Blood & Cinders- Choose your Own Adventure Story

Chapter 7

"Get up!"

A loud thwack jolted Isabelle awake, wide-eyed and disoriented. Her head swiveled, catching first the tattered straw end of a broom inches from her legs, before Madame Gion's white face and feathered tresses loomed over the girl's bed, lips pursed in displeasure. It was a glare Isabelle was all too familiar with. Her stepmother's scowl flashed across her mind. It seemed she was becoming accustomed to these rude awakenings.

"Are you deaf, girl? The bell's ringing," Madame Gion scolded.

Isabelle blinked several times, trying to clear out her senses. Indeed, the sound of a bell echoed down the hallways.

"To the hall with you." Madame Gion shooed her out of bed, pushing at her legs with the prickly broom.

Isabelle glanced around the room as she made for the door. Rosie was nowhere to be found. Hopefully, she was hiding. She was, after all, a smart mouse.

"Child, where is your uniform?" the headmistress barked, grabbing the red fabric from the washbasin. Isabelle turned in time to see clothes thrown at her. She fumbled her hands out too late, watching them flop into a crumpled mess on the floor. "Change into them this instant!"

"Ah, y-yes, Madame." Isabelle wasted no time taking off her dirty dress, shaking out the crumpled red fabric before slipping on the dressing and buttoning it all the way to her neck. She did not have time to think of being bashful under the black-eyed woman's impatient gaze. The wool dress itched.

"Away with you, child." The owl-like woman gave her a smack on the back as soon as she'd finished.

Isabelle scampered out the door, hurriedly tying the accompanying apron around her waist as she went. The clamor of footsteps echoed down the hall, and Isabelle ran towards it, coming across a sea of girls in matching red garb, marching in two rows. Isabelle followed the herd, turning right with them, until she came to a large room with cathedral ceilings and rows of tables. The girls took their plates of food and sat themselves upon long benches, chattering in hushed tones to one another as they ate their meals. Isabelles eyes scanned the room; apart from Madame Gion, who marched up and down the rows of women like a guard dog, everyone, including the chef, was entirely human.

From another door at the back, a flock of girls in dark blue dresses in a similar cut streamed in, also taking their seats at the far end of the room. They parted in neat rows, like red sands against a sea of blue.

Candles lined every table, pillar and wall of the mess hall, illuminating them all in a soft yellow glow.

There was a queue near the entrance of the room, where several women in blue handed out soup from large pots and bread from heaping bowls. A muscular man loomed among them, his thick frame towering over the girls as he ladled food into bowls. Dark brown wispy locks that curled to his neck and a short charcoal beard gave him a hard edge, more suited for a warrior than a chef.

It had been quite some time since she'd had a proper meal. She fell into line, eagerly awaiting her turn. When it arrived, the fierce-looking man glanced up at her from his pot. Instead of cold indifference, warm hazel eyes sparkled at her as he slopped warm brownish liquid into her bowl. They wrinkled at the corners of his leathery face, as soft as butter they soothed the knots in her chest.

"You're new here, ain't ya?" the cook asked, handing her the bowl with a lopsided smile that softened the sharpness of his foreign timbre.

Isabelle nodded, surprised.

"I knew it! I never forget a face." He wiped his hands on his apron before offering one to her. "John."

"Isabelle T—" she cleared her throat. "Isabelle."