The Spinner and the Slipper Read online

  The milkman’s lad, however, proved himself a little more insightful than one might suppose. He tipped his slouchy hat. “Be on me way, miss,” he muttered regretfully. It would be at least a week before his master sent him down to the mill again. But he clucked to his donkey, and the bell on the harness tinkled into motion. Soon enough the tinkling vanished down the tree-shaded road.

  Eliana sat down hard on her own doorstep. She read the letter again. Married. Yes, she had read that correctly. To some gentleman farmer’s widow, fallen on hard times, who needed a man to look after her and her two daughters before ruin set in. “A rite fine lady,” her father had written, “with plesant maners and graces.”

  His spelling was bad, but his excitement was unmistakable. Could it be that her father had . . . fallen in love?

  Tears filled Eliana’s eyes. She knew they were foolish tears, knew she should not indulge in them. After all, it was three years since Mother died. Why should she feel this resentment at her father? It wasn’t as though he had forgotten his first wife! Eliana knew him better than that. He would always love her and mourn her loss, but did that mean he must remain widowed forever?

  “Besides,” Eliana whispered, “I’ll have two sisters. The company will be nice. And . . . and this lady must be lovely if Father wants to marry her on such short acquaintance.”

  Unconsciously she fingered the gold chain about her neck and rubbed the shiny ring on her finger. Both objects seemed to warm at her touch, and she felt a calm come over her—a calm similar to what she’d experienced whenever, as a child, she ran crying to her mother and was folded into loving arms and held. This feeling was much softer, much fainter, but it sprang from the same source.

  Eliana wiped the tears from her face. Her next smile was more sincere than the last one. “I will welcome them with open arms,” she determined. She knew that’s what her mother would want her to do. “I will welcome them, and I will love them.”

  So saying, she rose and went about her daily tasks, mentally listing all she should try to do in the week before her father returned with his new bride. As best she could, she suppressed the sorrow creeping up at the prospect of seven more days of isolation. After all, at the end of those seven days she would have a whole new family. Surely that was worth a little extra loneliness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Different Kind of Life

  In a lonely watchtower in a far-off world, the green-eyed man stood in a large room with tall pillars supporting a heavy ceiling. The floor was polished marble, and atop a pedestal at one end of the chamber, a crystal ball gleamed.

  The green-eyed man stared into this crystal’s depths, watching the miller’s daughter. Watching Eliana.

  It was several weeks since he’d last looked in on her quiet mortal life, several weeks since she’d almost spotted him in the forest near her home. His heart still raced when he thought about how close she had come to spying him, and he dared not approach her again anytime soon. But he had a promise to fulfill, so he did not let much time pass without peering in upon her world again.

  He now saw her hard at work, cleaning the miller’s humble house. She polished and swept and dusted. She cleared out a small storage room, moved her own belongings into it, and then prepared fresh beds in her former bedroom. She spread fresh rushes on the floor and buffed the pots and pans until they shone like silver and gold rather than tin and copper. All this she did with a smile, though the green-eyed man thought perhaps he glimpsed a tear welling in her eye now and then.

  Mortal time moves differently than time in the green-eyed man’s world. So he watched Eliana over the course of several days, though for him it was merely an hour or two. At last he saw her chopping, mixing, and then sliding a delectable peach cobbler into the stone oven on the hearth. While it baked, she combed out her long, dark hair, arranged it in a pretty crown braid, changed into a fresh apron, and waited near the open front door.

  A horse-drawn cart rattled down the forest road, the miller’s donkey tethered and trotting behind it. In the driver’s seat sat the miller, whom the green-eyed man recognized at once. Beside him sat a lady of upright bearing and cold beauty, who looked straight ahead and did not smile. Two solemn-eyed girls, neither pretty nor plain, sat in the back on a pile of belongings. None of the party spoke save for the miller himself, who tried now and then to liven up his quiet companions with a cheery word.

  The cart pulled into the mill yard, and Eliana hastened through the open door, her smile brave and beautiful. She smiled first for her father, rushing to embrace him even as he swung down from his seat. Then she turned that smile upon the cold woman and upon the two girls, who looked approximately her own age.

  “Allow me to present my new wife and your new stepmother,” the miller said, leading his daughter around to the other side of the cart where the woman still sat stiffly, still staring straight ahead. “Mistress Carlyn, meet my Eliana.”

  “Welcome home!” Eliana said warmly, reaching out both hands in greeting.

  The woman looked down at Eliana for the first time. Her gaze traveled from the girl’s sweet face to the gold necklace she wore and then to the gold ring gleaming on her finger.

