Chapter Three:

a treat for all these problems
they can't find us for the moment
then for all past effort
they're buried deep beneath our hearts
and somewhere in our stomachs

and hatred for all others
aweful people they surround you
aint they just like monsters

"Monsters" Band Of Horses

Andie walked through the city in awe. She was used to places where the houses were small and further apart. The houses in Paris were so close together that they almost seemed to huddle. Her and Fay walked along the cobbles, an empty sack on both of their arms. Andie also had her cane and a small purse on her belt.

Aside from the fish, Fay said that she meant to stop in a Tavern to see about buying a few bottles of decent wine. (And perhaps something stronger so that she might deal better with the help at the hotel de Saint Pol) The house had had a great many bottles of expensive wine for cooking, but Fay did not believe that expensive was the same as good.

Andie knew what she meant. She'd worked on and off in the kitchen with her since she was fourteen and had tasted countless kinds of wine and beer and ale. Sometimes the most expensive stuff was the hardest to swallow.

While Fay seemed to be more interested in finding a tavern then taking in her surroundings, Andie found herself unable to focus on any one thing. Everything was so…different. Everywhere around her were men selling things and shouting and talking. There was a constant susurrus of noise that seemed to be engrained in the ambiance of the city.

As they progressed along the streets one thing did catch her eye. On the corner of one street was a group of shabbily but colorfully dressed people. There was a man playing a strange instrument with earrings in his ear and a woman, quite possibly one of the most beautiful women Andie had ever seen was dancing to the music gracefully, coins jingling on her skirts. A white goat leapt about her bare feet. There was also a man sitting on a barrel with a hat at his feet. There were some coins already in the hat.

Andie fumbled with the purse and pulled out a tiny silver coin, which she tossed into the hat.

The man caught her eye and smiled. He was dressed like the others and his ear was also pierced, but unlike the man with the instrument and the dancing woman his skin was fair and his hair, blonde. He winked. Andie blushed a little and turned away.

"You shouldn't encourage beggars." Fay said after they'd passed them by. "And those were gypsies too. You know what they say about gypsies."

"No." Andie said in a slightly apathetic manner. She had grown wary of information that followed the words 'You know what they say.' Because in her experience no one was really certain of who 'they' were.

"The say the gypsies steal children…and that they'll take whatever they can get they're hands on." Fay continued.

"So? I don't have anything and I'm twenty three." Andie said.

"True." Fay conceded. "Here's a likely looking pub." She continued. "I'll stop in here first. We wouldn't want his fish to rot on the way back."

Andie nodded and almost followed Fay into the Pub, which was called Eve's Apple, but the large woman paused in the threshold.

"Better stay out here. Men tend to leave all of their manners outside of taverns. They won't bother me…at least not for long, but a young woman like you may have some trouble" Even though she found this slightly frustrating, she shrugged and fell back. Fay knew more about city life then she did and besides she'd been around drunken lords before. They got grabby after only a few drinks, and they'd taken lessons on how to behave.

"I'll try not to be too long." Fay said before disappearing into the tavern. Andie heard a mixture of sounds pouring from inside, including laughter, the banging of mugs and badly vocalized songs with dirty words. She sighed and leaned against the wall.

A few young boys ran past her, laughing and shouting. Andie watched them until they disappeared around the corner. After they were gone her eyes were drawn to the cathedral, rising above the buildings.

Hmm…

After a moment she straightened. She wasn't sure when she'd get another chance to see it. Depending on how things went with her cousin and Prince Bastion, it could either be weeks or days. Fay probably wouldn't like her wandering off, but then, it wasn't too far away and besides, it was a church, it wasn't as if she were wondering into a brothel.

The square was filled with the bustle of city life. Andie walked through it cautiously. A few merchants nodded to her and there was the occasional glance from young men, noting that she was female and at least mildly attractive.

She saw another group of beggars nearby. These weren't performing. One of them seemed to have no legs, the other had a blindfold over their eyes (It hadn't taken long for them to return to their spot. Clopin's beggars were harder to discourage then lice) and there was a boy using a stick as a crutch. Andie watched the boy for a moment as he hobbled after passers-by with his hand out. She noticed that he seemed to be undecided as to which leg pained him. He was inadvertently switching back and forth between the two.

When she reached the stairs of the Notre Dame she raised her eyes upward in order to take in the giant structure up close. Several statues of saints adorned the sides of the cathedral. Their eyes were huge and wide and watched the street. They were actually kind of creepy. There were also monsters, the occasional demonic looking creature as well as the gargoyles, their mouths agape with grinning fascias.

