Ella: an Everland Ever After Tale (10 page)

It looked like, thanks to
Abuela
Zapato’s
advice, Ian was going to be able to make a place for himself here in Everland, after all.

Ella called it “the magic hour”; that brief amount of time in the early afternoon between cleaning up from lunch and getting ready for supper. She tried her hardest to get her daily chores done in the morning, and as much of the cleaning as she could squeeze in. Usually, after making up her stepsister’s beds and readying their wardrobes for the following day, she had to dust at least one of the downstairs rooms, and tidy the parlor behind her stepsisters. But then, right around two o’clock, she had an hour or so to focus on one of her own projects. Usually that was some sort of sewing.

She loved to sew. It had been something that Mama had taught her, all those years ago, to give her something to do to help support them. Some of her fondest childhood memories had been spent by Mama’s side next to the warm hearth, bent over her tiny stitches and listening to Mama sing. Once they’d come out here to Wyoming, Mama had still sewed, only then it was for four little girls instead of clients. Ella helped her, and when she died, the little girl took over her mother’s duties.

The house was suspiciously quiet as she climbed the big stairs. She hadn’t been aware of any social events this close to the big July Fourth celebration, but perhaps her sisters had found someplace to take themselves off to. Or they were ensconced in their own rooms, napping from the strenuous morning activity of giving her their demands for their picnic baskets. Mabel and Eunice insisted on everything being fresh, so Ella hadn’t been able to get started on cooking yet. Tomorrow—the third of July—was going to be brutal.

For now, though, she had just enough time to put the finishing touches on her yellow dress. She’d finished Eunice’s dress right after Mabel’s, even though she’d been so horribly distracted by Papa’s ultimatum. Hopefully, her sisters hadn’t noticed, and Eunice had been as pleased with her fringed green silk gown as Mabel had been with her pink lacy one. Since Sibyl’s had been finished as well, Ella felt okay staying up late to work on her own. It was… odd, to be spending so much time on a new dress for herself, rather than just fixing up ripped hand-me-downs. For the last few nights, she’d had to pin herself together, and then transfer the whole thing to her mother’s wickerwork dummy to finish. It had been awkward and exhausting and wonderful. She’d never had a dress as lovely as this one, with its crisp white ribbon and the bits of lace at the wrist and waist.

Of course, thanks to Papa’s new ruling, she had no place to wear it. She’d hoped to be able to ask—beg even—to attend the picnic, now that she’d have a gown worthy of being seen in. Papa and her sisters had always called her “dark and ugly” and didn’t want her associated with them. At least, that was the reason Mabel always gave her for why she wasn’t allowed to attend church or any of the other social occasions. But now, now that she had a lovely new dress, Ella had been hopeful that she’d be allowed to come along too, even just to sit by the refreshments table and watch.

But her stepfather’s harsh voice had put an end to that dream as well.
You will remain on my property. You will never, ever be allowed into town again.
Ella’s heart clenched at the memory, and she sagged against the wall for a moment, afraid that the despair she’d felt when he’d uttered those words would never leave her. She was trapped here… forever. It almost seemed silly, to keep working on the yellow dress, as if she was ever going to be able to wear it anywhere. But it was the only thing that kept her smiling. She labored over the tiny stitches, and imagined what Ian would say if he could see her in it… And despite knowing that there was no future for the two of them, she couldn’t force herself to stop dreaming about him. The many kisses that he’d given her in her dreams—the way that he held her like he would never let her go—were just that; dreams. But they were her only bright spot in the last week of disappointment, and so she let herself relive them while she worked on the dress.

And today, Ella had an hour to work on the final touches. It was probably silly to be spending time on this project, especially when tomorrow was going to be so busy, but she
needed
this. She needed an hour to just be
Ella
, to work on something to make
her
happy for a change.

But when she pushed open the door to the sewing room, she found her sisters. Sibyl was sitting at the vanity again, and Eunice was on the ottoman they used as a stool, and Mabel was standing the middle of the room. They all froze when Ella entered, but it didn’t matter. It was obvious what they were doing.

All around them, spread all over the room, were parts of her yellow dress. The dress that had been almost finished. The dress that was going to be her one new dress. The dress that she’d hoped would be lovely enough to be allowed to be seen in public with them. Without thinking, she took two steps into the room, and then her knees buckled and she sank to the ground, pulling part of the skirt towards her and looking up incredulously at her stepsisters.

