Redoing my old story, I Dreamed a Dream of a Castle on a Cloud. At first, I was going to give it the same title but decided against it. This is a redo, and it should be different. I almost called it Une Fille Miserable and La Petite Miserable but realized how cheesy they both were. I almost called this simply Castle on a Cloud but somebody already has a story about young Cosette and the Thenardiers with that title. So I called it this, The Lark in her Castle.
Please enjoy! Kisses, Maria. That's what she said!
Chapter One: Building the Castle
January 15, 1819
It had been six months since the little girl had moved in with the innkeepers. Her mother had left her here, in Montfermeil with said innkeepers for reasons the child did not understand. At only three years of age, the child saw it as her mother not loving her.
Her mother had made a mistake to leave her with those innkeepers. Since her arrival, the young girl had become the abused slave of the Thenardiers.
She was small for her age, simply scrawny from months of malnourishment. Her blond hair hung, limp and pallid around her bony shoulders. Her tiny face was always streaked in soot, and her back was marred with angry welts from her many beatings. The girl went about in nothing but an old piece of black rag that was hardly a dress, and a threadbare green bonnet. Even now, in the bitter cold snow of January, the poor child had no shawl or shoes to protect her from the frigid air.
She was called Cosette.
Her mistress and master were the Thenardiers, and every day, they bestowed the pitiful creature with arduous tasks. If she didn't work quickly enough, Cosette was beaten and refused dinner, as well as the right to sleep inside. And when she ate, it was only a bit of stale bread and cheese with water. Sometimes she was allowed the luxury of some rotten fruits of vegetables. Old meat.
Every day, she rose at six in the morning and scrubbed the floors and tables, sweeped, and dusted. She washed all the laundry and dishes, polished the silver, beat the rugs, swept the chimney, made the beds, did any shopping she was asked to do, carried impossibly heavy loads, and mucked the stables.
And this was only the beginning of her work.
If she wasn't working quickly enough, her mistress would whack her once or twice.
Three years old, and already Cosette was miserable beyond belief. Une petite miserable, that's what she was. A little miserable one.
The townsfolk called her the Lark, but why? No one knew. It might have been for her plain appearance. It wasn't for her voice, that was for certain. While the little girl had a beautiful, sweet, clear crooning of a voice, nobody ever heard her sing.
Today, on the fifteenth of January 1819, Cosette was busy scrubbing the floors of the inn, the Sergeant at Waterloo. It was just past noon, and she had been working nonstop since six in the morning.
A flurry of footsteps sounded, and Cosette tensed.
"Still scrubbing, Cosette?" snarled her mistress.
Without daring to look up or slow down for a moment, Cosette whispered, "Yes, Madame. I'm sorry. But I've already done all the sweeping and laundry. And I've made the beds."
Her mistress's fat, meaty fists wrapped around Cosette's blond hair and yanked her roughly up. "You idle slut. You useless little thing. Well, get on with your work! After this I want you to beat the rugs."
The hands that gripped Cosette's hair loosened, and the tiny child lost her balance as she tumbled forwards with a cry. The Madame's foot met her ribs hard. "I told you, Miss Good-for-Nothing, get a move on!"
Cosette scrubbed the inn floors with a vigor as Madame left. But once her mistress's footsteps faded away, the child lifted her skirts to inspect the damage done to her ribs. Already, an ugly black bruise was forming on the girl's ribs. She touched them hesitantly before finishing with her scrubbing.
Cosette cried under her breath as she worked. It was a while until she was done, but although she was sore and tired, Cosette stood, put away her cloth, and ran upstairs to fetch the rug in Eponine and Azelma's bedroom.
As she gathered up the pretty rug, however, those same terrible footsteps sounded.
"Cosette!"
Cosette spun and stumbled back into the foot of Azelma's bed. She didn't dare speak.
"Cosette, are you going to beat the rugs?" came the snarl from her mistress.
Again, the three year old didn't dare reply, but she managed a tremulous nod.
