Bella

A project I had to do for school -- creating a story using quotes from "Beowulf" to move the action.

 

B E L L A

  

            “A powerful monster, living down in the darkness, growled in pain, impatient as day after day the music rang loud in that Hall.” (Beowulf, Lines 1-4)

The tile of Miss Lacey’s Studio was chipped in the corners and scuffed with years of many shoes. It was an overly weathered building, shoved seemingly as an afterthought between a Chinese restaurant and a second-hand clothing store. Shingles had slipped from the roof and ended in crumbles on the sidewalk below, and a windowpane here and there had been broken out and replaced with plastic instead. Miss Lacey had purchased the dilapidated place from an elderly woman whose son had sent her off to a nursing home, and the smell of her many cats still lingered in the carpeted hallways. But for the children who attended there, Miss Lacey’s Dance Studio was a realm of possibilities, a shining and beautiful beacon on that darkened street of misfit businesses.

Bella slid on her dance shoes without really thinking about it. She was watching, from the corner of her eye, a group of her younger classmates. They were clustered over in a corner already made claustrophobic by a collection of old theatre props, whispering to each other and, every so often, looking cautiously back at Bella.

With a sigh and a shake of her head Bella stood and began making her way over to the girls, only imagining what they had come up with this time. Cute as they were, they had overactive imaginations. Bella had too, once. That was before her dad lost his job, and her mom let the alcohol numb the pain of dropping a few levels in society.

She could hear the whispering getting more frantic as she approached, and the group began to jostle back and forth as they fought over which of them would say something.

“What are you guys doing?” Bella asked them, sitting down on a nearby box.

More pushing. Finally, one of the more confident of the group stepped forward. Her name was Marley, brown-haired and excitable, her eyes grew wide with every new piece of news or gossip.

She took a deep breath, as if to prepare herself for breaking the news. “Bella, we need to tell you something.”

“Oh yeah?” Bella said, raising a brow.

“It’s very important.” Marley assured her, the other girls nodding and murmuring in approval. Bella looked around at their worried expressions and sighed.

“Ok, what is it?”

“If we tell you, do you promise not to tell Miss Lacey?”

“I don’t know, have you broken something?”

“Bella!” Marley cried, as the group shook their heads and tittered. “I told you this is important! If you don’t promise we can’t tell you!”

Bella held up her hands. “Alright, alright! I promise. You happy?”

 

“The best and most noble of his council debated remedies, sat in secret sessions, talking of terror and wondering what the bravest of warriors could do. And sometimes they sacrificed to the old stone gods, made heathen vows, hoping for hell’s support, the Devil’s guidance in driving their affliction off.” (Beowulf, Lines 86-93)

 

Marley looked around the room furtively, glanced back at the other girls, who nodded their head in some kind of agreement. Then she turned back to Bella, and leaned in so that she could hear her whisper.

“There’s a monster in the basement!”

“What?!” Bella cried, and was hurriedly shushed by the collective group. Bella couldn’t help but grin. “Guys, there is no monster in the basement! There are no monsters at all!”

Marley shook her head sadly. “See?” said one of the little girls, “I told you she wouldn’t believe us!”

“Bella,” Marley said slowly, “you know when you feel like you know all the steps, and all the moves, and you know you can do them all…and then you fall down anyway? That’s the monster! He makes you fall!”

“And why would the monster want you to fall?”

“Because he doesn’t like music!”

“Or dancing!” Another girl chipped in.

“He doesn’t like artful things at all.” Marley continued. “He thinks if he makes us fall all the time, we won’t come back!”

“But you do come back!” Bella cried, rolling her eyes.

“But Bella, don’t you see? If he keeps making us fall, we won’t do good in performances, and then….and then Miss Lacey might have to close her school!” Marley declared. There was a collective gasp and some sad murmurs at this revelation.

Bella sighed, seeing there would be no changing their minds. “So why did you decide to tell me?”

The girls looked at each other, shuffling their feet and twisting their hands. “Well,” Marley began, looking carefully sideways to avoid Bella’s even gaze, “we want you to go down there and tell it to go away.”

Bella laughed.

“Bella!” she exclaimed, “I told you this is serious!”

“Ok, why me?” Bella asked her, trying to contain her giggling.

“Because you’re the bravest!” Marley told her. “We talked it all over, and no one else could do it right!”

