The Bessie origin story! Hoping to top this out at 6-8 chapters, told between Alex and Erik. First up is Alex, who has long since been my favorite character to write in the stories. Please let me know what you think!

CH ONE

"Father?"

I stood in the doorway and counted to three. Then to six. There was no response. I shifted my weight and tapped my fingernails against the door frame. Breath held, I waited to be acknowledged.

It was the middle of the morning, but his bedroom dark aside from the meager lamplight in the center of his desk. Heavy curtains blocked the bright sunlight, which made it feel late at night. My father held out his index finger and continued to sit hunched over. His uneaten breakfast remained on the service cart behind him, yet another meal missed. His lips moved as he read the newspaper, but he did not look up or further acknowledge me.

Again I counted to three. Waiting. I considered tapping again, but I knew what my father would say.

"Not now, Alexandre."

"Five minutes."

"Did I not say not now?"

"Have you no ears? Five minutes, I said."

Seconds turned into a full minute. I know because I silently counted to sixty before I turned and walked down the stairs, defeated once more. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as I paused in the middle of the staircase and considered running back up to father's dark room, but my aunt rounded the corner.

"Alex," she said softly.

I jumped off the stairs, right from the very middle-five stairs up, and landed perfectly beside her. Before she could reprimand me, I flung my arms around her waist and buried my face against her chest. She smelled like cookies and warm bread and felt soft and secure.

"You know your father is very busy," she said.

"I know," I replied.

"Why don't you walk to the market with me? I could use strong muscles to help carry all the food you will undoubtedly eat."

"Yes!" I exclaimed, mostly because I knew she would allow me to have at least one treat.

000

Aunt Meg always told me I was the first person she ever laid eyes on and loved immediately. She had reaffirmed this statement repeatedly, for as long as I could recall, and I would tell her that I loved her from the moment I was old enough to know who she was.

No matter how many times we had this same exchange, I would smile and she would laugh. But in all honesty, I had been a baby when we first met, I told her, and babies don't have memories. At least not the types of memories adults have.

I did, however, remember small moments in our days such as my grandmere writing to her brother and the way she would pause, smile to herself, and continue with her letter. I remembered my Aunt Meg allowing me to sample whatever she made for supper ahead of everyone else because I was a growing boy and she feared I would become anemic or starve to death. I remembered sitting on my father's bed while he played new compositions. Even when I was very small, I knew my father was an outstanding musician and brilliant composer. My grandmere made certain to tell me consistently that my father was the greatest musical genius she had ever known.

My father still composed and played daily, but he locked his bedroom door for hours and my grandmere and aunt told me not to bother him. He is busy, they would tell me. He will come down soon, they would say.

But he did not come out. Not for hours sometimes or for the entire day. Late at night I would hear the floor creak from my bedroom and my father's footsteps as he walked down the stairs to the kitchen where Aunt Meg left his supper. As much as I wanted to tiptoe into the hall and sneak into the kitchen for a mere moment of my father's time, I knew he would tell me to return to bed.

I would lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, listening to the clink of silverware against his plate. Alone in the dark, I attempted to recall the exact moment when my father no longer welcomed me into his room. For as long as I could recall, he allowed me to rifle through his papers and open every desk drawer, but the drawers were all now locked, and if I moved a single sheet of paper, he ordered me to stop at once.

Instead of a desk full of compositions, there were newspaper clippings spread out. I had no idea what my father searched for in the articles and Grandmere would not tell me. Aunt Meg said she did not know, but I could tell that she did. Despite years spent as a performer, she was not a decent actress, at least for an audience of one. Her eyes would become wide, her body would turn more rigid, and her voice higher whenever she attempted to make up an excuse or keep the truth from me because I was too young to know about grown up matters.

"Why is Father staying in his room?" I asked Aunt Meg as we walked toward the market.

It had been three months now since he had transformed from attentive to preoccupied. He had always been on the thin side, but frequently missed meals made him noticeably gaunt. The warm side of his face was sunken in from his cheeks to eye socket. Even Madame Julia, who lived behind us, commented to Aunt Meg how my father was almost skeletal in appearance. She was worried for him, and I was as well.

"Your father has many compositions that need to be finished in a timely matter," Meg answered.

"But why?"

"Because that is what is expected of him by gentleman that commission his work. It is how he makes a living and provides for you."

"But when I walk into his room, he is not composing."

Meg's eyes grew wide. "Of course he is," she answered incredulously.

"He is reading newspapers," I said. "I've seen it."

Meg's posture changed. She pulled her shoulders back and pursed her lips. "Your father has always read newspapers," she answered. "That is nothing new."

"But-"

"Why don't we stop at the bakery before we head to the market?" she suggested, her tone noticeably higher.

