Chapter Fifteen: In the Bell Tower
THE bell tower was not exactly what Esmeralda had been expecting, though if the young dancer was being honest with herself, she did not know what exactly to expect.
Her heart was pounding loudly in her chest as the young blonde had led her up a wooden ladder towards the upper level of a mezzanine, and as her eyes slowly but surely adjusted to the darkness, Esmeralda felt her piercing green eyes widen in utter shock.
It had been too dark to get a good look at her surroundings before, given that the staircase had been pitch black, most of the lighted torches in their sconces having gone out long before she and Madellaine had begun the grueling climb up the stone stairwell that led to the boy's bell towers. Esmeralda was beginning to feel rather nervous.
She was hoping that Madellaine would have merely escorted her to the top of the tower and waited for her near the entrance.
She had hoped to apologize to the boy in private, though it was looking increasingly likely that this was not to be the case, that she was going to have to apologize in front of the pair of them.
Esmeralda inhaled a deep breath of bitter cold January air and nervously brushed the palms of her hands on the skirts of her deep purple dress.
"I—I'm so sorry about this afternoon," Esmeralda began uneasily, feeling beads of sweat form on her browbone as she took in the man's nervous demeanor, and if, she wasn't mistaken, slightly angry expression.
The man's glistening cerulean blue orbs were laced to the brim with an antagonizing hurt and a sense of betrayal at her presence within his home, she who had played an unwilling and unknowing hand in humiliating him today at the Feast of Fools.
She could only pray to God if He even listened to an outcast's prayer like hers that he would forgive her.
She hoped that this man would allow her to explain that she truly had no idea who he really was, and if she had known, she wouldn't have done it, though it was becoming harder for her to speak as tears blurred in her eyes, welling and threatening to spill over if she couldn't control herself.
Esmeralda had fully anticipated the boy would interrupt her, yell at her, even, refuse to let her speak and demand she vacate his tower loft, but Quasimodo did no such thing.
He remained silent; his posture guarded. His shoulders were stiff, his arms held out in front of her despite the reassuring and gentle touch of Madellaine's hand on his right shoulder.
Nevertheless, despite the creature's countenance unnerving her, she owed it to the boy to apologize.
It was, after all, why she had come here.
"I—I had no idea who you were. I—I would n—never in my life have pulled you up on the….stage…" Esmeralda mumbled, her breath momentarily stolen away as a shimmer of light nearby caught the corner of her eye, pulling her attention away from the nervous bell ringer and the young blonde servant of Judge Claude Frollo.
The loft's beauty stole her breath away, now that her eyes adjusted, and she could see a little better. Somewhat reluctantly, Esmeralda forced herself to tear her gaze away from her newfound surroundings and back towards the bell ringer.
Her cheeks flushed as she felt her eyebrows furrow in a light frown and began absently twisting one of the rings on her fingers, spoils from men who had admired her performance earlier as their token of payment.
"I—I came up to tell you that I am sorry, for this morning. Very sorry, my friend. Will you forgive me?" Esmeralda pleaded desperately, biting her bottom lip as she stuck it out in a slight pout and waiting.
Quasimodo hesitated, not at all sure how to react, and when Esmeralda took a cautious half step forward, it pained her heart greatly to see the young redhaired man instantly flinch away from her approach with a gasp as he instinctively brought his hands towards his face, shielding himself from a potential strike from Esmeralda in case she was angry.
Though the moment he heard her sigh in exasperation, he lowered his arms, though apprehensively, noticing Madellaine shoot him a pitying look out of the corner of his eyes, and he flinched, as he mutely nodded.
"I—I forgive you," he whispered, hoarsely, and almost sanguinely lifted his head to look at the young dancer across the way.
She certainly looked as though she were remorseful of what had transpired. Her cheeks were flushed bright pink and she seemed too nervous to eye him for long.
At first, he had assumed the girl's lack of eye contact to be the product of her not wanting to look upon his grotesque, hideous form for any longer than was necessary, and for that, Quasi could not fault the girl.
But then he realized her avoidance was simply due to her embarrassment at the precarious position she had placed him in earlier today by pulling him up on the stage without really asking for his permission first.