  A slow smile spread across the woman’s face, slow because it first had to break through the layers of ice rimming her mouth and eyes. “Eliana,” she said. “I am so glad you are my new daughter. I always thought two would not be enough. Now I have three!”

  The words were sweet as honey, but the green-eyed man frowned as he heard them. For in that woman’s eyes he saw the barely veiled hardness and cruelty.

  “My room back home was twice this size. And I didn’t have to share.”

  Bridin, the older of the two sisters, stood in the center of Eliana’s former bedchamber, looking around at Eliana’s hard work of the last few days without a trace of appreciation in her eyes. She spoke with no malice, but with a sort of hollow emptiness.

  The words cut Eliana to the heart. She gulped down resentment, reminding herself that both Bridin and Innis had recently lost not only their father but also their standing as prosperous farmer’s daughters in a lively village many miles away.

  Immediately after their arrival Eliana had learned (in a quick, whispered conference with the miller) that their father had gotten himself deep into debt and, following his death, his widow had been obliged to sell off nearly everything to satisfy his creditors. As a result, Mistress Carlyn and her daughters were left destitute.

  “She married me for security,” the miller said with a sad smile. “I know that well enough. But she is a fine woman, and her daughters are good girls. They’ll be company for you, Eliana, so you’ll not have to be alone next time I travel. And . . . there was no one else to take them in, you know?”

  Eliana hated to see the pain in her father’s eyes as he made hasty explanations for his actions. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I am so excited to have sisters!” she said with much more enthusiasm than she felt.

  With that, she had returned to her role as hostess, leading the two girls up to their room. But no matter how much she smiled, she could not erase their sad, sad frowns.

  “The view is quite lovely from this window!” Eliana said cheerfully, throwing open the shutters and beckoning for them to join her. Neither Bridin nor Innis moved; clutching their eager satchels of belongings, they stood as though their feet had grown roots.

  Realizing that this approach would never do, Eliana gently took the satchels from them and set them on their beds. These were really little more than straw-stuffed mattresses on the floor, but Eliana had covered them with her mother’s best, most beautiful quilts and laid sweet-smelling lavender on the pillows. “Come downstairs and have something to eat,” she said, taking their hands and leading them from the room.

  They made no verbal protest, but both quickly removed their hands from her grasp, clinging to each other instead.

  The peach cobbler was hot and aromatic as Eliana served her new family. Mistress Carlyn
thanked her but ate only two bites before pointedly laying aside her spoon and placing her hands in her lap. Bridin and Innis said nothing. Bridin sniffed over her serving, whether to keep back tears or in pure disgust, Eliana could not guess. At least Innis ate with some enjoyment if no gratitude.

  Eliana took her place beside her father, smiled at him, and struggled to think of something to say that might break the awkward silence. “How was your journey, Father?” she asked at last.

  “Easy enough. Your uncle sends love, of course.”

  That ended that conversation. Even the miller, ordinarily a talkative, cheerful man, felt oppressed by the silence of his new family. He grinned across the table at his new wife, who answered his smile with an icy one of her own.

  Eliana tried again. “We may have to add on to the stable,” she said. “I’m afraid our donkey may feel a bit cramped sharing.”

  “Oh, no.” The miller shook his head and swallowed a bite of cobbler before continuing, “We cannot possibly afford to keep a horse. I’ll ride him into town tomorrow and see what I can get for him. Perhaps,” he said, looking round at his new wife and two new daughters, “I’ll have enough to buy fabric for new frocks! Pretty things to please my pretty ladies.”

  Innis sank deeper into her seat and went on eating without a word. Bridin did not look up from her plate but muttered, “We can’t even afford a horse?”

  Eliana’s stomach sank at those words. She knew their house wasn’t elegant by any means, but she had never felt dissatisfied with it. How could she possibly learn to understand these girls with finer tastes; how could she possibly make them feel welcome?

  She exchanged a glance with her father, and he raised his eyebrows in a sad expression. Suddenly, looking into his face, Eliana felt something she could not quite name. A premonition, perhaps. A strong sense of foreboding, inexplicable and yet undeniable. Her heart began to race, and what little appetite she possessed fled away.

  She hastily dropped her gaze to her plate, not wanting her father to read her thoughts in her eyes. After all, there was no reason for her to feel this way! The miller had ridden into town innumerable times before and never come to grief.

  Why should she have this terrible suspicion that . . . he wouldn’t be coming back?

  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 neckla
ce 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.”