At the age of seven, I was certainly not a fool and realized my opportunity for not only one treat, but two.

"May I buy a tart for Father?"

Meg smiled and ran her fingers through my hair. "Of course you may. He will like that very much, especially coming from you."

We sat outside the bakery at round tables with metal chairs where Aunt Meg verbally went over her list and asked me to remind her of all the food she needed to purchase for the week.

"You will remind me, won't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I groaned.

The list was never very long, however, Aunt Meg made a distinct point of arguing over the most inconsequential details from the fish not looking nearly as big as the ones from the previous week to the price of butter going up, even if the difference was so small Father would never have noticed the price difference or bothered to acknowledge it on the receipts. Aunt Meg, however, would exhaust the grocer into compensating her in whatever way she found most satisfactory whether it was extra apples, topping off a bag of flour, or a bottle of wine.

The task of accompanying my aunt to market was daunting, and so, as she bartered prices, wagged her finger, and stomped her feet, I wandered about and browsed the same selection of toys or watched a puppet show on the north side of the market to pass the time.

We went each week together while Grandmere met with old friends from the giant house she had lived in years ago. They would talk about dance and music for hours, and Grandmere, who had once been in charge of the ballet, was invited to other giant houses. There she would yell at the dancers until they stopped dancing like cows-at least that is what Aunt Meg said happened. As for my father, he remained at home. He did not venture out of the house during the day. At night, he either took a walk or visited Madame Julia because she fed him. Aunt Meg said Father stays inside all day because he was far too busy with composing, but I knew there were other reasons. Or, at least one reason in particular. He did not want anyone to see his White Face.

"Stay where I can see you," Aunt Meg told me as we neared the bustling market alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. There was laughter, cursing, street urchins begging, men yelling orders, the smell of baked goods and the malodorous scent of animal waste and perspiration. It was my favorite and least favorite day of the week.

Aunt Meg gave me the same instructions every week. Do not accept anything from strangers, do not run about like a wild animal, and stay where she could see me.

I walked around, weaving in between people bustling with baskets and bags slung over their shoulders. There were boys a few years older than me, red-faced as they carried larger bags of grains and barrels containing all sorts of things to waiting wagons being loaded across the street.

Aunt Meg was in a very heated discussion with the gentleman who sold her bacon and ham. I could very clearly hear her use words such as swindling and utterly ridiculous and knew we would be at the market for quite some time.

I ventured a little further than usual and saw a man in a rust colored shirt seated on a small barrel with a large, open box. Within the box, six puppies peeked out, tumbling over one another for a bit of food he dangled over their heads.

They were not like puppies I had ever seen before, what with their unusually long ears. They looked similar to beagles, but much longer and with shorter legs. I stepped over and leaned forward, watching them as they wrestled one another and attempted to climb out of their confines.

"May I hold one?" I asked the gentleman.

The man nodded. He was older, with one eye larger than the other, and gray stubble on his chin. He reached a thin hand down into the box, scooped up a puppy, and put the squirming creature into my arms.

The puppy licked my face and neck, and I turned away, laughing to myself as he continued to lick my ear.

"He is magnificent!"

"She," the man corrected. "Ten francs if you wish to take her home."

My heart very nearly stopped beating. "I can take her home?" I exclaimed.

"They are for sale."

A puppy for sale! Truly, for a boy seven years of age, there could have been no sweeter words spoken. I glanced back to see if Aunt Meg had overheard the conversation, but she was far too busy gesturing at a bag of flour. For that I was grateful as she would have dashed my hopes of returning home with a pet.

I turned to face the gentleman and attempted to appear as nonchalant as possible, but I was about to burst with excitement. "Which is the best one?" I asked.

The man pointed into the box. I could not tell which one he suggested was the best, or what made it so, but I nodded.

"The one you're holding is the scrawny one. Destined for the river, that one. Not a single person is interested in that thing."

I was offended on the puppy's behalf and twisted, placing my hand over her ear as though to keep her from hearing such disparaging words. "She is magnificent," I said defensively.

The man shrugged.

"Does she like to swim?" I asked. In the back of my mind I envisioned my father teaching me to swim with my new puppy. We would spend hours paddling around, perhaps from dawn until dusk while on holiday. Father would not hide away in his room; he would proudly watch and say I was a natural at learning to swim.

The man grunted. "She better hope she learns to swim fast if she knows what's good for her."

Horrified by what the man insinuated, I held the puppy closer to my chest, protecting her from her doomed fate, if only for a moment. In my arms, she would know kindness and love.

"She is perfect," I said as the pup nuzzled my neck.

