Dawn was breaking, the roosters were calling, and the hills were alive with the smell of—

"Horseshit," Ella Cinders grumbled, balancing her pitchfork against her hip while she scratched her nose on the bend of her wrist. The heavy pollen in the air made both her eyes and nose water, and as much as she hated saying goodbye to her summer vacation, at least school starting in three weeks would mark the beginning of the end of allergy season.

Leaning on the pitchfork, Ella tried to blink away the feeling of sandpaper beneath her eyelids to no avail. She sneezed. Once, twice. Tears surged past her swollen and itchy ducts, and Ella cursed Virginia and its stupid trees. Stupid trees, stupid flowers, stupid grasses, and stupid, stupid, stupid wind that carried the damn pollens all around the state.

Careful not to touch her face with the dirty gloves she wore, Ella used her left forearm to wipe her cheeks. Then, she used her right arm to dab at her brow. It wasn't even six-thirty in the morning; how was it already boiling outside? Ella blamed the humidity. In fact, she blamed it for a lot of things. She blamed it for making her hair frizz so badly that she had to constantly wear it in a long braid. She blamed it for the puddles of sweat that she felt pooling beneath her pits. Most of all, if sunrise didn't make the humidity feel like the heat of Hades, then maybe — just maybe — Ella would be able to sleep in past five for once in her teenage life.

But she doubted it.

Margot, Ella's stepmother, was up every day at ten-past-four, like a masochistic robot without an Off switch. Like many early risers, Margot took great pride in her status as a morning person, and she always made a point of telling Ella how long she'd been awake if her stepdaughter dared to hit the snooze button on her alarm. Sun, snow, rain—none of that mattered to Margot. In her mind, the morning was made for working, and living on a farm meant there was plenty of work to go around.

Plenty of work, but, unfortunately, only a few people to do it.

Margot claimed that she divided the chores between her daughters and Ella evenly, but no one believed that was true. If it were, then Ella wouldn't be the one mucking out the horses' stalls for the fifth day in a row while Madeline and Clara pretended to dust the house.

"I love you girls equally," Ella said, mimicking Margot's squeaky voice as she took hold of her pitchfork again and stabbed at a pile of hay. She snorted before giving the pitchfork a little shake, watching the straw fall away until only manure and bits of soiled bedding were left. She tossed them into the wheelbarrow at the mouth of the stall with one quick motion. "But I love Ella just a little bit less."

A rush of sadness washed over Ella, her thoughts involuntarily drifting to a memory of her father's smiling face. From the moment she came into the world, she had always been a daddy's girl. She'd heard countless stories about what she'd been like as a baby, crying incessantly until her dad wrapped his arms around her. Within seconds, she'd be fast asleep, a feat that her poor mother hadn't been able to achieve after several hours of trying.

And, when her mom passed away shortly after Ella turned four, the grief Ella shared with her dad made their bond grow even stronger. They were inseparable, a perfect duo. It was them against the world and Ella wouldn't have changed that for anything. Eventually, though, her dad had grown lonely. He'd wanted to come home and be greeted by a woman rather than his little girl, though he promised that she'd always have the biggest piece of his heart. As a seven-year-old, it was hard for Ella to understand why her daddy needed more, and she'd secretly been thrilled when he came home from dates and told her that he wouldn't be seeing Janice, or Cindy, or Sam, or Trudy — or whoever — again.

Well, she'd been thrilled until the night she heard muffled cries coming from his bedroom. Just shy of nine, Ella had finally understood her dad's pain as she stared at him through the gap between his door and its frame. She wanted to run to him and hug him, but instead she'd slipped back to her room and stared up at the darkened ceiling. More than anything, Ella wanted her dad to be happy, so from that night on, she searched the sky for shooting stars and made the same wish whenever she spotted one: let her daddy meet someone special.

After a little less than six months of wishing, Margot came into their lives with her own two daughters in tow. Ella's dad was happier than he'd been in years, so Ella told herself that she was, too. She told herself that every day, even though Margot rarely acknowledged her when they were in the same room, and despite the fact that Madeline and Clara constantly broke her things. Ella bit her tongue when her dad asked her for permission to propose to Margot, and she never stopped biting it in the years that followed their marriage.

Even as a kid, Ella had understood the strain her father felt after adding three people to their household. It wasn't long after the wedding that Margot began fighting with Ella's dad over money. Madeline would ask for this, Clara wanted that, Margot needed something else. Ella tried to get by with what she had, but every now and then, she'd put something on the family's never-ending list of requests. Her dad had started working more to give them everything they wanted, often missing dinner and wiling away the hours at the office on the weekend. It hadn't been unusual for her father to leave the house at dawn and return after midnight, and Ella once heard him tell a friend that he always kept a change of clothes in his office, just in case he fell asleep at his desk.