Her brows had come together in a rather troublesome scowl that would have otherwise looked comical if it didn't make his heart feel heavy.
He wracked his brain, trying to think of something to say to make her feel better, though, in truth, he did not know why she had come.
To apologize, yes, perhaps, but Quasi sensed there was more to it.
"I—I k—knew you'd p-probably come to see me," he stammered, and he froze when he recognized Esmeralda had been staring at his figure.
Esmeralda winced, knowing full well she was being rude, and she was the last person to talk about manners, but she had not come here to stare at the boy as though he were some exotic creature in a cage in a zoo.
He hesitated, biting the inside wall of his cheek, and ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth before asking the question that was really on his mind.
"Why…why are you here?" he murmured quietly, his hackles raising instinctively, and he hoped he wouldn't blame her for his reaction.
The slightly accusing and nervousness must have been evident in his tones, for it elicited a reaction out of Madellaine, her hand on his shoulder, and sending a strange feeling of fiery warmth through his body.
"Quasimodo!" Madellaine exclaimed, interrupting her new friend before the young bell ringer could so much as get another word in edgewise. "She isn't here to hurt you, and neither am I," she said kindly. "She came up here to apologize to you, Quasi," Madellaine soothed.
Esmeralda watched, interested, as the young blonde hearth keep gave the man's shoulder a light reassuring squeeze before dropping her hand, and she bit the wall of her cheek as it looked as though Judge Frollo's hearth keep was of a mind to put her hand back on his shoulder, for Esmeralda saw the fingers of her hand twitched, though Madellaine quickly balled her fingers into a fist and kept her trembling hand at her side.
Peculiar behavior, though she had no time to ponder it as Quasi spoke, effectively pulling her out of her stunned thoughts of the girl.
"I…I don't…I didn't…I—I am s—sorry f-for f-frightening you," he murmured, whispering his confession as though it were a hushed secret.
His slight stutter, Esmeralda guessed, stemmed from a place of nervousness, which she couldn't blame him for, not really, considering she and Madellaine were perhaps the first women he had ever really talked to, much less met, and she felt a stab of pity prick at her heartstrings for him.
There was no denying that Quasimodo was deformed, yes, and she knew it.
The boy's shyness was telling enough, having spent the majority of his life up here alone, though his brilliant sky blue eyes were kind, his demeanor warm.
It seemed to take the poor lad an eternity to find his voice again, and when he did manage to speak, his tenor-like voice was so soft, that Esmeralda had to lean forward to hear.
"I—I forgive you, Esmeralda."
She nodded, feeling the excitement well within her chest rapidly, though a small pang of hesitation still rested inside her heart, despite having heard the man accept her apology.
Esmeralda did not want to frighten the poor man any more than he surely already was tonight, so she decided that she would be cautious for now.
It was the least she could do.
"Thank you. And you must be Quasimodo, yes?" Esmeralda questioned, offering the bell ringer a brief incline of her head in respect.
The boy stiffened at first at the gesture, though it seemed to calm him down, and she could not help but notice with the beginnings of an affectionate smile that snaked onto her face that the man kept shooting interested glances at the young blonde out of the corner of his good eye.
She let a tiny chuckle escape her lips as she watched in silence.
There's something more between those two brewing. I can sense it. Esmeralda drew in a sharp breath as the few candles that had been lighted and scattered throughout the man's loft danced over his unique form, the jittery light made the shadows cast by the boy's body look even more monstrous in this dim lighting than he actually was, and Esmeralda cursed herself for momentarily becoming frightened by the man's shadow.
He tugged nervously at the sleeve of the long-sleeved linen undershirt he wore underneath his thick green woolen tunic in distress.
For a moment, Esmeralda wondered if she had made a mistake in coming here to apologize, perhaps thinking it would be best if she just left.
She noticed that the moment she took a step backward, his shoulders relaxed, and she heard the young blonde let out a sigh of relief.
The bell ringer blinked owlishly in shock at Esmeralda's question, though he was quick and the first to recover.
"Y—yes, that's my name."
He was stuttering less now, Esmeralda noticed, so that had to be a good sign, right? Esmeralda smiled encouragingly and looked around in wonderment at the man's tower loft, trying to take in her new environment.
