I, Beast

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Chapter IX: Crystal as alive as fog

The following morning, I was totally disturbed and so was Beauty. Naturally, she tried to hide it, but I knew better. There was something bothering her. I was afraid to ask her, because I feared it was about the last dream she had, a dream so vivid that I thought it really happened, but... However it might be, I had to know. Shuqra only knew what the fairy had done to her after the dream.
"Beauty, child..." I began.
I didn't have the time to say something else. She looked up at me and smiled.
"Yes, I had a dream," she said, quite delighted to surprise me. "But a dream very different from all the others... When I woke up, I first thought it really happened, but..."
We were both to the same point.
"But what, Beauty?" I coaxed her gently. "Tell me your dream, please."
She took a deep breath.
"I was under the colonnade, in the gardens. I didn't know how I had come here and I was terrified: streams of water were coming from nowhere, drowning the gardens and I couldn't go back here. I knew I was screaming mentally, but I was so scared that I couldn't even open the mouth."
She looked down, moving her hands in her lap.
"Then suddenly, I heard my name despite the thunder, the lightning, the roar of the water and the scream in my head. It was... it was you, swimming toward me. You reached the colonnade and... and you reassured me because I was so terrified I had thrown myself to your neck," she said hastily.
My poor Beauty was reddening violently.
"You swam back at the castle, with me clinging at your neck, and then we were in the room you already showed me, drying yourselves. I dried your back, because I wanted so much to thank you for rescuing me, as if you had been the mighty knight of the tales... Oh! I was so bold I hardly recognised myself, but I came snuggling up to your arms and you were so kind to excuse my behaviour that you actually closed your arms on me and rocked me gently. Then you took me on your lap and I think I probably fell asleep. I woke up in my bed. But during this dream, I saw you no more like a... a..."
"A monster?" I suggested.
"No!" she reacted violently. "Not a monster, a Beast... Even no more a Beast, but... a gentle man, caring, who understands my fears... And nobody had ever been so gentle and patient with me like you were in the dream... As soon as you were here, I didn't fear anymore the weird situation, the thunder nor the lightning. I felt... safe."
She looked shyly at me and seeing me silent, with probably an angry look on that damned face of mine which couldn't express anything else but anger, she said helplessly:
"You called me 'dearest' in the dream..."
I smiled and said:
"I know, dear Beauty... I had the same dream last night."
"You had?"
"Yes. And if in my dream, you woke up in your bed, it's because I carried you to it."
"I thought of that," she admitted. "You're... you're not angry with me for telling you such a dream?"
"Of course not, Beauty! Did you find this dream... strange? Too vivid?"
"Yes, I did. Especially that, when I woke up this morning, I found the trace of a wet paw... foot beside my bed."
My jaw nearly dropped by hearing these words.
"It can't be," I muttered under my breath. "It can't be."
"Did I upset you, my lord?" she asked with a small voice.
"No, Beauty. I'm just trying to understand something."
I looked up at her and explained:
"After carrying you to your bed, I went in the gardens and everything was dry, as if there never was a deluge. Then I came back to my room, tried the spell again and, suddenly, water was overflowing. I couldn't have filled the basin so quickly, so I thought I had dreamed all this while playing with the spell. But then I noticed that I wasn't wearing my tunic anymore."
"And you wasn't wearing it when you rescued me," said Beauty, her eyes wide-opened in disbelief. "Oh, God, what does all this mean?"
"I don't know, but I can swear this to you, Beauty: whatever it will happen, I will always be there to rescue you."
I said that with a light tone and she smiled.
"Yes, I'm sure of that," she answered. "But I thought the purpose of the fairy was that people would fear you. I wasn't afraid of you at all in the dream. You were my saviour, my knight in shining armour."
"Clad with fur," I muttered bitterly.
Beauty's face darkened at once.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Don't, Beauty. There's nothing to be ashamed of. I am who... what I am."
"You are trapped in a shape that is not his, a caring, human, soul under a hideous aspect and that's all that I see. I think that's what Sevulf, Stoat and the others see too, so why do you care since we are the only ones to see you?" she said bluntly.
I looked at her, quite startled, then laughed.
"Well said, Beauty! I guess I like self-pity."
It was her turn to laugh and I was thrilled by the very sound.
"You don't seem to belong to this kind revelling in self-pity," she told me. "Even if you would have reason to."
I marvelled at the joy filling the air. It was as if we had known each other for a long time and all the barriers were down. Then Beauty came suddenly serious again.
