Free Ella: an Everland Ever After Tale by Caroline Lee

gain him… what? Acceptance. Because if nothing else, these two brief interactions with Ella—and the dreams he’d had in between—had taught him that he wanted more from life than what he had. Was ready for more from life. And gaining acceptance in Everland—showing them all that he was here and he wasn’t going away, no matter what they thought of him—was the way to go about that.
    And so, he ate the rest of the beef stew. And then, thanking Mr. Spratt with a smile, he collected his crutch and made his way towards the saloon. To make a place for himself in this community.
     
     

     
     
    Mabel’s dress was a monument to lacey gaudiness. All three pink flounces were lined in lace; there were thick lace borders at the wrists, neck, waist and shoulders; and thinner versions at absolutely every seam. It had required Ella to remove most of the stitches she’d already put in to add the lace, and the finished dress was… Well, she thought it was hideous, but Mabel was pleased.
    “Ella, I have to admit that sometimes you aren’t completely useless.” Her oldest stepsister was standing on an ottoman, admiring herself in the sewing room’s full-length mirror. Her twisting and turning was making it difficult for Ella to keep the hem she was pinning straight. If she could get this finished soon, maybe Mabel wouldn’t insist on adding lace to this part too.
    “You’re too kind,” she muttered around a mouthful of pins, rolling her eyes in the direction of her sister’s shoes. “Now hold still.”
    Mabel tsked. “What do you think, Sibyl? Is there enough lace?”
    Ella peeked at the girl sitting at the vanity and flipping through a magazine Papa had sent away for. Her pretty little lips curled up in distaste, but she lifted the pages so that her sister wouldn’t see, and made a vague noise of agreement.
    Hiding her own smile, Ella hurried through the pinning. In her opinion, this youngest Miller sister had the best taste in clothes, and wore them well. She was also the least-awful of Ella’s stepsisters. Ella liked to think that it was because she’d helped raise the girl, and Sibyl had looked to her as a child as often as she’d looked to Mabel and Eunice. Of course, as she grew, and realized how much her family expected from Ella, she began to demand attention too.
    But at least she only went along with her sisters; didn’t think of the truly diabolical punishments as Mabel did. Why, on more than one occasion, Mabel waited until midnight to sneak downstairs and kick soot all over the parlor rug, in revenge for one of Ella’s irritated retorts. Of course, she never admitted it, but her smug attitude—and the mess all along the hem of her nightgown, which she expected Ella to clean along with the parlor—was proof enough.
    And Mabel found fault with almost everything that Ella did, no matter how well Ella did it. Just like this dress for the picnic; no matter that Ella had followed Mabel’s pattern exactly, her older sister still found a way to make her re-do it. And Papa always, always sided with his daughters.
    “The July Fourth celebration is only eight days away.” Mabel was still preening when Ella looked up from where she squatted at her sister’s feet. “I’m sure that this will be the year that I receive the proposal from the man of my dreams.”
    She’d said that last year, too, as Ella recalled. And the year before. But this year, Ella was in whole-hearted agreement with her oldest stepsister; Mabel had to get married soon. “Who is that?”
    “Why, Roy DeVille, Jr. of course.” The way she sighed his name caused one of Ella’s brows to inch up on its own, and she exchanged a surprised glance with Sibyl, who’d dropped the magazine to listen.
    “I didn’t know that you…” How to put it delicately?” “Liked him.”
    Mabel put both her hands on her hips, still studying herself. “What you don’t know could fill a rain barrel. His father owns the largest ranch in the area; it