“Tell me that you’re a witch and this can all be over.” He lifted his hand and I saw a long knife flickering in the candlelight.
“I’m not a witch!” I moved closer to the front of the cage. “I swear that I’m not.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” He twisted the knife in his hand and let his finger drift across the sharp edge of the blade.
“I have nothing to offer but the truth.” I let out a sigh. “There’s no way I can prove it.”
“When Alexander passes, I will become the leader of our group. It will be up to me to decide what happens to you after that.” His lips turned to a snarl. “I don’t want that responsibility—I just want Alexander to live.”
“I wish I could undo what my father did.” My eyes closed and I felt a tear forming in the corner of each one. “I would never do anything to hurt a living soul.”
“You think we have souls?” The beast chuckled. “I think our souls left us long ago.”
“Tell me your name.” I put both hands on the cage.
“Boone.” His words came out in a growl.
“If you have a name, then you have a soul.” I pushed my face against the iron bars. “Surely you remember who you were before you came to this place.”
“Of course I remember—but even the witch had a name.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Many names based on what I’ve heard from the others.”
“I only have one name.” I blinked away a tear. “I am not the one responsible for what happened to you. I’m just the daughter of a man who made a terrible mistake.”
“Perhaps...” He leaned forward and stood. “But it isn’t up to me to decide your fate—not yet.”
“I wish I could undo what happened.” I closed my eyes and felt the tears building up to the point I couldn’t control them.
“So do we all...” He sighed and then I heard a loud thump. I opened my eyes to see a book next to my cage with dust circling the spot where it landed.
“Thank you!” I reached through the cage and wrapped my fingers around the spine, pulling it between the bars.
“Don’t thank me yet...” He narrowed his eyes again. “I still haven’t decided what to do with you.”
“How—how many of you are there? How many lives has the witch destroyed?” I pulled the book close and looked up at the hulking figure.
“Six...” He nodded. “Six victims of the witch—six beasts in torment for eternity—as long as our rose remains in bloom. Of course now there are seven of us. Six beasts and one unfortunate young woman.”
He left the room and the door slammed behind him, but he left the candle burning. It didn’t provide much warmth, but it did provide some light. I opened the book and heard the spine cracking. It was a very old book, written in a version of English that was difficult to read. I got through the first page and started to put the structure together in my head. It was a story about a knight that fell in love with the wife of a king, told from the king’s perspective. The pages were almost haunting as I turned them and found myself engrossed in the story. There was sorrow and heartbreak in every chapter with paragraphs of grief spelled out on the pages in vivid detail. The candle burned out before I finished the story, but I felt the time pass a little easier knowing that I had something to entertain myself with. It was certainly better than just spending time alone in the cell.
Chapter 6: Boone
1875
My gun kept me alive—it was a part of me. The Dakota Territory was supposed to be the land of opportunity, but it was nothing more than a shit hole in the middle of nowhere. I had built up a reputation in my time there and while I mostly spent my days drinking away the daylight, there were times when I had to grab the big iron on my hip and send another asshole to hell. I didn’t like killing, but when liquor mixed with egos, people forgot that they only had one life to live.
Rumors of the James-Younger gang and their exploits filled the saloons. It was all people talked about. If any of them ventured into my area of the world, I wouldn’t need a badge to send them to the undertaker. They would rot in hell while I counted the reward money. I didn’t care about much more than having enough money to drink, but the well was running dry after I cashed in my reward on Roger Haddock—formerly the most feared gunslinger in the territory—until he decided that he should prove he was a man by putting a bullet in my chest.
“That’s Boone Carmichael.” I heard a voice behind me say in a whisper. “He’s the one who put Roger Haddock in the ground.”
“I could take him.” The second voice was younger, but it was filled with cockiness.
“You don’t want to mess with him, son. You won’t make your wedding if you try to outdraw that son of a bitch.” The first voice spoke again and I turned to see who was talking about me.
“Just go about your evening, gentlemen.” My words were slurred and I pounded another shot the instant they left my lips. “I’m not here to prove anything.”
“This is the guy who put Roger Haddock down?” The younger man stepped forward with his shoulder length blond hair dangling over his face. “He’s just a drunk.”
“Let’s just get a drink.” The older man put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and they walked up to the bar.
I should have known it wasn’t that easy. Alcohol makes people do stupid things. I didn’t have an ego, but when the liquor was burning up my veins, I definitely didn’t appreciate being their fool. It seemed like my time in the Dakota Territory was getting to the point people weren’t going to leave me alone and I decided that it was time to saddle up and head to Kansas where my name didn’t carry much weight. It was also the last rumored spot where the James-Younger gang was spotted and I could use the cash.
I drank until my legs were barely able to push me off the barstool, but I still had enough life in me to get to my bed. Money was too sparse to afford a woman for the night, but at least I wouldn’t mind when the alcohol took me to the quiet oblivion sleep normally offered. I pushed through the swinging doors and stepped out onto the wooden porch. All I needed to do was stagger across the way to the hotel and I could find the rest my body was craving. As my boots hit the dirt, I heard someone else walk out behind me. I didn’t turn around, but the hair on the back of my neck was telling me that something wasn’t right.