"Wh—what an amazing place," she breathed, having to crane her neck this way and that to try to take in the simplistic beauty of the loft. "You—you live here all alone?" Esmeralda asked, her gaze flitting towards Quasimodo, who seemed as though he were fighting the urge to dart back into the shadows behind the curtain where Madellaine had found him, who, she noticed, was looking rather apprehensive on the man's behalf.
Esmeralda kept her gaze fixated at the upper level of the mezzanine at the seemingly dozens, perhaps hundreds of massive, proud iron and brass bells of Notre Dame that the bellringer rang faithfully every morning.
"Whole life," she heard Quasimodo's soft, tenor-like tone answer, so faint that she almost thought that the boy hadn't spoken a word at all.
Their ropes dangled above their heads like snakes on a vine, and when she finally averted her gaze from above her, her neck starting to get a crick, Esmeralda froze when she saw the table across the staircase, framed by a few discarded and long-forgotten statues, weathered with age and the elements, and a stack of shelves full of assorted knick-knacks to her right.
Even in the practically non-existent light as night outside continued to fall, occasionally throwing in shafts of moonlight through one of the rafter beams, she could see, Esmeralda as she drew closer towards the wooden table and pulled off the green woolen tarp that covered the table understood she was looking at a diorama of the entire city and likeness of the City of Lovers.
"This is beautiful," she whispered, reaching out a hand to clasp onto an exquisitely carved figurine of the baker and the blacksmith, examining it.
After a moment or two of eyeing each figurine, marveling at the level of detail, skill, time, and effort the boy must have taken in crafting such a masterpiece, a true work of art, Esmeralda straightened her posture and looked back towards Quasimodo and Madellaine, both of whom flinched.
She inwardly cringed at their shared reaction as she refocused her attention solely on Notre Dame's bell ringer.
He almost wished she didn't.
Esmeralda could not help as she looked upon the cowering man practically quaking in his boots where he stood, too nervous to eye her for too terribly long, she noticed, though he seemed somewhat calmed by the young blonde's presence, and Esmeralda, perceptive as she was, sensed a growing bond of friendship, and perhaps even something more between them, though what that 'thing' or those 'things' might be, only they knew.
She could tell the boy was intently watching her movements, as was Madellaine, who, Esmeralda noticed, was regarding her somewhat distrustfully, which she couldn't help but feel the younger girl's fears unfounded and not at all necessary.
"Another human's touch shouldn't hurt."
The words were out of her mouth before Esmeralda could even think about stopping herself, and she inwardly cursed her stupidity and mentally slapping herself for overstepping her boundaries with this boy.
Esmeralda noticed how red the boy's face flushed in embarrassment, and the young blonde hearth keep of Judge Frollo's as well, though hers was a look of anger, once again that the young Romani could not place it.
"You have a lovely home," Esmeralda managed to croak out after a few minutes in tense, uncomfortable silence, swallowing down hard past the growing lump in her throat nervously. "It must be a wonderful place to live, Quasimodo," she sighed, unable to keep the note of jealousy out of her voice.
Home. Esmeralda froze, feeling suddenly rooted to her spot.
Something she had not had in a long time. She and Clopin's Court of Miracles were constantly moving, always roaming, never lingering in one place for too long. She did not know how long she would remain in Paris.
"Yes," he spoke shyly after a moment's hesitation, though a mischievous but shy grin slowly crept onto his twisted features as he smiled at the pair of women. "But up here in winter, very cold," he joked weakly.
A beat or two passed before Esmeralda looked towards the bell ringer again, her gaze was once more drawn to the bells high above her head.
"I never knew there were so many," she murmured thoughtfully, lowering her head to notice both Quasimodo and Madellaine regarding her, their demeanor pensive for some reason.
Well, the boy's was. Less so hers. The young blonde's features were rapidly paling, her face almost turning an interesting shade of green, her lips pursed into such a thin line that for a moment, Esmeralda wondered if the girl was about to be sick.
Quasimodo, if he noticed the sudden shift in his new friend's countenance, was oblivious to Madellaine's obviously growing discomfort.