Madame strode over and promptly grabbed Cosette by her thin little wrist. "No, you little rat, not now. You're to fetch some bread from the baker's. Here, take this fifteen-sou piece and buy everything you can with it. Now!" she snapped, letting go of Cosette's wrist and flinging her forwards.
Cosette took the fifteen-sou piece and ran down the stairs. She whipped open the door and darted out into the snow.
The winter of early 1819 was especially bitter. It was a miracle the girl didn't die for the cold, but she trekked on, coin in hand, feet bare and numb. The baker's was not far from the Sergeant at Waterloo, lucky for her.
Cosette kept her head bowed, thinking of her mother. Already, the poor girl was losing the memories of the only love she knew in her life. What had her mother done to make her feel so very content? She could not remember.
She remembered the little room they had, the bed they shared. She remembered resting against her mother's shoulder and falling to sleep as Mother sang to her. But oddly enough, she remembered nothing else. Nothing else but a faded face.
Trembling, she raised her head. And she saw it. A flash on golden hair. The hem of a pretty white dress. The day Mother left her, she'd worn a dress like that. And a woman walking down the street. A women with golden hair and in a lovely white gown!
Mother.
"Mother!" cried Cosette. She gathered her worn skirts and sprinted to the woman, throwing thin arms around her waist. "Mother!"
A gentle hand on her shoulder pushed her away. Cosette fell backwards in the snow and looked up. "Mother?"
Now she saw she was wrong. It was not her Mother. Not at all. The woman leaned over her and smiled. "I'm sorry, love. You mistook me for someone else." Another smile and she was gone.
Cosette sat there, hugging her knees. She began to murmur to herself, "Mother, Mother, white dress...Mother, white dress...pretty lady..."
"When I return, we will have a castle all to ourselves," Mother whispered in Cosette's ear.
"A castle, Mother?" asked a six-month-younger Cosette.
"A castle." Mother confirmed. "I must go now, but my love, I will return soon..."
"Castle," Cosette repeated. "Castle." She traced the snow with her numb, reddened fingers. "Castle, castle, castle..."
She looked up at the surprisingly clear sky. There was only one cloud there, and the more Cosette looked at it, the more it looked like a castle. Her castle. Hers and Mother's.
Cosette began to envision her castle, what it was like inside. The floors were always sparkling and clean, and there were rooms anr rooms simply filled with pretty toys. She was surprised to see other children there, other children like her. So happy, playing together in the clouds. So very happy.
And a lady all in white, a pretty, pretty lady in a white dress. Cosette sat on her knee, and the woman rocked her and sang her lullabies. Pretty, pretty lady...
As Cosette stood to get a better view, she lost her mother. In just the blink of an eye, she hadn't any Mother. It was, to the three-year-old, as if she never had one. She didn't need her mother. Her mother left her. Her pretty lady in white protected her.
Coin in hand, Cosette walked to the bakery thinking of her pretty castle and lady. She had a place. She dreamed of playing with the toys and the children. Her castle!
She bought the bread and carried it back to the inn. Although she was carrying many heavy loaves, she did not feel the weight of them in her castle.
Cosette managed to open the door and set the loaves down, singing happily. She picked up her broom and began to dance with it, singing and singing of her castle.
A meaty fist took hold of her broom. It fell with a clatter to the stone floor. The castle disappeared. Cosette shrank back at the sight of her mistress, eyes welling with tears.
"I'm sorry, Madame."
Her apology was no match for the hand that struck her hard across the face and made the tiny girl fall backwards.
"You useless thing!" came the angry cry. "Slacking like that! Go and beat those rugs as I told you before I beat you!"
Like a shot, Cosette was running up the stairs to the inn and taking the rugs of all the bedrooms. She beat them all, before she saw Madame again.
"Are you done?"
Cosette only nodded.
"Well, then, you can get to polishin' the silver, then! Move, Miss Good-for-Nothing, move your arse!"
In tears, the girl ran down the stairs again and began to polish. But she felt a little bit lighter now. She had a home, a true home.
And her home was a castle.
She knew she would be there again in her sleep tonight.
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