Cinders and Fangs

by J. Conrad

  CINDERS

  and

  FANGS

  ____________________________________________

  J. CONRAD

  A Retelling of Cinderella

  The Joining, Book 1

  Copyright © 2018 J. Conrad.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. While references might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  When I was six years old, my mother was kidnapped, and no one believed my account of what happened. I saw everything, but afterwards when I told my father he wouldn’t listen to me—even though he had been there too.

  The day I lost her started out like an ordinary day. My parents and I were in the carriage on the road to town. When we were miles from home, we came upon a strange, young woman. Father frowned and pulled the horses to a halt before her. Oddly pale with black hair, she told us her name was Seren. She warned us the way wasn’t safe and asked that we turn around and head home with all haste. As Father began to question her, riders appeared from the woods. Seren took a glance at them and bolted. Barefoot beneath her plain gown, her feet pattered across the dirt as she sprinted off into the forest on the opposite side.

  Branches snapped and cracked as the darkly-clothed horsemen burst through the trees. They galloped straight toward us. A blinding flash of light made our horses squeal and toss their heads, and I shielded my eyes with my arm. I couldn’t see how they did it, but I knew the glare came from the men. Whatever it was, it knocked Mother unconscious beside me. She slumped over against the side wall. Gripping her dress with my little fingers, I clung on for dear life as our horses reared and sidled. They nearly tipped our rig. The black-hooded men closed in around us, blocking our escape on all sides. One rider seized Father and yanked him from the carriage, while two others on foot dragged him away. Another man started to take Mother. I grabbed her leg and braced myself, but the man hauled her from the seat and me along with her. Losing my grip, I tumbled onto the dusty ground and started to cry.

  That’s when the wolf appeared—the largest wolf I had ever seen. It walked upright like a human and yet was an animal in every way. Its fur was coal black, its fangs were long and sharp, and its growl was fierce, guttural and terrifying. The wolf’s eyes were blazing orange like coals smoldering from insatiable rage.

  Rigid with fear, I watched from the dirt as the beast lifted my mother and cradled her limp, unconscious body. The wolf held her away from our assailants in its massive arms. Such a fearsome creature, with its claws and powerful muscles, yet it seemed to be trying to help. But as so many men struck it with weapons, the creature was forced to set Mother down to defend itself. The wolf carefully lay her near a tree trunk.

  With flaming arrows jutting out of its hide, the beast’s snarl shook the foundations of the forest. For an instant everything, and everyone, went still. We froze in awe, our eyes locked on the wolf. Then the world was in motion again, the beast leaping forth as it reached out and seized the first man by the neck. It flung him against a tree with a crack, and once he fell, he moved no more. It grabbed the next man and the next, hurling them like rag dolls or tearing them apart.

  My legs were weak and wobbly as I stumbled forward. The wolf and the men were blocking my view. I couldn’t see Mother now. I ran around the skirmish to the tree where the wolf had lain her, but she wasn’t there. Glancing up, I saw two men carrying her. Hearing me call out, another man ran at me, but the massive beast thrust itself between us. It grabbed the man by the wrist and lifted him off the ground. With a savage growl, the wolf ripped an arm from his body and tossed it aside. The blood was so red and vivid. The man’s cries were so sharp and agonized, but the wolf silenced them.

  My vision dimmed, and I passed out near the edge of the forest. When I awoke, things were much quieter. I heard faint bird calls and footsteps. The ground seemed to be moving below me, yet I couldn’t feel my feet. I looked up to see the blue sky, and beneath that, the elongated muzzle of the giant, black wolf. I could smell its singed fur and feel the limp in its gait. It was holding me in its arms and I screamed, squirming and pushing against its wide, muscular chest.

  “There now,” the wolf said. Its voice was coarse but vaguely female. “I’m taking you somewhere safe.” I stared up at her in disbelief. Not only did this formidable creature want to help me, just as she had tried to help my mother, but she could speak like a human.

  The wolf took me to the sanctuary of her den within a thicket, where she set me down and departed. Father was already inside the shadowy hollow. He lay on the ground, injured and unresponsive. Five wolf pups whimpered softly nearby. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, the strange, black-haired woman named Seren returned. She was hurt too, and I wondered if she had escaped from the bad men as well. My mother was still missing.

  “Seren,” I said, a sob catching in my throat. “Did the men take her? Has the great wolf gone to look for her?”

  She paused, picking up one of the wolf pups before she replied. The other four puppies yipped and pawed at her as she sat cross-legged on the leaf-covered floor. “What’s your name, little one?”

  I swallowed and wiped a tear from my cheek. I tried to steady my wavering voice as I answered, “I’m Elin. My father’s name is Talies, and my mother is Cara. Do you think we can find her?”

  “Elin,” Seren repeated softly. “I’m sorry, dear girl. I—the wolf did her best, but some of the men managed to escape with your mother. There is no more we can do. But, the wolf did free your father, and he will heal. We’ll care for him together.”

