Ella absolutely hated the snow, and cursed loudly when she glanced out the window of the bakery where she worked to find a few white flakes slowly making their way to ground. She bit her lip, knowing if she complained then Agnes, the bakery owner, would tell her to be grateful they didn’t live in Hercynia or Waldreich, where it snowed heavily for months of the year. In Cendril, they could expect perhaps a month or so before it melted away.
This information didn’t make Ella hate the snow any less. She hated the cold and wet, and more importantly, it had snowed the day her mother died, and then the day her father died nearly a decade later.
“So it begins,” Agnes said, gesturing to the window as she rolled out dough for the buns she would be making. Ella hummed in response, which didn’t stop Agnes from saying, “At least we’re not in Cendril.”
The bell above the bakery door chimed, giving Ella an excuse to end this conversation.
“I’ll get it,” she said quickly, hurrying towards the front of the shop.
A very tired looking woman with a screaming toddler at her hip was waiting for her from the other side of the counter.
“One sourdough loaf please,” the woman said, sounding as tired as she looked. Ella wrapped up the loaf in waxy paper with obnoxious little hearts printed on it, and took the woman’s money before handing it off.
Before the woman could leave, Ella grabbed a single honey glazed roll from a basket behind the glass display case.
“Here,” Ella said, presenting it to the wailing child with a wink. Immediately the child ceased screaming and snatched the roll from her hand and stuffed half of it in his mouth. Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, but he sounded much happier.
“Thank you,” the woman gushed.
“Don’t mention it,” Ella said with a wave of her hand. She really hoped the woman wouldn’t mention it, seeing as she wasn’t supposed to be giving away anything for free.
As the woman left, another customer came in, and then another, saving Ella from having to return to the kitchen. She was about as fond of baking as she was of snow, but surprisingly jobs were hard to come by in Cendril’s capital of Auric. Months before she had worked in a pub on the dodgy side of the city, but that had ended when the pub’s owner had grabbed her ass and she responded by giving him a black eye.
Ella supposed if she apologized Callum would probably give her the job back, but she wasn’t that desperate, yet.
The snow continued to fall throughout the day, and Ella tried not to think of the shoveling she’d have to do when she got home. It would be unlikely that either of her step-siblings, Edmund and Bertie, would think to do it, and her step-mother Rosalind had been too ill as of late to get out of bed, much less go outside and shovel.
Rosalind had met Ella’s father two years after her mother had passed, and married shortly after. Ella had been seven and Rosalind’s twins from her previous marriage had been two years old.
Rosalind had been an amazing step-mother to Ella right from the beginning, and when Ella’s father died when she was fifteen years old, she and Rosalind and the twins supported each other in their grief. It had been hard, but they made it work, up until Rosalind developed a cough that turned into an unrelenting lung infection.
Medicine in Auric was expensive, and with Rosalind unable to work, Ella had taken it upon herself to provide for her family. The twins, now seventeen, had a final year of school left, and Ella insisted they finish it.
“We should probably close early tonight,” Agnes said an hour before the bakery’s normal closing time. “Everyone will be hurrying home anyways. Might as well save the coal.”
Ella wasn’t going to complain about that.
Quickly cleaning up the shop, she was soon following Agnes out the door and watched as she turned and locked it.
“See you tomorrow,” Ella said, turning and heading in the direction of home.
Several inches of snow had accumulated on the ground, and Ella gritted her teeth as she stomped through the streets. Her shoes dampened with slush with every step. It had been years since she owned proper snow boots. With how little snow it snowed in Auric, it had never seemed necessary, but the rare days like this made her regret her stinginess.
As she turned the corner from the bakery, a horse and carriage drove past her, splashing her even more slush. Swearing again, she wiped the vile mush from her jacket, and made a rude hand gesture at the carriage. The driver was already halfway down the street and likely hadn’t noticed, but it still made her feel a little better.
A part of her wanted to hail her own carriage down so that she could get home faster, but they were another expense she couldn’t afford. Sighing, she stuffed her hands into her pockets, and quickened her pace.
Ella and her family lived in a small, rented house on a quiet street. It wasn’t the most glamorous neighborhood to live in, but it was relatively safe and the rent was cheap. Her father had left her and Rosalind a small bit of money that helped keep their landlord happy.
As she opened the iron gate that separated the yard from the street, Ella nearly cried out in relief to find the walkway already shoveled.
When she stepped inside, she found her step-sister Bertie at the stove, stirring a pot of stew. Rosalind was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea, an old, worn shawl with frayed edges draped around her neck.
“That smells good,” Ella said in greeting, kicking off the clinging snow at the door before hanging up her jacket on the rail. She bent over to kiss Rosalind’s cheek.
“We didn’t have many potatoes left,” Bertie said, glancing down at her concoction wearily. “Or meat, but Mrs. Lavigne next door gave me some extra carrots, so it should be alright.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Where’s Edmund?” Ella asked as she walked to the cupboard, pulled out the only four bowls they had and brought them over to the table.
“I imagine he’s sulking,” Rosalind said, setting her tea down. “He’s annoyed I made him shovel the walkway.”
Ella snorted. That sounded like Edmund. He was a good kid, just a bit lazy.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder as she searched for some spoons.
Rosalind shrugged. “I’ve been worse.”
Ella and Bertie shared a look. That’s what Rosalind said when she was trying to put on a brave face.
“You sure you don’t want to lie down, Mother?” Bertie asked gently.
Rosalind pulled her shawl tightly around herself. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ve been lying down all day. I want to enjoy a nice dinner with my family.”
She gave a little cough that made Ella’s stomach twist, but she said nothing and continued setting the table.
A few minutes later Edmund emerged from his room.
“Dinner ready yet?”
Bertie threw him a dirty look from the stove. “You know you could help if you want it faster.”
