Cinderella Spell - Laurie Lee Page 0,14

and wiped uselessly at their dirt-encrusted fingers, yet none of them seemed alarmed. Her foot tapped the floor as she peered up the stairs. Ignoring the urge to go up, she slammed the door and waited.

It wasn’t until spring, when a cat attacked a bat and left it for dead on the front stoop, that she made up her mind. The creature was close to death and she wanted to add it to others. Bat wings thrashed against the palms of her hands. Ella looked from the dying creature to the dark stairs leading into the attic. She shouldn’t. She didn’t want to. But as warm blood dripped through her fingers and splattered on the faded carpet beneath her feet, she knew she had to go. She lifted her foot to the first riser leading upstairs.

Once she reached the top, she crept to her usual corner. Afternoon sunlight offered a soft look upon the carcasses hanging on a p9ost. She blew to move particles of dust that had settled on the dried features. She pulled the nail from her pocket, set the bat in place, and drove the nail through its cooling body into the wood. The bony finger on one of its wings twitched before drooping.

Ella shifted her eyes to the right. She could feel herself being watched. The year it took to return hadn’t quelled her fear, yet something greater had grown, curiosity. She focused her attention on a box fallen over in the corner. She listened to the sounds of boards creaking beneath her feet as she walked to the box. She looked down. Her bare feet were gray with dust. She wiggled her toes. A slight turn, and the gilded frame came into view. Warmth reached out to her, like a kind hand pressing against her cheek. She lifted her face.

It was her in the mirror, with awkward limbs of a thirteen-year-old sticking out from her short dress. As she watched, the surroundings of the attic softened, changing to a grand ballroom. Ella pulled at the sides of her plain gown. She changed. Her reflected image wore a rose gown with ruffled sleeves and pearl drops across the bodice, and the length of the gown and sleeves fit. She twirled. The reflected girl in the ballgown mimicked her movements. She stilled, and as she watched, the girl in the mirror morphed into a beautiful young woman. Her cheek bones were high and well defined, as were her breasts. A shadowy cleavage hinted at her full figure. Ella twirled again, and the woman followed.

A silver necklace with a key bob appeared around the neck of her future self. Excitement stirred, and Ella touched the silver surface. She needed the key. It was somehow tied to her destiny.

Something thumped on the floor near her foot. She looked down at a torn book with burnt edges. When she looked back, all reflection in the mirror had ceased, leaving a fog to fill the frame. Ella knelt to retrieve the book, keeping her eyes on the strange mirror. She would not wait a year before returning to explore further.

The book belonged to a man named Doorin. Though she did not recognize the name, when she spoke his name aloud, the hairs on her arms tingled. His was a powerful name. Why had someone tried to burn his book, and how had a mirror been able to save it? She hid the ancient text in a cupboard in her sitting room, but it became as a living thing to her, calling, desiring her to take it from its secret place.

When she did, she gripped it tight with both hands and her blood would pound. Her feet felt as though they wanted to dance. Grandmother looked long and hard, but Ella kept knowledge of the book to herself.

A few weeks later, when she knew she would have the day to herself, Ella raced through the attic to stand breathless before the mirror. “Who is Doorin?” There was no voice to answer, but the image in the mirror changed.

A man moved about in a large room. He stepped over something. Ella’s mouth opened as she realized the body of a younger man, a teen perhaps, lay on the floor. His wasn’t the only one. Another body he pushed out of the way. Others entered the room. He directed, waving hands furiously, to move the large object from the center table.

She stared at Doorin. His golden-brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. A