A Modern Beauty: Part One

CHAPTER THREE

Chapter three

That night, Clara sat at the dinner table, lost in her thoughts, while swirling her spaghettiaround with her fork. She stared blankly at her meal until her mom finally stopped moving around the kitchen and sat down across from her. “Are you okay honey? You’ve seemed a little depressed ever since Abigail left. Do you want to call her up?”

Clara smiled at her mother’s kind face, which she had always been told looked uncannily like her, minus the large brown eyes. Not even her father had had those. They just randomly appeared from somewhere in her long line of genes. “Nah, I’m fine.” Then a thought popped into her head. “Just tired.”

“You’re sure?” Clara nodded. “Okay. If that’s really all it is, you can get right to your room as soon as you finish that spaghetti.”

Clara smiled a real smile this time, and they finished the rest of the meal in comfortable silence. When the sun had just set over the horizon, and gave way to the black sky and the evening chill, Clara stood up from their small little kitchen table for two and deposited her plate in the sink, then she climbed the bare stairwell to her brand new bedroom.

The walls in here, however, were not blank but covered in random pictures, posters, and paintings, which she had hung up during Abigail’s nap. Stray boxes were tossed around the floor, and Clara had to carefully pick her way around them to make it to her bed. When her mother came in a few minutes later to turn off the light, a question came to her mind. “Mom?” She asked when she was about to walk away.

“Yeah?”

“Who were the old owners of the house?”

She paused a moment and then answered, “She had only been a widow for a month.” She left without another word.

Clara waited for a few minutes, pondering this until she heard her clicking of her mother’s bedroom door shutting echo through the empty room downstairs, and immediately jumped out of bed, run around the boxes to her door, shut it, and clicked on the lamp resting on the desk. She held still for a moment to listen for any signs of suspicion, but also to rethink her choice. Did she really want to do this? The sight of it made me break down into tears a few hours ago. But the section Abigail had chosen to read could not have been more appropriated to the day’s events, and curiosity won her over.

Pulling up a chair that had been leaning against the wall, Clara opened the drawer and heaved as she attempted to lift the huge volume by one arm. Soon, she got it on the desk and looked at it. This is getting pathetic, she thought as she struggled to bring herself to open the book. But she had already spent so many years searching these pages. She knew almost every inch of them, and could recite entire sections by heart. No matter how many hours she spent poring over them, she could never find the reason for her father’s troubled face, or her mother’s hysterics when she realized what he had been doing only moments before.

Stop it Clara, she told herself. You’re just, making up excuses.

 And so she opened the book, and started reading.

Essentially, it was a fairytale. The story of Sleeping Beauty- Briar Rose -retold for the fan of old fashioned detectives. The story was written as the journal of an old jester in the king’s court, secretly the princess’s uncle, whose name was Arthurium. One day the kingdom is thrown into hysteria, and less than a week later, a mysterious dark princess enters the scene. She is the image of perfection to all, and not a soul could resist her. Not a soul but Arthurium.

After the initial encounter- the one that Abigail read from earlier that day -Arthurium took it upon himself to track down the origins of the creature he suspected to have stolen the beautiful Rose. Clara slowed down as she reached the part she had been looking for.

…and it was there which I found the name of that elusive creature. Tucked hidden within a volume deep in the Forbidden Vaults, is the record of their people. For this mysterious princess comes not alone, or even with just her infuriating court, but from a whole race of those who wish to destroy the world as we know it. They are called Kleptons. Essentially, they are power-hungry demons with fascinating abilities to transform, and bend the air around them to their will. Each one has an avatar form, in which they can disguise themselves as human. Typically, in their avatar form they will have pale skin, and black hair, and, according to their bloodline, they favor a certain color. For the royal family, it seems to be a very specific shade of violet. When they are not in their avatar form, they appear almost human in figure but with large bony wings, and other variations.

   Clara shut the book here and forced herself to think. Did she really believe this? Was she really thinking about whether or not Kenzie could be a ‘power hungry demon’ seeking to destroy the world? It’s probably just the name. Kenzie the Klepton. Hmm…

Besides, she already knew how the story ended, so there was no use to continue reading. The dark princess tried to harness the power of goodness deep within Rose’s heart to capture the world and regain her ‘rightful throne’. In the end, Arthurium defeats her and sends her back to where she came from; however, in the process of banishing the ‘evil one’, he discovers he must send his niece’s soul as well, or the world will be thrown into utter unbalance, for there cannot be the absence of a great darkness, without a great light leaving as well. In the very last entry he states:

Among the last days, it is rumored that these two powers will once again enter the world in the great battle of good and evil. The dark princess and my beautiful Briar Rose will manifest themselves as new beings, and the fight shall begin again. But for now, the battle is over, the war is won, and I bid you farewell.

Good riddance, Clara thought as she shoved the volume back into its drawer, and climbed back in bed. Even if this were true, she would need a Rose… as she finally tucked herself into the protection of the blankets, she realized there was one person.

 Idiot, she told herself, and yanked the covers up over her head.