A/N: I'm Lotte Rose and this is my second fan fiction. I love the story of Beauty and the Beast. I have always wanted to write my own version, one that would be darker, more eerie but beautiful, and that would create enchanting images and worlds in the reader's mind. That is my goal. Please let me know if I am achieving it.
Disclaimer: This is purely my imagination and I do not own any rights from any elements of movies or plotlines I may use.
Enchanted
Chapter I: Eve
Prune, snip, pluck. Prune, snip, pluck. The more that were removed, the more seemed to climb, engulfing the headstone in their glory. The vain blooms just nodded back at her as she freed them from their daily entanglements.
Eve picked up her charcoal and once again, attempted to capture their splendor. They remained sedentary and allowed themselves to be drawn. But as suspected, the breeze picked up and nodded them into different light before their portrait was complete.
That same insolent breeze played at lock of dark hair. It danced across her brow and teased her for the unfinished drawing in her lap.
Eve remembered the sickness spread like wildfire throughout the small village. Voices rang through the night as they watched their loved ones slip in and out of fitful sleep. Eve cried at her mother's side as she lay still in the soaked sheets. The sweet lullaby was her parting words from one world into the next. Her mother's fever subsided and an empty cold spread within the body.
The following spring was host to many funerals. The ground had thawed and the open meadow, marked unsparingly with rocks and pebbles. Only one was visited more than once every few years. It was the stone cross, the etched words obstructed by the large pink roses climbing from the earth.
Only Eve could be seen at the graveyard, making sure her mother's roses were healthy and her cross weighed heavily with pebbles. But mostly, her visits were that of reflection. Tears had ceased to serve a purpose. Now there were only memories, her mama's wise sayings and wistful tales of love and adventure. Eve's favorite had always been the tale of her birth.
"The stars came out of the heavens and landed themselves in your eyes, and the black night from which they were drawn left an ebony blanket upon your head. I knew then on the eve of your birth, you shall be named 'the life in the night'…Eve."
Her mother had been the beauty of their small, Celtic village. No one doubted she would have any trouble marrying. But as it went, she gave birth alone in a small room, with only the doctor to help her along.
Eve had gathered from fractured conversations that her father had been a drifter, a peddler who had come one day and gone the next. Eve had concluded that her mother had expected him to stay, for it was very rare for travelers to enter back into the woods once they had left them.
Eve swept her gaze around the dark ring of trees that encircled their little town. There were rumors that children had been fed from the cradle of terrible things that went on in the forest, and which remained imbedded in the conscience of the residents. Tales hung like the blanket of haze always present at the tree's edge.
Perhaps that was another reason Eve was alienated from them. True, being the bastard daughter of the local siren played its part in her status, but her cottage was located away from the bustle of town and in the nearest proximity to the forest. She never dared enter it, however, it had earned her suspicions of witchcraft.
Ha! A Witch? She couldn't even brew a decent stew in fear of setting her apron on fire. Their glares held no mystery however, as Eve made her way through the muddy street, as to what their opinions were.
A woman ceased beating the dust from a rug on her threshold to take a long gaping look at her. A man with horrible teeth spit into the mud and continued to stare as he pitched a damp pile of straw.
It was near dark and rainy steadily when Eve treaded into the warm glow of her cottage. Her attempts to sketch the roses on her mother's cross now dripped steadily from the parchment, landing in a cloudy pool on the floor. Eve tosses it into the compost and set about removing her soaked garments.
The warmth of tea and filled her up and she drew her quilt to her chin as she sat perched next to the window. There was something comforting about the rain. Maybe it just denied her curiosity of entering the woods, whose leaves the rain drops pelted.
Unlike the other children of the village, Eve's mother never poisoned her with fears. Instead, she encouraged her fantasies and allowed her imagination to take flight. Eve supposed the rain reminded her of the nights she sat in her mother's embrace and listened to stories as the rain fell out the window.
A clouded dream on
an earthly night
hangs upon the crescent moon
A voiceless song
in an ageless light
Sings at the coming dawn
Birds in flight
are calling there
Where the heart moves the stones
It's there
that my heart is longing
All for the love of you
A/N: These lyrics are from Loreena McKennitt's song 'The Mystic's Dream'. This song will be the theme throughout the story and it will be Eve's mother's lullaby. It's a beautiful song I think you'll enjoy.
