AN: OK, I should continue with my Lost Girl story, but I had this idea.
Based on the German film "Spuk aus der Gruft", but hey, Rumpelstilskin is based on a German fairy tale, so it only fits.
I know, Belle is not like we normally know her, she is a Teenager, who didn't found her way yet. But it will change.
Background music: Zane Carney and Placebo
Comments are love!
„I will not decay in my grave,
if I killed the Shepard Jones."
And so he lies here 294 years later, a mummy, not decaying,
till the shadow court spoke it's verdict.
~RBRBRBRBRBR~
Being dragged to a godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere was exactly the thing, Belle French had planned for her last year in high school. Not.
Seriously, it was ridiculous.
She could not understand, why her dad not simply sold the old pub he got from his grandaunt. He had no idea about pubs, gastronomy or anything of that kind. Except his own experience as patron in their former local pub of course. But was that enough to run one?
She feared not!
But now here she was, in a small long forgotten village, which only highlight was a not rotting corpse. She knew, she was far to pessimistic these days. But being carried off to a village without a public library was hell.
How could people live like that? This heaven-send smell of paper, vanilla, home. The best feeling in the world; touching the pages of a book, the slight roughness under your fingertips paired with a world of imagination.
Now she was stuck in a small room of a bed and breakfast, because their new "home" was not ready for them to stay in yet. The place had been shut down for years after the heart attack of the great-grandaunt she never heard of. Her Dad had known her, a brief meeting decades ago. Enough to inherit the place and dragging his family away from the near bankrupt flower shop.
She could understand it a bit, starting new. After her mother's death nothing had been going well for her dad. The first months were filled with heavy drinking, her little brother Will and her being on their own most of the time. Nearly a year had past before he could function kind of normal again, but by than his shop had been on the down slide, late payments, forgotten deliveries, lost contracts. There were others, on time and more reliable.
So here she was, not in the mood to go over to the pub to clean with her brother, her dad, probably Granny, the owner of the Bed and Breakfast, and Ruby, her granddaughter.
They had welcomed her in the village, Granny happy to have another girl in Ruby's age around. 'The girl needs more decent friends, ' she remembered her saying. She had no clue, if she was a decent girl or friend. She did have a wild side.
A knock on the door stopped her thoughts and before she heard herself saying: "Yeah?"
The door opened to reveal the girl she just had thought about, Ruby in a red crop shirt and black jeans shorts.
"Hey Belle, you are still here? Please come down with me. Your brother is driving me nuts, together the cleaning is, well, not fun, but more endurable!"
Ruby was right, maybe it wasn't so bad and she could not really stay here like a princess, while the others cleaned what was part of her family's property, they were not maids.
"Alright, I'll come with you!"
They went over the street to clean a pub, she had no interest in. The view that presented itself, when she opened the door, let her stop for a moment, hoping her stomach would unclench. Her father laughing with Granny, a sparkle in his eyes, she had not seen since her mother left this realm. Were they flirting? It really looked like that!
Even called "Granny", she was not that old, Ruby had told her, that she had been the result of a Teenage pregnancy, which had gone terribly wrong, turning her into an orphan, never knowing her parents. So Granny had raised her, being her only family. Her own father had been alone all those years, too, he should find some happiness, but...
But it would mean, they would be stuck here.
"Ah look, who honoured us with their presence, Princess Belle!"
Her little brother Will stuck his tongue out, while she rushed over to him. Debating, if he earned to be jabbed or not. She was no princess, she was not.
"Don't call me that!"
The dirty rag he had used to clean a chair would look good in his face, wouldn't it? But that was maybe a bit too much, so she just glared at his smug face.
"Idiot!"
"Belle, don't call your brother that! No name calling or you can help Ruby this evening with the cleaning of the crypt!"
Belle just stared at her father, was he for real? She had to take a deep breath, a really deep breath, still she couldn't help herself from whispering, "He was always your favourite!"
The look he gave her told her enough, he had heard her; crypt cleaning it was!
~RBRBRBRBRBR~
"Tell me about the boys in the city? They have to be so much more interesting than the ones here. I mean, if it would not be for the tourists, I would get no action at all. The local ones are so dull!"
Great, she wanted to think about her own misery spending time in a dusty crypt instead of in her room reading a dusty tome. But dusty tomes were interesting, here she had rotting and not rotting corpses, this certain smell of decay and death and just everything that was far from being an adventure. Beside Ruby's babble. Oh she liked the fierce dark haired girl just fine. But all she talked about were boys and party or the lack of both of them here in the village.
"Uhm, I never really went out, so I cannot really tell you about it."
"Ahh, that can't be true! Your dad told us, that you had a boyfriend back in the city, was he hot?"
Where was the next wall, her dad again. He talked about things he had no idea about. Every boy she had ever talked with, was a potential boyfriend. There had been Jefferson, one of her best friends she missed dearly. One of the few, who had not thought, that she was weird, but talked with her about books she had read or even went with her to big libraries to get her new ones.
"I had no boyfriend, really!"
