Chapter 2: Murderer
The jailor cast her away from him and Belle suddenly found the strength to scramble backward in a desperate escape attempt. She fled to her defecation corner.
"The stink won't save you." her jailor sneered.
Belle's hands sank into the filth as she frantically searched for her hidden weapon. Suddenly she turned and flung some of the filth at her executioner. A piece of it hit him squarely in the face and he snarled in outrage and advanced upon her in a fury just as her hand closed around her butter knife.
"You filthy witch!" he howled while dragging her up by her hair. She shrieked at the pain and lashed out blindly.
He dropped her quite suddenly onto the hard floor. She gasped as she looked up to see the knife sticking out of his throat. The man fell to the floor and an eerie silence filled the room. For a few moments, Belle simply stared and listened to the sound of her own breathless panting. The cawing of a crow on the roof of the tower snapped the spell of silence. Her mind set itself back into motion and her thoughts tumbled crazily over one another. She reached out and swiftly jerked the knife from the man's throat and then grabbed his keys to the door. Belle fumbled over the keys, found the right one, and opened the door of her prison. She sprinted to the nearest servant entrance and ducked inside.
Thankfully, the servants were busy preparing noon meal in the kitchens several floors below. She could sneak out unseen. As a little girl, the one thing her father had never approved of was her desire to explore every nook and cranny of the castle, including the servant's quarters. She knew the secret passageways as well as the servants. The castle had been her entire world, except for the occasional, escorted trip outside. She had wanted to know everything about her world. Sneaking through the empty corridors, she entered the room where she knew the servant uniforms were kept. She slipped a dress and cloak over her dirty rags and then made her way outside by crawling through a window into the herb garden. She wrapped the cloak tightly around her as she casually walked through the small back gate that the servants used when they were sent into the forest to find wood. No one noticed her, no one stopped her.
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