CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Quasimodo wasn't entirely sure how much more of this he could take. To see Belle agonize, lose sleep, and slowly starve herself was killing her slowly. It certainly wasn't helping his anxiety spikes, either. He felt more connected to Belle than anyone else he'd ever met. Notre Dame's bell ringer loved the feel of her arms, her touch, her embrace, though in the two weeks since her father's gruesome murder, Belle had begun to pull away, refusing to eat.
It was killing him to see her this way. He'd tried several times to get her help, the essence of nightshade from Sister Alice to help her sleep, but Belle possessed a stubborn streak and refused any help from him or the caretakers.
He knew her reasons and could respect and understand them. He would support her. He would not walk away because she had begged of him to stay. He would always stay. To be in her presence was as close to heaven's light as he could come.
But right now, what he needed the most from Belle was honesty. He deserved to know the truth. For too long he'd pushed back against his pain if he could remember, medicating by leaning on his friendship with Father Darius and Sister Alice, but in times like it now, it returned to him in weaker moments, devastating his mind. To keep repeating this vicious pattern would only prolong it, keep his pains hidden.
When in truth, he needed to deal with them. He knew that he would fight for her, kill for her if need be, and he already had. Brother Paul, one of their monks, had been the one to discover the hunter's lifeless body and had said not a word to Quasimodo at the time, more intent on dealing with finding the remains of the girl's father and ensuring the man had a burial.
And he still hadn't forgotten the disgruntled Prince that had fled from the cathedral without so much as a word to anyone. Quasimodo had not been there at the time to witness the cretin's departure for himself, but he had heard rumors from Sister Maria and Sister Alice that the Prince had spouted such vile black curse words from his mouth that prompted the Archdeacon to evict him from the cathedral, telling him never to return.
The bell ringer had a feeling the Archdeacon would need to speak to him later in that regard, but for now, he needed to focus on Belle's needs.
At last, he found her, sitting cross-legged out on the Rose Window balcony, her back resting against the stone-cold wall, a listless look in her dark eyes. The circles underneath her eyes were more pronounced, purple, and only made her cheeks look thin and gaunt, hollow. It was clear to him that Belle had not received a full night's rest in two weeks, not since…that.
"Belle?" he asked gingerly, kneeling down, and setting the tray Sister Alice had prepared for him containing a half loaf of bread, a rind of cheese, and a lemon cake and a chalice of water on the floor in front of her. "You should eat something, you've not eaten in a day, Sister Alice told me. Eat."
Quasimodo winced as he realized his voice was pressured with ire. He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat and continued. "I did not climb all the way down to the kitchen just to hear you are starving yourself. Eat."
In the shadows cast by the encroaching thunderstorm's clouds as black and purple clouds billowed in from the east, Belle was unstirred. Her feet were bare, and scratches covered the top of her delicate feet. She looked like a corpse and were it not for the gentle rising and falling of her shoulders, the one thing the cathedral's bell ringer examined, thinking her dead otherwise.
Belle's ivory floor-length chemise's hem was dirty, and her dark green forest overdress needed to be washed as well. Her dark hair was pulled back into a loose messy bun, a few tendrils escaping to frame her pallid face.
He furrowed his brows into a frown as he glanced off to the right, the tray beside the new one he had almost sent flailing across the balcony, having almost stepped on it with the sole of his brown leather boot. The food: a slice of bread, a bowl of oats and fruit, and a platter of buttered roasted duck remained cold and untouched. It was not the first tray Belle had wasted.
"You should eat something, Belle." He tried again, biting the wall of his cheek, and doing his best to quell the strange swooping sensation in his stomach. "You need to let me help you, Belle. What happened to your father was a terrible crime, a—and your husband is dead," he growled darkly.
Quasi winced as he watched Belle stiffen and recoil as he gingerly laid out a gloved hand and placed it upon her shoulder. He blanched and frowned, and her lack of response was the sound of Belle's silent breathing.
This only added cinder to the fire that had begun to curdle his blood. If he were being entirely honest with himself at the moment, Quasimodo knew he had every right to be angry with Belle, for she had, by rights, lied to him by omission.
She had kept the fact that she was married a secret. He clenched his jaw shut as he felt fires of fury and hatred towards the girl's husband smoldered in his brilliantly cobalt blue eyes as he weighed the pros and cons of discussing what exactly what was on his mind with Belle.
He needed to know if the girl cared for him in the way that he did for her, but…given everything that had happened, how she was recently widowed, he did not know if there was ever an appropriate time to broach the topic.
