As Belle and Red packed for their weekend away at the castle, Isabelle found herself longing for the dark magiks and packing her jet black clothing. If she was going to behave at this castle Belle was going as herself, not as someone she could never pretend to be. No the blue dresses she kept for appeasing the matrons and the teachers were not who she was. Belle was no innocent, had she the instruments and the magiks there would be many people dead beneath her hands.
And as she raced around her room wondering which of her many books she would be taking with her to wait out the long hours at night she thought about the adventure that was awaiting her. She would not be able to sleep in the castle, not because she was afraid but because she was intrigued by them, the many hidden rooms and the trap doors. Although most of all she loved to hear about the legends surrounding each castle. However she had not learnt of any legends of this castle they were to be visiting: Le Chateau de bêtes de maudites. Though the name was surely a hint at whatever legend the chateau held, Belle was smart enough to know that one should never believe in what is so readily given. It would be like the murderer in a murder mystery telling you that he was the murderer right at the beginning.
But no fear Belle would learn the truth of the castle one way or another; she was very intelligent and very good at murderer mysteries. She would learn the mystery of the Chateau.
Pushing the thought aside to gather her books, Belle reached for the one she'd been reading the day before, the book of fairy tales and in each of them there was magik, magik that had to be true. For each fairy tale held some kind of truth, for example Snow White. In that tale the narrator taught children and adults alike not to take food from strangers. In the Grimm's version snow white had eaten the apple and fallen into a coma. Yes she'd had her handsome prince come to rescue her, but if he hadn't been there she would have died.
If Snow white had been in real life she would have died, for it was almost impossible to find your handsome prince, for you had to have been conceived on the same day that he was.
'Hurry up Belle,' Red ushered as she sat on top of her suitcase, trying to squash in all of the clothes and the make-up that she had packed, as she zipped it up.
'Okay, one second,' Belle stalled, as she made her way to the bedside table and acquired a book, blood red in colour with a black pentagram surrounded by a ring of triquetra. This was her book. She was most attached to this one, yet it was neither a diary nor an art journal. Belle knew not what to use it for. But something about this trip made her drawn to it again, drawn to take it with her. And perhaps on this journey Belle would find some use for it.
Belle had strived for magik in her life, perhaps she would soon find it…