"Would you like to see them?" he asked, a note of eagerness in his voice now, and the bell ringer did not bother to tamper down the growing excitement that had begun spreading in the confines of his chest and down to the very tips of his toes in his brown leather boots, warming his body.
The girls exchanged a brief look with one another before Madellaine silently nodded her head in agreement, latching onto the boy's arm for support, her fingers curling around the material of his linen undershirt underneath his thick green woolen tunic for support as she climbed up the ladder to the topmost level of the mezzanine, gawking at all the iron bells.
Madellaine was the first to break the silence before Esmeralda had a chance to speak.
"There's nothing we'd love more. Right?" she asked, biting down on her bottom lip and casting a skittish glance towards Esmeralda.
Esmeralda did not particularly enjoy the suspicious looks she was on the receiving end of the young blonde.
She made a mental note to perhaps address it later with the girl when the two were alone.
The look she was giving her was strange. It was almost as if she were trying to silently ask Esmeralda if she held…intentions towards this boy. Which was, in all honesty, the furthest thing from the truth.
Quasimodo seemed kind enough, but the boy was admittedly, not her type. Esmeralda and Madellaine stood side by side with one another while the bell ringer proudly showed off his bells, motioning for the women to follow him with a curt wave of his arm.
"Follow me. I'll introduce you." As Quasi turned his back on the statuesque brunette and the petite blonde hearth keep of Master Frollo's, he could not help but think how drastically different both women were, and yet, the fact remained alone that this was the longest period of time another woman save for Alice had been up in his tower loft, and for him to show these two his bells was perhaps his biggest life moment yet.
He hoped he wouldn't regret it.
A cold sweat glistened on his furrowed ginger brows. With his gloved hands clasped tightly in front of his stomach, he constantly fiddled with his knuckles, weaving his fingers in and out of each other in fear.
Panic seemed to claw its way up into his throat and wind its icy tendrils around the column of his throat, and for a moment, Quasi swore he felt the familiar burning and stinging sensation of the ropes those soldiers and peasants had lassoed around his neck earlier this afternoon.
The girl stood near the edge of the wooden platform, though the moment Notre Dame's bell ringer turned around to regard the pair of them, Madellaine was the first to lock eyes with the man and she smiled.
It took him a moment to return the gesture, but the second that he did, his smile was that of a warm sunset, causing Madellaine's heart to flutter unexpectedly against its cage, so damned audibly loud she swore that Esmeralda, who was standing next to her, could hear it, and she blanched.
The pair of women slowly but steadily followed the bell ringer towards the center of the wooden platform, having to lift the hems of the skirts of their dresses in order to mind their step, considering that the old wooden floorboards creaked horribly in some places, and rather uneven, parted in gaping, dangerous ways that you could easily fall through and injure yourself, perhaps even sprain or twist your ankle if you weren't careful, and Madellaine barely stifled her tiny groan as she forced herself to try not to look down.
It wasn't necessarily that she had a fear of heights, per se, but rather, she did not want to inadvertently step through one and fall, plummeting to the floor below and break her foot in the process.
Madellaine let out a tiny squeak as she very nearly came close to fulfilling that observation as she felt her body beginning to lean the moment her boot accidentally stepped down and bore too much weight on one of the gaping floorboards, and she would have fallen through if not for a pair of strong gloved hands wrapping themselves around her waist and almost violently pulling her back.
A hand over her racing heart, she gasped. She swiveled her head to her immediate left to notice Quasimodo eyeing her with an apprehensive, nervous look.
"Y—you are a—all right?" he asked, stammering over his words.
"Y—yes, I am, thank you, you saved me from a nasty fall, Quasimodo," Madellaine gasped, her breaths coming to her in short, gasping spurts as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried her absolute hardest to avoid looking down. "You're very strong," she grinned.
Madellaine watched, a hint of amusement twinkling in her eyes as a light pink blush speckled along Quasi's cheeks as he nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders in a casual manner as if to say to her, it was no trouble at all.
Awestruck, the young blonde craned her neck this way and that, taking in the majestic beauty of the man's beloved bells, his children, in a way.