  I nodded, knowing I should be thankful and glad of this. And I was, because I loved Father too. But I just couldn’t accept that Mother was gone forever, or dead, and that there was nothing anyone could do about it. I curled up in the den with the pups and cried until that evening when I fell asleep.

  Over the course of a week, Seren brought us food and nursed Father back to health. At times when she wasn’t around, an ordinary, black wolf came and nursed her young. It was odd that just like the pale woman and the giant wolf, this common animal had identical injuries. I tried to ask Seren about this, but she only said that she, a human, was a friend to all the wolves and they fought together.

  As Father and I hid away in the lair, a battle raged outside the thicket. At different hours of day and night, I heard wolves snarl and men scream. Sometimes the sounds were close by and other times they were more distant. Once, I peeked out and saw others like the great, black wolf who rescued Father and me, fighting against more of those bad men. Frightened and grieving, I held one of the warm puppies in my arms for comfort. He was the largest, a light brown male. The little wolf said
his name was Trystan—I know because he told me, although I can’t explain how it’s possible. He thought it into my mind, and I understood. Sitting beside Father with Trystan on my lap, we were able to communicate as the battle slowly died down. The human cries diminished until only the growls of beasts remained. It brought me hope. For whatever reason, the giant wolves were on our side.

  When Father awoke and was well enough to travel, Seren arranged a carriage for us. She helped him walk back to the road where the driver was waiting.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’ve been so kind to us.” I reached out to clutch Seren’s hand as she helped boost me up onto the seat.

  She smiled and pressed her palm gently against my cheek. “It was the least I could do. Have a safe journey, and perhaps one day we’ll meet again.” And as our carriage started to pull away in the bright daylight, I couldn’t help but notice that Seren’s eyes were blazing orange—exactly like the giant wolf’s.

  * * * * *

  It wasn’t until the next morning at home when Father swore that we had been robbed by highwaymen, and that Mother had hit her head and was swept away by the river.

  “No Father, that’s not what happened at all. We were attacked, but the wolf tried to save her,” I told him. “Don’t you remember? The huge, black wolf who stood upright on its hind legs—the one who fought off so many of those bad men. But when they shot it full of flaming arrows, it had to set Mother down, and the men took her after all.”

  “Elin, your mother was killed when the horses spooked. She was thrown from the carriage near the river and the current carried her away. That blow to her head was fatal. She was already dead when she hit the water. There was nothing I could do,” Father replied, looking down on me with sympathetic, careworn eyes.

  “But we weren’t near the river, we were on the road in the woods,” I said.

  “Yes, dear, but that road takes us across it. You’ve ridden to town with me many times, and you know we always take a bridge into Lyntref.”

  I stared at the table. There was a bridge across the river, but we were not anywhere near that when this happened. Continuing to plead with him in desperation, I brought up other things in hopes of jarring his memory. I told him about the blinding flash of light. I mentioned how the men had dragged him from the wagon, beating him with clubs and tying him up. He didn’t seem to recall that either. I wrung my hands and leaned forward, imploring him to embrace reason as tears leaked out of my wide, red eyes.

  “If only you’d try and remember, Father. Now that you’re healed, we should go back and try to follow the trail, see where the men have taken her,” I said, my voice breaking like an ill-tuned lyre. “She wasn’t dead, only asleep. I know it—I saw...”

  Father folded his hands on the table. He pushed down the corners of his mouth when he smiled, a piteous gesture. “Elin, you were frightened. The feral dog that ran near our wagon was no wolf. It scared the horses, making it easier for the men to attack us. I know you’re grieving for your mother, as am I. But we mustn’t let our imaginations run wild, even though we may feel it helps to explain why she was taken from us. We both saw the highwaymen who waylaid and robbed us. And your mother’s death was a tragic accident. Nothing more.”

  A tragic accident? As if forgetting how we lost my mother wasn’t enough, he also seemed to have no problem pronouncing her dead when we hadn’t found her body. For days I tried to jar Father’s memory, or at least get him to believe what I had been telling him. The “funeral” came and went, and none of my arguments were successful. After crying myself to sleep one night, I tackled the subject again in the morning, this time with a plan.

  As Father sat across from me at breakfast, spooning oatmeal into his mouth, I said, “I know you don’t remember what happened, but I understand now. I realized you must have forgotten because you were badly hurt. But it’s all right, you see, because all I need to do is show you where I last saw Mother. We can go there together. The bad men might have left tracks—we can follow them. And I can call for Seren. You must remember her—the woman who cared for us inside the wolf’s den. She’ll probably help us again. She may even know where the bad men have taken Mother.”

  Father frowned, shaking his head. His words came out hard and unyielding. “Elin, no. I understand that you’re grieving. You’re young, and this must be very hard for you. But that’s enough.”

  I felt my facing turning red. “Father, we should at least look for her. We must try. Where is she?”

  He dropped his spoon into the bowl and glared at me. “Elin, no, I said. That is enough!”

  My feeble flame of hope flickered and died. Still clutching my fork, I started bawling. Warm, sticky tears rolled down my face. Between shudders I managed, “But we need to go find her! Where is she?”