Why would you do this?
She wanted to scream it, but she couldn’t seem to make her voice work; couldn’t even make her breath work. She watched Sibyl drop the piece of yellow cotton she’d been holding, and place the tiny seam-picking knife back on the vanity, a vaguely ill look on her face. But Eunice and Mabel just smirked cruelly. Ella’s oldest stepsister lifted what remained of the dress’s bodice, and yanked. With a thoroughly depressing
riiiiiiiiiiip,
the two pieces came apart, and Mabel smiled, satisfied.

It wasn’t until her knuckle popped that Ella realized she was clutching the material in her fists tight enough to ache, but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.
Why? Why would you do this to me?

Mabel’s smirk told her that she understood Ella unspoken plea. With a flourish, she dropped the pieces of the lovely dress to the floor, and tossed her head dismissively. “You were using
my
lace, Ella dear, without permission.”

You weren’t using it
. Ella wanted to defend herself, to explain that Mabel’s dress had eighteen times the amount of lace—Ella would know, after all—and that since it was complete, Ella assumed that she could use the last few feet. But she also knew that any attempt to rebut Mabel’s cruel words would result in a greater punishment. And besides, Ella couldn’t seem to make herself speak. Her breaths were coming in short gasps, and she felt herself getting light-headed.

“Besides, I’ve decided that I want a bit more lace around the collar on my dress. So I needed to remove it from your dress, so you can put it on mine.”

“You ripped the whole thing apart.” It was part accusation, part incredulous question.

Mabel shrugged, as if her actions had no real consequences. As if Ella wasn’t fighting the urge to leap at her fingernails bared. “Well, I was just going to take apart the seams with the lace—” Ella could read the lie in those cold blue eyes, “—but then I saw how poorly made the stitches were—” Another lie! “—and I called in the girls to help me.”

Mabel took two steps towards Eunice, and scooped up the sad little pile of lace that had been on her sister’s lap. Dangling it between her thumb and forefinger, so that it twisted and snaked with each movement, Mabel crossed to stand over Ella.

Ella refused to look up, to give her sister the satisfaction of craning her neck. Instead, she stared resolutely at the tail end of the lace, dangling in front of her eyes. But she could hear the satisfied smile in Mabel’s voice when she said, “I’ll expect this piece on my collar by this evening, Ella dear.”

When Mabel dropped the lace into her lap, Ella couldn’t make herself let go of the yellow cotton—what had once been her dress, her hope of
some
kind of excitement and pleasure—to pick it up. Wasn’t sure if she could, without feeling sick from her sisters’ casual cruelty.

Mabel swept past her, knocking Ella to one side, and Eunice followed, her chin up. Sibyl stood to follow her sisters, and made it as far as the doorway. When she paused, Ella forced herself to meet her youngest stepsister’s guilty gaze. “For what it’s worth, I think it was a lovely dress.” Her whisper didn’t linger any longer than Sibyl did, and then Ella was alone.

Alone with the remains of her dream.

July third was as hard as Ella had thought it’d be. Her morning was full of last-minute demands from her stepsisters, and her afternoon was spent in the kitchen. She had so much to do that she barely had the time to mourn her dress, and the lost chance it represented. Eunice’s pasta salad was cooling, and Ella was plucking the chickens when Maisie came in to start preparing supper for the men. Ella was planning on serving fried chicken tonight, and prepping an extra half to fry tomorrow morning for Mabel’s basket. Eunice’s ham just needed to be sliced, and her cinnamon apples were ready to go. She still had to figure out cookies for both baskets, but figured that she could do that tomorrow morning.

Ella was so caught up in her menu—mentally listing everything that she still needed to do—that she just didn’t notice Maisie’s quiet mood. Usually the other woman kept her talking and laughing throughout the afternoon, but not today. It wasn’t until Ella had gone out to wash the chicken feathers from her hands and forearms that she realized her friend’s mood.

“What’s wrong, Maisie?” Sometimes direct questions worked better than trying to guess.

Maisie shrugged, and continued to knead the dough for the night’s biscuits. She was going to make a few loaves of her cornbread too; half each for the baskets, and the rest to take to the picnic to share. But her preoccupation had nothing to do with her cooking, Ella could tell.