And she was, all of her wrinkles, long ear, short legs, and warm tongue against my face. She wriggled and squirmed and whined out of pure love for me, and in turn I held her tight and chuckled at her antics.

Again I looked back at Aunt Meg. She would, of course, tell me there was no chance of me taking home a puppy. She would say Father would turn us all out on the street for bringing a filthy creature into his home, but I knew my father had a soft spot for animals. I had seen him a time or two out for walks stop to pat a carriage horse waiting at the corner across from our home. I was supposed to be sound asleep, but sometimes I stayed awake and peered out the window simply to watch him round the corner while he hummed to himself.

My father had told me that when he was a boy, he had a dog for a brief time and a pet donkey as well, and that when he lived in the giant house with my grandmere, he fed apples to the carriage horses and brought milk to the barn cats. His features softened when he spoke of the horses at the giant house, and the cats that followed him around and demanded to be treated to a bowl of fresh milk.

Father would love a puppy, I told myself. Perhaps he would no longer find the need or desire to spend hours hunched over his desk reading the paper if he had a dog to keep him company. And of course, he would not care for a puppy on his own; he would ask me to help him and we would spend hours together once more.

My father would need me as he had in the past. He would want me to spend hours with him as I had once done. The door would no longer be locked and my father would not disappear inside of his room from sunrise until late in the evening because he would want to see both of us, me and our new puppy.

A puppy would make my father content once more. He had not been content for months now. His eyes were distant, his hands balled into fists, and his words for me few. Week after week, I knew that I lost him. I simply did not know why.

"What kind of puppies are they?" I asked.

"Bessie hounds," the man answered.

"Bessie hounds," I repeated. I had never heard of such a thing, but I was certain I could teach my Bessie hound to hunt fox and catch rabbits. She would learn tricks, like how to dance on her back legs and balance food on her nose.

And my father would tousle my hair, pat me on the back, and say, "Alexandre, you have selected a fine, fine hound, the pick of the litter." Then we would shake our heads and marvel at how our Bessie hound had nearly been tossed into a river to drown her for no other reason than she was the smallest in the litter.

"One moment," I said as I turned away.

The man made a sound that stopped me in my tracks. "Leave it here," he said.

Reluctantly I turned and deposited the puppy back into the box as a family of five approached and fawned over the litter.

"The little one is mine," I said to the man. He looked down his nose at me before he turned away.

I trotted across the cobblestones to Aunt Meg, who had finished giving one man a piece of her mind and laid into a woman who stood with her hands on her wide hips and brow arched.

"Aunt Meg!" I yelled as I tugged on her skirt.

"Alex, not know," she said without sparing me a glance.

"But this is important!"

More than important, I wanted to tell her. This was life and death, quite literally, for an innocent hound dog in a box across the market street destined to be tossed into the river.

Aunt Meg gave an exasperated sigh and turned to face me. "What is it?"

In the heat of arguing with anyone out to swindle her for one more franc, Aunt Meg was in no mood to agree to a puppy. I could practically see the words absolutely not about to roll from her tongue.

"May I have ten francs? I want to buy something for Father," I said. Before she could respond, I dropped my shoulders and jutted out my bottom lip. "Please."

"I do not have ten francs to spare-"

"Please, Aunt Meg."

"Alexandre, I said I do not have ten francs to spare. Now go watch the puppet show."

"But I need to buy something so Father will speak to me again," I blurted out in one last, desperate attempt.

Aunt Meg whirled around to face me, her eyes wide and lips parted in shock.

I had not intended to admit such a deep, stab of truth. Immediately I sucked in a breath and looked away so that she would not see the tears in my eyes. My chance of regaining my father's love was slipping away. Over and over again I knocked on a closed door, asked my aunt and uncle and Grandmere why my own father would not leave his room, and no one would bother to answer me. Not even Madame Julia would tell me what I had done or what I could do in order to garner his affection once more. They would shake their head, frown, and attempt to redirect my questions until I finally gave in.

All I knew for certain was that the newspaper replaced our time together. Rather than reach out and grasp my shoulder, my father ran his finger along photos in the newspaper and articles that took up every moment of his day. The woman whose pictures he collected was a famous soprano, Christine de Chagny, wife to the Comte de Chagny. A time or two when I saw an article lying about, I noticed her last name was blacked out by a pen and replaced with four letters: Daae. I had no idea who she was or why my father wrote that single word. All I knew was I disliked her. Immensely.

"Oh, Alex," Aunt Meg said softly. She pulled me in close and kissed the top of my head. A trembling hand caressed down my spine before she kissed me again, this time on the forehead. I pinched my eyes shut and inhaled the scent of sugar and bread on her clothing, and savored the warmth of her protective embrace. She was soft, warm like the puppy, but not as wiggly.

