Rainbow Snippets: Clumsy little soot

_{^{Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.}}

Tracking Trouble will be taking a little break for the next few months as I share snippets from my upcoming novella, Someone Else’s Shoes. It’s a retelling of Cinderella set in the spellster universe.

This snippet continues on from last week, where Alla was rudely informed by her stepsister that she’d missed a spot in her cleaning…

Tamara narrowed her dark eyes. They gleamed in the midday light. Not as sharply as Alla’s stepmother, but with an echo of the same cruelness she reserved for those she considered beneath her. “Right here.” With a deft kick to the nearby bucket, Tamara upended the contents.
Cold, silty water splashed Alla and washed out onto the tiles.
Even knowing it was too late, Alla scrambled to her feet. The water had drenched her from top to bottom. Her hair was sodden. The skirts of her dress clung to her legs like seaweed. “What—?”
“Oh dear,” Tamara gasped, poorly concealing her smirk behind her fingers. “Just look at the mess you’ve made, Little Soot. How clumsy of you. One would think, what with your muddled background, that you would be at least reasonably graceful.”
Alla bit her tongue. Being elven—or even half—was not a guarantee of grace.

Alla will return next weekend with more of Someone Else’s Shoes. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.