Quasi knew that what hides behind the lies were truths that failed to get to the light. What laid behind Belle's betrayal may have been honesty at first sight, and after seeing what kind of a man her husband was for himself, he supposed he could not fault her for wanting to keep the man's existence a secret from him. But why had she done it?
Too many questions swirling in his mind, not enough answers. Was it out of fear for his life?
Notre Dame's bell ringer did not know how he could possibly be worth anything to her, for he was nothing. A monster. An Almost-Made. The Demon. He felt so incredibly confused over this but had to trust in Father Darius's and Alice's words that everything would come out when the time was right when she was ready to talk.
Quasi bit the wall of his cheek in a sense of nervous anticipation as he watched Belle's head whiplash sharply upwards and her dark eyes narrowed. Though she did not look at him, instead choosing to keep her gaze remained fixated on the city of Paris through the bars of the balcony's railing.
"I can't let you starve," he murmured, lowering his voice, and looking away for a moment. "I am your…" His voice trailed off and he bit his tongue. What exactly was he to Belle? Certainly not a husband, and not a lover, though he had not forgotten the kiss she had given him, and how he had tried to kiss her back. He longed to feel her lips move in sync with his again, though now was not the time to be having such inappropriate thoughts. He blinked, trying to sort through his emotions and clear his mind.
Quasi felt his gloved hands ball into a fist as he practically growled with the effort to restrain himself. Exhaling a shaking breath and feeling his nostrils flare, he closed his eyes shut and took several deep, slow breaths, in and out and when he opened them, Belle's attentions still remained fixated on the city of Paris below. "I—you need to let me help you, Belle," he pleaded desperately, reaching out a tender gloved hand to tuck back a wisp of hair that had fallen loose from her bun behind her ear. "I can't let you die…"
"How?" Quasi winced and visibly flinched at hearing how flat and numb Belle's voice sounded. "How can you help me? No one can help."
Still, she did not look at him. Quasi sighed as a muscle twitched involuntarily at the corner of his right, unobstructed eye, and his mouth formed a rigid grimace. He felt his brows come together in quandary as he folded his arms tightly across his broad chest and did not meet Belle's gaze.
"I—I don't know, but I can try," he admitted, hating hearing the crack and dip in his voice. Quasimodo sighed and reached up a shaking hand to card back that one lock of stubborn fiery coarse red hair that never failed to annoy him by hanging limp in front of his one good eye. "I have to try."
The redheaded bell ringer knew even as he spoke the words to his friend, they were hopeless and bounced off of her as good as hard rain.
There was a silence to Belle's soul as she grieved for her father like she was the fall leaves under frost. She felt the chill in her blood, the coldness bringing the synapses of her brain to a standstill. And Quasi hated this.
He wanted to wrap his arms around and never let her go, to tell her that it was not hopeless, that there was still meaning to her life, but he knew that Belle would not heed his words. He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. "You aren't sleeping. I—I could get you some essence of nightshade to help you sleep if you think that it will help. You talk to your…husband in your sleep. I know about your dreams, Belle," he muttered quietly, seeing the dawning look of horror in the young brunette woman's dark eyes as she turned back. "Your husband is dead. And so is your father. Gaston Dupont is dead. You need to accept that fact. He's dead. I—I killed him, a—and he won't be coming back." Quasimodo glanced down and realized his hands had instinctively balled into fists without him realizing, and they had settled in his lap, though they shook, to prevent himself from striking out at something in anger and worry over her condition.
Emanating a tense exhale, he shook his head and carded back that stubborn lock of hair again, stifling his growl of frustration and continued.
"Doesn't it seem easier to accept the fact that your husband can no longer hurt you than it does to continue letting him do this to you? It seems like it's an easier out than this torture you're putting yourself through because you won't let him go!" Quasi cried, swallowing hard and blinking back tears. "Even in death, your husband has a vice grip on your mind, and it's hurting me to not be able to help you. I—I hate this, that I don't know what to do! Tell me what to do," he begged, biting his bottom lip. "You need help. Why won't you let me, and Sister Alice help you? Is it the medicines?"
When Belle finally seemed to regain the power of speech, her voice was hoarse and soft and did not at all sound like her sweet jovial tone he had grown accustomed to during her time spent within the cathedral's walls.
