Moonlight and Ashes by Sophie Masson

‘No. You can’t mean that I should go to the Prince’s ball!’
    The finch chirruped loudly, and its meaning was so clear it might as well have spoken human words. I looked up at it and whispered, ‘But it’s not possible . . . It can’t be . . . I can’t go . . .’
    And yet in my mind I knew that I must.

I can hardly describe how I got through the next few days. It was as though I had walked on air and hot coals at one and the same time. The house had been a hive of activity as my stepmother and stepsisters went through an endless parade of dresses and shoes and jewels. There were constant tantrums with angry tears and feet stamped and hair pulled as the girls fought over who would wear what while my father simply never poked his nose out of his study. Fortunately I only got to hear about those tantrums, for both my stepsisters and their mother had forgotten all about me in their excitement.
    It was bedlam downstairs, too. The girls’ maids had sniped at each other over which of their charges would catch the Prince’s eye. The footmen had sniggered about the harassed dressmakers and shoemakers who came in and out of the house like badly wound clockwork toys. The under-maids had been sighing over the social pages of magazines when Mrs Jager wasn’t looking, which wasn’toften, because in the days leading up to the ball there were fine dinners every night at our house for this bigwig and that. Count Otto came to one of them, which of course meant even more work for everyone, especially the kitchen staff which included me as the lowliest member.
    But none of it worried me; I was in the strangest state. Somehow, I would go to the Prince’s ball. For what reason, I had no idea. I’ve never been the sort of girl to moon over a picture of a handsome stranger, prince or no prince. I didn’t care if I never met him. I did of course fancy the idea of a pretty dress and dancing, and music and good food and the chance for just a few hours to be in the world where I should have been. Mother would have loved to plan this with me. We’d have pored over patterns, colours and styles together. But I was sure she hadn’t reached out from beyond the grave just to give me a night’s fancy. Something was going to happen at the Prince’s ball – something that would change my life.
    I’d hoped every night for a guiding vision but I did not dream at all in those nights before the Prince’s ball. And though I managed to sneak out a couple of times to the hazel tree, the finch was never there. No leaves fell and transformed, no whisper spoke in my mind, nothing happened to suggest the tree was anything other than, well, a tree. There was one comforting thing though – the tree had stopped growing, almost as if it had taken my plea to heart.
    But even the thought of the Mancers had ceased to scare me . . . at least for the moment.

    The great day came early for me. I had had to get up before dawn to iron a mountain of my stepsisters’ knickers, petticoats and camisoles. They had demanded a pile of freshly pressed underthings, more than any reasonable person would need for a twenty-four-hour period. But reason and my stepsisters are not friends, unless it is their own particular variety that owes nothing to clarity and everything to spite and self-centredness. Not that it mattered much to me today. As I pressed the warm iron over the delicate garments and sprayed them with a mixture of violet and lavender water, I dreamed of that ball. I dreamed all day through all my chores – through the harried shouting of Mrs Jager and the bad temper of the cooks, through a poor lunch of bread and cheese and an afternoon spent running last-minute errands to this ribbon shop and that perfumery, to fetch special headgear for the carriage horses and to place an order at the Angel. Grizelda was already planning ahead. I had been sent to