  Father took the napkin from his lap and threw it on the table, almost like he was whipping the placemat with it. Looking away from me, he called for my nanny. “Mari!”

  “Where is Mother? Where is she?” I screamed. The fork slipped out of my hand and thumped next to my plate. “Where—” I drew a breath through my loud crying. “—is she?!”

  “Mari!” Father demanded.

  The nanny seemed to materialize in the dining room doorway, poised there with her mouth partway open.

  “Take her,” Father said.

  Before she got her hands under my armpits to whisk me away, I gritted my teeth, scrunched my mouth into a sour pucker, and pushed my plate off the table. It hit the floor and broke in two, food flying in various directions. I hurled my fork at the far wall, barely missing my father’s head. I picked up my glass of milk with an unsteady hand which jerked to-and-fro from my wild weeping. Some of the liquid sloshed onto my arm as I tossed the glass to the side. The milk splashed across the hardwood floor and against the wall paper.

  “There now, Elin, come to Mari,” the nanny said, lifting me off the chair as I kicked my feet with all my strength.

  “Where is she?” I screamed, inhaling for another good wail. “Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?!”

  Father buried his face in his hands while Mari removed me from his sight.

  * * * * *

  That night, I awakened from a disturbing dream. Now the thought of seeking out my nanny seemed like a good idea, so I padded across the hallway in my bare feet. When I neared the stairs, I overheard her and Father speaking.

  Mari was saying, “Are you sure that’s necessary? I cannot imagine putting her away. The poor child. She’s having such a terrible time right now, but I’m sure she will come around.”

  Father sighed. “I just don’t know. She insists on that fantastical story of giant wolves and a wild woman. And you saw her at breakfast. That isn’t normal behavior.”

  “I know,” Mari said, her voice soft. “But please don’t put her away. I’ll do everything I can to help her through this. She will become herself again. You’ll see.”

  Put her away. I might have known what it meant, but here at our home, Blaenwood, on the other side of the vast forest, we are sheltered from much of the kingdom. My knowledge was limited to what my elders told me. Too upset with Father to ask outright, and too embarrassed of my tantrum to ask Mari, the next day I consulted one of the housekeepers.

  “Brenda, what does ‘put away’ mean?” I asked.

  “Well, that simply means to set something back in its proper place,” the kindly woman replied. She smiled down at me, little wrinkles springing up at the corners of her eyes.

  “Yes.” I pushed out my bottom lip. “But what if it’s a person?”

  Brenda blinked, pulling her head back slightly as she frowned. “What do you mean, Elin?”

  “What if someone was going to put a person away? What does it mean?” I asked.

  The housekeeper gasped. “Elin, who said that?”

  I furrowed my brow and shifted my feet, already frustrated that she hadn’t answered my question. “Father said it.”

  She stared at me for a few seconds, then
knelt in front of me, taking me gently by the shoulders. She glared into my eyes. “Now Elin, you listen to your old Brenda. No one is getting put away. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I didn’t understand at all, but maybe there were reasons why Father didn’t believe me, and Brenda wouldn’t answer a question. Or maybe life was just cruel. Not even the housekeeper was on my side.

  The years crept by after Mother’s disappearance, leaving an empty ache in my chest. The pain and betrayal receded to the back corners of my mind, crusting over like a half-healed wound. I couldn’t control what other people saw, or what they did about it. I could only promise myself that one day I would find out the true nature of my mother’s fate, even if I didn’t like the answer. And I would never again let someone betray me this way—brand me a delusional child for telling the truth. Never again.

  * * * * *

  Eleven years later, to a degree it seemed that history was about to repeat itself. I saw something coming that could ruin our lives and I didn’t know how to tell Father about it.

  I wanted to be happy that he was remarrying. I truly did. I wanted to share in the joy with him, to celebrate the fact that he had decided to live again—to really live. Gwyneth could never replace my birth mother, Cara, but having another woman to confide in wasn’t a bad thing. These ideas were all so wonderful. They shimmered in my thoughts like sunlight on butterflies’ wings, beckoning me to succumb to the warmth of a summer day. Too bad those ideas weren’t real.

  When I learned what Gwyneth was, I knew I had do something, but I felt powerless. So many things had happened during the last six months. So many inexplicable occurrences had muddied my thinking, compelling me to hold my tongue. I had no idea how to explain any of it to Father in a way he would understand. If he didn’t believe in events we experienced together, how could he possibly believe in what happened to me when I was alone?

  Father and I stood in the wide hallway of our three-century-old estate home. I had been born here seventeen years ago, and the walls, painted sage green, were still decorated much the same as they were during my earliest memories. Under our feet was the burgundy rug which Mother had woven herself, depicting deer and oak trees. At our side was the large mirror in a finely crafted, mahogany frame. Its twin was mounted on the opposite side of the rug. The overhead chandelier had been lit, the candlelight sparkling like jewels against the glass tear drops. It cast speckles of warm, golden light around us. This familiar atmosphere near our front door should have been comforting, but I chewed the inside of my cheek, feeling anything but at ease. Father seemed to be lingering here, stalling.