The Rose Chateau

by Rebecca Monaco

  “You may call me Niviene. Unlike other sorcerers you will meet, I cannot tell you my lineage. By the gods, I do not remember the ones who brought me into this world. However, I know you, Corinna, and I promise I am not here to harm you or anyone living within the manor’s walls. I am only here to offer my assistance and advice.” She shifted, a sort of feline movement, and stood tall for Corinna to assess her.

  She certainly displayed herself in a different way than Morgana. Morgana covered herself with a hood and looked at Corinna with electric blue eyes that tried to pry open her secrets. Morgana shifted in the background of Corinna’s days, watching and never speaking. Niviene stood before her in near rags, open for all the world to see, and yet she stood proud of herself and her position. Her eyes were a bright gray and seemed to look straight into Corinna’s soul. Her words were mystical, assuring. Still, she was peculiar.

  “How did you get inside the grounds?” Corinna asked, defensive. Niviene shrugged her bare shoulders.

  “The same way any would. I walked in the front gate,” she said.

  “When?”

  “Many years have passed since I first stepped through these gates. If you’re really asking me when I came into the yard this evening, the answer would be about six minutes ago. You were still working on the last two stairs,” she explained. Snarky, wasn’t she?

  “Fine. What do you want?” Corinna asked, holding the deck brush in front of her, using it like a cane of support. Niviene looked it up at down, seemed to deem it not a threat, and then shrugged.

  “I am here to help you… and to help my prince,” she said. Corinna raised an eyebrow. She’d called Alexander ‘her prince’. Everyone else in the house called Alexander ‘the master’ or ‘our lord’. It was as if his title was a secret to them, but Niviene used it personally. Corinna felt her trust for this newcomer increasing simply from that. Not even Morgana called Alexander a prince.

  “How do you intend to do that? You know how he can break his curse?” Corinna asked.

  “Alexander cannot break his curse. He doesn’t believe a way exists, and therefore one does not.” Niviene turned and began to walk slowly around Corinna, circling like a playful kitten about to pounce.

  “Wait, what is that supposed to mean? As far as I’ve been told, there is always a way out of a curse. Just because Alexander doesn’t believe in a cure, doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.” Corinna turned too, always facing Niviene and never showing her back.

  “Because he does not know about it, he does not need it. Because he does not need it, he does not want it. Because he does not want it, he does not have it. But because he does not have it, he does not know that he, in fact, needs it,” the witch said, stopping once again between Corinna and the gate.

  Corinna held her head with her right hand and sighed. “So… There is a way to break Alexander’s curse and get us all out of this place, but Alexander hasn’t found it because he doesn’t believe it exists. Am I right?”

  “Precisely. But Alexander cannot break his curse on his own either. He needs someone else.” Niviene crossed her arms before her chest in a lazy but powerful way. She watched Corinna as though waiting for her to solve a puzzle she hadn’t given her the entirety of.

  “Based on my luck so far this month, I’m assuming you mean for me to help him find it,” Corinna groaned, leaning more on the broom. Niviene smiled like a lion on the hunt.

  “There may be hope for this household yet,” she murmured. Then she raised her voice. “Yes. The cure for the prince’s curse is held within the very home he inhabits, but he spends so much time locked away from the world that he would have more luck finding his dead mother in there than the cure. Will you take up the task to help save him from himself?”

  “If you know so much about the curse and how to end it, why don’t you go help him?” Corinna asked, standing up straight again. She narrowed her eyes a bit, suspicious of Niviene’s motive. Would this be dangerous? Would Corinna end up cursed in Alexander’s place?

  “He’s not my type,” Niviene said with a chuckle. “But don’t worry. So long as you watch your back, you could come out of this better than you went into it. Best to hurry, however. I’m afraid Alexander needs all the help he can get, and it will take a long time to make him presentable for the breaking of his curse.”

  Niviene pointed back at the house, up toward the windows of Alexander’s rooms. Corinna didn’t entirely understand her meaning, but she looked up anyway. She expected to see Alexander standing there or perhaps moving away quickly, but not even the curtains were moving. She frowned.

  “What do you mean ‘make him presentable? Does he have to look nice to break his cur-… Niviene?” Corinna asked, looking about the yard. The witch, however, was gone. Even beyond the gate was empty. Corinna shivered in a passing breeze and hugged herself. “I need to stop talking to witches,” she said and hurried back to the stairs to finish sweeping the walk. She’d help Alexander break his silly curse later. She had duties to do now. Ha, she was starting to sound like Gavin.

  Chapter 10 – Conditions of Freedom

  When the walk was clear and clean, so much so that the king himself could visit and deem it proper, Corinna joined the others for dinner. It was a simple meal, as always, this time made of tasty corn, fish, and rice. Corinna made a note to ask Belle where she got all of her materials. They were of such a wide variety and she had seen no river, pond, or lake from which Isabelle could have produced this fish. There were no corn fields, no pigs. She made the note, but then cast it off. No, it was probably all Morgana’s doing. She provided for them… though Corinna wasn’t quite sure why.

