Chapter 12: Sorcière
Belle was shaken awake, and when she saw Wagaye standing above her with water, she shook her throbbing head.
"Mmmmhhh" she groaned, not wanting to be disturbed. She would rather slip back into sleep, where she saw and felt nothing.
"Up now, Belle. You have to get well."
"Why?" she asked through her teeth that were too tired for her to pull apart.
"You are going to go back to the Chateau with me. You are needed there."
Belle wanted to argue, to say that they couldn't care less about her there, but she was already slipping back into unconsciousness.
"No, wake up. Belle. Belle." Wagaye tried to shake her awake again, but she couldn't pry her eyes open. Sighing as though he had hoped it wouldn't come to this, he splashed the water on her face. It was ice cold, and Belle's eyes shot open as a scream erupted from the back of her throat.
"I know you are not well," he said to Belle, who had started shaking, though from sadness or cold she couldn't say, "but you need to eat. You are closer to dying than even you think you are. I need to give you food before you cannot wake up any more."
Had Belle not been starving, she would have told Wagaye boldly that she had nothing more to live for. Now, however, at the mention of food, she held out her hands pleadingly.
"Food." she asked, a whine that she didn't even know she possessed starting in her voice, "Please."
Wagaye went to a wooden table that stood near her bed and cut a thick slice of bread from a loaf. He handed it to her, and ravenously she ate it, barely pausing to chew it. In less than a minute she had finished it and she held out her hands once more.
"More, please." she said, not managing to get more than that out. The hunger in her stomach had been awakened, and now it felt like she was starting to die all over again. He cut her another slice, and she ate it, this time savoring it a little more than she had the other, though she still ate it quickly.
"No more." Wagaye said after she finished it, "I do not want you to be sick."
"But I am so hungry." she pleaded, "Please. Please, give me more, anything."
"Not until supper." he said, looking at the sun that was no halfway between the sky and the ground through the window, "Then, there will be soup."
At the thought of soup, Belle began to salivate.
"Are you sure I cannot have-"
"You may have one cup of water, but no more." Wagaye said, going to get a cup from a small cupboard across the room, "As I said, if you have more, it will not stay in your stomach, and then you will have nothing there. Is that what you want?"
"No." Belle said, almost crying with frustration. She sat up in the bed slowly, took the cup filled with water that he gave her, and drank it very slowly, careful not to spill a drop of it.
"Good." Wagaye said, smiling once she had finished, "And now I will start on dinner."
"Wait." Belle said, frowning as she looked out at the setting sun, "You are from the Chateau, correct? And yet, the sun-"
"I expect you will want to rest some more now." Wagaye interrupted, giving her a curious look. Belle, who had been starting to feel more awake, now felt the overpowering need to sleep. Before she could even think of the cause of the sudden change, she had drifted off, still propped up by her pillow. Wagaye shook his head, still smiling, and put her pillow and her head down. Lost in his own mysterious thoughts, he went to began on the soup he had promised.
Once the sun had gone down and Samson had resumed his normal shape, he began pacing around his room, kicking the piles of papers as he walked. Something was off, he could tell. It was not any one thing that had happened, but rather, things that had not happened.
For the last several days, his son had been acting strange. Before, he had been brooding in his room, whereas now he was always wary, always looking for something. Several times, Samson had seen through his magic mirror that Misrak was searching through their enormous library, a room that very few people chose to occupy, especially him. The last person who had used the library so much was Misrak's mother, and that was long ago, long before Misrak was born, or Alitash for that matter. It had been when they were just married and he had secretly followed her to her home…
He shuddered at the memory. It was then that he had realized the repulsiveness of his dark skin, when he had come to know how hated the dark people were across the rest of the world. He remembered how Marie had not even been able to tell her parents that she was married, so revolting the idea of marrying a dark man was, instead having to excuse his unexpected presence as that of a slave…He looked down at his dark, thin arm and cursed it. He wished he could scrub it off, destroy it. It was as though it was suffocating him.
And his son and daughter…he loathed them. He had never felt so sickened by anything as the joy the took in their shameful history, that of dark and magical ancestors. If there was anything Samson hated more than his skin color it was magic, that horrible and great mystery that controlled him and consumed him to the point of madness.