"Do all of the bells have names?" she wondered out loud, pondering if the talk in town was true. The rumors afoot that he had named the bells.
Quasi nodded by way of response as he sauntered over, walking with his rather lumbering gait and with a slight limp, Esmeralda and Madellaine noticed pitiably, though before either girl could comment on it, he spoke.
"Yes. This one here is Big Marie," he murmured, running a gloved hand over the smooth surface of what Madellaine knew to be the largest bell. He raised a hand and pointed towards a few others. "My favorite bell is Little Sophia, though the others can't know," he grinned. And those are Jean-Marie, Ann-Marie, and Louise-Marie. Triplets, you know," he joked. Madellaine slowly nodded her head as Quasi listed off the names of a few others.
There was Jacqueline, whose clapper needed to be fixed before the morrow.
The question burned on the tip of her tongue, longing to be asked. "How do you fix these bells? I imagine it must take a lot of work to fix all their cracks, yes?" Madellaine asked, letting the question roll off her tongue as she reached up a hand to stroke the cracked and yet still somehow smooth surface of the magnificent bell, the pads of her fingertips ghosting along the widened crack in Marie's rightmost side.
The bell was cold to the touch under her palm, but it was not necessarily an unpleasant feeling. She decided she liked it, the feeling it gave.
"Hot lead," Quasi answered simply and matter-of-factly, though he startled as the girls immediately had adverse reactions to this revelation and watched in a stunned stupor as the girls clutched at one another in shock and awe.
"Hot lead?!" protested Esmeralda, feeling her face drain in shock.
All it would take was one accident or spill of the practically boiling molten lava and the entire bell tower loft up here would surely be set on fire, then!
She could have sworn she heard Madellaine whimper at the news, and it did not take a scholar to know that she was thinking the same thing.
Esmeralda was surprised at the closeness of the embrace, considering not even a moment ago, for reasons unknown to her, the blonde had looked ready to grow fangs and dig them into the column of her throat simply for looking at Quasi in a way that seemed to cause her grievance, though she did not have any time to ponder the behavior.
He nodded eagerly this time. "Yes, I can show you, but I wouldn't get too close. It's very, very hot, it's why I wear these," he smiled, briefly flashing his gloved hands towards the girls before turning towards the bell Madellaine and Esmeralda had heard him call Little Sophia, his favorite.
"Oh, Sophia!" Madellaine squeaked happily, remembering the kitchen wench back at the Palace of Justice who she was steadily becoming fast friends with.
She would surely be delighted to learn a bell was named after her. The young blonde swallowed nervously as her blush intensified as the bell ringer quirked a questioning brow her way but said nothing.
Mortified at her unexpected outburst, Madellaine quickly averted her gaze, though she immediately swiveled her head back when Esmeralda spoke up, her husky voice low and contemplative.
"Will they sing for us?"
Madellaine drew in a sharp breath of frigid cold air that pained her lungs as she turned her gaze back towards Quasi, who was looking pleased.
As if to say that he thought the girls would never ask for a demonstration.
His nervousness, Madellaine was pleased to note, seemed to dissipate the longer he spent in their company, which was a good thing.
Grasping the rope firmly in his gloved hands, Quasi turned his back on the pair of women, though not before looking back once over his shoulder and shooting the girls a rather lopsided but quite shy smile.
"M—Madellaine, E—Esmeralda, y—you might want to cover your ears. I—it can be very loud if you're not used to it," he warned, dipping into the pocket of his tunic and stuffing a wad of what looked like bedding material from his mattress into his ear as a sort of barrier from the noise.
The boy's smile was one of happiness growing, Esmeralda affectionately noticed as she felt the edges of her lips curling upward, returning the gesture as she noticed out of the corner of her peripherals Madellaine doing the same, and she promptly clamped her hands over her ears.
She could see how it came from deep inside to light his blue eyes and spread into every part of him.
A person smiles with more than their mouth. Esmeralda heard it in the man's soft, tenor-like voice, in the choice of his words, and the way he relaxed.
His smile was that of a warm sunset. Truly beautiful. Esmeralda glanced towards Madellaine, intrigued by her.