"I lay awake all night, a—and all I see is his face as Gaston's dog rips my father apart to shreds. The fear in his eyes," she whisper hissed through clenched teeth and rooted jaw. "The emptiness is always there; I consider myself decent at hiding it, masking it with normal human emotions. No one is going to ask me why I'm smiling. It hides everywhere, this emptiness. There isn't any getting away from it. My nightmares seem to help fill it, with what I don't care to elaborate. They remind me of my childhood like the emptiness is the monster under the bed. I'm scared of it, but I need it. I need to feel something. I need something to go wrong, something to be imperfect. I think, sadly, I feel safer when something is wrong. I need that monster under the bed. I need it to distract myself, from not everything else but, simply, from myself." Her voice cracked and broke as she blearily lifted her head and kicked aside the tray of food Quasimodo had brought up for her, and fixed Notre Dame's bell ringer with a cold stare, also not like Belle.
"I—if you will e—excuse me, my friend, I—I should like to visit the nave, I think. I—I would like to be alone, Quasimodo. I—I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice faltering as a single tear cascaded down her cheek.
Quasi heaved a heavy sigh and reached out a hand to help Belle to her feet, a light pink blush speckling along her cheeks as the brunette looked away and brushed her hands on the skirts of her ivory chemise and green overdress. "If you think it will help you, then you should go, b—but please eat something, and soon. I cannot allow you to starve yourself to death. I hope that the nave brings you peace." He paused, painfully wringing his gloved hands together, weaving his fingers in between his knuckles in agitation, desperately wishing she would stay, but he could not—would not—force her to stay. "I—I've heard prayer can be helpful," he commented, a wistful, repentant look in his eyes as Belle turned her back on him again.
Belle froze, lingering in the entryway that separated the balcony's terrace from his bell tower loft, a hand on the wall to steady herself. When she turned around and lifted her chin to meet Quasimodo's gaze, he wished he would have kept her gaze fixated in front of her, for the heartbreak in her eyes was entirely too much for him to bear. Belle's eyes shifted to the side again and became glazed with a glossy layer of tears. As she blinked and she painfully twisted her fingers together, her tears dripped from her eyelids and slid down her cheeks. Belle bit her lip tightly in a futile attempt to hide any sound that wanted to escape from her mouth, and Quasi felt his heart sink.
Her lower lip quivered as words slowly tumbled out of her mouth. "They're…" Belle began, yet what followed was engulfed in the tremors. "I don't pray anymore," she confessed, casting her gaze downward at her bare feet. "The nave is the only place I can go where people don't talk to me."
With that, Belle turned her back on the bell ringer of Notre Dame, picked up the skirts of her dress, and quit the balcony before Quasi could so much as utter another word to her. He stared after the spot where she had stood only moments before, wishing that he could help her but how…
Quasimodo was getting used to the dryness of his mouth and the constant swallowing of nothing, though now as he thought of Belle's words, there the slimy sensation of something thick and the taste of iron on his tongue. Notre Dame's bell ringer spat the blood that had filled his taste buds and he sank to the floor of the balcony, his back resting against the cold stone wall, shivering while all the while curbing his pained breaths.
It hurt like hell, to see Belle this way. His jaw clenched and his teeth dug on the wall of his mouth. Quasi felt beads of sweat form on his brow and the bell ringer let out a quick and aggravated breath as he felt the weakening of his legs, feeling immensely grateful he was already sitting down as his hand jutted out behind him, his right gloved hand curled into a white-boned fist and he struck the stone in anger.
If that Prince ever comes back, he thought, fuming, and seething as his jaw tensed and locked in anger. I'll kill him…by the gods, I'll kill him… Quasimodo almost swallowed his tongue, throttling his urge to roar like an enraged dragon at what the girl's husband had done. A few hot tears escaped that stung and blurred his vision, rendering the world of the balcony and bell towers around him into a hazy blur.
But the worst part was not the stinging upon his bruised knuckles, but the simple fact that it was not enough to swap with the anguish that pierced his broken heart.
She had not gone to the nave like she had said she would. She had fully intended to, but her feet seemed to have other ideas in mind for her, no longer taken directions from her mind, and somehow, she found herself here, in this place of death, loss, and torment. "You would hate this place, Papa," she whispered in a broken voice as she blinked back salty, briny tears.
Belle had never quite experienced grief this bad before. It snuck up behind her quietly and took her under its arms in an instant, even two weeks after her father's funeral. The nuns had gathered what remained of his body and prepared him for burial, though she could not bring herself to attend.
Every memory of Maurice played like a song in her head, repeating itself for what felt like an eternity. She was lost because mostly she had lost an integral part of herself, one that Belle would never get back. She could not get that part back and she wanted it so badly her life depended on it, but it was all gone, vanished into thin air. She could not say that it got better.