"I think it's time for you to tell me what that curse of yours is about," she said firmly.
I was taken aback.
"But..."
"It's been months since I arrived, my lord. You have helped me several times, it's only right I help you in my turn."
I sighed and told her my sad story.
"Nobody can be that nasty!" she exclaimed, repulsed.
"You don't know the fairy," I answered with a tone less than happy.
Beauty grinned.
"I know her enough for my sake, thank you!"
I looked at her, amused despite myself. Then I sighed.
"Perhaps I should have married Rose Line. Sometimes I think I should call the fairy and tell her I'm willing to wed her goddaughter. At least, my servants would be free from this curse."
"You wouldn't marry Rose Line even with a knife on your neck," said the disgusted, yet distinguished voice of Sevulf.
"That's something I would understand," added Beauty with a devilish grin. "When I see how bad this fairy can be, it's not very reassuring for the goddaughter. Oh, well, I guess she had some good points..."
"Only one," I answered. "She had a godmother who could create black roses."
The expression on Beauty's face was indecipherable.
"That's a really good point," she said, smiling, "but still, it's a bit weak. Now, my lord, tell me, can I help you to break this curse?"
"Err... I think you can. I even think you're the only one who can make it. But..."
"But?" repeated Beauty, her eyes pleading silently.
"But I think the fairy lied to me. I think that even if I meet the required conditions, I will not be free. She hates me too much to allow me to get rid of her."
"What are the conditions, my lord?"
"I can't tell you, Beauty. I... I just won your trust, I couldn't bear to lose it so soon!"
"You won't, my lord. I promise you. Tell me how I can help you."
"You don't know what you're asking, Beauty..."
I glanced desperately toward Sevulf, trying to convince him to help me, but he didn't utter a word. I cleared my throat and asked carefully:
"Will you marry me, Beauty, willingly, with all the love you would have felt for a human husband?"
A wave of fear crept in Beauty's face and she suddenly looked like a frightened wild animal.
"No, I can't," she whispered with a broken voice. "Oh God! I can't! Please don't think harshly of me!" she added quickly, desperately. "But I just can't! I can't marry someone, you or anyone else, it's... it's just too much..."
Sevulf and I looked curiously at her.
"I know I'm ungrateful! I've harassed you to know how I could help you and now that I know, I just retract! But... it's just something I can't do..."
"Why, child?" asked gently Sevulf.
"A wife has to accept her husband's attentions, his kisses..." she blurted with a choked voice. "And I just can't stand such things..." she added before fleeing.
"Hopeless," I said, discouraged.
"Not so, master," mused Sevulf. "Not so... She didn't say she doesn't love you. She fears the... err... attentions a husband can have for his wife, that is, contact between them. Our lady Beauty seems quite terrified by that."
"I know, Sevulf, I know... But I don't think a simple 'I love you' will be enough for the fairy."
"You don't seem to see the point, master. She doesn't fear you. We only have to work so she will feel safe here; we must find out why she's so afraid of human contacts and work it out. Probably mistreatments. That's a major reason for such a fear. She still trusts you, so you'll have to convince her you'll never harm her, things like that."
"And how can I do that when I spend my time getting angry with her?"
"You didn't seem angry with her last night," noticed Sevulf.
I gaped at him.
"You know?" I asked with the voice of a little boy caught out.
"Of course, I know, master. Stoat, Eponerius and I spent enough time - and energy - drying the gardens and the ground."
"It did really happen then?"
"Well, I think so, master."
"So I really held her in my arms?"
"You went that far?" marvelled Sevulf, incredulous. "But why..."
"She thinks it was only a dream. And I'm not sure it wasn't really one."
"A collective dream?" suggested Sevulf.
"Perhaps, Sevulf, perhaps..."
I stood up and went to the door.
"What will you do now, master?" asked Sevulf.
"Weep, if I somehow remember how to do," I said with a grin, leaving the room.
"Weep?" repeated Sevulf, thunderstruck, but I was already too far to answer him.
Yes, I really wanted to remember to weep, but it wasn't worthy of me. A Beast couldn't weep. A Beast could only frighten people, kill and roar. I never tried to kill but perhaps it was now the moment.
Despite these sombre thoughts, I didn't shelter in my rooms to weep, nor hurry to the forest to kill innocent animals. I just went to the gardens, trying to recall the joy I had before when I was in a garden so beautiful as mine was now, thanks to Beauty's care. Near Raynal's tomb, I heard Beauty's voice and I stopped dead.
