I can still hear my mother warning me, “You must never go to the wall, Sarah. Beyond that wall is Lord Henry’s manor.”
Which is rather sad if you think about it. The only things that I have left to remember my mother by is her and my father’s deep passionate love, and a warning she drummed into my head until I was sick. But at the time, it was necessary, after all, the Beast was awake.
It happened twice or three times every lifetime; the Beast of Gervac would awaken and take one of the younger woman of my tiny village, never to be seen again. The Beast of Gervac had lived, it is said, in Sir Henry’s manor ever since a very long time ago when it invaded the honorable Sir Henry’s manor and slaughtered everyone in their sleep. No one dared go slay the beast for Sir Henry was the very best and wisest of us, and if the Beast of Gervac slaughtered him and his entire family, then what hope was there for the rest of us?
The first time it happened to me was when I was 11, and Lucy Belfast was taken.
I was really happy it was Lucy, though that might be terrible to say. She was almost four years older than me and a brat. She lorded it over everyone that she was the most beautiful woman in the village and that she could have her pick of any boy she wanted. The fact that our village was smaller then the island of Miniscule didn’t seem to bother her from lording it.
She disliked me because I had had the nerve to ask her, “So?”
“Well,” she spluttered, “I could have my pick of anyone! I could probably nab a prince if I had a half a mind to!” She told me as if it made her better than me or my family.
“So,” I asked her again. She didn’t like this answer and she gave me a sound slap to my face. My lip bleed for two days and yet my parents were the ones who had to apologize to her parents because of the tall tales she had told and after all Lucy would never tell a lie.
I was really happy when she was eaten by the Beast, but I was also sad.
Sad that her mother had to go through that pain of losing a daughter. My mother brought her some healing soup that she was famous for and at least Lucy’s mother felt a bit better after a couple of weeks.
I can remember that my mother was a healer and a daughter of a nobleman and my father was a farmer who stole her heart with a simple look. My mother’s father cast her away so even if I did have noble blood I couldn’t claim it but it didn’t matter. I didn’t need wealth. I need the simple moment when my mother or father would catch the others eye and my dad would slowly smile and my mother would blush a deep crimson trying to hide her shy smile and my father would just watch for a moment more before everything went back to the way it was before they had their little moment.
We lived on a farm so it wasn’t often we went into the tiny village but when we did we’d often spend the night with some friends of my parents. I was with my mother doing a check up on Lucy’s mother when I first met Henry.
I had become bored talking about marriage and births and womanly things that my mother never spoke about when we were at home so I went for a walk to clear my head from thoughts of emulation. I knew I did not want that and yet when my mother brightened at the thought of a grandchild my heart yearned to give one to her. Though I had not thought of not giving her one it was just that all the men in the village were so…boring. They all thought of woman as if they weren’t smart enough to do anything other than cook and sew and produce children. Even the boys my age all behaved with me as if I were spun of glass instead of having grown up on a short-handed farm that I had to help out on, which they all very well knew I had. If I could just find the right…I gasped as a horse whinnied rearing back from me as I jumped out in front of the runaway horse.
