Blue Rose and Raven: Chapter Thirteen

Marius learns of the Beast's tragic past and makes a terrible mistake.

Even at night, spring brought life to the manor. The many trees and flowers in the garden grew green, inexplicably blooming despite the absence of sunlight. The air, once chilly, was now fresh and clean. Rainstorms severe and mild brought blankets of mist in the mornings and constellations of dew on the windows. Distant thunder and pattering rain became a regular, calming lullaby when I laid down to sleep.

            I upheld my promise to the Beast. Her playing at night was infrequent, at first. At first I’d heard her play twice: the first time I heard her, and one time nearly a week after the first. Per her instructions, I remained in my room. The whole time, I listened intently to the muffled melodies through the walls. My dreams that night were filled with contentment and joy. I dreamt of rolling hills and quiet forests. I dreamt of our old home Paris. I even dreamt of a different kind of Amersot. A greener brighter happier Amersot, possibly in the past. I was there with my family. In the dream, we’d always lived there. We were happy. When I woke from those dreams, the images were so clear that upon waking I began sketching immediately. I barely needed to use anything for reference. It was as if I’d glimpsed a cherished memory.

There was another sound underneath the music that caught my attention. The pit-pat of footsteps up and down the halls told me it must’ve been the illusory guests of the party in the past. Again, as a man of word, I did not leave my room. That didn’t stop me from asking the Beast about it.

“What happened to your family?” I asked the Beast in the garden.

The Beast looked up from inspecting a blooming flower. “Why do you wish to know?”

“A giant house like this must have plenty of room for people. And your crest must mean that you’re of noble birth. You must come from a long line.” I gestured around. “Where did they go? How are you the only one left?”

The Beast gripped a petal, then let go. “They’re gone. That’s all that matters.”

“But did no one try to help you with your affliction? It seems�"” I searched for the right words but found none.

“Cruel?” The Beast finished. “Indifferent? Evil?” Her tone was bitter.

I swallowed. “I�"I suppose those are words for it, yes.”

The Beast clutched her cane. “In my experience, those who claim to be closest to you will just as quickly abandon you.” The bitterness in her voice deepened. “My family’s crest is a burden upon me. My family line is a noose around my neck.” Before she spit more venomous words, she sucked in breath and shut her eyes. She regained her composure. “I’m sorry. I do not wish to talk about this anymore.”

I nodded, and we changed the subject. The whole time after, I thought about her words and the pure anger in her voice. I wondered what could’ve created it.

 

As the month wore on, the night music sessions became more frequent. Sometimes I heard a light and airy song and the accompanying bubbling conversation of party guests. Sometimes there was a statelier song with only the music and nothing else. But there was one song, a slower and melancholier piece, where at approximately the same time each night I heard little footsteps again. I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer. The next night I heard the first notes of that melancholy melody, I climbed out of bed and cracked open my door.

The halls were bathed in light again, this time the orange light of afternoon. At the expected time, a young child run down the hallway. She was pale with jet black hair and wore a peculiar outfit with familiar feathered designs. Soon after, another little girl followed. She was slighter and skinnier. She walked deliberately and carefully with a large crutch, her third leg clacking rhythmically on the floor. The kid ahead waved excitedly at her hobbling friend. The hobbling kid only sped up. The two children continued their odd game of chase through the hall while I looked on. I guessed the slimmer girl with the crutch was the Beast. She seemed to be at least nine or ten in age. She showed no difficulty navigating with her crutches.

I followed the children down the hall. They turned several corners sharply and I soon lost sight of them. Their footsteps were loud on the marble floor, however, so the sound then led me to the library. It was morning. Meanwhile a tall, severe looking man was tuning a finely polished violin and preparing a music sheet. His long fingers plucked the strings. His bright blue eyes studied his papers. His deeply lined face, creased by years of permanent frowning it seemed, was set in hard concentration as he raised bow to string and began to play. Like the music that animated this scene, it too was impossibly beautiful to listen to. The man plucked and drew the bow across the strings like a true virtuoso, the high sounds of the instrument dancing in the air. His eyes were closed as if the sound itself drew him into a dream.

The man reminded me of the times I watched Duchanne when he painted. My teacher entered a trance when he concentrated on a piece. There was little that could rouse him save for the world ending. It was the face of sheer determination.

I left the library and continued down the halls. I passed by more rooms. Each room I passed, the time of day and season in each room changed. In one room, it was morning. In the other, it was night. Another was the afternoon. I heard the harsh winds of winter coming from one room. Another, the rumblings of a spring storm. They were captured moments in time, trapped like insects in amber but still passing by. Individual points of memory not dissimilar to how I viewed paintings. Only these were real. Perhaps I could interact with them, in some way.

            In each of these moments, I observed varying groups of pale jet black-haired people. All were strangely beautiful and had bright blue eyes, glinting like the Beast’s. In nearly every room, they were engaged in some kind of artistic activity. There was an elegant woman who sat in a room filled with realistic clay sculptures. She sculpted a familiar horse head, her slender hands gliding and shaping the equine features. I swore I saw the horse’s blank eye blink. There was the little girl in the black feathered dress from the hallway who was hard at work on a painting of a ship at sea, meanwhile the Violinist and another pale stern-faced man looked on. I heard ocean waves crashing and watched in amazement as the ship in the painting began to move. The Violinist turned to his friend and nodded, his stern expression never changing.