As he kicked the papers, his foot hit on the magic mirror, and he picked it up. It had belonged to Marie before she had died, and he still used it, in spite of his fear of magic, to keep track of others.
"Show me Misrak." he commanded. The mirror clouded over, and minute later revealed Misrak, hunched in concentration over some books and occasionally lifting a candle that he had over the text, as though the writing was small and hard to read.
"What is he doing?" Samson hissed, knowing the mirror could not answer him, "Why is he not wasting away as he was before? What has changed?" He racked his brain, but there had been no changes in the castle. If anything, things had settled back into the tired monotony in the last few weeks. Finally, he could think of nothing else to say than,
"Show me Belle."
The mirror fogged up once more, and did not clear after a moment like it usually did. Samson's brow furrowed.
"Show me Belle." he repeated. The fog in the mirror increased, but an image still did not appear. Samson's face contorted in annoyance and barely suppressed rage.
"Where is Belle, you worthless instrument?" he hissed. The fog at once cleared, but instead of Belle, he saw his dead wife staring up at him accusingly, her blue eyes piercing straight into his soul. He let out a strangled a cry and dropped the mirror, causing a giant spider web of cracks to form over the surface of the mirror. He stood as though petrified, seeming to expect the mirror to bite him if he moved. After several minutes, he cautiously bent over to look in it, but Marie's face was gone. Shaking, he left the room, locking it and not looking back.
Misrak leaned back in his chair, rubbing his aching eyes. For the last several days, he had been spending his nights researching prophecies fervently, hoping to find something that would aid him. The thought of having a prophecy of his future made him feel trapped, more so knowing that the only way he could ever leave would be if he did as the prophecy said.
"But how does one fall in love?" he asked himself. "Can just knowing I am supposed to love her make me do so?" But he knew the answer to that before he had even asked it.
A rustling sound behind him caused him to sit up straight and stiffen. Turning around, he saw that it was Alitash, her arms crossed and an odd expression on her face.
"Hello, Misrak." she said awkwardly, "You have been here and your chambers often. It is odd. I- we worry."
Misrak gave her a wry smile.
"And does our father worry?"
Alitash pulled out a chair at the table next to him and sat in it.
"No." she said, "But then, he is Father. What else would you expect?"
"Have you ever considered the fact that it is solely due to Father that we may never see the light of day, can never leave this place?"
Alitash scoffed.
"Don't be dramatic, Misrak." she said, "We can leave. That was proved when we came here."
"But we are lions every night!" he said in a strangled voice, "We may never be free."
Alitash shrugged her thin shoulders.
"I would have no use for freedom." she said quietly, "What would I, a woman, a woman with no child, do with it in this land where women are nothing?"
"You do not care about the thought? The very principle of the thing?"
"It is my life. It does not bother me." Alitash leaned forward, scrutinizing his face, "It never used to bother you, either. More changes have occurred than just where you spend your nights."
"You look so displeased."
"Because it is due to Belle."
Misrak let out a long suffering sigh.
"Does it matter, Alitash?"
"Let her go!" Alitash cried, standing up, "Let go of whatever silly infatuation you have with her and-"
"It is more than a silly infatuation!" Misrak roared, slamming his fists on the table, "You truly do not understand the gravity of my situation!"
"What is it, then?" Alitash sneered, "Do you think you love her?"
"It would be easier if I did." Misrak said defiantly, "And if I did, what would you do? Claw her eyes out so that I could be as miserable and bitter as you are?"
"Miserable and bitter?"
"Yes. You make hell of the lives of everyone you know and then expect them to thank you for it."
Alitash's eyes widened as though she'd been struck. Misrak soon began to realize the impact of what finally telling her what he thought of her would mean, but he was still glad that he'd said it. It was true, and the lack of food and sleep had made him tired of lies and deceptions.
"How can you speak to me so?" she asked furiously, "My own brother, does the loss of your nephew mean nothing?"
"The loss of my sister hurts me more."
Misrak stood up and walked away. Alitash sank back into her chair and watched him long after he left. If he had stayed, he would have seen that she cried as she silently wished away all that had happened the last few years of their lives.