“You know, if you just told me, maybe we could figure out a way to solve this.” It was, word-for-word, what her friend had said to her yesterday, when Ella had returned to the kitchen, heartbroken, and clutching the remains of the yellow dress. She’d told the story in fits and starts, and soon Maisie was crying alongside her.

The other woman’s lips quirked, and Ella knew that she remembered. They were friends, and friends told each other everything. So Maisie sighed, and punched the dough a little harder than was necessary. “Them DeVille boys be over here again. Guess they figure to start celebratin’ early.”

Ella frowned as she began mixing the ingredients for the chicken’s batter. The Miller Ranch was the second-largest in the area, bordering Roy DeVille’s spread on one corner. She didn’t know much about the DeVille family, but some of the rowdier hands sometimes teamed up with some of Papa’s hands for some devilry. It rarely spread to their home, but Ella could remember one summer where a wild group had ridden around, shooting and hollering like a pack of savages. It had been scary, even to a little girl who’d expected the worst from men.

“What nonsense are they up to now?”

“Dog-fightin’.” Maisie’s tight answer caused Ella’s head to whip around, and her friend nodded. “Turns out they all been plannin’ it for a while. I went out there to see my man for lunch, and a big group o’ them is gathered behind the biggest barn.” Her lips were tight, her movements controlled, and Ella knew that her friend was angry. “They baitin’ and teasin’ them dogs, ‘til they angry enough to kill, and makin’ them run after each other. Sometime one-on-one, and sometimes all at once. They all drinkin’ and bettin’ and hollerin’ like it’s a holiday already.”

“That sounds horrible.” She was being truthful; it sounded worse than their normal mischief. She’d known her Papa’s hands to bet on fights or races, but pitting innocent dogs against one another? That was just plain cruel. Then she remembered the little dog in Ian’s store, Manny; he was missing a leg and was awfully skittish, and she had to wonder what happened to him. Had he been in an accident, or had something more sinister happened to the cute little animal? Despite the heat of the kitchen, a shiver travelled down Ella’s spine. Was this common? Did men often force dogs to fight for their entertainment, for sport? What happened to the losers? And where did they get the dogs to fight in the first place?

“Maisie, what dogs…?” She swallowed down the lump in her throat, suddenly not wanting to know the answer.

And it looked like her friend didn’t want to tell her the answer, judging by the stiffening of her shoulders, which made Ella dread it even more. “Maisie?” she whispered her plea, and watched the other woman let out a sigh.

“You know the puppy we been raisin’?”
Oh no. Oh please, no!
“They got their dogs, their working dogs. Leonard says that they been trainin’ them to fight and whatnot, but the pup…” She trailed off, and Ella braced her hands against the table, not caring if she trailed cornmeal and egg everywhere. This, after yesterday’s disaster? Human beings could be
horrible
!

“They’re using her to fight other dogs?” A few months before, one of the ranch dogs had whelped, and then disappeared. This pup was the last one left, and Leonard and Maisie had been taking care of her. Ella loved to go out and visit the little thing; she was still at that gangly puppy phase where her feet were too big for her body and she kept tripping on her ears. She was positively the most adorable thing Ella could imagine coming out of the Miller Ranch, and it made her ill to think that people could waste that so casually.

“Is she dead?” It hurt to ask, but she had to know. The dog was just a dog, but coming right on the heels of yesterday, this news just made her more upset at her family and the men they employed.

Maisie began to work the dough again, her sharp movements telling Ella that it wasn’t a good story. “The dog ain’t dead, but not for lack of tryin’. Leonard says she gunna be soon, anyhow. Her side is all tore up, and she breathin’ hard.”

Ella let out the breath she’d been holding, when she heard Maisie’s response. Of course. Of course the dog would die, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. And she wasn’t even sure if she could care; it was just a dog. Just a dog who’d had a rough start in life, but who was finally ready to take on the world. Just a dog who had made Ella smile a few times, when she didn’t have any other reason to smile.

Just a dog like Manny. Like Shiloh and Vicksburg and the other dogs Ian had loved.

Ian had loved.

Suddenly, Ella couldn’t stand the thought of the pup dying. She felt her gut clench and her chest tighten, and she knew—
knew
—that this wasn’t “just a dog”. This was a dog that had been abused and ruined by people who were supposed to be taking care of it. This was a dog that had been hurt by her family.

Just like she’d been.

