Glass Slippers [1st Draft]

6. A Visit

Chapter Six:

A Visit

Nine months later...

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It had been nine months since Clara moved into the attic. Nine months of fights, crying, screeching, and numerous pranks played on Linette by Harriet and Amelia. Nine months of her father turning the other way when Linette did something terrible or said something unkind to the maids. Nine months of Clara wishing that Linette would choke on her afternoon tea to save everyone else the trouble, but alas, that never happened.

Clara shivered and pulled the blanket around her shoulders tighter, her breath crystallizing in the air in tiny white clouds as she attempted to read. A lot of things had changed in nine months, and unfortunately, the weather had been one of them.

It was now in the midst of winter and the drafty attic was only marginally better than standing outside. Every day for the past two months Clara had woken up to find her hands and lips blue from the cold, but there was little to be done except cover herself in more blankets.

Suddenly, there was a loud pounding on the door to the attic and Clara jumped in her seat, knocking the book to the ground with a thud.

"Clara, get down here! Your father wishes to speak to you!" Linette shouted, her voice ringing through the attic like the sound of a bell, a very loud and annoying bell.

"Coming, stepmother!" Clara called in answer, doing her best not to grimace as she stood up. Her back ached, and she was pretty sure her feet were frozen, but all the same, she made her way down the attic stairs.

"Good lord, I'm hobbling like an old woman," she muttered to herself as she reached the foot of the stairs. She opened the door slowly, making sure to straighten her posture before she came into view of her stepmother. Linette was standing on the other side of the door, her arms crossed and facial expression severe.

"What are you waiting for? Hurry up! Your father doesn't have all day!" Linette said, pulling Clara into the warm and well-lit upstairs hallway. Clara was confused for a moment before she remembered. Her father was leaving on a trip to meet with a duke from a neighboring kingdom that morning. In fact, she had thought he had already left.

"I thought he was supposed to leave at seven?"

"He didn't," Linette snapped, sounding far too aggravated over the subject. Weren't wives supposed to be happy when their husbands were around? But then again, Linette had never been the cheeriest of wives.

"Why not?" Clara dared to ask, earning herself a glare from Linette. Heaven forbid she ask questions!

"Get your head out of the clouds and actually look at them! It's been snowing since last night, and the roads are impassable unless you want to ride a horse and freeze to death." Clara looked at Linette in surprise. Had it been snowing? That at least explained why the attic had colder than usual overnight.

"What are you waiting for? Go on!" Linette said, giving her a shove in the direction of Clara's father's study. Stumbling, Clara moved to the study door, doing her best to right herself before knocking.

"Come in."

"Father?"

"Oh good, Clara. Just who I needed to see." Clara's father bustled around the room throwing odds and ends into a box that sat on his desk. It looked like he wouldn't have been ready to leave at seven that morning anyway, if the quickly accumulating pile on his desk was any indication.