“Hear me now, Ashe,” she spit out. Her stepmother said her real name for the first time, but it was turned to venom, insult, and strike by her mocking tone. “You shall not go to the ball.” Such finality.
“But... you said that after I did all my chores you’d-“
“I would think about letting you go, yes. And you see, I did think about it! But the invitation clearly states ‘all eligible ladies may attend’. Not servants. Not orphans. And certainly not grubby little boys in out-of-date dresses!” With a viper swift tug she ripped the sleeve the maid had spent hours on, clean off the shoulder. Her sisters quickly followed suit. Pearls clacked on the stone floor. The tears were loud and seemed to echo down the half. Pieces of her mother’s pink dress seemed to fly through the air. If Ashe was not the only servant still working at the manor, someone would’ve come to help. Someone would save her. Or at least be there for after.
She knew they were saying things, calling her by her original name. Berating her for wanting to steal away the prince with her “perversions” as they called it. But she could not hear them. The words were formed and lips moved but they did not reach her ears. She could only hear the roar of the ocean, hundreds of miles away. Ashe could not move or speak. She did not cry. She did not cry.
A loud smack brought her back. Long manicured nails caught the skin of her cheek. She looked up to the cold green eyes.
“You shall not go to the ball. It would be a sin to present the prince with... this monstrosity.” She straightened her spine and fixed her perfect tresses under her ostentatious hat. “Now be a good cinder creature and have tea ready for us when we return.” Ashe’s eyes were glued to the tile at the foot of the stairs until the sound of the carriage had completed vanished.
She didn’t even care about the prince. She just wanted one night away from her duties, from being reduced to...
she found herself looking at her reflection in the fountain out back.
This cinder creature of ash and toil and sweat, doing the work of 7 house staff members a day. The blood on her cheek dropped into the water, weighed down by a single tear. Then another. And another.
Ashe did not know how long she sat in the mud by the fountain and cried. What did it matter? She would be in mud the rest of her life.
“Why do you stay, child?”
Ashe’s head twisted around looking for the speaker. “Who’s there?” She said, pulling her dress to cover her exposed body.
A woman stepped out from behind a tree. Her taffeta skirts were extremely bright and showy and she wore a tall powdered wig with flowers and butterflies pinned in it. She was practically glowing pink from head to toe.
Ashe stood and stumbled between a bow and a curtsey “your grace, if you are looking for the palace it is a couple miles east of here”
She laughed deep from her gut “no dear, but thank you for trying to help me. I ask again, why do you stay if they treat you so?”
How could this strange woman know? Perhaps she had over heard the events earlier. “This house, it’s all I have left of my parents you see, I can’t stand by and let them mistreat it”
“So you let them mistreat you instead?”
Ashe did not have a response
“Child, I don’t know what poison that woman has dripped in your ear, but no one deserves to be treated the way you are, especially not a young lady like you with such beauty.”
Ashes eyes snapped up to the woman’s. They were warm and smiling and held back her own tears. “She... she says I deserve to be punished for my perverse behavior”
“Posh! There’s nothing perverse about us! And even if there was, it’s not a crime to be a little kinky” she said with a wink. Ashe looked again and saw the woman for who she was, a woman like herself.
“why I’m your fairy godmother.” She released a catlike, secretive, infectious grin that seemed to take up her entire face. From her wig she pulled out a glass rod, spiraled and glittering. “Now! We haven’t got much time! I need four mice, a goose, a chicken, a large melon or squash, and a glass of milk and honey”
“I’ll be thirsty after all that work!”
And work it was indeed. Sparks were flying every direction. The entire farm was making various baying, honking, barking, and clucking sounds. Colors burst from her wand, Ashe wondered if neighboring manors saw a firework show and wondered what she was up to. She laughed and danced in the delight of making magic. The mice became handsome draft horses, huge and strong. The goose and chicken became coachmen in fancy attire, looking like the servants of a queen. They had gold buttons and shimmering embroidered birds on their coats.
Finally the fairy turned to Ashe. “Now you”
“I can transform you into whatever you want. You can arrive at the ball as whoever you want to be. We can change your features and hair and maybe give you a little...” she gestured generally towards Ashe’s chest.
Ashe hesitated “godmother, I... I would like to go as myself. There’s nothing wrong with my body. Let them stare if they must, but I don’t believe womanhood is limited to hairlessness and breasts.”
“You’re quite right my dear,” she smiled and placed her hand to Ashe’s cheek. “Let’s get you cleaned up and show the world the real you.”
With a flick of her glass wand, Ashe began a slow twirl. As she spun faster and faster, she could feel a sunny warmth on her skin. Flames danced across her arms and licked up tattered dress. One spark kissed her cheek. The pink ruffles burned away, revealing golden silk with orange and red patterns swirling through the pleats. Red velvet trim and thousands of light catching crystals decorated the dress, the glass dancing with the flames and making her look like fire itself. The train of her dress was a peacock tail, feathered recolored in saffron, crimson, and scarlet, with the eyes a deep maroon. Two golden wings sprouted from her back and then wrapped around her arms to meet at the center of her chest. The dark skin of her collarbones reflected a golden glittery highlight.
She looked at herself in the mirror. The same but completely transformed. Gold on her eyelids and her hair intricately braided and up, sporting a little red bird. “I look like a..”
“A Phoenix dear. An immortal bird who cannot be killed. A spirit that rises again and again from ashes.”
The glittering on Ashe’s cheeks was not from magic, but rather tears. “Thank you.”
“Check the shoes, darling.”
“My shoes?” She lifted up her hoops to see slippers in a thousand colors, made of stained glass.
“Tempered by fire, they too have grown stronger in the most unimaginable conditions. Incredibly strong and beautiful.”
Ashe met those warm eyes again. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you”
“Now Lady Ashe Kensington, you get in that carriage this instant,” teased the fairy godmother. “For you must go to the ball.”
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