Another Beauty and the BEAST story

Chapter III

3 days after I rejected Gabriela's proposal, 3 days of me cowering on the land of our farm and not daring to set foot in the village, Philippe came rushing towards me as I was feeding the chickens out of a bucket.
I didn't see him at first, but heard him. The sound of galloping hooves and a loud neigh to shake the ground I was standing on. I turned around and saw him coming rushing towards me, his mane and reins flapping wildly in the wind. His saddle and carriage was gone, and so was my mother and her machine.
Philippe jumped over the fence and skidded to a halt in front of me. I threw the bucket away and rushed to meet him.
"Philippe! Philippe, calm down! What are you doing here?" The horse exhaled a stressed breath of air in my face. His eyes were filled with fear and his muscles were shaking from the effort of sprinting for several kilometers.
"Where is Mother? Where is she, Philippe? Oh, we have to find her, you have to take me to her!" I said, patting him nervously on his head, while trying to separate his reins from his long tangled mane. With the help of a nearby rock, I threw myself up on his broad back and drove him to a fast trot, stopping only to grab my dark blue cotton robe that I threw on in the speed. Philippe seemed calmer with me nearby, but I could tell from his tense muscles working beneath me that he had experienced something terrible, to make him this upset.

I trotted through town, not halting to greet the people whom I had grown up amongst, like I normally would. When I passed the tavern, Gabriela and Stellas loud laughing, drunk voices flooded through the closed windows, but I didn't stop to think about what they might be laughing at. Philippe's muscles worked obediently beneath me, and as soon as we left the small cottages behind us, and the rock streets were exchanged with dirt roads and tall trees and chirping birds, we both exhaled and stopped for a short break.

My stomach was sick with worry for my mother. Despite her tough outside, she was a fragile old woman, and in my head all the terrible things that could've happened to her scrambled around like old coins in a empty jar. When I got back up on Philippe's familiar back I had gone half-mad with my own thoughts. My unease grew for every step away from home we took, and after a while I couldn't handle it anymore and sprung Philippe into a fast gallop, easily following his swift but hasty movements as we rushed between unknown trees and strange vegetations I had not seen back by the village. The birds had stopped singing, and all I heard was Philippe's strong hooves galloping against the unused ground and my own heart beating at the speed of light in my ears, deafening every thought that tried to pry it's way into my head.

I found the carriage with Mother's invention sprawled out behind it, and Philippe's saddle lying not to far away. I saddled him, and continued on. I had never been this far away from home before, and I didn't recognize anything familiar in the large woods, shutting out any Sunlight that might be shining outside of the tight roof of tree-crowns. I relied simply on Philippe, hoping that his horse brain remembered the way he took with Mother, and that he would lead me right in the approaching darkness of nightfall.

After what felt like hours in the saddle, Philippe tensed up, and his walk slowed until he was almost not moving forward. I jumped off and lead him through looming watchful trees that seemed to want to scare us both away. The usual beauty of this land had been wiped from this area, where no flowers nor greenery grew. I froze in my robe, staying close to Philippe's body that sent out his body heat.

And suddenly a large pair of iron gates appeared in the middle of, what had seemed as an abandoned part of the forest, shutting out everyone who seemed to dare to enter the dark woods and had not been frightened or scared off by the silence and judgemental trees. I tried to peer behind the large hedges that grew inside of the large fence, but saw nothing in the dark. The sun had set, and the dark and cold was approaching fast. I pushed the iron gates, and with wheezing sounds they flew open, revealing a stone path leading up to one of the biggest castles I had ever seen in my life. The walls were made out of grey stones, with several towers rising from the main building. There was large glass windows spread out across the floors, but it was to dark to see if they were covered with curtains or not.  The edges of the roofs were cornered with gargoyles looking like demons and condemned monsters. The stairs leading up to the entry were covered with weeds and dust, and the garden surrounding the front of the castle was overgrown and dead. It was in front of this castle that I found my mothers robe. It was cold from laying out on the ground, but it was still hers.

I tied Philippe to a tree nearby the entry, patted him for courage and slowly made my way into the castle. The foyer was large, but almost impossible to make out in the dim light that filled the room from the open doors.

"Hello? Mother?" I called out into the silence, my voice echoing in the empty halls. I waited, hearing only my own breathing as an answer to my call. When, suddenly...

"Jack?" A weak voice called back in the darkness. Relief filled my heart, enough to make me forget about the dark shadows following me as I rushed up on a spiral staircase, supposedly leading me up in one of the towers I had seen out front. After sprinting up the stairs, I find myself in a circular room with no decor except a lonely cell filled with some hay. I rush to the cell, grabbing the metal bars keeping me away from the thin, weak figure that lays in the cell: my mother.

"Oh, Mother!" I sigh in both relief and fear. When she hears my voice she crawls up to the metal bars. She sweats and have dark marks under her eyes, hinting of her sleepless night. 

"How did you find me?" She asks in a thin voice, almost as if she can't really believe I'm actually here with her. I reach out and grab her hands in mine, letting her know I'm real.

"You're hands are like ice! We have to get you out of here!" I say and looks around for some tool that might help me break out my mother. 

"Jack, listen, I want you to leave this place-" My mother begins.

"Who's done this to you?" I cut off her sentence, ignoring the words she just uttered. 

"I don't have time to explain! You must leave this castle...now!" She pauses to cough, and her whole body shakes with the effort.

"I won't leave you!" I say, and reach out to try and pry open the metal door to the cell, but is interrupted by a strong force grabbing hold of me and whirling me around with inhuman speed. I drop the torch I've been holding for light into a puddle of water, and the room turns even darker than before, the only light coming from a skylight in the roof. 

"What are you doing here?" A cold voice creeps into the space, but I'm unable to tell where it comes from in the complete darkness that surrounds me. The mere sound of the voice makes all the blood in my body freeze, and the hair in my neck stand straight up. My whole body are sounding alarms to flee, flee, flee.

"Who's there? Who are you?" I ask the voice in the dark. Somewhere behind me I hear my mother calling out in alarm, ordering me to run away. I want to obey, but can't. 

"The master of this castle," the voice answers.

"I've come for my mother. Please let her out! Can't you see she's sick?" I plead to the unidentified voice. 

"Then she shouldn't have trespassed here", the voice simply answer, as if making an attempt to cancel this conversation and leave. 

"But she could die! Please, I'll do anything!" I try again, hearing the desperate tone to my voice. 

"There's nothing you can do. She's my prisoner. Now leave!" The voice says, and that's when the baddest idea I've ever had enters my mind, and I open my mouth to propose it.