It's Patricia, and I just want to give a nice, big, warm welcome! So happy you've found us, and if we can help in ANY way, please fill out the form on the sidebar!
Today, I am going to share with you the first chapter of my novel "Happily Never After".
Chapter
One
Ella
As the sun rose over the
country side, it laid a serene golden life-light over everything. It was so
peaceful. Soft, gray-yellow, all over. First, slowly… then all at once, colors
streaked the sky, the great ball of fire appeared in the sky.
Ella silently slipped out
the back door to the country farm-house in which she had grown up in. She tied
a kerchief on her head, slipped into her boots, and then took off running.
Tearing through the back fields of their property… Never stopping… Never
looking back. She came upon a weather-beaten fence. She swung her leg over it,
and then landed on the ground with a thud. Even that didn’t stop her. She kept
going.
In the distance, sat a
weeping willow tree. Its branches were familiar to her. She had sat in its arms
as a child, and now it became her place of escape. Her escape from this life.
This dreadful life. This life of dreariness and pain. Life hadn’t had much to
offer Ella… And she was feeling its distaste for her.
She collapsed under the
tree. Burying her head in her hands, she silently cried.
“Oh, momma,” she gasped. “I’m trying… I really am… But I
can’t do it! They hate me! And how can I be good to someone who hates me?”
Rubbing her eyes, she continued, “They’re all I have left… You and papa are
gone, and I am so alone. So alone. Why does it have to be this way, momma?” She
silently cried for another fifteen minutes.
Then she stood, her neck
bent to keep her hair from snagging on the willow branches. She tenderly placed
a bunch of rather damp, but still beautiful wild-flowers on the headstone which
she had been sitting next to.
Drying her tears, she bid
farewell to her mother. “Until I need to escape again,” she said bitterly.
She took off at a brisk
pace back towards the house. Her step-family would soon be wanting breakfast.
When she got back to the
house, she removed her boots, and carefully placed them back where she got
them. She opened the door just wide enough for her small body to pass through.
When she closed the door behind her, and turned around, her stepmother stood
there.
“You’ve snuck out, again, I see,” she said with contempt.
The woman sent a stinging slap across the girl’s face. As it smarted, more
tears formed in her eyes.
Her stepmother was a tall
woman. Green eyes, and slowly graying, brown hair (usually pulled into a tight
bun), and sharply defined cheekbones. She probably was beautiful… But Ella
couldn’t see that through the many bruises she had acquired from her hand over
the years. All that was left was an ugly soul with a torturing character.
“It stings, doesn’t it?” her stepmother asked. “That,”
she curled her lip in distaste, “is exactly,” she paused again, “how you make
me feel.”
“After all this time… Since your precious father passed
on, may he rest in peace, I have fed you, given you clothes to wear, and let
you live in my house. And yet you still persist in betraying me.” She sent
another slap across Ella’s cheek. There would definitely be a bruise. What’s one more? Ella thought bitterly.
“We’ll deal with this later,” the woman said, turning.
“My family will be wanting breakfast soon.” As she left the room, she added,
“don’t neglect the animals. They need to be fed too.”
Ella bit back tears of
frustration and loneliness. She cracked the eggs and then put the frying pan over
the fire.
Sprinkling flour on the
table, she began to knead the biscuit dough.
***
“I heard that Prince Carl is back from studying abroad…”
The prissy voice paused and then the speaker sighed. “What a catch he is…”
Ella entered the room,
trays of food hoisted on her hips. She saw Abigail swooning over the prince and
rolled her eyes.
“You know… I quite fancy him,” the girl swished her blond
curls, and widened her blue eyes dreamily.
“Who doesn’t fancy him?” the other teenager replied.
“Oh, Sandra…” Abigail said in a pitying voice. “It’s too
bad that I got the blond hair. Yours
is brown… Plain… old… brown…” The older sister said in an antagonizing voice.
“I quite like my hair, thank you.” Sandra replied. “And I
could care less about where the hoity-toity royals spend our money on their education.”
“Oh, you’re just jealous.” Abigail said spitefully.
“Girls!” their mother said, raising her voice on a
warning tone. “Stop the petty arguing, please. It is giving me a headache.”
“Yes, mother.” They both mumbled.
Abigail, tiring of trying
to provoke her real sister about her looks, she turned to her
step-sister. “Ella, what on earth have you been doing?” Her eyes squinted in a
criticizing way. “You look like you’ve been sleeping in the fireplace.”
This got their mother’s
attention. As Ella walked around the table, serving everyone their breakfast,
she addressed her other daughters. “Ella snuck out again this morning. I don’t
know where she went, but she came back absolutely filthy.”
Sandra simply made a
‘tsk’-ing noise and shook her head. Abigail, never passing up the opportunity
to torture someone, dove head first into the drama.
“Foolish girl,” she patronized. “Well, I suppose I can’t
call you ‘Ella’ anymore… Since Ella means ‘Beauty’, and you are just about the
furthest thing from that – all that dirt on you and everything – I will need to
think up a new name.”
When Ella brought the
food around to serve Abigail, she received a stealthily targeted kick in the
shins. Again, for the third time that morning, tears formed in her eyes. Yet,
she went on, scooping eggs and sausage onto her selfish rival’s plate. “I think
‘Cinderella’ suits you much better… Yes,” she hissed. “Cinderella it is.”
Abigail’s eyes glinted with pleasure. She loved
tormenting Ella. It was one of her favorite things to do. And she got away with
abusing her every time. “How do you like your new name, Cinderella?” She asked, icicles forming in every word.
When Ella remained
silent, Abigail sent her foot against Ella’s shin again. This time, Ella’s
knees almost buckled. But she kept her composure. “Would you like anything else
to eat?” Was the only thing that came out of the girl. Frustrated, Abigail
stood.
“I asked you a question.” For the third time that
morning, her face was slapped. “I expect an answer.”
“Abigail,” her mother said in a bored voice, barely
raising her eyes from the book she was reading. “You are keeping the servant
from her duties.” Then she raised her eyes ½ an inch. “Can’t you talk to her
later?”
Abigail sank back into
the velvet-backed, cherry dining-chair. “I suppose,” she sighed. “Go do your
work, slave.” She taunted Ella. “And don’t forget, if you singe any of my
dresses, you will be whipped.”
Ella scurried out of the
room, her eyes lowered. Her heart ached from loneliness. Her body ached from
abuse. And she had chores to do.
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