"Help him, Raynal!" she begged the cold gravestone. "Or help me, I don't know anymore... I just can't surrender like that, giving willingly my freedom and accepting his touch. And... he isn't even sure it will end the curse!"
"At least, he was honest enough to recognise it," said a voice I knew so well. "Beauty, child, I'm afraid he is right. This fairy is a liar and nothing of what she told him is true. You marrying him won't break the curse. Perhaps he will be happy to be at least loved for himself, but I doubt it, for he will blame himself for trapping you like that until his death. But don't worry, child, he will be free... if it's to be."
"But can't I help him even so?"
"Just stay here, Beauty. Stay in this castle as long as I tell you to stay. He's happy of your presence, you know. You're his joy."
"Raynal... Why do you so love irises?"
"Once there was here a young girl named Iris. Even if our purpose was to break the curse, I couldn't help but fall in love with her. She was in love with me too and he let us love each other. He was grieving the lost of another girl, whom he had loved."
I clearly heard Beauty's gasp.
"He already loved someone?"
"Yes. Her name was Katherine. She was beautiful, with long blond hair and crystal blue eyes. She was very shy too and she didn't like magic; she was afraid of it. She did marvels on the gardens. But the fairy intervened, because I think the girl loved him too, but was too shy for saying it, and Katherine had to go back to her home, for she was ill and we couldn't do anything for her. She died some years later."
"The poor thing!" mourned Beauty, without letting know if she was mourning for me or for Katherine.
"Go back to the castle, Beauty. The room next to the one he shows you all the time is a portrait gallery. The fifth one is Katherine's. And the sixth is Iris's."
Raynal's voice faded away and I heard the noise of Beauty's soft steps coming toward me; I jerked back, hiding in the trees, seeing her walking in front of me, her kitten in her arms, so she never knew I was lurking around her.
Raynal had said to her to go to see the portrait gallery, which was in my room and where Beauty hadn't the right to enter. Why the hell did Raynal urge her to do so? I made haste toward the castle, but I used magic sparingly, since I did want Beauty to see the portraits. From the cocoon room, using a mirror, I could see her in front of the portraits. Instead of going straight to Katherine's, she stopped before Sirli's, seeming fascinated by it. A plaque of polished bronze was under each portrait, with the name of the girl.
"Sirli," she read aloud. "That's a beautiful name, more original than mine."
And she enumerated all these names I had never forgotten: Sirli, Clara, Rosemary, Lenore, Katherine, Iris, Cherry, Juliet and Melanie. She looked a long time at Katherine's and sighed.
"I'm nothing like her, am I?" she said softly.
Then she moved until Melanie's portrait and looked at the empty space left next to that picture.
"And then, Beauty, I suppose," she said sarcastically. "And then, other names! 'I even think you're the only one who can make it.' Oh God! I am such a fool! I did believe him and I was so proud that a poor and plain girl like me would be allowed to free him of this awful curse! But I'm not the one; I'm just one of a long line of nice girls with a heart too tender for her own sake."
Then suddenly, she saw the small characters under each name written on the plaque. I remembered I had written the dates of birth and death of each girl. She bent down and read the last dates, Melanie's.
"More than eighty years!" she whispered, baffled. "More than eighty years before he asked me to come here! The bigger gap was after Sirli, thirty-two years. Then there was Katherine's, seven years, but Iris didn't count for him... Oh God! Eighty years without any company, except Sevulf and the others!"
All the dates she said meant nothing for me; I knew I had been given one hundred and eighty years. I remembered that after Sirli's death, I had used a quarter of my time. That was all I knew. I didn't remember the hour displayed by the clock at Raynal's death and I wasn't even sure to have known it once.
Sirli's name had awoken something in me. For some time already I was quite disturbed by a familiar look on Beauty's face and then, suddenly, I knew; now that Beauty was smiling sometimes, it became easier to see what was familiar: Beauty had the same smile as Sirli. I was somehow taken aback by this discovery. Sirli had died long ago and I was probably the only one - except my servants - to remember her. I very much doubted there was somewhere in my kingdom a shrine dedicated to Sirli's memory.
I remembered Sirli as a nice girl that I could have loved if I hadn't been so vain and so obsessed with my roses. Beauty had the same acuity in her gaze as Sirli did and now, there was this smile, this smile that made my heart tighten because of the sadness and the tenderness it expressed. I had to look for who were Beauty's ancestors. That was one of the many advantages of the magic: being able to find out what people would normally never discover if using normal ways.