Ella had watched her dad's golden curls slowly thin, then fall out in clumps until only wispy patches remained. He'd put on weight and lost it again before gaining even more. Over time the wrinkles beneath his eyes became a permanent addition to his face, a reminder of what he'd sacrificed to provide for the rest of them.

Edmund Cinders had worked himself to death, everyone knew that, and once he had, Margot had taken his life insurance and run. She'd also sold their house in D.C., for a "small fortune" as she put it, and moved them to the tiny town that she'd grown up in as a girl. Instead of cars honking and smog, there was fresh air and silence. Constant silence. Ella hated it. She missed life in the District, though she'd forgotten much of what the city was like in the years since she'd left.

Sometimes Ella wondered if it was her fault. If she'd told her dad the truth when he asked her how she felt about Margot, would he still be... Would he be alive?

Sweating and cursing as her lean arms began to tire, Ella pushed the thoughts of her father from her mind, and instead tried to focus on the songs playing over the barn's ancient boombox. The sound was scratchy and the radio signal occasionally cut in and out, but Ella had never liked wearing headphones while she was alone in the barn. There was something about it that made her feel vulnerable—almost like a character in a horror movie, just waiting for the villain to sneak up from behind. Although her town hadn't seen a murder in twenty years, Ella told herself that her paranoia was justified. After all, she knew that if she were really in a slasher flick, her blonde hair guaranteed that she'd never make it to the second act, let alone the ending credits.

As a jingle for Rod's Ford Dealership came to an end, the radio announcer's voice crooned: "You're listening to F-A-R-Y Radio, providing Central Virginia with the hottest music and the latest news."

Ella nodded her head in time with the pop songs on the morning DJ's playlist, only stopping when she needed to shake loose strands of hair away from her eyes. Occasionally she sang aloud, though she stopped abruptly whenever she heard a rustling in the distance. The idea of someone walking in on her as she belted out a lyric made her shudder, her cheeks reddening at the thought. She wasn't embarrassed of her voice — and she had no reason to be — but the moment people heard her sing, they had a tendency to treat her like a wind-up doll, asking that she perform something else in her melodic soprano.

But she could never sing that second song.

It was only good that she had never dreamed of being on a stage, because for whatever reason,"Sing something for me," was the one phrase that made Ella's vocal chords stiffen until even whispering became a strain. Rather than explain that to a potential audience, Ella was careful not to let anyone hear her in the first place. She preferred pretending that she had no talent instead of letting people down.

As Ella began pushing the squeaky wheelbarrow towards the barn's final stall, something that the radio host said caught her attention. She turned to face the stereo so quickly that her braid whipped her in the face.

"New York Fashion Week begins next Thursday, and we're giving one lucky winner VIP access to all of the events, along with a complimentary stay at the luxurious Gramercy Park Hotel." Ella gasped, and the host continued, "We're looking for the caller who can answer this question: which famous designer popularized the concept of the little black dress? Phone lines open in sixty seconds, so if you know the answer, call us now at 1-8-7-7-F-A-R-Y..."

Heart racing, Ella tore off her gloves and dropped them on the ground while the host repeated the number for contestants to call. Ella's calloused fingers fumbled with the zipper on her vest-pocket, desperately trying to get her phone out in time. Her entire body trembled while she typed in the radio station's hotline number and then lifted the phone to her ear. There was a beat of silence, and the voice of reason inside Ella's brain told her not to get her hopes up. She knew that hundreds of people were probably trying to get through, but the busy signal that came over the receiver still felt like a knife twisting in her chest.

With a groan, Ella hung up but quickly hit redial. Even if it was foolish, she swore to herself that she wouldn't stop trying until a winner had been announced. She had to try. She had to. "Come on," she muttered when she heard the same bleating tone for the third time. "Please, please, please..."

It was true that Ella had never dreamed of being on-stage, but if there was anything in life that she wanted, it was to dress the people who were. Hell, she wanted to dress everyone—rich people, poor people, young, and old. The countless sketchbooks that filled her bedroom's shelves only captured a fraction of the designs that swirled around in her head. Margot had made it crystal clear that she wouldn't pay to send Ella to fashion school after she graduated in the spring, but if Ella could just get to New York, if she could just show someone her ideas, then maybe...

