mon père

[beheld_beauty]

Belle probably wouldn't have gone into the forest looking for her father if it weren't for the fact that, were he home, she'd never be allowed.

She understands his concerns. Really she does. If it weren't for the fact that he's the local lawman, she wouldn't even be allowed out into town on her own. She's beautiful (as no one can shut up about for thirty seconds at a stretch; is it any wonder she prefers books?) and while he can protect her in their tiny town, the Witchwood is another matter. People get lost there - sometimes the Wood spits out men and women and children from other villages entirely, near theirs instead, and they have to be given maps and sent the long way around to get home - and anything could happen and he has no jurisdiction over crimes committed there.

But the woods are beautiful, and she's going to bring a blank book to draw a map in, and her father has been missing for four days and even if Belle's only concern were her safety she'd need to find him. Because orphaned seventeen-year-old girls tend to find it in their own best interest to get married, and if she wanted to get married, it would not be to anyone in the village.

He chased in a highwayman (whose crime was not committed in the forest, so all is in its proper order).

The highwayman came out.

Charlie did not.

Charlie, apparently, has gotten lost.

And Belle is going to go in and get him.

---

Her map is wrong.

No - no, she was very careful. She knows people get lost here; she knows the woods are twisty, suspects the landmarks must include duplicates. She brought bits of ribbon to mark her way. She's been changing colors as she gets deeper into the forest, and she's been traveling for almost a day now, and that ribbon right there was tied in the first hour. She's not that turned around; it's broad daylight and she's been tracking the sun. Not even magic, if magic existed, would be able to move the sun.

That leaves her, and the tree. She has been picked up and put back where she started or she has been followed by this tree. Or the ribbon, perhaps, if it's magically untied itself and made exactly the same knot around a different branch. ...No, there is the bit of blood from where she tripped and scraped her hand against the bark of that tree, and blood and ribbon both following her is more of a stretch than her having been transported or the tree having walked on its very roots to heel like a dog.

Damnation.

Well. Most people who wander into the Witchwood are eventually heard from again. But it's getting dark, and she trips more than enough in daylight; she underestimated the treachery of the ground deep in among the trees.

She goes on. She keeps making her map - it's still possible it will be useful for something, and she has precious little else to do while she walks alone through the dimming woods - keeping an eye out for a place to sleep.

She finds one.

Comments

[beheld_beauty]

"Thank you."

And she goes upstairs and whiles away the time before bed, and goes to bed.

[deslandes]

The next morning: crepes, with strawberry and blackberry preserves.

[beheld_beauty]

Yum. Information.

Belle settles into a routine of sorts: experiment with requesting things of the castle, experiment with trying to go into the forest, three tasty meals a day. She takes up singing while doing those of these activities that don't involve chewing. She's not good at it, but it fills the silence.

She makes no progress into the forest, but she keeps trying. It will not help Charlie to fret, it will only help Charlie to get out and find him, so she expends energy on the latter and not the former.

[deslandes]

And then one morning before breakfast arrives, down by the locked door, something

roars.

[beheld_beauty]

Gleep!

The roaring wakes Belle up from her half-doze and leaves her sitting up shivering in bed.

Has the something-in-the-menagerie-or-whatever gotten out? What is it? Has the castle not been feeding it? (How long has it been devoid of inhabitants, she can't gather any clues when it keeps itself so well-ordered and free of dust, the garden suggests a long time, surely the castle must have been feeding the animal or animals if they're still alive?)

She runs through her notes about the layout. She has not found a way to get to the roof yet, but maybe she can come up with one. Roaring-thing won't be able to get her there. Probably. (Certainly she has no chance of outrunning it, even discounting how the forest turns her around. The roof is dicey - she may topple from it and die - but not guaranteed to fail.)

[deslandes]

There is a further pounding and rattling, as of something very strong making an extensive effort to get through a recalcitrant door.

Then quiet. But not the silence of the lonely castle. There is some kind of distant noise, too far away to be very clear.

