Read Online Promising Hope by Emily Ann Ward - Free Book Online

Sierra!” Myra said, waving her hand for
Sierra to join her. “The water’s going to get cold.”
    With a sigh, Sierra got to her feet. “All right,
don’t worry.”
    “I still find it odd you wear pants,” Jade said,
following Sierra into the washroom.
    “Try working in the circus for two years,” Sierra
told her. She looked at all three women gathered: Myra, Jade, and
another Avialie woman named Oma. “What, I can’t wash my hair
myself?”
    “If you use the soaps on your hands, the dye won’t
set,” Myra said. “You’ve already got sand all over your feet, we
need to save the dye on your hands. By tomorrow morning, it’ll be
very dark and rich.”
    Sierra looked down at her hands, at the designs that
had fascinated her all day. “Okay, fine.”
    “Sit here and lean back,” Myra said, motioning to a
chair.
    “I want to hear more about your adventures!” Jade
called from the bedroom.
    As Sierra sat down, she heard the dragging of a chair
from the bedroom into the washroom. Myra began running cups of warm
water over Sierra’s hair, dampening her thick locks with water.
    “Tell me about Grace and Dar,” Jade said.
    “What do you want to know?” Sierra asked.
    “I don’t know, anything! You have no idea how boring
Northern Jolen can be for a teenage girl.”
    “Maybe I should rinse your feet,” Oma suggested.
    “I can do that myself,” Sierra objected.
    “No, I’ll do it while Myra cleans your hair,” Oma
said. She lifted Sierra’s feet into a bucket of lukewarm water.
“Just enough to get the sand off, not enough to inhibit the
dye.”
    It was an odd feeling to have women working at her
head and feet. Sierra hadn’t had a maidservant since she moved out
of Dar’s house nearly five years ago.
    “Wait, no, I want to know about the circus,” Jade
said. “Why were you in the circus? What did you do?”
    “I played a girl raised by tigers,” Sierra said as
Myra began to massage her scalp. Sierra closed her eyes, her
shoulders relaxing.
    Jade gasped. “From Childress’ Traveling Circus?”
    “Yes. Did you ever see it?”
    “I did! I can’t believe it! You were the wild
child?”
    Sierra chuckled. “Yes, I was. For a year. I just
helped around the circus for, I don’t know, four months or so
before than.”
    “You were there a year and a half? But why?”
    “I was running from the Protectors. They’d killed my
brother-in-law, and I thought they killed Evan.”
    “Oh, my goodness, yes. I knew that had happened to
you, but I didn’t know you were with the circus for so long!”
    “I used Cosa magic. The chaos of the circus was a
good place to blend in.” A good place to forget the past. She
thought of Matt and their fleeting relationship and almost missed
him for a moment.
    “And that whole time you thought your husband was
dead…” Jade said. “That must have been hard.”
    “Yes, it was.” Sierra felt a rush of gladness that he
was alive, quickly followed by a wave of anger at his desire to
leave.
    Jade asked more questions about Sierra’s
‘adventures’, as she called them. Sierra was careful about what to
say. She didn’t doubt Jade would tell everyone about her personal
conversation with the Avialies’ savior, Lady Sierra, recounting
every detail to greedy ears. Maybe Sierra was too cynical.
    Oma rinsed sand off of Sierra’s leg and feet, then
lotioned them. Myra washed and conditioned her hair, then dried it
with towels slowly and deliberately. She brushed through it, nearly
putting Sierra to sleep. When Sierra finally stood up to change,
her hair was merely damp. Sierra wished she could dress herself,
but the corset wouldn’t allow it.
    Jade kept telling Myra to pull it tighter to
accentuate Sierra’s curves. “Maybe you should wear the red one,”
Jade said. “It would look amazing on you.”
    “I’m fine with the green one,” Sierra said with short
breaths. “Please, Myra, don’t go any tighter. I haven’t worn a
corset in years. Do you want me to