Love Is Never Ugly

Chapter 20

After the incident where Charlotte had seen Alastor's face, things became more tense between them than ever before. Charlotte never left her room.  She was too afraid to. The door was always locked, her meals had to be brought to her, if Alastor had ever made an attempt to talk to her she would have said nothing. The girl was petrified by what she had seen that night she dared to go into his room and no matter how hard she tried she just couldn't un see that horror or bring herself to look at the creature who was associated with it.

This was just what Alastor feared. He knew this would happen once she saw his face and he knew there was no point in trying to be social with her again so he made no attempt to do so. Although it wasn't really his face that had her so scared. True she found it to be very horrible but what had frightened her so badly that she could not even leave her room was the memory of him eating a human corpse. That gut wrenching sight had mortified her to such a degree that she lost all hope of getting out of this alive.

"She's not coming down to dinner again is she?" Husk asked before opening a bottle of wine.

"No. She'll be having it in her room." Niffty said. "Again."

"Whatever, less work for us."

"This isn't healthy." Vagatha said. "She can't stay in that room forever."

"I agree but the poor thing is still scared to death." Niffty said.

"Maybe Cherri could scare her out by slipping a few snakes into her room." Anthony suggested.

"Anthony!" Vagatha scolded.

"What? They're garden snakes. Perfectly harmless. But Miss Charlotte doesn't need to know that."

"We are not going to force or pressure her out of there."

"But you just said-"

"I know what I said. She needs to come out but it has to be of her own choice."

"I think she's overreacting. We see Alastor eat humans all the time and it doesn't phase us like this."

"We're animals Anthony. Eating whatever we catch to survive is in our nature but humans like Charlotte have certain principles and feelings on that subject. Their beliefs is that it's wrong and evil and frankly I myself am not too fond of it. Of course that's because by nature I'm a vegetarian."

"Well I'm not and neither is Husk, Niffty, Cherri, or Alastor. We have to eat other creatures to live."

"Yes but sometimes certain compromises can be made."

"No it can't. You can't fight nature and you can't blame someone for just following their nature."

"Oh no? What about that time Cherri ate a spider she found in the garden and you wanted to bite her head off."

"That was different."

"How was that different?"

"I thought the spider she ate was my sister Molly. I forgave her when I found out that it was just a common garden spider."

"But you still didn't talk to her for a week."

"Hold on since when you do you have a sister?" Husk asked.

"Technically I have 1000 brothers and sisters but Arackniss, Molly, and I were the runts of the litter if you will so we stayed together while everyone else went their own way. After I was changed I took Arckniss and Molly to live here with me. They mostly stay in my room and they don't really have the slightest idea what's going on but families stick together."

"Wait you keep two regular spiders in your room?" Niffty asked.

"Yes."

"Uh-oh."