After admiring the outside of the building for a while, and vaguely aware of the strange looks she was getting from other people on the street, she headed up the stairs.

The huge doors were slightly cracked open. She slipped into the candlelit darkness.

It was beautiful. The ceilings were high and magnificent pillars of which Andie had only seen pictures of littered the passage. The light inside, which came from the rows and rows of candlesticks and the windows gave the place a peaceful glow and there was a hush over it, broken only by the occasional snatches of prayer and whispered conversation.

She noted vaguely that a group of children were standing near the doorway, hidden behind one of the pillars. They were talking to one another in hushed voices. She caught a fragment of their conversation.

"You do it."

"No way, my mother warned me not to go near him. She said she'd tan my hide if I did."

"Coward."

"Leverett, How will your mother ever know?"

"Well all right then if you're so brave, you do it!"

Their voices faded as she passed them by.

She also passed what she assumed was a priest, hunched over and draped in a cloak with his hood pulled over his head. He was holding a long metal pole with a candle on one end and a small metal cup on the other (to snuff the candles out). He was also carrying a bundle of new candle ends beneath his arm.

As she walked past, one of the ends he was holding fell to the floor. It came to a stop near Andie's foot. She eyed it briefly before picking it up and looking back at the priest, who didn't seem to notice that he had dropped it.

"Excuse me." She said softly. His shoulders stiffened. "You dropped this." She said, offering the candle end.

He turned his head slightly and then swiftly turned away from her again, while tugging at his hood in a single nervous motion.

"Th-thank you." He said, while taking the end from her with a large hand. His voice was surprisingly youthful.

Probably not a priest then. Andie thought. In her experience they tended to be older. She had assumed that he was, given the way he was bent over.

"You're welcome." She said before turning away.

XXX

When he was certain that the girl had withdrawn, Quasimodo turned his head slightly. She was headed down the large corridor, the cane in her right hand making a loud sound on the checkered floor. For a moment he thought that she might be a gypsy or a beggar, simply because he couldn't remember seeing a girl her age using a walking stick, but he dismissed this idea almost immediately. Her clothes were not the brightly colored garments that the gypsies wore, and her skin tone, though darker then most, was not quite the hue of a person who spent all of their time in the street.

Quasimodo had lived most of his life watching people and had memorized their faces. He imagined he knew most of the faces of those who spent any time in or around the cathedral. He didn't recognize her.

Although, since Bastion had come to the city there had been a great many new faces.

She didn't look much like the people he'd been seeing, though. She was dressed more commonly then the women who had been showing up in Paris lately. They were mostly high class and nobility dressed in long garments with complicated patterns, large sleeves and strange hats with veils attached. This girl was wearing a plain blue dress with no adornment beneath an equally plain cloak.

The girl had wandered all the way to the end of the corridor and was standing in the dome at the far end, staring up at he statues and paintings illuminated by the giant windows.

He returned to his work thoughtfully, removing a tiny burnt out candle from one of the holders after snuffing it out. He started to replace it with another, when he heard a soft sound behind him. He turned in time to see a young boy pushing at one of the candle holders over in Quasi's direction.

"Let's see if he catches fire!" Another young boy shouted from the safety of a pillar.

"My father said he's a demon, demon's don't burn,"

"He's looking this way, run Leverett!"

Leverett's face contorted into horror when Quasimodo looked at him and he nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get away.

Quasi reached for the holder as it fell and managed to grab it. However, one of the candles fell out of its place and, still lit, rolled across the floor. He turned quickly to try and catch it before it rolled into anything flammable. As he did, his cloak tangled around the holder and it fell over again, taking one or two others with it. Quasi lost his footing, dropped most of the ends he was still holding and crashed to the floor. The candle snuffer/lighter also fell from his hand and the candle spun away and went out.

The sound of laughter rose from nearby. He raised his head and peered through the strands of his red hair, noting dismally that the commotion had attracted one or two other people in the church, who were now watching him with mixed expressions of amusement and revulsion. There was perhaps some pity as well, but it was pity from people who were not likely to help him for fear of judgment from the rest of the crowd, which showed that, even in a church, people still thought like people.

XXX

Andie had wondered over to the rose window on one side of the church and had been admiring the complicated patterns in the glass, when she heard the crashing sound from the other side of the cathedral. She rounded a column in time to see three boys retreating from a fallen figure, who she recognized as the young man she'd taken for a priest when she first came in. Three of the candle holders had fallen over and one of them was tangled in the man's cloak and had fallen on top of him.