Edmund threw her a lazy grin. “We both know you’d stab me if I tried to help.”
Ella turned to hide her amused grin, and Rosalind let out another small series of coughs that sounded a bit like laughter. It was true. Bertie would probably stab him.
The twins were dark skinned like their mother, who was originally from the Tanda Empire, which was located south of the continent of Terrania. They all had thickly curled hair and eyes like honey. Rosalind had moved to Cendril with her family as a child, marrying a local man with whom she had the twins. Sadly, her first husband passed away in a carriage accident. She had been thinking about returning to Tanda when she met Ella’s father, and ultimately decided to stay.
Although she never spoke of it, Ella knew she missed Tanda dearly, and Ella hoped one day her step-mother would be well enough and Ella would save enough for them to visit.
Bertie finished up the stew and placed the simmering pot on the table, each of them taking turns scooping the contents into their bowls. Rosalind took a small bite and grimaced slightly. It wasn’t that Bertie was a terrible cook, but rather that the food in Terrania was rather bland compared to that of Tanda. Before Ella’s father died and Rosalind fell ill, they had been able to afford some spices to liven up their meals. Unfortunately, most of the money the family had now went to essentials, namely rent and Rosalind’s medical bills.
“How is it?” Bertie asked, pulling her chair into the table as she sat down.
“It’s good,” Rosalind responded, a tad too cheerful, but Bertie didn’t seem to notice.
----------------------------------------
After dinner when the twins had gone to bed, Ella sat up playing cards with Rosalind in the kitchen. There wasn’t much to their small house. Two bedrooms upstairs, one of which was shared by the twins. The other was Ella’s, which had originally been Rosalind’s while Ella had made a makeshift bedroom out of the tiny sitting room on the main floor, but lately climbing the stairs left Rosalind struggling to breath, so they switched.
There was an outhouse in the backyard and a small wash house. They shared a well with their neighbor Mrs. Lavigne, an elderly widow who lived with more cats than the neighborhood council probably allowed. Not that anyone would ever tell on her, as Mrs. Lavigne was well liked on the street.
The house itself had little in terms of decoration, as most things had been sold to help pay for expenses. A few paintings that Edmund had done were pinned to the walls without frames, which helped to distract from the faded cornflower blue wallpaper that was slowly peeling away.
It wasn’t perfect or in any way luxurious, but it was home all the same.
“How’s the bakery?” Rosalind asked as she set a card down onto the pile in the center of the table. Ella wasn’t entirely sure of the rules of the game, but she was pretty sure Rosalind was winning.
With a shrug, she said, “It’s fine. We were pretty busy this morning, but Agnes let me leave early because of the snow.”
She looked down at her cards and placed one into the center as well. With a glance outside, she frowned to see the cursed stuff still falling. At least it had slowed.
“Did Doctor Esner stop by today?” Ella asked as Rosalind studied her own cards. A sad smile graced her step-mother’s lips.
“Yes.”
Ella waited a moment for her to elaborate, but she stubbornly remained quiet.
“What did he say?” she pressed.
Rosalind said nothing for a few minutes. Then, she placed her cards face down on the table and looked at her step-daughter.
“He doesn’t think I’m getting better,” she said calmly. A thick lump formed in the back of Ella’s throat, and her eyes began to sting as tears threatened to fall. She hated crying in front of people, and she especially hated crying in front of Rosalind as she was the one who was sick.
“There is a new medicine he thinks I might do well with,” Rosalind continued. “But the ingredients have to be imported from Waldreich, so it’s expensive.”
Considering how expensive the shoddy, water-downed tinctures Rosalind was currently taking were, Ella was scared to know the price. She asked anyway and nearly threw up when Rosalind told her the price.
“How much?” she exclaimed, wincing when she realized how loud she had been. The twins made no noise upstairs, but Ella knew that didn’t necessarily mean they were asleep.
“Fifty gelds per bottle,” Rosalind repeated, still in that unnervingly calm voice. Ella suspected they were small bottles as well.
“That’s double what we’re currently paying for,” she said miserably.
Rosalind reached one hand out on the table, and Ella accepted it with her own. A hazy, gray fog seemed to cloud her mind, and her eyes were now beginning to burn. Still she refused to cry.
“I don’t want you to worry about it,” Rosalind said softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’ve already done so much.”
But not enough apparently, Ella thought.
“I can’t lose you too,” Ella choked out, blinking rapidly.
“The ginger teas have been helping,” Rosalind tried, and Ella choked out a laugh that was half sob.
She brushed a palm along her eyes. “Maybe I can get a second job, and the twins will be finished school in a few months.”
Rosalind gave her a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You don’t need to get a second job,” she said. “We’ll make it work.”
Rosalind didn’t say anything else, but Ella’s chest tightened painfully all the same. She knew her step-mother well enough to know that meant she didn’t think she was going to live much longer anyways.
----------------------------------------
Despite her promising Rosalind that she wouldn’t worry about herself, that is exactly what Ella spent most of the night doing. After she helped Rosalind to bed, Ella lay awake upstairs tossing and turning in her own. The twins were snoring in the next room peacefully, blissfully unaware of the conversation their mother and step-sister just had.
Turning to face the window and watch the still falling snow, she finally let out a choked sob.
Rosalind had been her mother for fifteen years, and her only parent seven. She couldn’t face burying another family member so soon in her young life.
Her mind wandered back to her old pub job. As creepy as Callum had been, the tips had been good. Perhaps there was another pub she could try first.
It was nearly midnight when the snow finally ceased, the ringing of Auric’s clock tower at the palace echoing through the night. Ella turned on her back and closed her eyes, determined to get at least some sleep. Tomorrow after the bakery closed she would go around to all the local pubs and see if one would take her on.