Cinderella Dressed in Ashes ( Book #2 in the Grimm Diaries ) Read Online Free PDF Page B

self. I wonder if I changed something from this past, if something would change in the future?
    Cerené smiled and eased back when Shew stretched out her hand. There was something about Cerené. She came across as too pure to live among the evil lurking in the Kingdom of Sorrow. Shew watched Cerené pick up the towel and begin washing her again.
    “So why do they call you a Slave Maiden?” Shew asked.
    “Because I am one,” Cerené said, unashamed. “I’m an orphan. I work for a family with a stepmother and two stepdaughters for a place to stay.  I also work as a maid in the Schloss whenever they send for me, and I clean the School of Sorrow in exchange for bread.”
    “What you just said only explains you’re a poor girl, not a slave,” Shew said.
    “Girls like me are disposable. We are sent to do jobs that might kill us because we have no family to care when we die. They don’t even bury us properly in a graveyard,” Cerené said casually. “Some of us are used as bait for vampires on the borders. They send us to lure out vampires so your father’s army can kill them. They don’t care about us.”
    “My father does that?”
    “I like the King of Sorrow a lot more than the Queen but I heard he is heartless when it comes to war,” Cerené said, feeling she was allowed to speak her mind in front of an understanding princess. Shew knew nobody had ever granted her such a privilege before.
    “So you were sent to me because if I bite you or kill you—”
    Cerené stopped what she was doing and nodded. Both girls locked eyes for a moment.  “And you didn’t mind?” Shew said.
    “Mind?” Cerené let out a feeble laugh. “I don’t have the right to mind, princess, or wish.”
    “Who said so,” Shew protested. “Tell me what you wish for, and I will grant it to you.”
    “You know you’re different from how I pictured you, Princess?” Cerené said. “I didn’t imagine you like this.”
    “Neither did I,” Snow White laughed.  She wondered if she was really like that in the past. After all, and although this was a dream, she was a sixteen year old from the twenty first century trapped in a seven year old body in the 19 th century, but it was her modern mind that was working here. Although Cerené looked to be eight or nine years old, she talked like she was older too.
    “So what do you think of me biting the prince?”
    “Oh, well,” Cerené hesitated.
    “Speak your mind.”
    “Well, I agree he was yummy,” Cerené giggled, covering her ashen mouth with her hands.
    “I knew it,” Snow White clapped her hand with Cerené. “So I was right to bite the yummy out of him.”
    “In your own sick way, I guess so,” Cerené laughed. “Is he dead?”
    “I sure hope not,” Snow White said. “I’d like to bite him again.”
    Cerené laughed so hard she fell on the floor. Snow White was happy to make her smile. It was like seeing sunshine in an abyss.
    “Come here,” Snow White said, grabbing a towel to clean the ashes from Cerené’s face.
    Suddenly, Cerené’s features tensed and she pulled away. “No,” she said. “I can’t wipe the ashes away. I can’t,” she made a fist with one hand.
    “Why?” Snow White wondered.
    “I just can’t,” Cerené took the towel from her and stood up, preparing to leave. “Would you ask anything else of me, princess?” She asked the question stiffly as if they hadn’t been laughing seconds ago.
    “I didn’t mean to—”
    “Thank you, princess,” Cerené said and left the bathroom. Snow White leaned against the door’s edge, watching her walk away. What had offended her so much? Snow White just wanted to wipe the ashes away.
    Watching her walk away, Snow White noticed Cerené wore strange slippers, slightly hidden under her dress. They looked as if they’d been burned and smeared with ashes. The slippers didn’t look like they were made from leather or anything Snow White had seen before.
    “Those are strange slippers,” Snow White