“Carmichael!” The voice boomed and I knew it belonged to the younger man I had heard earlier that night.
“Yeah?” I let out a sigh and turned towards the saloon.
“I hear that Haddock’s widow will give her farm to the man who avenges her husband’s death.” He walked closer and smiled. “I could use that land.”
“You’re getting married, right?” My words were slurred, but my mind was still sharp.
“I am.” He nodded. “To the most beautiful woman in the west.”
“If you don’t want her grieving over your grave instead of crying on your wedding day, I would suggest you put whatever fantasy you’ve cooked up to bed early tonight. I’m not looking for trouble.” I held up my hands as a sign of surrender—I definitely didn’t want to fight him.
“You think she’ll be grieving?” He laughed and stepped down onto the dirt. “You must not know who I am.”
“I don’t care.” I shook my head back and forth. “You’re just a kid. Let it go. You don’t want to draw on me.”
“That farm would be a good place to raise my children.” He moved his hand towards his hip.
“You won’t have any children if you don’t move your hand away from your gun.” I felt my fingers twitching involuntarily.
“Maybe I’ll name the first one after you.” His hand shifted and opened as he prepared to draw his weapon.
His hand made it to his gun before mine was even near my holster, but he didn’t fire first. Before he could even get a good grip on his pearl handled revolver, the bullet was leaving the barrel of mine. The boom echoed through the quiet town, followed by a groan when the bullet hit him square in the chest. I didn
’t shoot unless I was going to kill, and I didn’t give anyone a second chance. The reality flashed in his eyes when he hit his knees. His last breath was a gurgle as blood filled his lungs. He fell forward into the dirt as the saloon emptied.
I didn’t have to explain myself. They knew what he had done before they saw the smoke rising from the tip of my barrel. He was another cocky son of a bitch that had decided to test his luck against someone who didn’t give a shit if he breathed another breath. If he had decided he was going to try and take me down, I was going to show him why it was the last mistake he would ever make. The older man that had walked in with him shook his head and sighed deeply as I holstered my gun. I walked towards the hotel and crashed into my bed before his body was cold. Killing didn’t keep me up anymore, even when I wasn’t drifting into the darkness thanks to the liquor flowing through me.
“HE KILLED MY ANTON!” A loud female voice woke me from the slumber and the sun was already rising in the sky.
“Anton drew on him! He knew better!” A raised voice spoke louder than the shriek that had woken me.
“We were supposed to get married!” I could hear a sob drowning out the man’s voice.
I staggered to the window and rubbed my eyes. A woman in a green dress was frantic, tears flowing down her face as she argued with the older man I had seen the night before. I might not have given a shit about the man I killed, but my heart wasn’t so stone cold that I couldn’t sympathize with the distraught woman below me. I threw my shirt on and fastened my belt around my waist before walking towards the stairs. I didn’t have words that would calm her, but I wasn’t going to hide in my room if she wanted to face me. Life was rarely fair in the west and I knew she didn’t ask to be widowed before her wedding day. I pushed the doors of the hotel open and stepped out onto the porch.
She immediately looked at me with emerald eyes that burned with more fury than any I had seen before. In an instant, her body seemed to become engulfed in a green aura and she pushed the older man away as she approached. My mind started to fog, like I was trapped in her gaze. I tried to take a step forward, but my body was no longer within my control. She moved up the steps so fast that it seemed like she was floating. Her eyes got more intense the closer she got to me.
“Why do you torment me?” Her words were almost like a song.
“I...” I tried to speak and looked around the town, but it seemed like we were in our own bubble with everything around us frozen.
“Every time I find happiness, it is destroyed.” Her lips pursed, and she lowered her chin. “You will suffer like I have suffered—an eternity of torment for your transgression.”
Before I could respond, it felt like my soul was ripped from my body. I was spiraling into darkness with nothing around me to grab onto. My belt unwrapped from my waist and floated away before I could reach out for it. After the darkness consumed me, I felt myself falling until my knees were once again on the ground. I could tell I was far away from the Dakota Territory because I was in the middle of a field covered in snow. I stood up and looked around in every direction, feeling lost as I got colder with each passing second.
There was a light in the distance and I started walking towards it. It seemed to be the only thing I could focus on in the blinding whirlwind of ice. Each step was harder than the one before it and when I finally got close enough to see the source of the light, I thought I was dreaming. If it didn’t feel like death was consuming me I would have sworn the sight in front of me was nothing more than a fantasy. I walked through a gate with vines that seemed to be sprouting roses, despite the intensity of the winter that was clearly underway, and walked into an old castle. I had never seen anything like it in real life, and it looked like the kind of thing the storytellers would talk about when they were describing wars that happened long before I was born and long before America was even discovered.
“Hello?” I pushed the doorway of the castle open and stepped into the warmth.
