Fairytales Reimagined, Volume I

by Valerie Sells

  It is at least clear to me that a battle ensued. Though from far above the action and quite out of my senses by some means or other, I am unable to give a full account of what occurred. A great many people were involved in the onslaught, enough that some at least ought to have made it up to the second and third levels of the castle, yet no person ever seemed to discover me, or even the room in which I lay, unbound but unable to move nor speak.

  I know not for certain how much time passed, perhaps mere minutes or a great many hours. The next thing I knew was waking in my bed as if a new day had dawned. It took a few moments for my mind to quite catch up to the events that had occurred, to remember what had led me to this point.

  “Leta!”

  Her name was on my lips in panicked tones as I leapt from my bed and ran to the door. Though my touch would usually cause it to open, there was no magical force present in this moment. The door swung on its hinges from the shove I gave it and my feet slammed against the floor as I hurried to the stairs and down. It occurred to me before I was quite half way to the ground that I heard no sound. The battle was done, for better, for worse, and I knew not what exactly I would find when I reached the scene of its struggles.

  “Beau!”

  Her voice caught me off-guard and brought me to a halt, before the final turn in the staircase that would take me down to the main foyer.

  “Leta?”

  My eyes were at the ceiling, the walls, everywhere, as I spun a full a circle on the narrow step.

  “Do not. Do not proceed,” she urged.

  It was undoubtedly her voice, and yet weakened, damaged. A person who knew her less might not have recognised her at all.

  “Leta, what happened? Please, I do not understand!”

  “They left me no choice,” she said, coughing painfully. “I... I did it only for you.”

  Shaking my head in complete confusion, I was about to ask her to explain if she could, but the words never quite left my lips. The candles in the sconces lining the stairway flickered to life, weak and feeble in their attempts to be aflame. As I had always done before, I followed the path they set for me, back up the stairway and then another, down a long corridor I was sure I had never seen before and around so many corners, I felt as if I ought to have turned at least a dozen circles.

  When at last I came upon a door that seemed to be my destination, and the usual ethereal glow urged me forward, I was almost afraid to approach.

  “Leta?”

  I tried in vain to keep the shake from my voice and yet know I failed miserably to achieve it.

  “You may run if you wish, Beau,” she told me, so close now that I knew for sure to which door I had finally been brought. “There is nothing to stop you. There never was.”

  “Run?” I echoed, laughter in my voice that I could not have defined or explained. “I could not... Why should I run from the one I love?”

  She did not reply to my question. Rhetorical as it was, I hadn’t expected an answer, truth be told. Instead, I only pushed forward, through the large, shining doorway that led into what could only be Leta’s quarters.

  It was dark inside, seemingly darker than it actually was perhaps, after my standing in front of the unnaturally bright door so long. There were framed pictures on the wall, and a mirror I recognised well. Long flowing curtains at the windows that seemed torn to shreds in places, and then a bed.

  Turning towards the place where I assumed my dearest love to be lying now, I could never have been prepared for the sight that met my eyes. She was a woman, that much I had long assumed, and it was only a relief to know I had not entirely deceived myself. She was alive, and as physically present as myself, made evident by the frightening amount of blood she seemed to be losing.

  “Good God! Leta...”

  I had not words to say to her, sure now as I was that she had suffered this fate for myself alone. Gashes from the blades of swords and other such weapons marred so much of her skin, in a battle she had fought alone. It no longer surprised me that she had sought to take on so many without help.

  Though what I said was true, that Leta was female and of a form recognisable as such, she was not entirely human in shape. In the half-light, it was not easy to tell, but as I drew closer and the light from the lamp by her bed illuminated the figure of her a little better, Leta was a sight to behold for so many reasons.

  “Now you see why I hide,” she said, smiling with almost serpent-like lips.

  The skin of her face was pale, almost white, and yet in the light it could almost seem to shine in verdant shades, along smooth scales. Her hair was short for a woman, thin and pale, missing entirely in one place at least, presumably from a battle blow. To begin with, this was all I saw, except for the great size of her. She was certainly the proportions of a great warrior, and would doubtless tower over me if she could stand. It was clear from her injuries, when I paid a mind to them again, that she could not.

  “I... I do not understand.”

  To what I was referring when I said those words, I could not tell you, for there was so very much that was a mystery to me. It seemed Leta was finally ready to tell me all that I might wonder on, since there was no longer a reason for her to hide. I hated to think why she believed that, since my best guess left me sick to my stomach.

  “Darling Beau,” she said softly, in the same sweet, lilting voice I had come to know so well. “You must listen to me, for time grows short,” she said, her large and much-scaled hand reaching out briefly to my cheek.

  I knew then, without question, that it was she who had passed me in the hall moments before battle commenced, but I said not a word. She begged me listen, and I would hear all. Sitting down on the edge of her bed, my arms finally around her, I was her captive audience for as long as she would have me.

  “It has been many a long year since I had a visitor that wished to stay here. Longer still since anyone spoke words of love to me, and even then... but it does not matter. You have a right to know the truth, and so you shall. This form you see, it has been my own for as long as there has been breath in my monstrous body.

