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The Beast and Bella Swan

Third Bit

"This place is enormous! How old is it? Where are the servants? Who does all the work? What's the history?" I had far more questions and remarks than Jacob was able to keep up with as we walked through the castle.

"Oh slow down, already. I'm not always here, I don't know all that stuff. If there are servants, they're invisible, or maybe the castle's alive, and self-maintaining. I've never figured it out. But Cullen lives alone. He's very moody - no-one would put up with him. You wait and see. Five minutes with him and you'll want me. He's all doom this and gloom that, I'm an abomination, nobody likes me, I wish I wasn't cursed, I don't deserve the sun and the blue sky because I'm such a loser - he just goes on and on. It's almost enough to depress me, and I'm not easy to depress. I love the sun and the blue sky!"

Jacob, so far, seemed perennially good-natured. If he was a boy and not a talking wolf, I might like him.

"Hey, how come you can talk?" I asked suddenly.

"I don't think I can, Bella. I think mysteriously, you just understand me," he said. "Look, this is Laughing Boy's Chamber of Happiness. Good luck. I won't come in with you, because I don't have any wrists to slit, and I don't have opposable thumbs to pick up a dagger."

I walked in to the Renaissance, with tapestries on the cold walls, bearskins on the floor, flamed lanterns on stalks like broomsticks, velvet curtains heavy with lushness, and Cullen the Ogre seated at a small table inlaid with intricacy, indicating the chair across from him.

"Bella," he said in his strange, deep voice.

"How do you know my name?"

"I can read that fool Jacob's mind. Will you play a game with me?"

There was no board on the table, there were no pieces.

"What sort of game?" I asked him. His eyes were looking away, and I could study him. Snouted, bristled, red-haired and immense, he was quite a sight. The eyes turned to me then, and to my surprise they were green, and tender-lashed.

"A word game," he said. "I say a word, you tell me the first thing that comes to mind, then you say a word, and I do likewise."

"Sure, why not?" I responded, avoiding looking at the tusk area. Light from the lamps glinted off his tusks gently and warmly though, and gave the auburn hair on him a glow.

"Sorrow," he said.

"Toothpaste," I answered. "Castle."

"Despair," he said. "Heart."

I could already see what Jacob meant, and I'd been with him five seconds. "Spaghetti," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"It's your game. Aren't I supposed to say the first think I think of? Or do you want me to say something you consider relevant? If you want to set it up in your favor you need to play with a minion."

"A minion?" he snorted. "Minions I have none. There is an insolent wolf who prowls the grounds, but if you happen upon a minion let me know, I should be pleased to meet it."

"What do you do here all day?" I asked him.

"Think," he answered. "Talk to Jacob. Avoid talking to Jacob. Walk. Sit. Stare. Think. My days are full."

Jacob totally forgot to mention that the Ogre had a sense of humor.

"What do you think about?" I asked.

"Dawn and dusk, and everything in between. Dusk and dawn, and everything before and after. What lies above the moon, and what lies beneath. Endeavor and folly, sense and senses, passion and persuasion, laughter and loss."

Jacob also totally left out the part about the Ogre being a philosopher. "What do you think about?" Cullen said.

"Some of the same things, really. Why do you link endeavor to folly?"

"Endeavor seeks to improve upon the self, folly is mistakes, one cannot make mistakes without endeavor, every mistake is a lesson, learning leads to greater endeavor," he answered. I didn't really follow him at all, but I liked what he said.

We continued to have a convoluted, cryptic conversation in the flame-light thrown about the chamber by his torches, and he paid me the upmost attention. He was fascinating. All too soon, he stood and walked to the window, murmuring, "The horizon woos the sun and the sun is an eager lover. Evening approaches. My hour will be upon me soon, you must leave. Jacob will be outside, and you had better tell him to put some clothes on." I knew myself dismissed.

Jacob lay outside on the great stone-flagged floor, muzzle resting on his crossed front paws.

"Suicidal?" he asked, raising his head to greet me. "Did he drag you into his pit of despondence? You're holding up well."

"He wasn't so bad. We had an interesting talk, actually. I don't think you give him enough credit. But what's his hour, and why did he say I should tell you to get dressed?"

"He said that, did he?" Jacob chuckled. "He's probably right, you being a virgin and all. His hour is also mine, we call it the Hour of Disenchantment and it happens every evening, just before dinner. It's due to start in about five minutes. We both take on human form."

"You have a human form?" I ask, surprised.

"Yep. Bet you can't wait. I'll take you to the Great Hall, and then I'll go somewhere private for the transformation, because once I change I'm naked. Unless you'd like me to change in front of you, of course."

"Of course not," I answered.

"Whatever you say, Bella. I'll get dressed and meet you for dinner."

"Will Cullen be joining us?

"Absolutely not. When he changes he always goes and hides himself down in some dank cellar tinkling the ivories. And no, that's not referring to engagement in some bizarre self-abuse practice, although he is very pale...hmm..." here Jacob barked with laughter at himself. "No, he goes and plays the piano, because it's the only time he can, because when he changes he has fingers instead of hooves, so he takes the chance to indulge his eternal melancholy because he is so sensitive, you'd think we could kick a football around or something, or play cards, but no, he gets all woeful and achey and he's just boring."

We got to yet another of the heavy wooden doors, and Jacob stopped suddenly, wheeling to face me. "It's happening now, Bella, I've got to go, or you'll see more than you bargained for. Make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back in a minute." He sounded urgent and he raced away.

I put my hand to the door, and felt strange suddenly, with a tingle underneath my skin all over, and a twitching at my back and a trembling in my face. By the time I got into the room, I was stumbling. My skin felt inflamed and I wanted to scratch at it and tear it off. An agony was dragging at my shoulders, so sharply it was surely dislocating them, and my jaw was grinding convulsively. My legs wouldn't hold me and I fell to the floor, bashing my chin on a chair on the way down, causing my head to be flung back in whiplash, wrenching my neck and giving me even more pain to contend with. I wanted to call for Jacob, but I felt too feeble and I hoped it wouldn't be long until he returned.

None of the discomfort abated as I lay writhing, in fact it got worse. My head could form the thought "What is happening to me?" but when I tried to voice it I couldn't. My eyes had rolled back by now, and though I tried to focus and look along my shaking, shuddering body, I couldn't.

It must have only been minutes when a musical voice called, "Bella?" and footsteps hurried into the room.

"Hello, what are you doing in here? You should be outside, and where's my beautiful girl?" the voice asked in bewilderment, and I looked up. And up. And up again. The immensely tall person standing over me swooped down and squatted, and an extremely handsome young man with copper skin and long jet black hair stared into my eyes.

"It's me, Jacob, you've seen me before. Relax, I'll take you to the lake," he began, and then he stopped.

"Oh," he grunted in amazement and comprehension. "Oh no..."

I didn't seem to be able to speak, which was probably the least of my worries, really.

"Oh, no," he said again, and the dismay in his voice was palpable. "Bella? I have to show you something," he said, scooping me up in his arms, and carrying me across the room, my head flopping about in a way I couldn't understand.

When he stopped we were in front of a portrait. There he was in the frame, and really, if there was such a thing as a cute-o-meter, he'd break it. This was Jacob's human form? Off-the-scale cute. I worked out I had neck muscles after all, and I raised my head and looked at his picture in a happy daze for a couple of seconds before something registered.

The boy in the painting was breathing, I could see it, and looking down at me, then back up to the picture. That meant it wasn't a painting at all, it was a mirror. Where was I? I could feel his arms around me, but he was holding a swan.

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