Another Beauty and the BEAST story

Chapter XIII

Mother wakes up 2 days later, being enclosed in a feverish half-sleep, half-coma state the hours before she wakes up. I care for her, and the farm, while suppressing all of my memories to the best of my extent. The snow is melting at full speed as spring is coming closer by the minute, and the roads are full of mud and water poodles. 

"Jack?" Is the first word she utters when she regains consciousness.

"I'm here, Mother. It's all right. I'm home," I answer and sit next to her bed, my hair still messy from herding the sheep through the meadows outside. 

"I thought I'd never see you again", Mother says and sits up to hug me. I return the embrace, the familiar scent of wood and smoke filling my nostrils. 

"I missed you so much." 

"But what about that beast? How did you escape?" Mother exhales and break our embrace, she studies my face for injuries, and I smile reassuringly at her. 

"I didn't escape... She... She let me go," I say, masking my sadness as good as I can, the memory still an open wound in my chest. 

"The horrible beast?" My mother scoffs. 

"She's different now. Changed, somehow," I try to defend her, but my mother waves my explanation away. 

"I'm just glad that you're home," Mother says with a considerate smile on her face. I return the smile, and we hug once more. But I still can't mend the missing piece of my chest.

<><><>

Two months pass before anyone notices I've come back. I stay at the farm, and don't go near the town. Mother's the one who does all the errands in town, and spends her free time devoting herself to another one of her inventions. I take care of the animals, and all the other chores that has to be done. Philippe is the only one acting differently, because he experienced the months away in the hidden castle with me. He's not quite the same when I take him out for a ride, because he always tries to steer us in a north. He enjoys his time in his old pasture, with the sheep, but still looks sad. 

I don't go near the mirror shard.

The first real change is initiated by a knock on the door. It's night, and although Spring has fully come with it's flowers and green grass, that particular night is windy and threatens with rain. 

"Hello? May I help you?" I ask as I open the door, finding Stella being the one standing there, with a group of villagers as a crowd behind her.

"Oh, Jack! So the rumors are true, you're back!" Stella says when she sees me. "I've come to collect your mother," she continues. 

"Collect my mother? What're you talking about-" I begin, when my eyes fall on a prison wagon parked a few meters away from the porch. I know that wagon. It's used to bring mentally unstable patients to the asylum. "My mother is not crazy!" I exclaim when I understand what Stella means.

"He was raving like a lunatic! We all heard him, didn't we?" A familiar voice calls out from the crowd. Gabriela steps out, her body clothed in a red dress, and the bystanders shout their agreements to her statement. 

"Gabriela? No! I won't let you!" I say, and step in front of the door to stop them from coming inside. 

"Jack? What's going on?" My mother calls from inside, before coming into view of the crowd outside. She looks insecure when all of their condemnatory gazes fall upon her. 

"Ah, why don't we hear it from the lunatic herself? Tell us, what was it that captured you again?" Gabriela mocks with an evil smirk. I feel like punching her. 

"Well... it was a girl... with snow and ice coming out of her fingers... she was terrifying," My mother stutters, struggling to utter her words. The crowd only laughs, and while I'm distracted two of the villagers step forward and grab my mother by her arms and start to drag her down the porch.

"No! Wait!" I yell, my heart aching, but nobody listens. Gabriela approaches me, shaking her head in defeat and with fake pity in her eyes.

"Shame about your mother, Jack," she says when she reaches me.

"You know she's not crazy, Gabriela," I reply.

"You know... I might be able to clear this little misunderstanding, if..."

"If what?"

"If you marry me."

"What?"

"Just one little word, Jack. That's all it takes. " Mischief gleams in Gabriela's eyes. 

"Never!" I yell, and Gabriela steps back with anger portrayed over her face. 

"Have it you way, then," she hisses and turns to walk away. I know what I have to do. I rush into the house and fetches the mirror shard, lying innocently where I left in in my leather satchel. I step outside once more, shard in hand. 

"My mother's not crazy, and I can prove it!" I yell to the crowd, that hushes down. I turn towards the shard, and prays that it still works. "Show me Elsa, please," I whisper. The same lilac glow emerges from the shard, and I hold it for the eyes of the bystanders to see.

They gasp, when the shard shows a very familiar face, that makes my insides twirl. Her white hair, tipped with frost, is braided, and she wears her simple white dress, walking in circles in the ice-covered ballroom. A storm of snow surges around her, and her face is depressed. 

"Is it dangerous?" Someone from the crowd says, and I watch the face of Elsa tenderly. 

"Oh no. She'd never hurt anyone. I know it looks bad, but she's really a kind person," I try to reassure them, while I smile at the slowly fading picture of my beloved winter queen. 

"If I didn't know any better, Jack, I'd think you had feelings for this monster," Gabriela finally says, breaking whatever shock I'd put her in. She almost spits the monster-word out. 

"She's not a monster, Gabriela, you are!" I accuse, and she storms up towards me.

"Jack's gone as crazy as her old mama," She scoffs and grabs the shard from my fingers. "This abomination will hunt you, come after your children in the night, murder us all. I say we kill it!" She urges the crowd, who shouts agreements once more. I try to grab the shard from Gabriela, but she dances out of my reach. 

"Let's kill the beast!" The crowd begins to shout, and Gabriela nods. She flings herself up on one of the horses, accept a crossbow from one of the villagers, who all raise their torches towards the sky.

"No! I won't let you do this!" I yell and try to follow them, but two of them corner me and drag me back to my house. I scream and curse at them, but they throw me in the basement together with my mother and locks the door with a heavy padlock. The villagers storm off, and I'm helplessly left in the dark, not being able to do anything to save the love of my life.