She couldn’t go take back all the times she’d given in to her sisters over the years, or all the times she’d taken her stepfather’s punishments because she had no other alternative, no other home. She couldn’t erase the hurt and the pain that she’d endured for over a decade… but maybe, just maybe, she could make up for it. The pup hadn’t done any more to deserve her pain than Ella had, but she was strong enough to help the animal.

“Maisie.” The hardness in her tone caused her friend to whirl around. “I’ll finish that bread. You go tell Leonard to keep that dog alive as long as he can. You tell him that if he comes by in two hours, I’ll have something for her, and half of one of my fried chickens for your dinner.” She wanted to go herself, but knew that Papa would punish her if he found out she’d been to the barns, and with all the hands out there—DeVille’s included—she didn’t want to risk it today.

Eyes wide, Maisie was already wiping her hands down on her apron. “What are you thinkin’ now, Ella?”

“That it’d be a real shame to let that sweet animal die because of some fools who can’t have fun without hurting another creature.” Was she speaking about the Miller Ranch hands, or her own stepsisters? Ella wasn’t sure anymore, honestly. But she was already pulling out bandages from the cabinet in the corner, and trying to figure out what she could make to keep the pup’s strength up. Maybe an extra chicken? Lord knew that her fried chicken was tasty enough to heal a grown man… maybe it’d work on dogs too? “I know Leonard can’t work miracles, but you tell him that if there’s any way that he can stay around the barn today instead of going out on the range, I sure would appreciate it if he did everything he could to keep that dog alive.”

Smiling sadly, Maisie took the bundle from Ella. “You know he thinks the world of you, and so do I, girl. You finish up the biscuits for those fools’ dinner, and me an’ my man will make sure that dog’s still alive when you come by with the food.” But then her expression turned serious. “But no doctor is gunna fix up an animal, and you ain’t a healer. Best we can do is keep her comfortable ‘til she passes.
You
can’t fix her.”

“No.” Ella felt her shoulders straighten in determination. She thought about Ian, with his haunted eyes and his gentleness with his dogs. She thought about Papa’s ultimatum and her stepsisters’ cruelty. She thought about that poor animal, dying alone out behind the barn while Ella’s “guards” were drinking themselves stupid. And she decided that nothing her stepfather could do to her would be worse than what she’d do to herself, if she let the pup die without trying to help her. “No, but I know someone who can.”

July third was hard, as always. In the past, it’d been the day that Ian retreated to his apartment with a full bottle of whiskey, and tried not to remember. Twelve years ago today had been the day that his world changed forever. He remembered lying there among the boulders, staring up at the Pennsylvania sky—clear and open and blue—feeling his life soak into the pebbly dirt under him. He remembered hands, clutching and pulling him towards safety, but that they didn’t matter, as long as that sky was above him. He remembered the stretcher, and knowing that he was dying, and saying goodbye to his parents, and praying. He remembered the doctor bending over him with the saw, and then he didn’t remember anything else.

He’d woken up with one less leg, weak as a baby, and angry at not being allowed to die. Angry at being forced to relearn how to walk, how to live. Angry at the war, at the world. And then to get the letter from Mother, explaining that Uncle Albert had been killed at Vicksburg on July third, and that Father’s heart had given out when he’d gotten word about his brother’s death and son’s maiming on the same day… Ian’s anger had warred with his despair, and then both gave way to determination.

Sitting in his armchair, listening to the rain beating against the window, Ian just stared at the amber liquid in the glass clutched in his hand. He hadn’t taken a single drink, but he was already maudlin. But yet, this year didn’t seem as bad as last year, or the year before. Maybe the old saying was true; maybe Time
did
heal all wounds.

Or
maybe
he should just man up and admit the truth to himself; he was a different person than he was last year. Than last month, even. He had… friends now. He had a place in a community that he hadn’t even dreamed of, last July third. Last year, last month, he’d just been surviving, living week-to-week and trying to keep his parents’ dream of owning a mercantile alive. The dogs who were currently stretched around the room in various states of repose had been his only reason for living. He hadn’t been thinking of the future, then.

Now, though… now he felt like he actually
belonged
someplace. Like he had people who might notice if he wasn’t at church, or didn’t join the now-weekly poker game at the Gingerbread House. All it had taken was a few nights of
not
going back to the shop after dinner at Spratt’s, of going outside of his… his comfort zone. But his “zone” had now expanded, and included Everland and Everland’s people. He hadn’t realized just how secluded he was, until he wasn’t.