Cinderella Dressed in Ashes

16 A Bird of Fire

When Shew woke up, the sky was filled with ashes, and the sound of flickering fire surrounded her. Trees were on fire. Plants were on fire. And even the air was saturated with it.

Ashes in the sky again, dancing a song of evil.

Shew checked her head, the wound wasn’t serious but she was bleeding. She stood up slowly, her eyes blurry, making everything look hazy as if the world was melting slowly around her.

A couple of breaths later, she understood that her vision was just fine. The world was really melting around her. Lava-like molten crawled down toward her from the top of the hills. It glided slowly over the grass, burning it as it crossed over, taking irregular shapes.

Shew raised her head, looking for the source of the lava creature, and saw it was the witch’s house. It was melting like ice cream in the sun. The Candy House was on fire. Cerené sat with her hands wrapped around her knees, both tucked against her chest.

She was humming those scary rhymes again. London Bridge is falling down and Ashes, Ashes and Burn, Burn, Burn.

Cerené’s hair was the color of fire, almost burning, shaped like a bird’s wings, fluttering above her head as ashes fell down from the sky.

“Look for the Phoenix,” Splash’s words still echoed in Shew’s ears, and she thought she was looking at it.