I fought back the tears as she ran her fingers through my hair, a gesture that reminded me of my father. If he was in the middle of a composition and I sat beside him, he would reach out while he continued to work and stroke my hair. I had not realized how much I missed the closeness we once shared until my aunt mimicked my father's actions.

"Ten francs," she promised. "Mother will have to wait on her coffee."

"Milk," I said. "Do not purchase milk for me. Grandmere will die without her coffee."

Aunt Meg smiled and nodded in agreement before she handed me a ten franc banknote and embraced me again. She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me several times as though somehow showering me with affection could fill in the space left by my father's absence.

"Don't go near the horses any more, do you understand? You smell like a barnyard."

I felt my cheeks burn. Clearly she did not appreciate the scent of a sweet puppy-or know one animal from the next.

"May I return home with my gift?" I asked.

"Return home?"

"I do not feel well."

Meg pursed her lips. I could tell she considered abandoning her quest of thoroughly tormenting each vendor at the market in favor of seeing me home safely. "You know the way?"

I nodded. We were three streets from home, and there was only one turn past the bakery. I could have walked it blindfolded and found my way to our front steps. Still, Aunt Meg looked unconvinced.

"If anything were to happen to you, your father will murder me," Aunt Meg said under her breath.

"Nothing will happen," I assured her. I would have a brave hound to defend me, which of course I could not tell her. With my new puppy, I would be fearless.

"Fine. Do not stop and do not speak to strangers. You walk straight home, do you hear me?"

"Yes," I groaned.

"I love you." She kissed me again and I kissed her back.

"I love you too, Aunt Meg."

With that she turned away, and her sweet demeanor was once again carefully tucked away as she continued to barter for a week's worth of food. I felt a small sense of regret in being untruthful with her, but I was determined to win back my father's attention. Once I was certain she was preoccupied, I trotted back toward the box of puppies and-to my alarm-did not see a single head peeking out from the box.

My heart sank as I paused halfway through the market. "No," I whispered. "No, please."

Those were the words I had heard my father say often in the middle of the night when I fell asleep beside him. If I elbowed him in the chest or flopped over hard enough, he would wake immediately, touch the White Face, and softly call my name. Each time I pretended to be sound asleep as I knew if I opened my eyes, he would make me return to my own room.

A time or two I asked what caused his bad dreams, but Father dismissed my words and said it was nothing. I knew he did not like to speak about what roused him in the middle of the night or his White Face. I did not dare tell my father I had seen the White Face slip up while he slept as I knew he always made certain it was securely in place before he would meet my eye. In a way, he thought he protected me by keeping the White Face on whenever I stayed with him, while I in turn protected him by not acknowledging that I knew it was not real.

"Monsieur," I called out. "My puppy! You sold her?"

The man spread his legs and motioned me closer. "Asleep," he said. "Right here in the corner."

I sighed in relief and sprinted over, peering into the box where the smallest Bessie hound had curled alone into the corner. I would fall asleep with my head on Father's pillow and the coverlet up to my chin while I listened to him hum as he scribbled down notes well into the night. The puppy would thump her tail to the music and fight sleep as she attempted to listen to Father hum the tunes he created, but eventually we would both fall asleep. Eventually, Father would place his composition in a neat pile, turn to find us asleep in his bed, and smile to himself. Then I would feel the dip in the mattress as he finally retired for the night and gently nudged me toward the edge. There we would sleep until morning, the puppy in my arms and my father gently breathing against the back of my neck.

"The very last one," I said, relieved to see my prized hound still up for sale. "Should I wake her?"

The man did not answer me. He scooped her up, rousing her in the process, and handed her to me. "Five francs for the scrawny thing."

"Ten," I said proudly. She was worth more than ten francs to me, but that was all the money I had to my name.

"I do not accept returns," he said as he plucked the banknote from my grasp and stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket.

"I would never return her," I promised. The little bundle of fur grunted as she nestled her head against the crook of my arm and promptly fell asleep once more. "This is for my father. A gift."

The man grunted. "For your father, eh? He wants a bag of bones pup, does he?"

"My father is the composer," I added.

"The composer? The only one in the world?" the man said mockingly.

"Monsieur Erik Kire," I said proudly.

The man's eyes narrowed. "Your father is Monsieur Kire?"

I nodded. "He loves music and dogs."

The man sat up straighter. "Is it for his birthday?"

I shook my head. "A gift because I love him. And because he loves me."

I held my Bessie hound closer. My father would love me again. After weeks of shutting me out, he would finally love me again as he had for so many years.

This gift would change everything. It had to. I could not bear being pushed aside a moment longer.