Charmed

chapter two

   Isabella's fingers expertly laced the corset as her auburn-haired stepsister stared at herself in the looking glass.

   "Isabella," Anastasia said, arching a perfect eyebrow, "you can't possibly want to go to the ball. You don't even have something to wear."

   "I will figure something out," Isabella replied, curtly, tying the corset with a firm bow.

   Anastasia nodded once in cynical satisfaction, so Isabella turned to tend to the raven-haired girl sitting awkwardly on the stool, looking at herself worriedly in the looking glass.

   Danielle was the best of her two stepsisters, apparently too plain for her stepmother to drill the vainess into her, like she had done with Anastasia.

   She was still dragged around to  parties and such, not quite keeping up with the fast-paced rate at which her mother and stepsister flirted and played with men.

   Isabella started gently pulling the brush through the poor girl's limp curls, wondering why a girl of eleven was already forced to find a suitable man to marry.

   When Isabella herself had been eleven, all her father expected her to do was to greet him when he had returned from his travels.

   And of course Isabella would. She loved nothing more than to run into her father's strong arms, to which he would pick her up and whirl her around, whispering how he missed her, how he wished he'd never have to leave his little girl.

   But now things were different.

   There was no Papa, no gifts, no servants, and nobody to tell Isabella how they loved her.

   Some days, when her stepmother had been unusually cruel, Isabella wished she had died that same day her father did. And then she would be with him, dancing around the clouds, and her mother would be there too, smiling and laughing with those big blue eyes of hers.

   "Isabella."

   Danielle's soft voice brought Isabella back to reality, back to where she was just a servant, an object to be used.

   "I don't want to go to ball," Danielle whispered, tugging at Isabella's faded rags of a dress.

   The servant-girl knelt down so she was face to face with her little stepsister.

  "Whyever not?" she asked, using the same soft tone.

   "I'm going to mess it up," Danielle said, in a worried tone, "and Mother will be so, so angry."

    Isabella forced a small smile. "Your mother is hardly ever angry with you."

   "But then she'll be angry with you."

   Isabella said nothing, as it was the truth. Her stepmother would be angry with her, and instead of taking it out on her daughters, who could do no wrong, she would channel it all on Isabella.

   The whippings would come, and the cuts, hurting more than what was imaginable. And Isabella would want nothing more than for her stepmother to stop, to which her stepmother delighted in. Her desperate begs would only make her stepmother hurt her more.

   She hadn't realised that Danielle was aware of this, and that she cared about her safety. But a little girl shouldn't be worrying about her.

   "Everything is going to work out," Isabella reassured, stroking the smaller girl's back. No girl as young as she was should be put under so much pressure.

   But then no girl at the age of eleven should be expected to learn how to fend for herself with no one to teach her. No girl should have been expected to bear the weight of grief that Isabella had. To gain that responsibility in the span of a day.

   "Danielle," Isabella whispered, bending so her words would only reach her step sister's ears, and no one else's. "Just enjoy yourself. Ignore what your mother said. Have fun."

   "Why can't you come?" Danielle asked, her soft brown eyes meeting Isabella's deep blue ones.

   "I need to do my jobs," the servant girl replied, her voice coming out too sharp, too hard for the sensitive girl she was tending to.

  But Danielle did not seem to mind. "I wish you would come. Then everything would be so much better."

   Isabella stood up, brushing down her skirt.

   "I will try my very best," she promised, "and we'll see if I can persuade your mother to let me go to the ball."

   Danielle's face brightened up, so Isabella went back to brushing the little girl's hair.

***

   "Madam," Isabella addressed, curtsying at her stepmother's voluminous skirts, hardly daring to look the dangerous women in the eyes.

   "Isabella," the woman said, wrinkling her nose as if the girl was a dirty stain on her newly washed laundry.

   Isabella rose. "Madam, I was wondering–"

   "If you could go to the ball?"

   Isabella dared not to look up at her stepmother's sneering face.

   "Of course you can go to the ball, sweetheart," her stepmother replied, making Isabella frown in confusion.

   "I–I can?" she whispered, knowing to dampen her excitement. Her stepmother would only take advantage of it if she knew.

   Isabella heard her stepmother's skirts swish as she circled her, like a shark circling its prey.

   "Yes, of course, my dear. But you must do your chores first. And find a suitable dress."

   That was simple enough, was  it not?

   Isabella curtsied again. "Thank you for your generosity, ma'am."

***
   Isabella pulled out an old wooden box from under her bed, blowing off the dust from the lid. This was one of the few things of her mother's that Isabella had managed to salvage, to keep her stepmother from selling.

   Her fingers carefully pulled out a delicately sewn dress, the light making the pink fabric seem to reflect off little rainbows.

   She had been saving this for a special occasion, as she knew that the moment her stepmother saw it, it would mysteriously disappear, never to be seen in her hands again.

   Isabella held it up, measuring it against herself. It was still a little too big for her, but she could fix it up.

   Smiling for the first time in what felt like an eternity, the servant girl twirled around in the dusty attic, holding the limp pink dress to herself.

   She had a dress, and now she only had her chores to finish.

   Isabella Cyprus was going to the ball.