Belle's door opens and in comes her breakfast tray, in more of a hurry than usual.

[beheld_beauty]

She catches her tray and tells the door, "Close, please - stay that way till I say -"

[deslandes]

The door shuts itself firmly.

[beheld_beauty]

Belle gives herself a moment to calm down.

She eats her breakfast, subdued.

She inspects her window and the possibility of getting to the roof without having to go out into the hall with the released roaring thing. The prospects would not be good even for someone stronger and defter than she is.

[deslandes]

The tray sails over to the door and knocks gently against it, as though asking to be let out.

[beheld_beauty]

"If the hallway is empty," Belle says to the door, "let the tray out then close again."

[deslandes]

The door opens. The tray leaves. The door closes.

[beheld_beauty]

Okay.

She's wearing a dress the castle supplied - there's a dizzying array, everything fits her, things she doesn't like vanish when she's not looking so for a while she only tried things on over her original clothes in case the vanishing was haphazard but everything's been behaving so she's currently in a practical number of mid-calf blue cotton. It's not really practical for climbing, though. She's not practical for climbing.

She's stuck, but at least there's food that can tell whether the hallway has a creature in it or not and a self-operating ensuite bathroom.

She's running out of space in her notebook, is the only problem that staying in this room has which staying in the general castle environs as she has to anyway doesn't.

"If there's a blank notebook available, I'd like one, brought on the tray with lunch," she says aloud.

And she sits back on the bed.

And sings.

[deslandes]

Time passes.

Lunch arrives, with a blank notebook on the tray. All the dishes are extra careful not to spill on it.

[beheld_beauty]

Oh good. She thanks them. And pats the sugar bowl on the lid.

She can be okay here for a long time while she thinks of something.

[deslandes]

For the rest of the day, there are no more strange noises from the rest of the castle.

[beheld_beauty]

She waits.

She finishes the notebook she brought with her and starts on the second one. (She is getting sick of the songs she knows. She tries her hand at making up her own. She's not very good at it, but it passes the time when she's out of escape-related creative juice and needs to think about something else.)

[deslandes]

A few days later, her breakfast tray comes in laden with an unusual burden: a bunch of roses.

On close inspection, they look like they were not cut but ripped from their bushes; there is even blood on a few of the thorns, and oddly enough, golden-brown hairs stuck here and there.

The bouquet is tied up clumsily with a wrinkled blue ribbon, and there is a folded bit of paper stuck between the ribbon and the flowers.

[beheld_beauty]

...Oooookay.

She picks up and inspects the paper.

[deslandes]

It says, in terrible handwriting, letters more cut and stabbed into the paper than merely written, ink blotches everywhere: sOrRY for tHE roARING

[beheld_beauty]

Wow.

Okay.

There is some manner of person here. Something that, unlike the furniture, can use language on his or her own.

Belle sets the roses aside and nibbles distractedly on her breakfast, contemplating the note.

After she's done eating, she says, "Just a minute," to her tray, and tears a page from her notebook and writes:

Who are you? Why does this castle keep me from leaving?

And she folds this note neatly and puts it among her dishes and says, "Please bring that note to whoever wrote it."

[deslandes]

The tray hops in place once, then leaves.

An hour later, it comes back with a reply, written on her note: someone has drawn a straggling line down from Why does this castle keep me from leaving? to the words, DON'T KNow

Her other question is ignored.

[beheld_beauty]

Hm.

Well, if he or she isn't going to explain who he or she is, that's frustrating, but at least she has someone to talk to. Was it you who was roaring? I thought it was some kind of animal. Is it safe to leave the room? she writes back, and sends the tray away with a pat.

[deslandes]

This reply is somewhat faster.

Three separate lines, one from each sentence, down to the single word YES.

[beheld_beauty]

...Okay, if it's an animal, it's a writing animal.

She wonders if it talks aloud. In case it doesn't, she brings her notebook and her pencils.

And she steps out of her room.