“Welcome to hell,” I heard a loud voice say and saw a large man sitting near a fireplace ahead of me.
The first few years were hard. I almost lost my mind learning to live in the solitude of eternity without the things I was used to. Foraging for food around the castle in the blinding snow until I was frozen from head to toe became a regular routine. There were days I starved, days that I thought I would simply die, but when my weak eyes finally tasted sleep, I woke up to find that the torment still remained. Others came that weren’t as strong as me. They tore their roses from the vine and withered away as the petals fell. Alexander and Gill had been there longer than me, and they seemed to be survivors—and victims of the witch.
I kept myself up for a while, trying to maintain some semblance of my humanity, but as the years carried me further into the suffering promised by the witch, I felt it slipping away. I became nothing more than a beast like the other survivors with the primal monster inside of me taking over. The wolves around the castle became prey instead of something to be feared. The cold became a welcoming sign that I was still alive. I stopped aging, even though my body showed signs of wear. Time lost all meaning and I was nothing more than a vessel for the torment the witch had cursed me with.
“YOU GAVE HER A BOOK?” Alexander sat down near the fireplace and glared at me.
“I did.” I nodded and looked over at him. “I felt sorry for her.”
“I thought you were convinced she was a witch?” His throat rumbled with a disapproving growl.
“There was real emotion in her eyes—sorrow on her breath. She’s a victim like we are, trapped in the agony of another’s sins.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I’ll keep her caged when you are gone, but I will respect your wishes until then.”
“I prayed for death once.” He let out a sigh. “I used to stare at my rose and wish it would just fall to the ground or get blown away by the wind. Now that it is a certainty, I don’t welcome it.”
“Maybe you should pluck them all from the vine before you go—put us all out of our misery.” I stared at the fire.
“Have you lost hope?” He turned to the fire.
“Hope is a fragile thing.” I closed my eyes and tried to imagine death, but my brain refused to comprehend it. “But I guess I’m not ready to die yet either.”
Chapter 7: Anabelle
I finished the book that Boone had given me and then Alexander brought me a second one. He sat me for a while and watched as I sat alone in my cage, but he didn’t say a word. I tried apologizing until my throat was nearly raw, but my words didn’t seem to have meaning to him. That went on for nearly a week until one day he walked in and unlocked my cage. I wondered if it was my time to leave the mortal world behind and he had decided I would die for what my father had done.
He pulled the door open and walked out of the room, motioning for me to follow with a wave of his hand. I stretched my legs and felt the feeling returning to them as I was finally able to stand. I walked behind him to the stairs and when we reached the bottom, I felt real warmth for the first time since I had arrived in the castle. He led me to the kitchen area and I saw a large table that had a feast laid out on it. Alexander took a seat at the head of the table and pushed out the chair next to him. I was so hungry that my stomach practically did a somersault with excitement as I sat down and stared at the food. The excitement passed when I saw Alexander’s rose and realized there weren’t many petals left and the green stem had started to turn brown.
“The rose is dying...” I felt overcome with more grief than I had when I first heard the tale of his fate.
“Yes.” He sighed and nodded. “I’m coming to terms with what is in front of me, and my anger towards your father is passing. I know he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“He would never intentionally hurt someone.” I lowered my eyes and blinked away the tears.
“There was a time when I thought the same of myself.” He reached for some bread and tore it in half, putting a piece on my plate. “Eat. There’s no reas
on for the food to go to waste.”
“Thank you.” I picked up the bread and pushed it into my mouth. It tasted incredible after having nothing but foul smelling broth since I arrived.
“I’ve decided that I will not die as the beast the witch created with her curse. I would like for you to bear witness to my final days and I want to be remembered as the kind of compassionate man I thought I was once was.” He bit into his bread and chewed it quickly.
Alexander told me of his life as we ate—the man he was before he was cursed to spend eternity as a beast. I saw genuine emotion and life behind the eyes that had previously appeared to be nothing more than those of a tortured soul. I couldn’t believe he had been in the castle for over two hundred years. He had lived more lives than I would ever have, even if they were spent in torment. When his story got to the day that brought on his curse, I could see sadness return to his eyes. He was remorseful for what he had done and he even tried to save the witch before the curse consumed him. His crime hardly seemed as terrible as I imagined as he laid it out in vivid detail. Hearing how hard it was being alone for so long before Gill came tore at my heartstrings.
In the light, I was able to see more of his features and I realized he wasn’t entirely a beast. He had given up on his appearance at some point and his curly hair had become woven into his beard, but there was still a man underneath the layer time had created.
The witch that created this brand of cruelty is the real beast—not him.
I wasn’t taken back to my cage when my meal was done. Alexander took me to a room at the top of the stairs that had an actual bed fashioned with straw and what appeared to be wolf pelts. I stretched out on the warm fur and felt sleep quickly consuming me. When I woke up the next morning, I started to explore the castle a little bit. There were times when I felt like eyes were on me, but I never saw anyone when I turned towards the darkness.
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