𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆

＊𝑐𝘩𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐼

Madeleine didn't know what to do.

From what she had gathered, before she had fainted in exhaustion, her baby had blond hair and a perfect face. She carried her in her arms too, lovingly and at the brink of tears. He had two blue eyes, and a little nose—nothing like the corpse that lay on her son's bassinet.

The changeling was bony, long, and his skin disgustingly pale with tints of yellow. What horrified her the most was his sunken eyes and the gaping hole where his nose should be. Madeleine was in her bed, clammy and white—horrified for her baby and angry at God. Madeleine wasn't exactly the most fertile of women, for she only bore Charles their daughter Evelyn and, if he hadn't been taken away, Raoul. They had suffered a number of miscarriages; and every time she had to face her own stillborn's funeral, a piece of her sanity is buried with them.

But Charles—her sweet Charles—never despised her, no. Even when she would throw her temper tantrums, and even when she blamed him for their deaths. He would always reassure her, he was willing to take the blame when it had been her in the wrong.

Madeleine felt an overwhelming, dull ache in her chest. She could hear her husband from outside yelling and ordering his best men to find and hunt down whoever had stolen their Raoul and replaced him with this, this thing. But she knew, oh maybe all of them knew, that the mythical creature had long gone left to their own domain.

Madness crept through the door, tip-toed silently towards the bed, and into her mind. Tears had begun to drip down from her already sore, red eyes. She had this sickening and empowering urge to kill the false babe—he had already looked like in a state of decay anyways. Shaking like a leaf, she took a pillow and slid off the bed.

Her jumbled thoughts and emotions were at war with themselves, how could she think of suffocating an innocent child? How will she live with that corpse? Could she endure it?

No, no, she can't. And she will not. Madeleine doesn't have the strength to. She doesn't want this false child. The faery, troll, elf—or whatever creature had popped this creature out of their womb should have chosen a weaker-minded soul for help in raising their carcass child. She wants her baby, and now. Perhaps they could be watching right now, as she was about to place a pillow on its head and never let go till she was sure it stopped breathing. And maybe, just maybe, they would hand her son over in exchange for its life spared. Then, she wouldn't be a murderer.

She approached the babe with mind and body prepared not to recoil at the sight of it. The changeling was fast asleep, it would've been less unsettling if it were to fidget a bit to show that it was still alive. Madeleine clutched the pillow in her hand and reached in to...

"Dearest no!" cried out Charles, she stopped frozen in her tracks. Realizing in shame of what she was about to do, she wailed and fell down to her knees and started crying all over again. "I hate you! I hate it! It shouldn't be in Raoul's bassinet!" He scurried towards his wife and embraced her, whispering words of apology and self-hate. And even as she thrashed about in his arms, clawed at his back, and yelled in his ear for him to kill it, and to kill her or she would do it herself—he hugged her tighter

"Let go of me! Let go...!" she screeched, her cries and demands emanated the room. It was not long until it woke the changeling and it began to cry alongside her. Madeleine clenched her teeth and looked at her husband in the eyes, "... I can't. I can't even look at. I don't want to look at it. I can't mother this child, Charles, please, please don't make me..."

His mouth went dry, for he was uncertain as well. No one expects their children to go missing and be replaced. "We will make him wear a mask. And the nursemaid will feed him. I'm sorry, Maddie. Oh, I'm so sorry. Try to be brave dearest, be brave for our children. For our Raoul..."

The changeling rarely fussed, and only did when absolutely necessary. When his nappy needed changing, when he was hungry—and it may have been for the better. After that emotionally-exhausting night, it had already been made to wear a cloth mask which covered its entire face in exception to its chin and mouth for feeding. They had left him in the care of their servants because the madame didn't even want it breathing and the father had every excuse to avoid it. And even the bravest of them get weak in the knees when they had to see to its needs. It was their least favourite chore.

Rumours spread across the land of this elusive, ugly and deformed changeling like wildfire. Many, common and noble folk alike, say that she had sold her soul to the devil for a child and the babe was the anti-Christ. Some say its face is a little irregular and that the woman was just vain enough to cover it with a mask for not being as cute and pretty as the rest of their children. The de Chagny family laid low until it died down, and once it did they denied them. That the babe was stillborn and had only survived for a few hours.

No one in the castle was to speak of its existence outside these walls. It was not a de Chagny. It is a keepsake for their real son.

A changeling keepsake, that is the life he lives. In the highest tower, too hidden to be seen. He was to live in solitude, where he cannot learn the joys of the sun and outdoors. He might never know what's beyond these walls if it weren't for books.

Katherine, a middle-aged servant who was usually tasked in caring for him, had felt sympathy for him. She found his naivety endearing and it would be too cruel to deny him the right of education. No matter how distressing the child's visage is, he is living and breathing and came out of the mistress's womb. No matter how much the woman denies it. If his mother cannot be brave to love him, she will.

He was four years old when Katherine first came to be of service to the de Chagny household. She was anxious when she had learned that she would be transferring to the de Chagny manor. Her friends gave her quite the scare with all the stories they would tell of a possessed boy living in that castle's highest tower. And upon receiving the news, she was of-the-rails frightened. She likes to say her only fear was God, but ghouls and demons are her Achilles heel.

One day, Katherine had been ordered to bring the changeling's meal upstairs to its room. For everyone else had planned to busy themselves as much as possible to force her into doing it. Or so she thought in a panic. She was practically shaking behind the boy's bedroom door. Katherine feared that she might just lose a limb when she enters that room. Summoning all of her courage, she swung the door open.