Andie frowned and headed towards the stricken figure, noting briefly and with some bewilderment that other people had also noticed but didn't seem to be trying to help. The young man didn't move, apart from raising his head a little.

"Are you all right?" She asked as she reached him. At the sound of her voice he made a hurried attempt to rise. He fell down again abruptly as his feet tangled in his cloak, which was still firmly attached to the candle holder.

"Hold on, you're all tangled up." She said as she reached for his cloak to try and untangle him.

XXX

Quasimodo was aware of the weight being lifted as his cloak came free of the candlestick and it was lifted off of him.

The girl reached for his arm to help him up. He accepted her help with unease and quickly pulled away after he got back onto his feet.

"Are you hurt?" She asked after a moment, her voice sounding slightly bewildered as he recoiled from her, with his head down, so that she couldn't see his face.

"I-I'm fine, thank you." He stammered as he backed up a little more.

"Are you sure, you didn't get burnt or anything?" She asked while taking a hesitant step forward.

"N-no." He said this with some inflection, so as to ward her off. He began to quickly gather up the stuff that he had dropped, aware, with some apprehension that she was still watching him.

"Let me help you." She said after a moment as she leaned her cane against one of the columns and started picking up candle ends.

"Y-you don't have to." He said nervously.

"It's no trouble." She responded.

When she wasn't looking at him anymore he took the opportunity to raise his eyes a little and observe her. Her dark tussled hair fell in her face, which reminded Quasi very much of the faces of the stone figures that adorned the Notre Dame. (The statues obviously, not the gargoyles.) She had handsome and yet somehow simple features similar to those chiseled in stone. She also had some of the brightest eyes Quasimodo had ever seen. They were bluish gray and they took in the candlelight like glass.

Without warning she looked up again, perhaps feeling his gaze upon her. Quasimodo felt a brief jolt of fear and quickly resumed picking up the ends, while moving into the shadows of a pillar.

XXX

Andie had gathered all of the candle ends that she could find nearby and had also proceeded to grab the snuffer. Then she cast a casual glance back at the shrouded man, who seemed to once again be playing with his hood. His feet were turned in slightly and his knees practically touched.

She had met shy men before. Most young men were shy around young women, but she'd never actually had a boy hide from her before.

There was something…awkward about the way he was standing, the way he was hunched over…as if something about him weren't quite right.

"Um here, I think this is all of them." She said carefully as she approached him. He drew away from her automatically, as if there was a certain distance that he was determined to keep. Still, he took the ends from her. She was about to hand him the snuffer as well when she heard a sharp voice behind her.

"Hey! Half of the candles have gone out down near the altar! Brother Montague may spare pity on a wretch like you but I'm certainly not going to stand for this oafishness." Andie turned towards the direction of the voice. A large man was advancing towards them, his gray robes flapping about him.

He was obviously a priest. His wrinkled face was contorted into a look of aversion. He came to a stop very close to her.

"I-I'm sorry. I was…" The young man started. He was promptly interrupted.

"Don't think just because the archdeacon lets you work down here, that I don't have my eye on you." He then directed his attention towards Andie.

"Is he bothering you, young lady?"

"No, I was helping him pick up…" Andie started, a little perturbed.

"Why are those candle holders on the floor?" He interrupted. Andie frowned. He eyed her briefly before taking snuffer from her. "Never mind, just pick them up and get back to work." He said as he thrust it towards the young man.

XXX

Quasimodo caught it, but in doing so dropped some of the candles again. He nearly tripped over one, which would have been bad enough all things considered, but managed to keep his footing. Unfortunately, his hood fell back.

There was a long horrible moment, in which the girl had first taken a step toward him, possibly because she had seen that he was about to trip again, and then, upon seeing his hood fall back, recoiled as if stung.

He watched with a sort of inner dread as the girl's face took on an expression of surprised horror, a look that he had grown very much accustomed to. He heard her gasp softly.

Quasimodo quickly pulled the hood back over his head and in an effort to get away groped desperately for the stairway nearby, ignoring the angry cries from the priest.

After he reached to top of the stairway, climbing it in his erratic gate he stopped and leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. For a moment he saw only the girls expression and the fire from the candles reflecting in her eyes.

XXX

LadyBastet92: Thank you. I hope the chapter turned out all right. I was brain clogged during the last few pages of it. OO Hopefully the story will pick up a bit more now.

EmoGypsy: Glad you like it : ) I wish there were more of them too. Quasi needs love.