Beauty was stroking her kitten's fur absent-mindedly and she whispered:
"Am I the one or not? But I came here only by accident! He didn't want to be nice to me, he just wanted to frighten me so I would stay in the women's town. Uh... oh... he told me he had lost all hope to be free again... and I just gave him new hopes before crushing him without pity!"
She looked again at Katherine's portrait and said very sadly:
"I'm not worthy of being the one... I'm destroying the man you loved."
I was sensible to the fact she said 'man' and not 'Beast'. I was not very proud of what I was. I saw that Beauty was ready to leave the room, so I hastily ended the spell for the mirror and entered my room. She started when seeing me.
"What are you doing here, Beauty?" I asked, as if I didn't know it.
"I... I was watching the portraits."
"It's my room here, you know," I added, knowing that she would understand what I meant by these words.
She reddened violently.
"I didn't know, my lord. I was told to come here to see the portraits."
"Who told you that? One of the servants?"
"No... It's... it's Ray... Raynal."
She was obviously terrified by my reaction, remembering the day I had lifted her from the ground while growling like a dangerous animal, but I was pleased to see she was honest enough to tell me the truth in spite of her fear.
"Raynal? Oh! So he talks to you too?"
"Uh... yes. Not for a long time, but he advised me sometimes."
"Seems to me his advice was wrong today," I grinned teasingly.
She had a nervous smile and left my room. I settled down in my armchair and I probably fell asleep, as strange as it might sound, since I didn't know what was sleep since the beginning of the curse.

I woke up when feeling a hand shaking me vigorously.
"Wake up, old pal! Wake up!"
It was Raynal, under his shape of a hybrid hound and human.
"Let me in peace," I growled, closing the eyes again. "I'm sleeping, do you hear me?"
"We need you."
"I don't care. I sleep so rarely that I want to benefit from this moment."
I was really decided to continue this sleep, but Raynal's next words made my eyes jerk open.
"Beauty is in danger."
A heartbeat hadn't passed that I was sitting straight beside Raynal, looking in the direction he showed me. It was a strange land, but after last night, I thought that nothing could surprise me anymore. I was obviously wrong.
Beauty was facing a woman, quite beautiful for what I could see; my Beauty was clad in a beautiful dress of a colour between pale gold and pale green, or perhaps was it pale gold with green reflects or vice-versa, I didn't know. Her hair was loosen on her back and she wore long white gloves, as if she was ready to go to a ball - where she would have stolen every bachelor's heart, lovely as she was, and even the non bachelor's. The woman she was with was dressed as beautifully as Beauty and I thought sadly that Raynal and I were not in our Sunday best.
I took a new look around us. We were on what seemed to be the sea, on a raft and, instead of a beach of sand, the waves died on a chequered ground of white and black marbles. This floor was the one where Beauty and the stranger were standing.
Leading to their "palace" - even if there were only parts of it - there was the most amazing - and interesting - thing: coming out of the waters, pillars from different colours, materials and shapes stood there, in the middle of nowhere - well, of the sea; I recognised a Corinthian capital, a Ionic one and even a column which seemed to be Egyptian - obviously the creator of all this, although very imaginative, lacked some ideas about what he really wanted; I liked the result but it somehow shocked my artistic sense of homogeneity.
But it wasn't really what caught my attention: I was fascinated by the sorts of arches that joined the columns. Each of them was made of crystal or fog, or perhaps a crystalline fog, reflecting the rare sunbeams that came through the grey clouds behind us. They were animals, each of their features carved with delicacy, making a work of art of each of them. The one nearest Beauty seemed to be a cat or, at least, a feline, with its hind legs on a column and its forepaws on the other. The one next to the feline was an ostrich, with its neck playing the role of the arch. Although strange, it was really beautiful.
I turned my gaze toward Beauty and the stranger. This woman had something familiar to me.
"Raynal," I asked without thinking. "Why do I have the impression I know this woman?"
I felt a pinch in the heart: once again, I had forgotten Raynal was dead and that he could never answer me. How many times already had I felt this sharp pain of having lost him?
"Because you know her, of course, old pal," answered Raynal.
I remembered: the fairy had found another way to make me suffer by conjuring Raynal in my nearness from time to time. It was painful to think that my faithful cousin was now no more that the fairy's puppet. Thinking of the fairy...
"God! It's her!"
"Of course, it's her!" said Raynal with a tone of evidence. "Who did you think she was? Shuqra?"
"I'm sure Shuqra helps Beauty, but I don't think she would include us in the dream."
