Mademoiselle Noir

          Long ago, just outside the town of Bois Sombre, there once lived a young lady. She lived a peaceful life with her husband while taking care of her aging parents. Although she lived a simple life, to the town's people, she was almost like a goddess. Her skin was like porcelain and she had gorgeous, raven black, hair. People would anxiously await the days that she would come into town, for her smile warmed the hearts of anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse. But, the town's people weren't the only ones she'd manage to captivate.

          The kingdom's crowned prince was greedy and had tasked his servants with finding the prettiest maiden in the kingdom. Their search eventually leads them to the goddess of Bois Sombre. However, the young lady was content with her life and had no intentions of leaving her parent and current husband behind. When the servants delivered this news to the prince, he was furious. How could a common girl refuse a prince? So he sent his servants back to the town to order her to become his wife; but again, she refused him. This just enraged him even more. Thinking the issue lay with her current marriage, he had her husband publicly executed in hopes that, with no one else to turn to, she would run straight into in open arms. He was wrong. In the wake of her husband's death, she valued the time she had left with her parents and wished to remain at home with them. This further angered the crowned prince; so, he hired an assassin.

          One night, the assassin snuck into the of the town with two knives in hand and the intent to kill. They crept through the silent streets until they found the house where the young lady and her parents live. After slipping into the house via a bedroom window, they found themselves standing over the bodies of the maiden's parents. A smile crept over the assassin's face before they plunged the knives into the chests of the sleeping figures and ripping out their hearts as proof for the young prince.

          When the young lady awoke, she found her dearly beloved parents dead with the knives where their hearts should have been. Even so, she refused to submit to the prince's advances. The deaths of her parents greatly upset the town so she claimed it was her duty to stay and help the people of Bois Sombre.

          The prince did not receive this news well. In a fit of rage, he had the assassin sent to the guillotine as payment for the lady's decision. He then had an idea. If he couldn't have her, then no one could. So he sought out a powerful witch and had her cast a spell over the town. Witchcraft was banned throughout the entire kingdom and he knew his subjects would not take kindly to the fact that he had conspired with a witch in order to carry out his plan. But it didn't matter. He was going to do whatever it took to carry out his plan. The spell the witch cast caused the people of Bois Sombre to hate their goddess and chase her into the woods that lay near the town. The witch then locked the lady away in a tower that she'd built in the forest and left her there to live out the rest of her days alone in misery. Of course, the prince realized, all too late, that he would still never have the most beautiful woman in the kingdom to be his wife. So he took out his anger on the witch. After the young lady was securely locked in the tower, he had the witch burned in the town square as a way to cover up his crime.

        Ten years went by and the people of Bois Sombre quickly forgot about their goddess. For years, she waited for someone, a hero, to rescue her. At first she wept for her fate but, eventually, her tears ran dry. Her only company was a raven who had flown through her window one afternoon. As for her hair; after years of being uncut, it had grown to such tremendous lengths that it nearly reached the base of her tower.

        One evening, she heard footsteps coming from outside the tower. Going to her window with her raven on her shoulder, she saw a man appear from the woods. He was reading a book and had yet to notice her tower which he promptly ran into. When he looked up, his eyes followed her long hair up to the window from which she was peering down from. She attempted to smile before saying, "Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir et, comme vous pouvez le voir, Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis."

        This frightened the man and he went running to the nearby town. When he got there, he told everyone he saw that he's just met a lady with the longest black hair he'd ever seen and that he thought she was a living death. This also frightened the town's people so they all gathered their guns and swords before following the man back to the tower.

        Once the people arrived at the tower, the young lady appeared in the window. Like the man, the people felt the great fear as she repeated what she'd said before: "Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir et, comme vous pouvez le voir, Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis".

        After hearing the lady's words for themselves, they came to the conclusion that she must be a demon from hell thus they would set her hair on fire and burn her in the process. What they didn't realize was that she was not a demon, but a regular girl with a lonely soul and still waiting to be rescued. But their minds were made up.

        They grabbed a few broken branches off the ground and used their lanterns to turn them into torches. They then touched them to the ends of the lady's hair and watched as the flames slithered up her raven black locks.

        As the man watched, he tripped and fell back. He dusted himself off before reaching down to pick up the object he's tripped over. It was his book. That's when he realized, they had it all wrong. The lady was never anything to fear, she was just like the character from his book. But it was too late. All he could do now was watch in horror as the poor girl was burned alive; and yet, the girl made no sounds. She just watched as the fire grew closer and closer before, for the last time, she said, "Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir et, comme vous pouvez le voir, Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis".

Fin