It was Friday the 13th. Paris was in complete darkness. Its overcrowded buildings were shrouded in shadow and the pavements had disappeared within the night. The stars and crescent moon did not shine that night, for the clouds had hidden them away.
Or that's what they had told him, for they had been there that night. They had watched high above from their places in Notre Dame. To others, it would have been too dark to see for any ordinary Parisian citizen. But they were far from ordinary. And they had seen and had heard everything that fatefully dark night.
They had seen a young woman in tattered rags. She was running away from someone – from something. She was running from a monster. And she was carrying a small bundle.
They had seen pain and blood of an innocent staining the stone steps of the cathedral and white snow. They had heard her horrified screams and her pitiful begging. They saw her poor mangled body stare up at them with lifeless eyes. And they saw the poor small bundle about to be thrown down into the nearby well by the monster, until the pastor stopped him from the deed.
There was a commotion. They argued whether this mysterious object deserved to live. The pastor appeared to win the argument.
The mysterious small parcel had been brought inside the church for sanctuary, the woman, taken away and buried with little ceremony. And the monster left into the shadows of the night.
That's how he had come here – the unusual and frightening story of his origin. It was a story of darkness and death.
No one spoke of it. It was taboo within the church. For his own protection, the pastor shut him away from the world, high above the clouds, amongst the rafters and the bells.
His presence alone was enough to spark terror in the whole of France.
Just like the mark of the devil, engraved into his right eye.
"Ciel, Master Ciel, it's time to wake up!" she cried.
A young boy of just thirteen blinked his eyes before yawning. Aside from the several dirty marks that tainted his body from yesterday's work, he was pale for his age, as he had known little sunlight. His hair was an unusual dark grey colour, which shimmered teal if golden rays did shine upon his extraordinarily angelic face.
But it was because of his face, that he had been hidden away from the world he longed to explore.
The youth was not ugly. Ugly would have been a blessing from heaven. At least he would have been let outside. Ciel had a far more grotesque deformity, imprinted forever into his eyes, from they day he was born.
His eyes were large. His gaze hard, like the sapphire blue that should have been present in both pupils.
One eye was blue. The other was a monstrosity.
His right eye was not sapphire but a glowing amethyst. Some may have found the oddity a beautiful thing had it not been for the curse that had been etched within it.
His right eye held a thorned ring. Within it was an upside down star, a pentacle. His eye held the mark of the mark of the devil. Not only that – this mark was a sign of a contract with the sinful one himself.
"Maylene, could you please stop flapping around me. You're giving me a headache." He groaned.
Magdelene or Maylene as Ciel called her was once a beautiful stain glass window. Yet a storm had smashed the entire frame away and she was put up here when the pastor decided to install a newer saint, rather than a simple angel.
She cared for Ciel like an older sister. After Ciel was sent into the bell tower when he was barely three, she had taken him under her wing. She had taught him how to read, how to write and the basic mathematics needed, after watching and learning many monks take their lessons within the courtyard below her window frame, before being taken away. She was the one who gave Ciel his name, saying that regardless of what mark tainted him, his blue eye reminded her of the sky on a clear sunny day.
"Ahh! Sorry young master." She bowed her head before settling down to walk beside him.
"Where are Bardroy and Finnian?" he asked as he slipped his day shirt over his head.
"They're waiting in the rafters for you. You're cleaning the bells today, sir?"
Ciel nodded. "Yes, the large group in the west tower where I must ring the morning bell."
"Be safe, young master. And remember to tie ropes around your waist."
"I will Maylene." And he headed off for work.
Ciel had known no other world than the dusty rafters, the cobwebbed wooden ceiling and cold stonewalls of the bell tower.
He hadn't remembered much from before then, only that this place would forever be his home and that he would never have contact with the outside world.
He knew this world like the back of his hand. He knew the beautiful bells within them as well as their sound. Each bell was a person to him, completely different yet alike in so many ways. They were people to him. Like the Parisians, they came in different sizes and shapes. Some were older than the others. Some were prettier. Some were softer. Some held a more melodious tune. But all of them made his home.
Ciel climbed up the walls and rafters with ease to get to the morning bells. He really didn't need a rope but to keep Maylene happy he wore one just in case. Bard and Finney, his two stone statues, were waiting for him patiently.
"Master Ciel. Good morning." They both chimed.
"Morning Bard. Morning Finny. Trust you slept well." Ciel asked lightly, his body easily balancing on the rafter. He had long forgotten the fear of falling. The great height did not scare him. Nor did the prospect that such a fall would most like kill him.
"Like a rock, I did!" Bard grinned.
Ciel rolled his eyes then he jumped like he did since he first came here, his teal locks flying rapidly from his smiling face. Then he caught the bell string. The bell began to move as he was pulled up and down, over and over. The bell's beautiful chime rang through the tower and through the streets of Paris, marking the beginning of the day.