Cursed

6. Daurien's Prisoner

6. Daurien's prisoner

“Show me the girl,” I commanded the mirror and she appeared. She was sitting in a car with a man and a woman. She shared many featured with the man so I assumed he was her father, but she shared none with the woman. If only I could hear them speak, then I could know for sure.

But understanding her relations was not the only reason I wanted to be able to listen in to their lives. I wanted to hear her voice, to compare it to the sweet soft voice I had imagined she had.

I could not really fathom why I was so interested in this one girl, so I blamed it on her incredible beauty. I had seen many beautiful women in my life, even if they were just through the looking glass I held in my hand, but none of them had held the kind of beauty she did. It was not a cruel beauty but a soft beauty. Somehow the word modest came to mind, though her looks were far from it.

I put the mirror down and went to sit in my garden, among the roses. The rain poured and poured, hitting my roses which bloomed all year long and soaking through my fur. I looked at the nearest rosebush, it bore small pink roses. I said the spell that Miranda gave me to bring inanimate objects to life.

“Rosebush, rosebush,

Wake up from your dream,

I'm terribly lonely,

Please speak to me.”

“Lord Daurien,” said the rosebush, “I am at your service.” I just needed someone to talk to so I spoke with the rosebush. I told it about the girl on my mind, and how I couldn't stop thinking about her, but I didn't even know her name. I suddenly felt the need to paint.

I ordered a coat hanger to fetch me some paints and a canvass. He returned with Candleholder who carried my paints while he himself carried an easel and a large canvass. I set them out before me and and gazed thoughtfully at the blank canvass. A large umbrella with a very long cane that I kept specifically for this purpose hopped through the mud and stuck itself in the ground so that it hung over my supplies, keeping the rain at bay. The rosebush asked me what I was to paint but I ignored him.

I looked at the white before me and I could see her face on it in my mind's eye. I dipped my brush into some paints and mixed the color of her skin. I painted the shape of her face from my memory and added shadows for the nose, the hollow beneath her eyes and everything else that needed shadow. I painted and painted until the girl before me resembled the girl from the mirror but I was still not satisfied. I couldn't seem to capture anything about her the way I wanted to.

Eventually I gave up on the painting and handed it to Coat Hanger to store. I grew tired of the rose as well, whose only insight was speculative at best and I returned it to its original form with a backwards spell.

“Rosebush, rosebush,

I wish to be free.

Go to sleep,

Don't speak to me.”  The rosebush froze in its place as if it had never been able to move.

The sky was growing darker and the rain continued to pour. The wind began to rustle the leaves of the forest violently and a flash of lightning shot through the air. My heightened animal senses could feel the thunder before any human could. I sat there a moment longer, wishing to feel the sting of the harsh rain blowing into my face, but that is something I had not felt in hundreds of years.

I finally stood from the dripping bench amidst the roses and walked up the path back in doors. I shook my body like a dog drying itself out and continued to drip all the way to my bathroom. The mop and broom tsked behind me as they cleaned away my wet, muddy trail. I was waiting for my bath water to boil when Coat Hanger barged in uninvited.