  “Mother and father were rich but not righteous. They proved themselves willing to love only what was beautiful, only those people and objects that inspired wonder and delight with their looks and monetary worth. One day, when tested, they failed to prove themselves capable of any compassion or grace, and so they were punished. Their first and only child was cursed.”

  The tale she told was enough to break the hardest of hearts, and mine was already quite split open at the sight of her pain. My poor, dearest Leta had suffered greatly, made less than human, in looks at least, in order to punish her parents. She had done nothing to deserve her fate, and yet, she had borne it and not fallen prey to becoming the monster that she might.

  “Your appearance may be cursed, Leta, but no evil magic could reach your heart and soul. I know you are no beast.”

  “You see me and yet you say this,” she said, laughing painfully.

  “I see you and am only more certain of what I said before,” I insisted without hesitation, hands at her cheeks that were smooth as silk to the touch. “You have suffered so much already, and now to take on those that would come to take me away, because you knew I wished to stay. Did you not give me the choice to run so many times? Does it mean nothing to you that I remained?”

  “I did not think I could believe your wish to stay, or your love for me, until you saw what you had thought to cling to,” she said, tears leaking from her eyes then. “You, handsome and good as you are-”

  “I shall hear no more of this, Leta. You know better than anyone that the sight of my own face brings me nothing but pain. I should much rather look upon yours, and for the rest of my life.”

  “Or perhaps only for the rest of mine,” she said, wincing in agony that came as no surprise.

  The sight of blood had always made my stomach churn, but never more than now when it flowed so freely from by beloved’s wounds. That I should help
her was my only wish, and yet I knew not that I could do. Certainly, I was no doctor. I had precious little in the way of any practical skills, and I had never regretted it more than in that very moment.

  “I should fetch help from... somewhere, anywhere,” I insisted, turning to go.

  “Please, Beau. Don’t leave me,” cried Leta, reaching for my hand.

  Though I am sure she could do much damage with those long fingers and the vicious talons that grew from them, she was gentle as a bird even as she gripped my hand in her own, hiding it altogether in a moment.

  “I only want to help you,” I promised, “and I am so useless!”

  “No, never,” she told me, smiling through evident pain still. “All I need is for you to stay, to listen. There is more I need you to know, about yourself, about the fountain.”

  Though I doubted anything she could tell me now would really matter, I was compelled to hear more, if for no other reason than because she so wanted me to do so. I shall admit to some curiosity, in spite of everything, since I had spent too long wondering about these very facts.

  “The fountain,” I echoed. “It is enchanted?”

  “It is a part of the curse. The lily, it is tied to me, to my life. It is also protected. When you reached for it, the force of its power threw you aside.”

  My free hand went absently to her head as I recalled the day she spoke of. There had been a part of me, in the beginning, that believed Leta had caused my injury. I had long since set aside that thought as preposterous.

  “You could never hurt me,” I said definitely. “From almost the beginning, I have been sure of it. I am as certain now as ever I was. You never meant me harm.”

  “Never,” she swore, green eyes sparkling with tears as yet unshed. “I needed you to know that, for I feared I might... Sometimes, I feared myself.”

  “Well, I never have, and I never shall,” I promised her, holding so tightly onto her hand I felt my own might break with the force, and yet I could not care. “And you will be well again, Leta. If only you tell me all and then let me go to find help and assistance...”

  “Who would help me, but you?” she cried in frustration. “This is my lot in life, Beau. What I am, what you see.”

  “What I see is nothing that matters!” I told her, not knowing I had begun to cry until my tears fell down onto the blood-stained bedclothes between us. “You are beautiful, Leta. You are the one I have fallen in love with, who I shall love now and for all the days of my life,” I promised her, eyes fixed on her own, even as the light within seemed to flicker and fade. “If you could only make the same vow.”

  “I can,” she said softly, voice so weak and failing a little more with every passing moment. “I do love you, Beau. I cannot fix on when or how it happened, but I do. I have never loved another as I love you. It is why I...”

  Her voice trailed away. To begin with, I believed her fading faster than expected, but soon realised she was pained not by her injuries but by what she must confess.

  “Tell me,” I urged her. “My darling Leta, please, tell me now. Whatever it is can change nothing.”

  She ought to have believed me, for every other obstacle she suspected to stand between us had already proven meaningless. I saw that she believed me when she met my eyes once more and shook her head slightly.

  “Your betrothed, who was so loathsome to you. She is no more.”

  I was perhaps not as astonished as I might have been to hear of Miss. Trevelyan’s demise. A part of me knew, I think, that it was she who had been the most virulent in battle against Leta, for I was certain my father took no great pains in recovering me for himself. It was perhaps still a little unpleasant to hear that my intended, however vile, had been slain.

  “I would not have done it. I did not intend to,” Leta continued, coughing more frequently now, breathing with more pain and effort. “She would not stand down, and then... and then...”