And she didn't want one. She wanted to be left alone, with maybe a cat and books. That would be perfect. Maybe that would turn her into a weird cat lady one day, but she did not care about that. Knowledge, that was something she was thirsty for.
"Oh come on! Don't be like that! You are a beautiful girl, you have a tongue on you. Tell me!"
Belle glared at Ruby, why could she not stop? Cleaning the dirt of decades, centuries even, was bad enough, but interrogation 2.0 was making it worse. Taking a deep breath, something she had to do a lot since arriving 2 days ago, she let the rag, she had been using, fall into the bucket with a splash.
"I don't care about how 'beautiful' I am or the boys that might be interested in me. I just don't want to be here, here with stupid, old village mummies!"
She hit the glass of the casket hard to make her point, she had enough!
"Hey don't insult our Rumpelstiltskin! He is the only reason I get laid!"
That took the biscuit, this stupid mummy was the only reason this village was even on a map and was therefore the reason, why she was stuck here. She hit the glass again.
"Stupid, old village mummy!"
"You won't say that again!" Ruby stared at her as if she was really shocked by her behaviour.
"Oh I'll say it again and again!" she would never back out of a challenge. This one was just too easy.
"OK, I dare you, say it again, at Midnight, all alone, I know where Leroy is hiding the key to the crypt!"
Oh that was a deal, she would do it, just to spite Ruby. She could do it. That was nothing, there were not such things like ghosts or monsters. That was just over active imagination. Sure she had more than enough imagination, but she knew the difference, the difference of things being made up and reality.
"Deal!"
Belle grabbed Ruby's hand to shake it, but the taller girl stopped her hand with a glint in her eyes.
"If you chicken out, you will help with an alibi for Granny, when I have my next date!"
That was somehow something she expected of the other girl, she was not one bit surprised, but what should she demand herself? Winning alone could be nice, proving she was brave enough to face what to local village girls wouldn't dare to do.
"You will babysit my brother for at least 3 nights so I can have time on my own!"
Free time, reading time, most treasured time she had. Others could date, she could widen her horizon much more profound.
Ruby began to shake her hand again. "Deal."
~RBRBRBRBRBR~
Everyone was asleep, but them. At least it felt like it, when Ruby and Belle walked over the graveyard towards the crypt. In a moment it would be midnight and long shadows caused by the full moon of the graves did create an eerie atmosphere. But Belle was brave. She could not be easily spooked.
She turned around while Ruby got the key from the hidden place to open the door. Leroy was the crypt keeper, during the day he would tell the tourists all about the mummy and his story. How he had been a baron, baron Rumpelstiltskin, who demanded the first night of his Maid Milah before she married the local Sheppard Killian Jones. Jones had not agreed to this common practise back than, so the baron had killed the Sheppard. At least that was what everyone was thinking. He had claimed to be innocent, uttering the sentence, she had read above the casket on the wall, when she had cleaned here earlier.
„I will not decay in my grave,
if I killed the Shepard Jones."
Not long after he was found dead and never decayed indeed. He just dried out, became a mummy for the world to see. The coward who was not man enough to tell the truth, but well, he got what he deserved.
"Got the key!"
Yeah, Ruby had the key indeed in her hands, smiling widely. A moment later she opened the door with a lour screech. Those doors needed some oil. She slowly stepped into the crypt she had left not too long ago. OK, it was a bit spooky, just a bit.
"Can't I say it just here?"
"No, over Rumpelstiltskin or you loose!"
Do the brave thing and bravery will follow, she could do this.
She stepped into the crypt, holding the torch she had taken with her to light the way. Ruby's watch peeped, Midnight. Yes, she could do it. Just a few steps and she would be there.
Belle didn't look down to the mummy, when she felt the glass under her fingertips, just staring at the painting of Rumpelstiltskin. He had been a handsome man. Not traditional handsome, but he had something, the a bit crooked smile, not a boy, a man for sure. But now he was only a...
"Stupid, old village..."
She looked down, her eyes widened. What the hell?
"...Ruby, Ruby come over!"
"What's wrong?"
Ruby asked before she saw it herself, the casked was empty! Where before the dried up mummy had lain down for his eternal rest, was...nothing.
"Oh gosh, no, they have stolen the Rumpelstiltskin! There was this guy...OK, let's tell the others!"
Ruby turned around towards the door rushing out to inform the village, Belle right behind her, but before she could reach the exit, the door suddenly slammed shut. Belle tried to open it, but it was like it had been locked. Ruby! Ruby playing a prank on her!
"I bet you will scream, when you see me."
A voice, a male voice. Who was here with her? She gripped the torch tighter being glad, she still had it. Slowly she turned around, the light following her movement along the walls. There, there was someone. Black laced up boots, leather trousers and a blue silk shirt. Wavy hair and warm brown eyes.
"Oh well, looks like I lost. May I introduce myself deary? Baron Rumpelstiltskin, it's a pleasure!"
He bowed and she felt like she would be fainting.
The mummy, the mummy was alive!