Phoenix and Ashes Read Online Free PDF Page B

Alison,
who would have no more idea of how to put up her own hair or tend to her
wardrobe than how to fly an aeroplane. The laundry could be sent out, prepared
foodstuffs brought in, and Eleanor’s strength was adequate to the rest of
the needs of the household, but if Alison and her daughters were to keep up
their appearances, and to have a chance at ascending to the social rank they
aspired to, Howse must be kept satisfied. And
silent
, where the true
state of the household was concerned.
    Eleanor
sighed, and stared into the flames on the kitchen hearth. There was a patent
range here too on which most of the actual cooking was done, with a boiler and
geyser in back of it that supplied hot water for baths and washing, both
upstairs and down, but Eleanor liked having an open fire, and wood was the one
thing that Alison didn’t keep her from using. Since the spell that bound
her was somehow tied to the kitchen hearth, it would have seemed more natural
for Eleanor to hate that fireplace, but when she was all alone in the kitchen
at night, that little fire was her only friend. In the winter, she often slept
down here now, when her room was too cold for slumber, drifting off beside the
warmth of that fire, watching the glowing coals. Now and again, it seemed to
her she saw things in the flames—little dancing creatures, or solemn eyes
that stared back at her, unblinking. The truth also was that no matter what she
did around the fires, she never got burned. Leaping embers leapt
away
from her, smoke always went up the chimney properly, even when the north wind
drove smoke down into the parlor or Alison’s room. No fire ever burned
out for her, and even that ever-cooking soup-pot never scorched. Her fare might
be scant and poor, but it was never
burned
. Which could not always be
said of Alison’s food, particularly not when she or Howse undertook to
prepare or warm it themselves, at the parlor hearth… and though Eleanor
kept her thoughts to herself, she could not help but be glad when hard, dry,
inedible food and burned crusts came back on the plates to the kitchen.
    Sometimes
Eleanor wondered why her stepmother hadn’t simply done to Howse what she
had done to Eleanor and turn
her
into a slave, but even after three
years, she didn’t know a great deal more about magic than she’d
learned on that December night. Alison clearly
used
it, but she had
never again performed a spell or rite where Eleanor could see her. Perhaps the
reason was no more complicated than that while crude, unskilled work could be
compelled, skilled work required cooperation…
    And
even as she thought that, Eleanor realized with a start that she had been
sitting on her heels, idle, staring into the flames on the hearth, for at least
fifteen minutes.
    The
thought hit her with the force of a hammer blow. Could Alison’s magic be
losing its strength?
    With
a mingling of hope and fear, and quietly, so as not to draw any attention to
herself, Eleanor climbed carefully to her feet and tiptoed to the kitchen door.
The high stone wall around the garden prevented her from seeing anything but
the roofs of the other buildings around her and the tops of the trees. There
was a wood-pigeon in the big oak on the other side of the east wall, and the
cooing mingled with the sharp metallic cries of the jackdaws. She stood quietly
in the late afternoon sunshine, closing her eyes and letting it bathe her face.
    Then
she stepped right outside onto the path between the raised herb beds, and had
to bite her lower lip and clasp her hands tightly together to avoid shouting in
glee. She was outside. She was
not
scrubbing the floor—
    But
as she made a trial of approaching the garden gate, she found, with a surge of
disappointment, that she could not get nearer than five feet to true freedom.
The closer she got to the big blue wooden gate, the harder it was to walk, as
if the air itself had turned solid and she could not push her way through it.
This phenomena was not