Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 74631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
I let out another sigh, stretching my stiff limbs. I cannot go to Elle and wake her without blindfolding her, and I do not want to disturb her pleasant sleep, so I will not. The days I have with her from now until the end will have to be good enough, for there is nothing else to be gained from this life. What’s strange, though, is that the magic allows her and no one else. It’s odd and I’ve been trying to understand why it offers her peace. Why it grants her welcome. Is it to further my pain in some way? I can’t imagine she is a gift although that’s what her presence feels like. I do not trust the magic. None of this feels as though it will stay. It is a trick, I’m sure.
There is only one final question that plagues me as I stand, looking at the cloche in the moonlight, preparing to leave it:
What does the magic want with Elle?
ELLE
Ihave found the sunniest place in the castle, and it is a grand terrarium that has a large glassed-in ceiling and soaks up all the heat from the sun even in the cold. I’ve never been in such grandeur.
One morning I wake to sunlight coming in through my bedroom window and miss walking through the brisk air outside. I know I’m missing something that was more a fantasy than anything. Although I had some time to myself, it was occupied more and more by working at the bakery with Ara.
Lately, I have been seeking out the dark, neglected hallways in the castle. I think the magic wants me to stay where the castle is still well-kept, but with so many hours stretching before me, I seek out the places it has not been. There are more than I would have guessed at first, but as I wander, asking the castle to clean itself, watching fresh sheets and bedding snap onto beds that can’t have been used in many years, it begins to make sense. The beast is only one person. He cannot have used all these rooms, even if he made up some sort of schedule and spent time in each. The castle is large enough that some of the spaces have been covered in the dust and grime of neglect. They’ve been abandoned and the walls themselves seem to hold pain. Perhaps from the memories of what should have been.
I am finding fewer and fewer of those places now. I have to look harder for the narrow hallways that haven’t seen light in too long, and they are quicker to put themselves back in order, as if they have been warned I am coming by the room I’ve slept in. As if rooms can whisper to each other. What a mad idea. The more I think of it, the more it seems plausible. What else would be happening?
The life where I worked in the bakery with Ara and huddled under my blankets trying to keep warm each night of the winter seems as far away as the dreams I had when I slept in my father’s house. Living in a castle was only a fantasy that I never dared to truly entertain because it was never going to happen. I was never going to marry into riches. I was never going to meet a prince, or even a beast. Why would such a person ever notice me?
And now, in this strange twist of fate, I am living in a fairytale. Sometimes it feels as if the castle is the dream and I might wake up at any moment, blinking and trying to warm my fingers before I go to work, knowing that it will be easier to arrive at the bakery early and let my hands warm up while I sweep the floors and prepare the goods for sale.
But though I wake up from many dreams, the castle is not one of them. I wake up warm in my bed every morning under a thick comforter filled with down. Well slept with peace and ease surrounding me. It’s so comforting I feel that I cannot trust it.
There is no one else in the castle. It is just me and the beast, still alone, and he does not come to me nearly as much as I wish he would. Even though the two of us are not enough to fill all the emptiness, the castle is alive, and more and more parts of it are returning to how they must have been when there were many people in and out of these rooms and voices filled the halls and servants rushed from place to place, delivering food and clothes and messages.
My bed still makes itself every day, and the room keeps itself fresh, and I am teaching additional rooms to do this every time I wander the halls. I want for almost nothing here. A tray with a delicious breakfast appears in my bedroom every morning and lunches and dinners are no less perfect. If I feel a pang of hunger throughout the day and wonder about tea and biscuits, a tray floats through the door and arranges itself on a nearby table almost before I have finished the thought. No one brings the trays. I have tested this many times, walking around the tray as it floats, waving my hands underneath, and even catching the trays out of the air, but it is truly magic.