Character Analysis: From Cinders And Ashes

From Cinders & Ashes

Chapter One: Family

I never knew my mother. She died when I was an infant. My stepmother never missed an occasion to tell me that it was my fault that she died. Father never said as much, but he did not speak of her much either. I learned never to ask him regarding her.

"A child needs a mother," my father was often told, "and a man needs a wife." He seemed to have agreed, or evidently succumbed to those comments. He remarried with great haste when I was very little, perhaps four, five, or even six years of age. He hardly knew the woman whom he wedded. She was a widow, same as he, and more recently deprived of her spouse than he, with two young daughters who needed to be provided for.

I was my parents' only child.
Some tasks, such as cooking, I always felt rushed. Even so, the more time I took cleaning, the less extra chores they would be able tack on. Those extra tasks were, with few exceptions, especially cruel.

Chapter Three: Ashes

I learned many talents under the tyranny and abuse of my new family. I learned to cook, and their finickiness refined the skill to the point that I became capable of making meager meals taste as if fit for aristocracy. I was taught thoroughness in cleaning, as well as humility in the face of their debasing of my personhood. I also learned to sew, among other skills, as I oft found my clothes in need of mending or modification from wear and tear from daily use. It was necessary as my stepmother was loathed to acquire any garments for me to dress myself in.

I slept many nights at the base of our fireplace. The cinders and ashes of an extinguished fire served as my blanket. I did have my own room, a tiny bit of space that was once a storage room. More often than not, my labors left me too tired to retire to it. Since extinguishing the fire was my last chore each evening, that was where I usually fell
My stepmother had been grooming her daughters through the years for their presumably inevitable marriage. Not just any husband would suffice of course, as their mother adamantly insisted that they had to marry a man of means. They needed husbands who would lavish them in luxury, far from the squalor of where the presently resided, the very place that was the only home I had ever known.

When I realized that I could rid myself of this wretched lot of ungrateful women, I eagerly devoted myself to the task of matchmaking. I inquired of the milkman and messenger of any news regarding eligible bachelors every chance I could. I was careful not to tell the messenger that Drew was seeking a husband as I had already suffered from the mistake of recommending him for her to my stepmother. The woman told me that it was almost laughable that I would think I would have an inkling as to what a suitable match might be. Sadly, she was certainly