Beauty and the Beasts

Chapter Two

In the morning when I woke, a tray of breakfast sat covered in silverware on a dinning cart beside my bed. My heart froze as I recalled the previous days happenings. It terrified me to know one of those creatures had most likely cooked, and probably poisoned my food, brought it here while I was asleep and I had been none the wiser in my defenceless state.

Needless to say, I refused the food and left the cart outside my room, this time locking the door for good measure.

I made my new bed and walked into the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I looked so sad compared to how I usually looked. I remembered my mother smiling lovingly at me and I bit my cheek as I took hold of the brush on the bathroom dresser and tried to will it to do my bidding as my mother did with her enchantment magic.

It worked. Tears escaped my eyes and my chin wobbled as I tried to enchant the brush with my mother's gentle touch. When I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that it was her standing behind me brushing my long hair.

"Oh dear. Don't you cry sweetheart, your complexion is so beautiful and pale, you'll make yourself all blotchy." I voice said, startling me. I gasped and the brush fell to the floor in abandon as I stood up and looked around me in fear.

"Now, now, I won't do you any harm. I am the spirit of the castle, you see? I am the one who let you in through the gates when those men were after you." The voice spoke again and the mirror in front of me shifted into the visage of a young woman with hair almost as pale as Mirajane's, the towns tavern and innkeeper's daughter.

"Aren't you lovely! Is that your natural hair colour?" It asked me. I nodded and bent down to pick up the brush. I never took my eyes off of the mirror, and she watched me appraisingly.

"You may call me Angel. If there is something you need, clothes, food, anything, let me know and I will see what I can do for you." She told me with a sympathetic smile. I grimaced.

"I suppose asking you for this castles blueprints and a clear way out of here to freedom aren't something you would divulge?" I asked her and she looked sorrowfully at me.

"I would protect you harm, but I do urge you to try and enjoy your stay here, it has been too long since I have had guests. If you still wish to leave in time, I will allow you to flee without alerting the residents within my walls, but I trust you will keep that tad of information between us, right darling girl?" She asked me with a sincere smile. I was never any good and faking smiles, and I wasn't going to start now.

"What...what are those skeletal creatures? Are they demons? Yokai?" I asked her in a hushed whisper as I sat back down. She didn't look pleased at the topic of conversation, but she also looked so relieved to finally have another to open conversation with, that she didn't deny me the answers I sook.

"They are cursed. What and who they are is a secret, but they are not yokai or demons. They don't always look that terrible either, they fade with the sun light each day, and the moonlight reveals what they really are inside their hearts." She said sadly and looked down.

"Cursed?" I asked curiously and she seemed to struggle for a way to answer me.

"What they are is not what they should be. They were cursed by an enchantress many years before, and thus became what you saw last night. Perhaps you could lift the spell off of them yourself, you are an enchantress yourself are you not?" She asked me hopefully. I bit my lip.

"I am, I suppose. But I only received these powers last night when my mother...was murdered by the mafia, I don't know how to use them properly yet. Isn't there another way? It is unlikely an enchantress would curse innocent people for no reason, and it is also unlikely that she would allow her spell to be undone by any other method other than by her own spell. There is a way she set for them to free themselves isn't there? What exactly did they do to enrage her?" I asked the mirror and the surface grew cloudy.