She didn't see it at first, when she got into the room to do some dusting. When she turned to the table to clean it up, though, she noticed that something – something red, and round, and shiny - was on it.
It was an apple, one of those big, deep-red ones. It was so very perfect that it didn't look like a real thing, and at first Belle thought it was some decorative item, one of those wax fruits or something like that. But when she got neared, it did definitely smell like an apple, and a juicy one.
There was a note stuck under it, a tiny square of thick, yellowish paper. Belle took it and read:
I AM A POISONED APPLE.
EAT ME.
The handwriting was sharp and clean. She smiled and picked the apple up. She turned it over in her hands admiring its flawless, blood-red skin, spotted with tiny lighter dots. It was as bright as glass: so smooth, so polished that she could almost mirror herself in it. She thoughtfully played with it for a while; eventually, she took a bite, with a dry, crisp sound. The apple flesh was white, mealy, sharp.
"What are you doing - dearie?", said a voice behind her.
She gave a start, turned around and saw Rumpelstiltskin entering the room, closing the door behind him with a careless snap of his fingers.
"Hey," said Belle, giving him a faltering smile. "You, uhm. You startled me."
"So sorry." He glanced at the bitten fruit in her hand and tilted his head to the left.
"Oh, come on." He said, in a mock exasperated tone, waving his hands in one of his peculiar, theatrical gestures. "Don't tell me you ate it."
Belle frowned in her distinctive childish way. "I'm – I'm sorry?"
"The apple, dearie." He smiled one of his slightly creepy smiles.
"Of course I did." She smiled again and turned to the table. She took the note and waved it in front of Rumpelstiltskin's eyes, half-jokingly pointing a finger to the words. "See? It says 'eat me'. So I did." She rocked back and forth on her feet, and the skirt of her dress fluttered gently.
"And you always do what you are told to do - do you, dearie?"
She giggled. "Well, uhm. No." She put her hands behind her back. "Not always, no."
"But this time you did." He folded his hands, his hair fell in front of his eyes like curtains.
"It says 'eat me'. I thought it was, you know..." She shrugged and smiled, her blue eyes shining. "Funny."
Rumpelstiltskin pressed his lips together in a mockingly reproachful expression.
"It says 'I'm a poisoned apple' before it. Why is that you trust a poisoned apple?"
She giggled again, but stopped when she saw the suddenly serious expression on his face.
"What's wrong?"
He walked slowly around her, gazing gravely at her, forcing her to turn around to look him it the face.
"Rumpelstiltzkin..."
He stopped and moved nearer, the severe expression still on his face.
"Rump..."
"You should be much more careful who you trust."
She started to look a bit puzzled. "No, hey - wait. It - it was a joke, right? I mean it was you, isn't it? It was you who left it here for me..."
He opened his eyes wide in a parody of surprise. "Oh!, and since when you trust me, then?"
He stared at her, and then he giggled, in his very own disquieting way.
"Always think before doing what a poisoned apple asks you to do." he said in his almost sing-songing voice, and then he picked the apple from her hand and he slowly bring it to his lips. "Or what I ask you to."
He took a bite, looking straight into her eyes.
"Dearie."