The Count of Castle Rock

Chapter LVII- A Starlight Dance

As Leesa and Hans approach the lead carriage, she hears quiet sobbing from its open door. Inside, Methuen sits head in his hands, shoulders shaking with emotion. Hans produces a handkerchief and fusses over The Count. Leesa finds it jarring, watching the apprentice tend to the powerful wizard like one might an infirm elder. Even when Methuen was a captive of Shalafaral, chained and beaten, he'd managed to maintain an air of strength.

Leesa's fingers twitch and deep in the back of her mind she hears a familiar cackle. Startled, she takes a step back from the carriage. Leesa had wanted to ask Methuen questions about what was happening to her, but he's in no condition to help. Back the way she'd come, people laugh and smile, joke and gossip, oblivious to it all. Days to the east men and women die in a bloody war and here these people are, heading to a celebration. All detached, all unaware.

"Leesa?"

Hans watches her, eyes full of concern. He's special, he thinks of everyone else first.

Nerves filling her gut with butterflies as she takes his offered hand.

"How did he get like this?" she asks, looking down at the weeping wizard. "Is it the curse?"

"I have no idea, but whatever it is comes at an ever increasing frequency. It started at the battlefront." Hans closes his eyes. "When he's lucid, he mumbles about hag magic... and you, Lee."

"Me?"

Methuen's eyes open, bloodshot and wild. They settle on Leesa's startled face and widen. He stands abruptly, scooping Leesa up in his arms. A yelp is all she can muster as he kisses her forehead and nose in a flurry of mumbled phrases. He punctuates each kiss with the same name. Amy.

"You look just as I remember you, my love," he says, running his finger along her jaw.

He leans in for another kiss and Leesa turns away, placing her hand on his chest. It feels as if she's done this before. Hans grabs The Count and roughly spins him around.

"Master, pull yourself together," he snaps, his voice barely containing his fury.

"Unhand me, boy," Methuen responds, his eyes dangerous. The clouds above rumble.

"Let Leesa go," Hans says through clenched teeth.

Methuen turns back to her and the wild intensity of his gaze becomes shock and embarrassment. He lowers her to the ground, taking his arm from around her waist, and stepping away. Blinking, clarity returning in stages. Hans puts himself between Leesa and The Count.

"What was that," Hans says, glancing over his shoulder.

Leesa's cheeks burn intensely.

"I lost myself. Like watching from a distance, but unable to direct the scene. My thoughts and emotions amplified to suffocating proportions, my body reacted without me." Methuen shakes his head. "I saw my Amy in Leesa and I couldn't differentiate between what was real and what was... your rough treatment and Ms. Talbert's power helped me come back to myself."

"Power?" Hans stern demeanor softens.

"What do you mean?" Leesa asks.

"Look." Methuen gestures towards her hand.

Leesa looks down at her hands, fully healed. She fingers her nail, regrown and as good as new.

"Did I do it again? I had no idea..."

"Done what?" Hans takes her hand, examining it front and back. "Leesa what is he talking about?" He turns to Methuen. "Master, what did she do again?"

"Hans. It's okay," she assures him, despite her own worries. "Look at me. Calm down."