"Are you sure it's a dream?' asked Raynal sceptically.
"Oh yes. She already sent me one so vivid I really thought for a moment I had lived all that I had seen. But it can't have been..."
Raynal interrupted me:
"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing Beauty out.
My little Beauty was listening to the fairy with all her attention and then, she turned to the cat of crystalline fog. I saw her lips move, without begin able to hear what she was saying. The feline glowed of a silvery light and then, it was no more made of crystalline fog but rather of... foggy crystal. The difference was minimal, but still, it was there.
"By Shuqra! She is teaching my Beauty how to use magic!"
"Well, you didn't do it yourself..."
I looked daggers at Raynal who had an apologetic smile.
"What can we do?" I asked, frustrated to fell powerless. "We are too far from the shore... Oh, by all the gods, if she only puts a finger on her, I'll kill her!"
"Old pal," said Raynal severely. "Will you stop to listen to this blood-thirsty beast lurking in you? That's what she wants."
"I know, Shuqra knows I know! But I see red when Beauty is in danger, even when I'm the one to threaten her."
"I know too, cousin. Looks like our dear fairy likes water a bit too much."
Raynal was right: now, under the fairy's injunctions, Beauty had just transformed a pillar - with a normal ribbed arch - in a cascade of cloudy water and the arch didn't fall.
"I don't like that," I muttered. "Beauty was afraid of water in the last dream. What is the fairy trying to teach her on an island, working on water? I don't understand."
"I'm not sure there's something to understand," said Raynal with the most devilish grin.
God, it was so good to have him here, with his humour so peculiar!
"One could believe she's trying to make her fears disappear," continued Raynal.
"I don't think that's what the fairy has in mind. See Beauty's hands: they're trembling. I know Beauty enough and that's a sign that doesn't lie: she is trembling of fear, a fear she's trying to control."
"But why is she teaching her something?" wondered Raynal aloud, and that was the right question to ask.
"Probably because it will give Beauty new ways to escape me," I answered bitterly.
"Stop that, will you?" said Raynal, disgusted. "This girl likes you, perhaps even more. You're not worthy of her, we both know that, but even so, she's willing to help you."
"Raynal, why did you send her to my room?"
"So she could see Katherine's portrait," answered Raynal, shrugging with indifference. "She has to know which memory she has to fight. The idea of challenge can help her to make the first step toward you."
"Challenge?" I repeated, eyes wide opened with disbelief. "Which challenge are you speaking of? Katherine's memory won't do her any harm - nor any good. Katherine has become what you are now: the fairy's puppet."
"My, aren't we just nasty and bitter, today?" said Raynal sarcastically. "I could almost think you're angry with me for being dead. I'm not responsible for that, old pal."
"I'm not either. But you're somehow right. I am angry with you for being dead. You should never have had the right to leave me like this."
"I didn't leave you like this. I come from time to time, but you never seem to be happy to see me. Hell, it's even as if you reproach me to be something like a ghost! I didn't choose it, you can believe me!"
"I believe you," I said, feeling suddenly very weary. "But... oh, I guess you sometimes act as if you were playing the fairy's game, and that something I can't stand."
"I think I can understand it," said Raynal with a large smile. "So, what are you going to do for Beauty?"
"What if we tried to reach the shore and faced the fairy? I think Beauty might be quite happy to see you again, even under this shape."
"You're flattering me. Beauty likes me because I'm somehow her friend here, the one she tells what she feels and such. That's all. But most of the time, she speaks about you."
"I know. She's trying to understand me. Hard to do, I guess."
"Oh, true. I forgot about your magic mirror."
While talking, we were rowing toward the shore, but, looking up, I saw that the fairy was dragging Beauty off.
"Swim!" I shouted to Raynal.
"Are you crazy?" he answered me. "I don't know how to swim!"
My only answer was to seize him round the waist and to throw him into the water.
"A dog knows how to swim. Just do it!" I ordered before plunging into the sea.
Raynal didn't answer, he was too preoccupied to find out how to float. I wasn't thinking anymore of my hatred of water. Beauty needed me - even if the fairy didn't seem very aggressive with her, I didn't trust her - and I had promised her to always save her. She called me her knight in shining armour and even if my real armour was of fur, my weapons of claws and fangs, I was ready to fight for her.
As soon as I reached the chequered floor, I held out the hand for Raynal, spitting and coughing.
"Never do that again to me or I will kill you!" he said with a furious tone.