            Soon I encountered a memory with the child Beast. She no longer had a crutch. Instead, a fine cane laid beside her easel. She attempted to paint while the Violinist watched. Her paintbrush shook with her hand. Her eyes darted from the picture to the Violinist and back. Slowly she dragged a few streaks across the canvas. They were scared, spare little strokes. After a few more attempts, she set down the brush with a sense of defeat. The painting was a crude outline of a forest. The stick-like trees did not sway.

            Another room had the girl with her mother as she tried to sculpt. The Sculptress was like the Violinist in that her expression remained stern as she watched the little girl try and fail to sculpt anything. Her attempt at what appeared to be a horse head looked akin to a skinny eel that sagged rather pathetically. She looked to her mother, The Sculptress, silently pleading for approval. The woman responded with mere a disappointed shake of her head.

 More rooms were occupied with the child Beast trying various other arts. Other bright-eyed people watched the Beast try and fail to impress them. With each new room, the Beast grew a little older, a little taller, a little more like her ethereally beautiful mother the Sculptress. But the strain of failures slowly wore on her. Her eyes grew hollower and more distant. Her posture slumped further and further as the joy drained from her face.

I felt my heart sink at the sight of her sadness. I couldn’t hear any words, so I could only imagine what was being said. Or worse, what went through her head. It seemed she wasn’t good enough for them no matter how hard she tried. I struggled to understand why anyone would think that of their children.

My journey soon took me to the main hall. I froze, thinking I would see the Beast. But from the fading light of dusk through the atrium windows, I knew I was still in the past. Near the piano stood the Beast, still human. She brushed a hand against the great piano. Slowly, she sat down and opened the covering. There was a long pause. Then her fingers lowered to the keys, and she began to play. It was a song which had no melody or structure, at first. She hit keys with little rhyme, reason, or direction.

And yet the more she played, something incredible began to occur. For the first time since she was that young girl running in the hallway, she began to smile.

Before my eyes, the light shifted from dusk to morning. The light from the windows danced like iridescent shards spinning in a mobile. With it, the Beast’s playing gained shape and form. Her notes, already full of life and joy, took form to become beautiful songs ringing out through the atrium. She too was now taken by the waking dream of an artist’s joy if her gently swaying form and closed eyes were an indication. She tossed her dark hair this way and that like a dancer as her music filled the air. An ecstatic confluence of sounds spilled from her fingertips, rivers of gold for the ears. A veritable ray of light shined on her and filled the entire room. I shut my eyes, wondering if this was what played in Heaven.

“No!” A stern voice broke the music. “Again!”

I opened my eyes. The atrium was now cast in a familiar blue gloom. The Violinist stood on the raised platform. He towered over the seated Beast, who sat meekly looked away from him. She raised her hands to the piano again and played. The early joy and fervor with which she’d played was gone, replaced with childlike timidity. The music barely registered from the piano, sagging, and dying like dead trees. And even when she played correctly, the Violinist repeated: “No! Again!” Every time, she started the song over. Yet the Violinist still found something wrong with her playing. The Beast didn’t dare look up at her harsh teacher, instead keeping her face on the keys. Bitter tears rolled down her cheeks and fell onto the keys. But she never spoke or made a sound of any kind.

The pain and sadness in her eyes stung deeply. I became overcome with the desire to run to her and embrace her, to hold her and tell her everything was alright. I wanted to tell the Violinist to leave her alone and treat her like his daughter. But I remembered Finley’s words the first time I saw this phenomenon. “She can hear us.” If I said a word, she would know I was watching something I’d vowed never to see. I bit back my words.

The blue lights of the candles faded, as did the Beast and the Violinist. I heard footsteps behind me, which I followed. I came upon a young woman with a chubby-cheeked little girl in her arms. It must’ve been the Beast’s sister or other family member from the lack of a cane. The little girl must’ve been three or four from her size. She walked hurriedly down the halls as her child bobbed with each step. The mother’s face was frozen in concern and fear. I followed the two to a room where a few servants and the Sculptress were speaking unintelligibly. The woman with her child spoke in turn to the Sculptress, who waved away the servants and entered the room. The Sculptress entered and disappeared into the darkened room. I craned my neck, hoping to see inside the room.

The woman with her child still in her arm clutched the doorknob, then locked eyes with me. I froze. Chills pricked my neck. “You shouldn’t be here.” She said flatly. And she shut the door.

Time stopped. My heart skipped a beat. The woman’s eyes burned in my memory like the afterimage of a flash. She knows, I thought, panic and paranoia rising in my gut. How long has she been watching? Has she been watching this whole time? I tried to calm myself, looking around for landmarks. I had return to my room. Finding my head, I remembered where I was. With little hesitation, I rushed to my room and shut the door. I then crawled in my bed and covered myself like a child. My senses were hyper-attuned to any creak or incidental noise of that house. I laid there like a scared animal in a hovel, bracing and waiting for the inevitable reproach that would befall me. I barely slept that night. My troubled mind would not let me, my entire body coiled in fear.

 

Author's Note

General thoughts welcome.