Phoenix and Ashes

rejected by Alison because that was all that there was for her to eat. Or at least, there would be none of that if she could bend the spell enough to get into the pantry at least once.

And suddenly, with a great leap of her heart, she realized that within a few days or a week at most, she would have the house to herself, as she always did in spring and fall. The annual pilgrimage to London was coming, when Alison and her daughters went to obtain their spring and summer wardrobes. Always before this, she had found herself restricted to the kitchen and her own room entirely for those few days. But perhaps this spring—

The sound of fashionable shoes with high heels clicking on hard stone broke into her reverie, and she quickly bent to her scrubbing. When Alison appeared in the doorway, striking a languid pose, Eleanor looked up, stony- faced, but did not stop her scrubbing. But she was much more conscious of the fire on the hearth than usual, and to keep her face still, she concentrated on it. The warmth felt—supportive. As if there was a friend here in the room with her. She concentrated on that.

Alison wore a lovely purple velvet tea-gown with ornaments of a cobwebby gray lace, with sleeves caught into cuffs at the wrist. As usual, her every dark hair was in place—and there was a tiny smile on her ageless face. She made a tiny gesture towards her stepdaughter, and Eleanor fought to keep her expression unchanging, as she saw, more clearly than she ever had before, a lance of muddy yellow light shoot from the tip of that finger towards her, and briefly illuminate her.

But she also saw, with a sense of shock, something entirely new. As that light struck her, there appeared a kind of cage of twisted and tangled, darkly glowing cords that pent her in. The cords absorbed the light, writhed into a new configuration, then faded away, and Eleanor sat up straighter, just as she would have if she had felt the compulsion to scrub ebbing.

'That's enough, Ellie,' Alison said. 'The laundry's been left at the tradesman's entrance. Go get it and put the linens away, then leave the rest for Howse.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Eleanor said, casting her eyes down, and thinking, wishing with all her might, Tell me you're going to London! Go to London! Stay for a long time, a fortnight, or morel Go to London!

And she bit her lip again to stifle the impulse to giggle, when Alison added thoughtfully, 'I believe we'll be going on our London trip in two days, if the weather hold fine. You'll be a good girl while we're gone, and do all your work, won't you, Ellie.'

'Yes, ma'am,' she replied, getting to her feet, slowly, and brushing off her apron, using both actions as an excuse to keep her head down.

'Go tend the laundry.' And once again, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a lance of grayish yellow light strike that tangle of 'cords' and make it visible for a moment, saw the cords writhe into a new configuration. But this time she felt something, the faint ghost of the sort of compulsion she usually experienced, driving her towards the hall and the tradesmen's entrance. She allowed it to direct her, because the last thing she wanted was for Alison to guess that her magic was no longer controlling her stepdaughter completely.

As she folded and put away the linens, though, she wondered— what had happened? And why now?

I'd better take advantage of it while I have the chance, she decided, finally. Who knows how long this respite will last?

The usual chores occupied her until dinner, more floor-scrubbing, bath-drawing, tidying and dusting and dishwashing, while Howse tended to her own duties, and Alison and her daughters went out to pay calls or do their 'work.' It wasn't what Eleanor would have called work—sitting in meetings debating over what sort of parcels should be sent to 'our boys in the trenches,' or paying visits to the recovering wounded officers in the hospital to 'help' them by writing letters for them or reading to them. Alison and her daughters did not deign to 'help' mere unranked soldiers.

Eleanor heard them return and go upstairs to change for dinner. That was when she prepared what she was able to cook, then laid the table and waited in the kitchen until summoned by the bell. Then she served the four courses to the four diners in the candlelit dining room with a fresh, white apron over her plain dress. It was ham tonight, from the Swan, preceded by a delicate consomme from a tin, a beetroot salad, and ending with a fine tart from the Browns' bakery. Though this was one of the more difficult times of the day, as she served food she was not allowed to touch and watched the girls deliberately spoil what they left on their plates with slatherings of salt and pepper so that she could not even salvage it for herself, tonight she comforted herself with the knowledge that her dinner was not going to be as meager as it had been for far too long—

While Alison and the girls were lingering over their tart, she went upstairs and turned down the beds, picked up the scattered garments that they had left on the floor and laid them ready for Howse to put away. She swept out the rooms for the last time today, then went back down to the kitchen to wait for them to leave the table. When she heard them going back up to their rooms for the evening, she went into the dining room again to clear the table and return the ham and a few other items to the pantry. But she smiled as she did so, because once she had closed the pantry door, she made a little test of opening the door again—and found that she could.

Ha!

It was her turn to linger now, and she did so over the dishes, over cleaning the kitchen, until she heard all four sets of heels going up the stairs to their rooms. Then she waited, staring into the fire, until the house quieted. Oddly, tonight there seemed to be more than a suggestion of creatures dancing in the flames—once or twice she blinked and shook her head, sure she had also seen eyes where no eyes could be.