Then she she saw him—curled up in a corner, hugging his knees, and looked at her with childish curiosity—and suddenly felt a tinge of relief wash over her when she realised he was wearing a mask to cover his deformity. It wasn't so say she wasn't unsettled, but this wasn't as bad as she would have imagined it to have been. Katherine quickly placed the tray onto his meal table and left.

This went on for a few years. It was practically routine. Some days, she would bring him his meals and other days she would be sweeping the floors of his room. Katherine's irrational fear began to dissipate over time and started creating some small talk. Like a simple "Good morrow" or "Fare you well", and on rare occasions he would say it back to her.

She could never believe her eyes the first time she heard his voice. It was angelic—clear as a silver bell and a bit raspy, hinting that he haven't spoken a peep until now—Katherine was shocked. Surely it was right to presume that the child had some mental disabilities as well as a speech disorder. A lot of these "changeling" babes had these cases. And some of them even died too young. And judging by his lean, bony physique and yellow-ish skin, he should be in bed right now and coughing up blood and pleghm! Not shifting about the room nervously!

Then, she had begun to realise something. Katherine never seen him ill or act weak-minded. Nor has she heard about his health at all. Just the gossip and very exaggerated guesses of what his face looked like underneath the mask. She started to doubt everything she knew about the boy. He may just really be a fae, or possibly just a very, very ugly boy. She decided to believe the latter.

An overwhelming pang of guilt swept over her as she left the room and the boy to his devices, and it was threatening to holler her over the edge. How she had thought of him no less than a human being. Sure, he was definitely eccentric with his skinny body and extraordinary voice, but was it a strong enough basis for people to label him as a false child? Katherine's chest felt hollow with sympathy, the child must be so confused and probably believes that he is the monster people make him out to be.

He might not even understand why he wears a mask! Or why he isn't allowed to take it off! She's positive his room had no mirrors for him to look at himself. The more she thought about the boy's living conditions, the more her previous fear for herself and the de Chagny family turned into boiling resentment for how they treat this child. Locked away like a shameful memory, in the back of their minds and a burden they must take when they do remember their own disfigured son.

Katherine now felt determined to see to this boy's education and health. Something her old self would not be able to do. Although she hasn't had it hard as the child, she has been a sickly and meek girl. The biggest difference they have is that she grew up surrounded with people who love her. This boy did not, and she is willing to love him for his cowardice parents.

She began slowly with offering to help in anything concerning the child. Cleaning his room and bringing him his meals had become a part of her daily routine. And she brought more food up the tower and made more small talk with him. Katherine would ask him about himself and he would answer, sometimes. But as time went by, he began to feel more confident in her presence and started speaking more, but in broken sentences. She frowned at the thought, right, no one ever took the time to teach him proper speech and the alphabet.

Poor child! He must have just been repeating her own words when she had just been saying "good morrow"s to him.

A stroke of luck struck her when she heard news of their masters and mistresses's long trip to see to Ortensia's marriage proposal. She waited and waited for his day of departure, and after a bit of snooping around the castle and snatching a few books in the library (thank goodness for her being a tad literate, otherwise teaching him would have to be near impossible.), she attempted at becoming a governess.

The boy was generally uninterested in her lessons at first, he was much more intrigued by chasing the rodents around the castle. She learned soon enough that he wasn't really obediently waiting in his room for her company when she caught him in the midnight chasing mice. Rather he waited until nightfall when everyone was asleep. He told her it was only when he was really bored, but now he began to freely roam about when the de Chagnys were away. Rats were a common problem, they brought disease and ate their rations.

One day, while Katherine was in the kitchen's preparing the noble family's meals, he picked up a large rat and scurried over to her and beamed about how big it was, "Look! Look! It's the King Rat!" Needless to say, she was horrified.

He only got the motivation to prick up his ears and listen to her discussing letters and numbers is when he thought it would get his mother's praise.

He was such a fast learner, and very relentless in his studies as well. Katherine learned that he was very easy to teach if he's willing to be taught. In less than a year, he was already able to read and study much more complex topics than ABCs and 123s. And he was a seven-year-old! Come to think of it, her young master doesn't quite look like his age. He was unusually tall for someone not even in their adolescent stages yet. If she had to guess he's taller than 5 ft 6 inches since he stands above Pauline and she's the tallest of his caretakers.

If she had not known any better, Katherine might think of him as a fae after all! The child was so astonishingly talented. She felt a bit abashed when he started initiating more sophisticated and philosophical questions. She was intelligent for a peasant woman, but her knowledge isn't exactly as vast as one of noble birth.

It didn't take him long to understand that Katherine cannot engage in debate with him about politics and the sciences. So, he sought to make conversations with his siblings. The de Chagny children barely know of the changeling; Philippe only saw him a couple of times and Ortensia and Evelyn never knew him at all.

He would approach them at random times of the night, when Madeline and Charles weren't around to see and beat him for going out of his room, and tap them on their shoulder lightly and say: "Are you bored?" and to which they reply with soft cries and whimpers of fear. But that doesn't discourage him. In his perspective, his siblings are preoccupied, and surely later they will talk with him. He has read novels (storybooks more likely) about this, and he's concluded that brothers and sisters can either be evil or good.

And his brother and sisters are good. They look good. Evil siblings are ugly and unpleasant. And they were not ugly nor unpleasant. Is it because he was the evil one? Mother always told him he was a demon... But she said he could become good if he behaves... He hasn't acted very good lately, hasn't he? ... Always standing too close... Asking her too many questions...

What did he look like anyway? Katherine doesn't say a word about his face, but that's because he's wearing his mask. Mother—however, regardless of whether he wears his mask or don his finest clothes—always looked upon him with disgust and spiteful eyes.

Up until this point he was gullible and naive, he wanted to learn the truth. But little did he know of what's to come soon after.