  Word completely failed her and with all the effort she possessed she pushed at the bedclothes between us. I moved enough to observe what she meant for me to see. The wound in Leta’s abdomen was much worse than even I had imagined, a void so deep I would have sworn I could see clean through her body. It was from sheer force of will alone that I was not thoroughly ill at the sight, or moreover at the realisation that there really would be no saving Leta now.

  “If I had not, she would have come for you. I would not condemn you to that life,” she said, sobbing by now. “My own has been so wretched, until you... I could not have you live in such pain and loneliness, Beau.”

  My arms encircled her as best they could and I pulled her to me, blood and tears both seeping into my clothes. I cared nothing for the state of myself nor any single thing that had gone before.

  Leta, with her scales and scars, was my beautiful darling to whom I must now say goodbye, and yet I had not the words. Indeed, I never spoke any but ‘I love you,’ over and over again, until finally her pain was over and she breathed her last.

  Chapter 7

  It is no exaggeration to say that my heart was irreparably shattered by Leta’s passing. I sat on the bed, holding tight to her body for a long time after the end, not knowing how I should ever let her go. I would call her foolish and unfair for believing I could not love her if I saw her face and form, but perhaps after so long living as she had, alone in the dark, even when her parents still lived, it was not so surprising that she could not believe in love, in herself, or even in me.

  On the realisation that I could no longer do her any good, and also that I may yet be in danger now she was gone, I gently lay her down upon her bed and placed a final kiss upon her lips before I walked away, promising her my love forever. Though she owned my heart and always would, there was simply no way for me to remain in the castle without her presence.

  Had I thought myself safe, it might have been something, but the pain of enduring the place that had fast become my home without the person that made it so would have been too much to bear, I was already certain of that.

  The candles upon the walls no longer guided me as they once had. With Leta’s passing, I had to assume the enchantment that had long since been a part of the castle was now fading away. Doors still opened to my touch but with an effort previously unknown, and there was so little light on my way down the staircase and out through the main entrance.

  Blinded by grief and loss, I barely saw the bodies at my feet, nor noticed the battle scars and trails of blood. I speak of them now because I assume they were there. I remember very little of anything from the moment I left Leta’s side to the sun shining brightly on my face outside.

  It was the first of many things to startle me that day. Though there was somehow always light enough surrounding the castle that I might find my way and enjoy the gardens, the sun had never truly shone. The canopy of trees above was always so thick and dense as to hide us completely from the real world, now there seemed to be breaks in the wooded area the castle called home. The spell was irrevocably broken, everything splintering apart as I stood there in awe of it all.

  Taking in a deep breath, I turned my face away from the light, wiping tear tracks from my cheeks. I had decisions to make. A great many, in fact, and I knew not where to begin. There was not a friend here for me to turn to anymore. None but my good mount, Goliath, and even he could not help me in planning my future. Still, he was a friend and someone familiar to go to in such a time of crisis.

  My feet took me to the stables as if of their own accord, and there he was, my faithful steed. If it were possible for a horse to show such emotion, I would swear he shared my grief in that moment. He appeared so sad and forlorn, as if he knew what I suffered and wished so very much to sympathise with me. Perhaps he felt the loss of Leta too, if only in the lack of enchantment and magic surrounding the place. Animals being as sensitive as they are to such shifts in the natural and unnatural, I didn’t doubt he knew something was amiss.

  “I am certain my life shall never be the same again,�
� I said softly, stroking Goliath’s neck. “I came here for sanctuary and salvation, to escape a loveless world. It did not occur to me to find anyone waiting, least of all someone like her.”

  My eyes trailed back the way I had come, the path that could take me back to the castle door. I knew then I would never walk that road again. I could not bear to.

  “So much store is put into beauty, and yet, so few understand what that word truly means,” I realised aloud. “Should you be a different shade, a different shape, you would still be a most noble animal, and a trusted ally,” I told Goliath with a smile as he seemed to nod his agreement to my words. “True beauty runs so much deeper than the face, the form, the colour of skin, the shape of every part. It truly lies within. In the heart, in the soul.

  “Leta was not Venus nor Aphrodite, but her name, her face, the very essence of her is forever carved into my heart. She was beauty itself in every way, without powder and paint upon her face, without jewels and silks to adorn her body.

  “She loved me. With all that she had and all that she was, I know. She gave her life for mine, as I would have given mine for her. What could possibly be more beautiful than such devotion?

  “Leta was the purest, most beautiful soul I have ever known, that I shall ever know in the whole course of my life. I was not, am not worthy of such beauty, or of such love. I only wish I were.”

  Eyes to the ground, I watched further tears fall at my feet. So worthless and pointless. I did no good for Leta or myself in such a moment. Remaining there was torture for me and potentially dangerous for all.

  “We must leave this place, Goliath,” I told him, trying to be strong and finding it ludicrously difficult. “It cannot be home without her. I fear no place shall ever truly be again.”

  The thought occurred, as I took my time in saddling my steed, that I had a home still. To return to my father was a wretched thought, and yet, I was at least safe in the knowledge that I could no longer be married off to Ms Trevelyan. I suppose that I might have felt some guilt for her demise, and yet, I had not caused it myself, nor begged her to ride into battle as she had.