Cursed

14. Belle In Trouble

14. Belle In Trouble

I was well fed, nicely bathed, though old-fashionedly, and pretty content considering my situation. But there was still that nagging curiosity. I was living in a giant mansion for goodness sake and I hadn't seen the half of it.

I thought about changing out of the dark silk nightgown I was given after my bath and putting my own clothes on but the thought of rough jeans splattered in mud was oddly uninviting, for some reason. I threw off the covers and tiptoed out of the room still clad in the night gown, curling my toes against the cold stone floor. I didn't know where I was going, just that it was in the opposite direction of the one that had brought me to the kitchen the night before.

I began to peak behind doors as I passed them but I couldn't see much. I hadn't wanted to take a light for fear of waking the beast. I continued to wander when I saw the faint glow of a lit candle. The candle stood just inside a hallway that I recognized as the one I wasn't supposed go through. Nothing seemed to be moving, everything around me were just ordinary inanimate objects, so my curiosity got the best of me, as usual.

There were more lit candles all along the wall of the hall and I quickly walked past several standing suits of armor, praying to god that those were inanimate. There were paintings of very old-fashionedly well dressed men and women and they seemed to have been made a very long time ago. The last portrait was that of a man, but the face had been slashed beyond repair. I reached for the tears in the canvass, longing to understand how someone could ruin such a lovely painting but drew back before I could touch it. I was afraid of what I would see if I managed to see anything at all.

The hall ended in a right turn that led to a simple door, no more unique than any other in the manor. It was locked however, and I almost let what lay behind closed doors stay behind closed doors. Why wasn't I allowed inside? What kind of skeletons in the closet could I uncover? I shuddered at the thought of there actually being skeletons behind that door. Perhaps the skeleton of the last girl he held prisoner, left to die after he had his fill with her? Or worse, eaten.

I remembered how simple the key to my room was. This old lock would be such an easy pick if its key was as simple as my own.

I slipped a bobby pin out of the hair on the base of my neck, one that I always kept there, just in case, and separated the two sides using my fingers. I slid one end directly into the keyhole and clicked it around a few times until I heard a click. I took the pin out and checked the knob again. I did it! My very first picked lock. I restored the pin to its former appearance as best as I could and slid it back to where it hid discreetly beneath my hair.

I turned the knob once more, this time actually using it to open the door and entered the room silently. The room was musty and poorly lit. In fact, the only source of light came from the farthest corner of the room. I approached it slowly, trying not to make a sound.

I neared a small table that had a vase sitting on it, but what was remarkable was what the vase held. It was the most beautiful rose I had ever seen and the light seemed to emanate from it. I was absolutely entranced.

I wanted to touch it. A calming feeling of warmth filled me as the tip of my index finger grew closer to its petals which were of the reddest red I had ever seen. Suddenly, there was a creak and without thinking I spun to face the door. My elbow hit the vase. Fear of whoever was there and what would happen to me when they saw I had broken the only rule I was given overwhelmed me as it toppled over and shattered on the floor.

“Oh, crap!” I bent to lift the rose but by the time I got there my fingers brushed the cold floor where it had been.

“What have you done?” roared the beast, almost cradling the rose. He placed the rose delicately onto the table and began feeling the ground where the vase had fallen.

“No, no, no, no...” he panicked, “this can't be happening. The water, it's gone, I'm doomed.”

“I–I'm sorry, I–”

“Do you have any idea what you have done?” he roared yet again and advanced towards me menacingly, “Do you know what you have just cost me?” He was angry, incredibly so. I began to back away from him, the closer to the exit, the better.

“I d–didn't mean–”

“You didn't mean to? I forbade you to come here!” he fumed and continued to advance. I took another step back and tripped, landing painfully on my backside. He towered over me and I scrambled back as fast as I could.

“I TOLD YOU NEVER TO COME HERE!” It was the loudest I had ever heard him roar and I knew that I had to get out of there. I scrambled to my feet and out the door, down the hall and through several more at a sprint. I threw open the door to the room he had given me and shoved my bare feet into my rain boots. Not even bothering with pants, I left the room at the same frantic pace and was somehow able to find my way to the entrance. I had pushed myself past the large double doors before any of the unnaturally animate things had a chance to process where I was headed.

Sinking my feet into something fluffy and white, I quickly realized that the cold stinging on my face was being cause by snowfall rather than rain. How convenient. I was one-hundred percent freezing in my what could barely be called sleepwear, but I didn't stop running for a second.

There was a low growl before me and I stopped in my tracks. I feared the beast had caught up to me but what came out of the shadows was not the beast I had been expecting. It was a wolf.

It looked like one of those snow wolves you see in the movies but it was enormous and its eyes were otherworldly. They seemed to display an indescribable evil. There were more growls as two, three, five similar wolves surrounded me, their fangs glinting in the darkness of the stormy night. I snapped a twig and then another off the closest tree and held one in each hand. I knew I wouldn't last long, but I wouldn't go down without a fight.

One lunged for me hungrily and I whacked it on the head as hard as I could. I hit the next one to attack on its snout but then the first one recovered and was coming at me as a different one thought to do the same. Soon enough I was narrowly avoiding the clamp of jaws around my legs from three different opponents as I fought off another two. I cried out in pain as teeth scraped the back of my knee and one of my sticks was yanked from my hand by fangs that just missed my fingers.

I kept fighting blindly as my eyes filled with tears at the realization that I had left one danger for a more perilous one. All I could hear were the snapping of jaws and barks of a wolf when I felt my arm yanked hard and my feet leave the ground abruptly.

I felt my body make contact with the ground and I sank into the snow. I could see clearly enough to know that I was not being attacked anymore and that the wolves were now snapping at someone else. Someone much bigger than themselves, the beast. My heart pounded and my head rang as I watched the beast tear the wolves apart. He had no weapons but his fangs and claws, no better than the wolves themselves, and yet I knew there was a difference.

He tore at the beasts and they tore back and in the end, two lay dead amidst the newly painted snow, and the other three injured scampered away in fear. The wind whipped my hair about my face and the snow stung my arms and legs. I could feel the warmth of that red liquid seeping from the back of my leg, but none of that mattered because just then the beast collapsed into a heap of bright red snow.