As Martha had foretold, the girl woke the next morning. She sat up with a jolt, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. For a moment, she looked around the small room in mounting alarm, her breaths short, her hands clinging to the patchwork quilt.

  Martha, who had dozed off in a chair beside the bed, woke at the faint rustle. Years of watching over sleeping children had trained her to rise at the softest sound. She didn’t move closer or reach for the child. Instead, she spoke calmly, like one might to a lost cat turned feral.

  “Everything’s alright now. Don’t fret. I’m Martha, and this is our home.”

  The girl looked at her as if the words were foreign. Her mouth opened, but no sound came.

  “What is your name?” Martha asked gently.

  The girl hesitated, then only shrugged.

  “How old are you?” Martha asked.

  She shook her head. Her eyes filled with tears.

  Martha exhaled through her nose and tossed her tight black braid over her shoulder, silver strains catching the morning light. “Alright,” she said, standing up, “let’s take it one step at a time. Would you like some porridge?”

  The girl nodded mutely.

  By the time Clim bustled in from the yard, cheeks red from the chill, the girl was sitting at the kitchen table, legs swinging just above the floorboards, cradling a steaming bowl.

  “Well, now!” he beamed, pulling off his gloves. “Look at you! Awake and upright! I knew you had fight in you.”

  The girl looked up at him, wary.

  “Ah, don’t you worry about me,” he said, crouching a little so his eyes met hers. “Name’s Clim. I’m the one who found you in the pumpkin field. Gave Martha quite the scare.”

  He offered her a broad, slightly crooked smile. “Do you know where you came from, little one?”

  She shook her head again. A tear slid down her cheek.

  Clim’s smile faltered just a little, but he reached over and gently brushed the tear away with a weathered thumb.

  “That’s alright,” he said. “You’re here now, and that’s what’s important.”

  Martha came over, drying her hands on a towel. “She looks like a Minnie,” she said without fanfare.

  The girl blinked.

  Clim turned to his wife. “Minnie?”

  Martha nodded. “It’s a good name. Soft, sturdy. Suits her.”

  “Minnie, then,” Clim agreed. “If that’s alright with you?”

  The girl, Minnie now, nodded once, uncertain but willing.

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  The rest of breakfast passed in quiet rhythms. Clim kept trying to lighten the room, telling stories of pigs born backward and goats with lopsided horns. Minnie listened without responding much, her spoon moving mechanically through her bowl.

  Martha, meanwhile, watched with quiet intensity, noting every flicker of tension in the girl’s posture, the way she flinched when the fire cracked too loudly or how she looked out the window like the sky might swallow her.

  After breakfast, Martha went out with Clim, while Minnie was charged with clearing the dishes to the kitchen.

  “She’s overwhelmed,” Martha said as they were walking to the toolshed behind the cottage, keeping her voice low. “She doesn’t even know what scared her.”

  Clim frowned. “So what do we do?”

  “Nothing. We hug her, and feed her, and make sure she’s washing behind the ears. Time will do its thing.”

  Clim scratched his head. “You think she’ll get her memories back?”

  “No,” Martha said, in that voice that bore no second-guessing. “We will have to give her new ones.”

  She kissed his cheek and left, as he went to work with a contended smile.

  When she came back in, Martha handed Minnie a short-handled broom and a battered metal scoop.

  “The hearth needs cleaning every day,” she said, nodding toward the stove. “Best you start doing it. You’re just the right size for it.”

  Minnie knelt without complaint and peered into the sooty gap behind the iron grate. The cinders had piled up thick from the night fire, pale and powdery with black chunks underneath still clinging to heat. She reached in carefully, swept the ashes into a little pile, then used the scoop to lift them into the waiting bucket.

  Martha watched her a moment, as Minnie got covered in cinder head to toe, then gave a satisfied nod.

  “Look at you,” she said. “Just like Cinderella.”

  Minnie paused. “Who’s that?”

  Martha chuckled under her breath, returning to the vegetables she was cutting. “Cinderella is a girl from a story. Ask Clim,” she said. “He tells it better than I do.”

  Minnie nodded and went back to her task, her brow furrowed.

  Clim came home just before noon, smelling of sweat and sawdust. He kissed Martha on the cheek, washed his hands in the basin, and sat down heavily at the table where the pot of soup was already waiting.

  Minnie, who had been watching it all morning, ladled his bowl full and slid it over.

  “Thank you, poppet,” he said. Then he looked at her more closely. “That a smudge on your nose?”

  “I was cleaning the cinder,” she said, straightening her back a little. “Like Cinderella.”

  Clim raised an eyebrow. “Oh-ho. Were you now?”

  Minnie leaned toward him, eyes bright. “Who’s Cinderella?”

  Clim leaned back and took a long slurp of soup. “Well now,” he said. “That’s an old story.”

  He told the timeless tale of the girl in cinders with practiced flair, weaving in his own commentary about stepmothers and princes. Minnie listened, enraptured, her spoon forgotten in her hand.

  When he finished, she sat quietly for a moment.

  Then she looked up and asked, very seriously, “Is Martha my stepmother?”

  Martha snorted before she could stop herself. “Heavens, no.”

  “Do I have any wicked stepsisters?”

  Clim shook his head with a chuckle, but Martha answered first. “You’ve got three sisters and two brothers,” she said. “And none of them’s wicked.”

  She paused, considering. “Well. Maybe Maggie.”

  “Maggie?” Minnie asked, perking up.

  “She moved to Westroad after she got married,” Martha said. “So you’re safe. For now.”

  Clim grinned and nudged Minnie’s bowl. “Eat up, Cinder-Girl. Even fairy tale princesses need food to grow strong.”

  Minnie smiled and picked up her spoon, thoughts of sisters and stepsisters tumbling quietly through her mind.

  After lunch, Clim wiped his mouth, stretched with a groan, and headed back to the shed. Martha set Minnie to peeling turnips, and together they slipped into the slow, companionable rhythm of preparing dinner. The kitchen filled with the scent of frying onions and steeping herbs.

  Then came the clatter of boots, Cas and Maisie burst in from the pastures, ruddy-faced and loud with energy, arguing over whose turn it was to fetch firewood. Then Molly arrived with Bob and the little ones: the toddler barrelled through the room shrieking with delight, while the baby blinked sleepily from the crook of her father’s arm.

  Coats were hung, chairs dragged into place, and the warmth of the hearth was matched by the rising tide of voices and laughter.

  Minnie was swept into it without ceremony, handed a baby to hold, offered bites from the spoon, drawn into talk as if she'd always been there. Bit by bit, the tightness in her shoulders eased. Her face softened. The small smiles that had been shy all morning became real.