Bella sighed. “Ok, fine. If I go down into the basement and show you there’s no monster, will you stop this nonsense?”

The girls looked at each other, nodded.

“Good.” Bella said. “Let’s get this over with.” She started off toward the staircase that led down to the “monster’s lair”.

“Wait!” Marley yelled, grabbing Bella’s arm. “Don’t you want to prepare yourself first?”

Bella pulled away from her. “I think I can handle this as I am.”

            Off Bella marched, moving a box or two to open the basement door. She could hear the girls whispering excitedly behind her, until with a soft thump the door closed behind her, and all was quiet. She reached up to the small open bulb light at the top of the stairs, tugged on the little chain, and the glow came flickering on. A layer of dust covered the basement stairs, softening her footsteps as she made her way down the musty passage.

            The further down she went, the softer the light became, until again she was in darkness at the foot of the staircase. Reaching up into the air above her head, her fingers searched for another chain to pull, another bulb to light. For a few frustrating minutes she found only empty space, until at last a cold chain met her fingertips, and she gave it a decisive tug. On came the light, the bulb so covered in dust the light itself was muted. Squinting through the darkness, she could make out only hulking shapes in the distance. More storage? She couldn’t tell.

            The more she moved out of the glow of the single light bulb, the more she could feel her confident disbelief slipping away. A little girl’s fear was slowly becoming an older girl’s remembered nightmare; a thought pushed away into the back of her mind, clouded with the realities of an adolescent life, but still there, lurking in the shadows. The chill of underground room, the unknown of those darkened corners, all fed that locked up memory of the monsters each of us fears. A tightness began to fill her chest, and she found herself staring wide-eyed around the room, searching for something to reassure herself.

            She found it. It was not the answer she was looking for.

            There, curled throughout the decrepit boxes and broken furniture, a shape emerged. Its tail, pointed in a twisted spike, slipped through the items like a snake, and Bella’s eyes followed it up to a heaving chest, muscular legs that ended in fierce talons, gripping the floor beneath it. Its head seemed to fill the entire chamber, so much so that she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to spot it. Giant ears were tucked behind curling horns, their ends pointing upwards to the dance studio floor. Its eyes were huge and empty, glowing with an unearthly light, and boring into Bella.

            For a moment she couldn’t think, couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe in the beams of those eyes. Goosebumps covered her skin, her mind swimming with the vision in front of her. Her knees felt like jelly, ready to give out beneath her. Finally she could take it no longer, and closed her eyes against the monster.

            The darkness of her own eyelids hid any sight of the beast. Bella took a deep breath, quieted her frantically beating heart. Calm Bella, she told herself, calm. How did she get rid of those nighttime monsters so long ago? She hadn’t ever really thought about it, just simply stopped thinking about it.

            That was it.

            Steeling herself, Bella opened her eyes. There it was, heaving and swirling in front of her…but flickering. Its very being seemed to flicker in and out, like and old film. Setting her jaw, Bella took a step forward. The monster’s form became lighter, it pulled away from her, tossing its great head. Forward Bella moved, pushing against it, staring it down, until finally with one last great shake of its head the monster vanished completely.

            Bella was left in the dark. But she was no longer afraid.

 

“A soldier should know the difference between words and deeds, and keep that knowledge clear in his brain.” (Beowulf, Lines 200-202)

 

“Bella! What happened!” Marley cried, as Bella shut the basement door behind her. The room seemed so bright to Bella now, she had to let her eyes adjust before she even looked at the girls.

“Bella!” Marley called again, waving her hand in front of Bella’s face. “Are you alright? Did it get you?”

Bella shook her head, moving to a nearby box to sit down. She was quiet for a minute, as the little girls crowded around her. Slowly she looked up at their concerned faces.

“It tried.” She said finally, to many a gasp from her audience. “You were right. There is a monster.” The girls looked at each other with terrified expressions.

“But you know what?” Bella went on. “I beat it.”

“How?” Marley exclaimed, her eyes widening.

“It wasn’t hard, really. I just stopped thinking about him.” She expected the confused expressions she received. “Listen, the thing about monsters is, they want you to be afraid. They want you to believe in them. They want you to fall.”

“But what can we do then?” Marley asked, disappointment covering her face as she hung her head. Bella reached out and lifted the younger girl’s chin. She grinned encouragingly at her.

“If you keep standing anyway, what can they do?”