"Beauty needs us," I answered without even apologising.
"Sometimes, I just hate you," muttered Raynal.
"No, dear, you hate me all the time. That's different. And that's why you spent all your time with me."
We were ready to follow the fairy and Beauty but suddenly the crystalline-foggy animals woke up and the feline jumped on the chequered floor, slipped a bit on the polished marble and prepared to attack us. The ostrich had followed, as well as the other ones.
"I think we have a problem," said Raynal with a toneless voice.
"No, we don't," I answered with a dangerous tone he had learned to recognise.
But the animals of crystalline fog didn't know it. The feline looked quite surprised when I threw myself into the attack, claws shining under the cloudy light of the sun. When I clawed the feline, I heard a choked scream and, looking up, I saw Beauty with the fairy watching us - me - and I understood at once the fairy's plan: she wanted Beauty to see I was only a Beast, no more a man. Perhaps she was right, but to reach Beauty, I had to pass through this line of animals, so, even if I had to claw all of them to death, I would do it!
Raynal, stunned by my audacity, hadn't moved. The animals perhaps looked very foggy, but their claws and fangs weren't at all. I winced when the talons of a beautiful great eagle scratched my shoulder. But I had an advantage on them: I was bigger than any of them and my arms were longer than their legs, so I could fight with more efficiency. Each time one of them fell on the floor, dead or dying, it suddenly reappeared on its place, still in this crystalline-fog-like material, back on its pillar.
There were still enough of them for me to be unable to count them while struggling and I was covered with blood. I had forgotten everything - even Beauty - thinking only to get rid of them, of all of them. A call from Raynal got me back to my senses and I saw that the fairy was, once again, trying to drag Beauty off, but my courageous girl struggled with all her might. I bit a crystalline-foggy wolf who was doing its best to close its jaws on my throat and I didn't release it until I felt its body become limp. Then I rushed to Beauty's pursuit.
The fairy knew she had no chance to escape me since I was a fast runner in spite of my quite heavy build. She stopped and faced me, her hand on Beauty's shoulder.
"Don't come closer!" she warned me. "If you do so, I'll kill her!"
"No, you won't," I said, sounding more assured that I really felt. "You won't, because you know you've lost this battle. Not the war, but this battle at least. Release her. You can't do anything to her. She's too pure for you to harm her."
The fairy hesitated. Was she understanding what I was saying and accepting it, or was she simply trying to find a way to escape me with Beauty? She pushed the girl in my direction and Beauty came almost running.
"Very well. But don't think you've won. This battle is in more than one set. The next one will be mine!"
"I just can't wait to see what it will be," I answered, welcoming Beauty without touching her. "I hope it will be at least amusing."
"For me, certainly. For you, I'm not so sure," grinned the fairy.
Raynal arrived and smiled when seeing Beauty by my side. The fairy smiled too, but I didn't like her smile. It was like a wolf seeing a prey.
"I think it's time for me to leave you and go back to my kingdom, full of black roses. Do you want me to bring you one, next time?"
"No, thank you. I have better than that."
Everybody looked at me with surprise.
"I have a dream," I continued. "A dream, a hope, that nothing, nor even you, can have or kill. And you can't be happy if all your dreams are fulfilled."
"May all your dreams but one become true," said the soft voice of Beauty.
"Thank you for the blessing, Beauty," I answered in a breath.
"In this case, I'll try to do that you always have one dream unfulfilled," said the fairy with a sarcastic tone. "And, for a beginning, I will take Raynal with me..."
My cousin threw me a desperate look and I felt sorry in my heart.
"May you one day rest in peace, Raynal," I whispered while the fairy and my cousin vanished into thin air.
I turned to Beauty and she smiled a bit sadly.
"You saved me again, but because of me, you lost Raynal."
"No, little one. I lost Raynal long ago, after Melanie's death. I think he was destroyed by Iris's death and even after several years, he couldn't live without her."
"You're much stronger than he is, aren't you? Since you survived Katherine's death."
She spoke without embarrassment of this event and I was quite surprised by it; I'd expected her to be ill at ease before only uttering Katherine's name.
"Probably," I shrugged. "I guess it's because the fairy didn't want me to escape this way. She's quite a possessive person."
She emitted a soft laugh and my heart jumped of joy in my chest. Then, I was on my bed, in my room, and I cursed the fairy.

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Text � Azrael 2000.
Permutation Enigma. Copyright � Andrew Annenberg 1987.
Set Hour Time, from Moyra/Mystic PC.