It had been about a week since Belle had first come to the little cottage with Wagaye, and since then he had completely nursed her back to health. During the days, she mostly ate, slept, or read one of the few books that he had managed to get for her, and at night he told her all sorts of amusing anecdotes of things that had happened over the years in the Chateau and even before that. He always told them amusingly, but with a little sadness in his eyes, and when she asked how he knew so many things, many of them being much too long ago for him to remember, he smiled wistfully and said that he had heard them from others and that he was just a convincing liar.
In spite of how much time they spent together, she was never able to ask him about himself, such as who he was or why he never became a lion. It was not that she didn't want to; rather, the question would curiously manage to slip her mind as she was about to ask it, or she would feel suddenly drowsy and much too tired to ask questions. Belle didn't see this as a coincidence, but while she would have loved to know, she was more grateful to him for giving her the will and ability to live than curious about his past.
Right now, Belle sat huddled under the sheets, wearing nothing more than her undergarments. She had given her clothes to Wagaye for him to wash, at his insistence. Though she was perfectly capable of doing many things on her own- sometimes even better than he could- he insisted that she do absolutely nothing. When she had grumbled that she would become plump as a pastry, he had informed her that that was the point.
Wagaye returned sooner than she had expected, though he was not carrying the periwinkle gown that she had been wearing before. Rather, he was carrying a large brown paper parcel.
"I thought that you were going to wash my dress." she said calmly, "Unless that is what you are carrying, though I can barely see why you would put paper on it."
Wagaye shook his head.
"The dress you had was ruined. It would do you no good."
Belle raised her eyebrows.
"Do me no good? It served me well."
"It was ruined. I shudder to think how Misrak and Alitash would treat you if you went to them still wearing it."
"I do not, for I am not going back to the Chateau."
"Where else would you go?" Wagaye asked amusedly, putting the parcel at the foot of her bed.
"I could…I could…"
"What, live here?"
Belle blushed.
"Well, there would be no reason not to."
"You would go absolutely mad within a year."
Belle shrugged.
"And I would not in the Chateau?"
"It is much less likely."
When Belle didn't answer, Wagaye sighed and said,
"I promise, you will not be driven mad or locked up or anything of that sort. If that did happen, I would get you out, and then you would be free to do as you like."
Belle looked over him. Had she never met him before, she would have laughed and asked how he would be able to get her out of anything. However, in the week that they had been in the cottage she had come to realize that there was more to him somehow than a wiry boy who worked as a servant in the Chateau. Knowing that she would end up going back (for what choice did she have?) she looked away from him and instead at the package on the bed.
"Open it." Wagaye said.
Carefully making sure the sheets were securely around her, she leaned forward and ripped the paper. When it was unwrapped, she gasped. Lying there was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen; shimmering and golden, it was like the sun itself.
"Where did you get this?"
"It was made by a sorceress." he replied. When Belle looked up at him, he smiled, and she at once knew who made it.
"It is not-Misrak's mother did not-"
"She did. It was once hers."
Eyes wide, Belle lifted the dress up. It caught the light so much that it was almost blinding, but she could barely tear her eyes away.
"You want me to wear this?" she confirmed, "Are you sure?"
"Marie was a skilled prophetess. She wanted you to have it."
She looked at him again, suspicion growing in her.
"I think you know more than you say."
"I do. But for now, all I can say is that this dress will aid you twice. The first of those times is now, and the second…" Wagaye grinned impishly, "Well, you shall have to wait to know that."
"Thank you." Belle breathed, "It is more beautiful than any I've ever seen."
"I will wait outside for you." Wagaye said, "And when you have changed, we will go back to the Chateau."
Belle nodded, and her heart rose in excitement, in spite of all the protests she had made about going back.
I'm so sorry this has taken so long- I know I said I'd try to update more frequently, but I've been working quite a bit on my Harry Potter fic Girl on a Yellow Bike. If you enjoy Harry Potter and are looking for something to read, I'd love it if you'd check it out and tell me what you think. As for what I said last chapter about moving my story- I think I've decided against it, and will continue to post my stories here. :D
Last, but certainly not least, thank you guys for all the lovely reviews! You're wonderful, all of you, and I love and appreciate each and every thing I hear from you guys. And I have to say,Philippa, you're much too insightful for your own good ;P I love it though, I keep hoping that one of these days I'll outsmart you and write something you didn't see coming.