I pulled the measuring tape taut. Ella was silent at the question. I couldn’t tell if she was in thought or just didn’t want to answer me. “Turn around.” So that I could measure her back and not have to look at her face. “Please,” I added. 

She moved her hair from the back of her neck without me having to ask. I thought of it braided and glowing in candlelight bought by people far wealthier than us. 

“No one would want to marry a girl without a dowry,” I continued slowly to her back. My mother couldn’t afford one. Her stepmother would never bother. She’d probably rather sell her. “Anyone too poor to care would be chased off by your stepmother. But if it’s someone like the prince, he doesn’t need a dowry. And your stepmother couldn’t do a blooming thing to stop him.” 

“What about you?”

“What about me?” My voice almost turned sharp with an offended turn. The measuring tape snapped as I held it straight against the back of her shoulders. “I’ll do what I was always going to do. Work the shop.” Make a thousand bloody dresses for a thousand bloody ladies and die with sewing needles between my lips. 

“Esther, I don’t understand where all this is coming from.”

Maybe it felt like my bitterness was directed at her. Maybe a part of it was. My unhappiness could have been much milder if I had grown up watching her glow. It was easier to ignore a dream when it wasn’t standing right in front of you, laughing. 

“You can put your arms down.” 

When Ella turned around, she snatched the tape from my hand before I could say anything. “You’re not even looking at me,” She accused me. “You always do that when you’re lying.” 

“No, I don’t,” I said to my measuring tape. 

“Did your mother say something? Did Bernia or Correen say something?” I could hear the searching in Ella’s voice as she tried to find the source for my atypical behavior. For her, there had to be a reason these things I’d never before said out loud were suddenly spouting with life. Would it hurt her more if I told her they’d always been there at the corners of my heart?

I had to inhale before I straightened my shoulders. I tried to set them firm and ground myself to the floor the same way my mother did when she was final in her word. 

“Aren’t you tired of all this?” I asked her. It was a stupid question but I couldn’t stop once I’d started it. “Don’t you want something better than this village and this house and those women?” I couldn’t even call them her family. They were her demons made manifest. They were a worthless burden for her to have to bear. 

If my criminally simple survey of our life was satisfactory for Ella, she showed very little inkling of it. In fact, I could watch as she desperately tried to fit her words together. She didn’t like to stumble over her words as I did when I was nervous; she went silent and stared and schemed her debate until they were hers. 

“Of course I do,” She said with a scoff. It made me feel small because how condescending to act like she didn’t want out of the burning irons around her wrists. She felt the scorching closer than I would, after all. Each thought brought a new flush of guilt brighter across my cheeks. “I thought that’s what we were doing… together.” 

I don’t know how much thought she put forth into those words but they held the impact nonetheless. We were supposed to be a team. The only people on our sides were each other. If I tried to argue with that, then everything was called into question. I couldn’t say that that didn’t matter to me anymore and pretend it wasn’t a lie. 

“That’s what we’re doing,” I insisted. I held her hands wrapped around my measuring tape as though praying for her realization that this was a safer path. “Right now–together.” I wove threads together. Couldn’t I do the same with a story? With her happy ending? It wasn’t lying because what a perfectly happy fantasy this could be. “If you married the prince, think of what we could do together. Neither of us would want for anything.” I hoped she wouldn’t get hung up on my previous doomed fate of sewing forever. “You could hire me; I’d be a seamstress for royalty.” Which, frankly, could be possible if Ella did become the crown princess. Though it sounded like a nightmare having all that sewing to do. 

“Is that what you want?” There was no saying from her tone if she believed me or not. It wasn’t really a lie though. It was as much made out of potential as it was hope. 

“What I want,” I started, then I laughed in what I hoped was a normal smile, “is just to finish these measurements. It doesn’t matter if I can’t make a dress, does it?” The smile she returned on instinct was hesitant and gloomy, but at least her fingers loosened around the measuring tape. “This will be my masterpiece. No one will ever see a dress like it.”

“If you wish,” Ella said with a roll of her eyes. A tension left her as she released the measuring tape and then stared upwards in thought. “But I’m not going without you, okay?”

“Okay.”