  Gavin regaled them with the tale of his and Corinna’s close race, of the unusual temperament of the horse afterward, and of their bet. Belle suggested that maybe the horse had been upset at losing, and that explained its actions. If that gave her comfort, Corinna wouldn’t take that idea away. She’d rather not tell them that it had been Alexander in that window that had frightened the horse. She didn’t want to take away their sense of security by explaining that her horse was sensitive to Alexander’s dark aura.

  Corinna left the meal in a good mood and then found herself standing at the base of the grand staircase, in the middle of the house. She looked up the stairs, so clean and polished and fancy, and then around the room she stood in. Everything was neat and organized. Where was one to begin searching for a cure to an evil witch’s curse?

  Corinna jumped up the stairs and to the second floor. She looked down both directions of the miscellaneous hall and nodded. If she was going to hide something, it would be in one of the random rooms. The library seemed like a good choice. Perhaps one of the books held the key to breaking curses – although if there was such a book, wouldn’t the king have known about it?

  She looked down the hall a bit and saw the door that led to the armory room. She suppressed a shiver. She didn’t want to go back in there. Oh, but that would be a good place to hide something, wouldn’t it? It was a room Corinna would avoid. Perhaps the other servants stayed out of there as well, or spent as little time in there as possible. Maybe the key lay beyond that door, amongst the shields and weaponry.

  Carefully, she turned the brass handle and reentered the room. She swore she could smell the death in the room, but she reasoned that it must all be in her head. The swords were pristine and polished. They wouldn’t smell like death anymore, if they had ever smelt like it in the past. For all she knew, they were brand new swords set up for display purposes only until some unknowing intruder came in and Gavin or Alexander used one as defense… as if Alexander himself wasn’t a big enough threat.

  No. Corinna shook her head. She had to concentrate. The answer to her staying here, to the servants living here for years without meeting anyone new or seeing their families, to Alexander being stuck as a frightful beast – the answer was here somewhere. She just had to find it.

  She quickly started searching. She leaned around the suits of armor. She checked
the display cases and shelves. She checked the drawers put into the walls under the shelves. She checked the pages about battle plans lying neatly on a table in the corner. She looked closer at each sword in turn, all six of them, and looked at each weapon on the wall as best she could without taking them down. They were too high, even for her. She sighed as she examined the writing on the blade of the last sword. It was just some Frenchman’s symbol of craftsmanship.

  Nothing in this room held any semblance to a curse. It was all just simple weaponry and suits of armor. Meaningless, failed battle strategies on paper to one day be thrown in the garbage. None of it meant anything to her, and now she’d wasted valuable time in a room she hated. Corinna, tense and anxious, quickly left the room and shut the door securely behind her. There in the hall, she took several deep breaths and leaned her back against the door. It felt as if she’d been in there for a century. She closed her eyes and listened to the silence of the house. The others were no doubt cleaning the dishes. It was Isabelle’s job, but Gavin almost always seemed to want to help her, and Veronica… Well Corinna didn’t know what Veronica was doing. She may still be eating or perhaps she had already gone up to her room. The other two might be in their rooms as well. Corinna wasn’t sure how long she’d been in that terrible room.

  Deciding to take a safe bet, Corinna let herself into the library. The stars and moon beamed down into the library, which was good since Corinna had forgotten her lantern. They cast light enough into the room for Corinna to read the spines of most of the books on her level, even if it meant she had to get really close to them. Deciding the answer wouldn’t be in the cooking or gardening sections, Corinna headed first for the history of the kings. She dragged her fingers over the old and yet rarely touched spines. They had probably been read once and were never touched again. She stopped on each one and focused her eyes on it in order to read what it said. After several unhelpful titles such as Battle Strategies for King and General, A History of the French Isles, and Courtship and Marriage by Royal Expectations she started skimming and looking for key words instead of stopping on every spine.

  Something told her this book should really stand out from the others. Even though it was something a prince or a normal servant could overlook, Corinna felt like she would know it instantly. Why? Because she was looking for it. By Niviene’s riddles, that meant Corinna would be able to find it.

  The Kings and history section failed her. She even got a ladder so she could check the upper shelves, which were cast more in shadow. None of them jumped out at her. She moved the ladder over several shelves and began checking the philosophy section. Level by level, starting at the top, she checked each shelf. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find – How to Break Curses or something similarly titled would be nice.

  Philosophy proved fruitless, as did Psychology and Rhetoric. Corinna leaned on the windowsill and sighed. Her head was beginning to hurt from all the squinting and reading in the dark, and she still had no idea what she was looking for. Was it even a book? Perhaps it was in the music room. Alexander needed someone to play music for him on a certain magical instrument or something. Still, Corinna would feel better if she exhausted this idea first. Perhaps she should return in the morning and try again when there was more light. Not everything had to be done the moment it was thought of. Alexander had lived comfortably as a beast for seven years. What harm would one more day bring?