She could tell by the young blonde hearth keep of Judge Frollo's held herself that she was rather timid and shy, and quite insecure. Her shoulders were hunched over as if hiding the treasure inside of her as Madellaine followed Esmeralda's lead in covering her ears to protect her hearing.
Her footsteps were light and timid as she took a staggering step backward with the first hard tug on the rope that Quasimodo gave, not hearing him grunt with the effort to pull on it to coax the resonating, gentle tolls from the bells, not hearing him talk to the bells to make the music he so desired.
Esmeralda let out a muffled yelp as the sound grew louder, reverberating off the walls of the man's tower loft as he rang the bells for the girls.
She guessed it made sense for the bells to be so huge. For their sound poured through the bell tower and out onto the balcony terrace, down into the town square and flooding it with the music as if it were a special sort of thunder, one that could laugh for you.
Those bell peals danced as if the sound itself twirled through the walls and windows. The sound was musical and magical, were as echoes of giggles, of the sounds of children as they form their bonds in play.
"So loud!" Madellaine shouted over the noise, wincing, and squeezing her eyes shut as the echoes continued to reverberate off the walls though they slowly died down.
Quasi turned to look at the girls.
"What?" he asked, a furrowed look of confusion on his face, and for a fraction of a second, Madellaine froze, her face draining in shock.
Gingerly, she lowered her hands and bit the wall of her cheek. "I…you can't hear us? Quasi? I—if you can hear us, say something to me," she whispered, though as a small but crooked smile crept over the man's features, the blonde heard herself emanate a tense exhale of relief through her nose as he wordlessly removed the bedding he had stuffed in his eardrums to protect his hearing from the bells.
"No, I can hear you," he responded cheerily, moving to stand in front of the two women once more the moment the proud iron and brass bells of Notre Dame had swayed their way to silence once more.
The bell ringer parted his lips open slightly to speak, though he did not get the chance as a loud, startled shout rent the air. What was once peaceful had now become tainted, polluted with rage.
Everyone tensed.
Madellaine stiffened, so did Quasimodo as the pair instantly recognized the familiar clacking sound of the Judge's boots resonating within the tower loft.
"Quasimodo! What are you doing ringing the bells at the wrong hour, since when have you ever rung them early?!"
The man's deep baritone voice, now calloused by ire, livid, and utterly graceless, gone was the charm that she had heard laced throughout the man's tones earlier when he'd addressed her.
Esmeralda's posture tensed as she balled her hands into fists at her sides, shaking, though not from fear of the infamous Judge, but of rage.
The boy had undergone enough torment and scrutiny for one day, and Esmeralda knew she would be damned to the seven hells below if she did not try to do whatever she could to quell Claude Frollo's temper.
Madellaine bit her tongue and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, could almost imagine the Judge walking to and from on the lower level of the mezzanine, though she knew it was only a matter of time before he—
"I gave you this chance, boy, tried to make a man of you, and this is how you repay my kindness and generosity? You have deliberately disobeyed me, you ring the bells at the wrong hour to mock me, and now the ENTIRE CITY OF PARIS IS LAUGHING AT ME!" he shouted.
Her shoulders leaped at the bashing sound of what sounded like an empty chalice clattering to the wooden floor below, and Madellaine's eyes flung open as the angered, clipped tone of the Judge drew closer.
She barely stifled a low agonized moan and one look at Quasi was more than enough.
The poor man was utterly terrified, violently trembling, bringing his hands up to cover the span of his face in self-defense, and Madellaine felt a wave of hot boiling anger, hotter than the bell ringer's molten lead, begin to churn in her veins.
Frollo had done this.
The Judge had been the one to cause all those scars. Madellaine parted her lips open slightly to speak, though her eyes widened the moment the Judge's towering and imposing silhouette came into view.
And then she heard the low, muted whimper come from deep within the confines of Quasi's chest, crippled with a horrible agony and so solid with a pain that felt as though her breast had been pierced with a lance as their master strode towards the three new friends with a fuming look in his eyes.
Madellaine swallowed nervously at the look of animosity in Master Frollo's eyes, and she could tell that she was the root cause of his problems and that she and Esmeralda had made a grave mistake in coming up here to visit the lonesome man.
A very grave mistake indeed.