Beauty and the Dream Demon

Chapter Two: A Funny Boy

At last, Jane had caught up with Jack. She bid him a 'good morning' and complimented him on the book he had. Jack asked if she had read it to which she replied that she hadn't. She was just trying to flatter him. She then handed him the flowers, asking if she could join him and his father for dinner that evening. Jack told her that that evening wouldn't work. She asked if he was busy to which he replied that he wasn't. He just didn't want to have dinner with her. Saying no more, he walked off back home.

Templeton walked up to Jane, asking if she planned to move on. Jane told him no and that it was always the men that were hard to get that were always the greatest prey. That's what she liked about Jack. He just hasn't become fool enough to gain her favor. While Jane found that attractive, Templeton just thought it was basic dignity. But Jane became distracted when the models called her over.

Finally glad to be away from Jane, Jack hurried back home where he heard the sound of a music box coming from his father's workshop. Inside, George was looking at the music box shaped like a windmill. The blades spun slowly as the music played. The center even opened up to reveal a scene all too familiar to him. Inside was a small model of a painter painting a portrait of a woman and her baby in the bedroom. In the woman's hand was a small rose. As George watched the painter's arm move up and down, he sang along to the tune.

'How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die? It is love we must hold on to. Never easy, but we try,' Jack walked in, hearing him sing but didn't dare to interrupt, 'Sometimes our happiness is captured. Somehow a time and place stand still. Love lives on inside our hearts and always will.'

Jack walked out from where he was standing with a plate of bread in his hands. Seeing him, George went back to tinkering with his new invention to make some final touches. Taking apart the bottom of the music box to reach the gears, he tried to ask Jack for a pair of tweezers but Jack was already ahead of him. George took them from him to take a cog out. He then tried to ask him for something but Jack handed him a small cog instead. George tried to say that it wasn't the part he needed until he saw it actually was. He took it from him and put it into the music box. As Jack was starting to declutter his father's workspace, Jack asked him a question that was playing at his mind.

"Papa, do you think I'm odd?" Jack asked his father.

George was taken slightly aback by his question.

"Odd? My son? Odd? Where did you get an idea like that?" George asked him.

"I don't know. People talk," Jack explained simply.

"This is a small village, you know. Small-minded as well. But small also means safe. Even back in Paris, I knew a girl like you who was so... ahead of her time. So different. People mocked her. Until the day they all found themselves imitating her."

Jack knew who his father was talking about. It was his mother. Jack never knew his mother due to her passing away when Jack was just a baby. George never spoke of her often as he was often still in mourning. While Jack respected that, he still wished to know more. Maybe it would help him understand why he felt so different compared to the rest of the village who all saw themselves as normal people.

"Please, just tell me one more thing about her," Jack begged his father.

George turned to the music box as if to change the subject. But looking back up to Jack's eagerness, he relents.

"Your mother was... fearless," was all George said but he could see that Jack wanted to know more, "Fearless."

With that, George closed his music box. Outside of their cottage, George carefully loads his music boxes onto his wagon, as Jack tends to the family's old glue horse, Philippe. George climbed into the wagon and smiles down at his son.

"So, what would you like me to bring you from the market?" George asked Jack before he left on his journey.

"A rose like the one in the painting," Jack requested.

"You ask for that every year!"

"And every year, you bring it."

"Then I shall bring you another. You have my word."

Jack smiled up at his father before stepping away, letting George leave with Philippe. They bid each other goodbye, saying that they would see each other the next day. George rode away while promising to return with the rose that was requested. Jack smiled while mumbling for him to stay safe. Back inside, Jack wrote on a scrap piece of paper, calculating how much soap he would need to do his and his father's washing. His father may be gone for the day but he still had work and chores that needed to be done. Once he calculated the right amount, he ground up enough soap shards for his laundry and put them in a bag.

He then took that and the laundry to a hut at the edge of town with a barrel and pool of water. He put the soap and laundry into the barrel before letting a donkey help spin the laundry around. While he waited, he read his book to pass the time. As this was happening, a little girl who was watching him nearby asked what Jack was doing. Jack explained that he was doing the laundry before asking the girl to come over. He wanted to try and teach the young girl to read. He had a small word book with her to help people who were learning to read.

Jack taught the little girl how to read one of the sentences. Unfortunately, a headmaster and an old woman caught them, seeming disgusted that Jack was trying to teach a girl to read. The headmaster called Jack out on what he was doing, asking if one boy who knew how to read was enough for the village. Believing that they needed to do something, the headmaster and the old woman had three men take Jack's still-damp laundry and tipped it onto the gravel. Acting quickly, Jack picked up the laundry and started to put it in his basket. Pere Robert even came over to help him, taking pity on his situation.