Ella took a deep breath as she pressed the Call button again. She closed her eyes, murmured a prayer, and nearly dropped the phone when she heard the first ring. Don't scream if you get through, she told herself. Be cool. Don't scream.

After what felt like a century but really consisted of a few seconds, Ella heard a gentle click. "Thank you for calling F.A.R.Y. Radio," the operator who'd answered said. "Are you able to hold?"

Despite her best efforts to hold it back, Ella opened her mouth and screamed, jumping up and down as if she'd already won. "What?" she heard the operator say. "Hello? Are you there?"

"Yes," Ella said breathlessly, her free hand fluttering to her pounding chest. "Hi, I'm here. Sorry."

"Can you hold?" the operator asked again, the question betraying a hint of annoyance.

"Yes, of course I—"

"Thank you."

The operator's voice disappeared with another click, and Ella was momentarily surprised when she heard the opening of the same smooth jazz song that every American company seemed to use as hold music. For some reason, she'd expected F-A-R-Y to use something different, something catchier.

Unable to stand still, Ella balanced on tiptoe and hopped in circles around the barn. After years of daydreaming, this was it. She'd go to New York Fashion Week, socialize with the rich and famous, and in her spare time, she'd meet with the admissions teams at all of the best design schools in Manhattan. It would be great, this was her shot, this was—

"Right now we have Ryan from Culpeper on the line," the host said, his words coming through the boombox's speakers in slow motion.

"No!" Ella cried, drowning out Ryan-from-Culpeper's response.

"For a VIP trip to Fashion Week, who is the fashion icon who made the little black dress famous?"

Ella couldn't breathe. The dark walls of the barn spun around her. She couldn't believe it. She'd gotten so close, and now her dream vacation was slipping away. Not just her dream vacation — her best shot of getting out of Pepper Falls. She no longer wanted to scream — she wanted to cry.

"Uh," Ryan-from-Culpeper said, "was it Yves Saint Laurent?"

"Oh, my God." Air rushed back to Ella's lungs. "Yes!"

Another click. "Hello?" came the operator's voice.

"Yes!"

"Can you confirm that you are over eighteen?"

"What?"

"To participate in the contest, you must be over eighteen—"

Ella blurted her response before logic could stop her, "I'm eighteen."

"Name and city?"

"Ell..." She cleared her throat, understanding what her lie meant. She racked her brain as she tried to think of someone whose ID she could borrow when she claimed the prize, someone over eighteen and who looked like her. "Jacqui," she said, using her best friend's name. Everyone always said they looked like sisters; this would be the perfect opportunity to see if they really did. "My name's Jacqui and I'm from Pepper Falls."

A steady tone came over the line, and then she heard the radio announcer say, "Jacqui from Pepper Falls, you are on the air."

"Hello?" Ella said, afraid to believe her ears.

"Hi, Jacqui. Thanks for calling in. What are you up to this morning?"

"Mucking out horse stalls," Ella replied, cringing once when she realized what she'd said. Was there anything less attractive than admitting that she was literally shoveling crap?

"Well, it sounds like you really are from Pepper Falls." The host laughed and Ella's face burned with embarrassment from the jab.

Great, she thought. It was bad enough that she lived in the sticks, but now everyone listening to the segment would think she was just another hillbilly farmer. She'd bet her life that at least one listener was imagining her without any front teeth. She ran her tongue along her incisors, testing them to make sure they were still firmly rooted to her gums.

"So, Jacqui, as I'm sure you know," the host continued, "I am looking for the answer to the following question. I'll repeat it again: Which fashion designer made the little black dress every woman's must-have clothing item?"

"Coco Chanel," she answered so quickly that the two words came out as one. There was a pause, and Ella felt her confidence waver. She was right, she knew she was right. She'd watched a documentary on Coco's life just the other day. She had to be right... Didn't she?

"Jacqui," the host said slowly, "you have won a trip to New York Fashion Week and a one-week stay at the Gramercy Park Hotel. Congratulations!"

And with those few words, Ella no longer cared that her boots were covered in layers of impenetrable filth, or the fact that people were likely scratching their heads that someone from Podunk had won. She was going to New York! Pumping her free hand in the air, Ella didn't try to suppress the joyful cheers that passed her lips. For the first time in a long time, Ella allowed herself to imagine the rest of her dreams finally coming true.

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A/N: Sorry for the rough editing, but thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! I think the story is around 5,000 words right now — halfway there! Votes, comments, and shares are always appreciated. Your feedback means a lot. ❤️