  She would come back in the morning, then. It was decided. She was tired anyway. How late was it? A clock hung above the door, but Corinna couldn’t read it if her life depended on it. Not only was it cast in shadow, but where the light of the moon did hit it, a glare erupted and obscured the face. She might as well ask the moon what time it was.

  Corinna sighed and pushed herself up off the sill. A yawn escaped her, which she tried to cover even though no one was around to see her do it. It was definitely time to go find a comfortable position on her couch upstairs. As she walked to the door, she dragged her hand lazily on the bookcases beside her, feeling the bumps as she ran over each spine.

  A tingle. A whisper.

  Corinna stopped walking and looked back behind her where the noise must have come from. But no. The whisper had been in her mind. Was it another witch? It had happened right when a shiver had run up her arm and through her body, originating from her fingertips as though she had received a zap of static electricity from one of the books.

  She cast her gaze over the books she’d just recently been touching. One of them seemed to have a lighter outline in the dark than the others. Corinna ran her hand over it and once again felt the shock and heard the many whispered voices in her head. There were at least four small voices, all speaking in languages she didn’t understand. The spine of the book read out The Old Religion and Other Myths. Checking the books around it, Corinna found herself to truly be in the religion section. She hadn’t expected to find anything special from religion, but perhaps that would have been a good place to start.

  “Alright, you,” Corinna spoke to the book, gripping it with her fingers and pulling on it. It didn’t budge. “Let me have a look at you.”

  The book, which had previously seemed to be stuck steadfastly between the others, now slipped out easily into her hands. It still tingled slightly to the touch, but the voices did not accompany it. Corinna opened the front cover and read.

  ‘An account of the witches of Avalon, their ceremonies, and their spells. Cousin, I pray the gods help you find whatever it is you require of this tome, and that you use it to its full promise and power.’

  Corinna let out a tiny gasp, so small she hardly noticed it had even happened. This was a book of magic and rituals! She almost put it back right at that moment, but her mind told her that was a stupid idea. It was a book of spells! Alexander’s curse would no doubt be held within its many pages. Oh, but the book was twice as thick as anything Corinna had ever laid eyes on. How was she to find a silly beast curse in all of this?

  As if in answer to her inward complaint, the book began to glow, and then the pages flicked by as though caught by a strong wind. Corinna held the book tight as it shook from the energy. And then the pages smashed flat, as if held by a large and strong hand, by magic itself. Corinna’s eyes glanced over the pages open to her and knew it was what she wanted.

  “The Creature Curse,” she whispered. She needed no moonlight to read this book. The pages seemed to glow with miniature candle light and did not hurt her eyes. “One who is the recipient of this clever curse will find their insides turned outsides. The true form of their heart will become the form of their body – as ugly or beautiful as what lies within their soul. Use with caution.”

  Corinna closed the book, keeping the page number in her mind in case the book decided not to flip open to it again for her later. This was the spell, every detail of its power, boundaries, and cure. She couldn’t help but grin. She’d found it! She’d found it all on her own, and with it she would break Alexander’s curse and return to her family before they could truly mourn for her departure.

  She left the library, book in hand, to test the lighting of the stairwell. It was brighter out here, more moonlight coming from the large stained glass window to her left. Corinna propped herself up on the top stair and looked about at the empty space around her. There were so many blank walls and open spaces. This house was huge, but it could be beautiful. And then Corinna was curious. Where were all the mirrors and paintings? She had seen no mirrors outside of her own rooms and no paintings outside of hers and Alexander’s. Yet there were hooks all over the walls and slight outlines suggesting such things used to hang in these hallways. What had Alexander done with them? Hopefully he had not destroyed them.

  Her eyes were drawn to the two rooms she had yet to explore. The last one was slightly larger than the one before it. Perhaps it held all the artwork that was missing from the house. She would look into it the next time she had a chance. She could hardly make out words and objects in the rooms she knew. She d
idn’t want to chance a new room with potentially expensive objects in it.

  Corinna reopened the book. She’d barely begun to flip for her spot when the pages spun again. That was rather useful, actually. Whoever had created this book was very clever. She brought the book closer to herself and read the tiny script. There were three pictures along with the text; one of a horrible beast even worse than Alexander – all pointed fur and wild eyes, one of a beautiful young woman – all smiles and pearly teeth, and one of the moon giving a halo to a rose tree like the one out in the garden. It was all extensively detailed for being drawn in with a charcoal pencil.

  The creature curse is a dangerous weapon, to be used only on those who truly deserve it - whether to achieve a positive or negative outcome. Once one has been put under the spell, their body will shift and change into that which their heart dictates. A miser with no love in his heart shall become a monster wolf or other beast. Those with hate and distrust in their hearts shall always come out uglier on the other side – and only one has ever come out more beautiful. Her beauty lasted until the end of time, the spell stronger with each good deed she did and every good thought she had.