At first, she thought and was of the belief that grief was something so bad that took her ten feet under, but soon, Belle learned that it was just the price you had to pay for daring to love someone, no matter the relationship.
Moss laden bricks of gray, fitting as guards on the threshold. Behind the fool's ancient wrought-iron gates. Where rows upon rows of crumbling mounds stood in various interpretations of upright, their pores bathing in light from an ill sun daring to peek behind a graying thunder cloud, ailing.
Porous trees hunched over most of the void spared by the sickening light's expanse, plunging the rest in healthy shadow. The graveyard echoed.
To enter, Belle had to skirt around a pile of wet leaves. Today, there was no weather. No wind, just howling. The temperature felt as if a mild apparition and so she heard the wind's company even more so, silent.
The leaf barbs that bar nefarious entrance was of little consequence to the inventor's daughter and the crumbling gravestones with their engraved epitaphs bathed in light spilled from the light of the sun hidden behind a cloud. Gnarled trees hunched over most of the expanse, plunging the rest in shadow. The place echoed with painful grief and the emptiness of loss.
Belle had never felt more at home. She sniffed and did not bother to look back as the back train of her black velvet and lace mourning gown became wet from the rainfall that had occurred but a mere two hours ago.
She paused when she reached her father's tomb, clutching the single white lily she had purchase from a flower vendor in the marketplace on her way here, fingering the little white thing's delicate petals. So soft and fragile.
Grief. It felt like a strange emptiness in her heart, a sheer of nothingness that somehow had taken over and held Belle's soul hostage, threatening to kill her entirely. It gave the inventor's daughter this strange, heavy feeling that was like the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders and there was nothing she could do in order to get herself out from underneath of it.
The grief of missing her papa came in waves and threatened to consume Belle entirely. It was her master, for now. She was at the mercy of its whims and at times, it bit at her with such ferocity, that Belle feared it would leave her an empty shell, with nothing left to live for. "I—I'm so sorry…"
Her face crumpled, twisting, and contorting with grief, and it was only here in front of Maurice's unmarked tomb that she allowed herself to cry.
She had never got to tell her Papa that she loved him one last time. She did not get to hold her father close before he slipped away. She never even got to look into his loving, beautiful face, which always brought her so much happiness, before Maurice died. Her father had always been her anchor, whenever Belle had started to drift. A friend to her when she'd had no one else. He had always been there for her with a smile shining in his bright eyes. And now he was gone.
Forever.
Her anger and rage at what Gaston had so brutally taken from her dissolved into sadness as tears embraced her eyes, making the tombstone and the dirt beneath her feet blend together as one.
Waves of pain washed over Belle, and she felt her body convulse to meet each one. Her father was gone, his light extinguished by death's empty darkness. All Belle had left of Maurice was the fading image in her mind.
She could still see him in the cellar of their old house in the kitchen, tinkering over some music box or other. But no matter how hard Belle tried, she could not fully see her father's face. Like a ship straining to see a light in a storm, Belle desperately searched for a picture of her Papa's face in her memories. None came to her.
All she remembered was the brightness of her father's eyes, but the details of his face were gone, just like him. In despair, she pressed her forehead against his tombstone, as close as Belle could get.
Belle's hold upon the single lily loosened and the petals crumpled and fell to the ground. Emanating a tense exhale through her nose, she shakily rose to the ground, grateful the veil over her face covered her distraught expression from curious onlookers.
She sniffed once and adjusted the long flared tow sleeves of her dress, repressing a shudder as a cold autumnal breeze wafted through the air as October slowly drew to a close. Soon, the winds of winter would be upon them and the weather would begin to grow frigid.
She glanced around the graveyard with red-rimmed, watery eyes. How could such a place as this be so full and empty at the same time? All around, the tombstones were laid with their faded itching, but most were unmarked. A roll call for the people who could not answer. For when their bodies became still and cold and their life force left them, they became a cadaver, not a person.
Their soul, their living being, had moved on to God, to walk among Jesus and God's Angels and be healed. Belle exhaled a shaking breath and blinked away the last of her tears, standing in the watery light of the early evening, living, breathing, her life ahead of her stretching ahead, and yet…whatever Belle came for was not here. This graveyard was full.
Full of stone, moss, yew trees, and the decaying remnants of bone and flesh. But it was empty. There was nobody here but her. Her Papa was gone.
Belle jumped and stifled a cry of surprise as an unfamiliar voice rent through the air and shattered the silence, a woman's voice that she did not recognize.
"I miss him too."