The Beast and Beauty

Arabella My town was a lovely, quiet one, or rather it had been until we had been cursed by my cruel stepmother. Our town had once been happy and the weather was always warm and sunny, but though the people of the town tried their best to stay upbeat, it was hard, we hadn’t seen daylight in over two years now. The curse had plunged us into darkness, it was only ever night here. My stepmother was a witch and a scarily powerful one at that, I had no proof, but I was convinced she was the reason my father had died. They had some huge argument when he had returned from a war with the king of the north, and he was planning on leaving her yet by morning he was dead, an apparent massive heart attack. I had been seventeen at the time. The only reason she had kept me around was because I was useful for reading and helping to decipher her more powerful and ancient spell books. I loved to read, always had done since I had first learned as a child. I didn’t care what I read either, fiction, non-fiction, romance novels or adventurous stories, you name it I had most likely read it. Money was also tight for us, so I was useful taking care of and running the book store too, my stepmother or more known as lady Zatana had no time for such mundane things like work. All she cared about was power. Someone had upset her one day, and she had cursed our whole realm for it, I wasn’t joking, she took overly dramatic to a whole new level, and now we were in darkness, a reminder to anyone who dared cross her just how far she was willing to go for revenge. Our realm was known as the Aurora Luna realm, I always thought the name must have come about because before the curse our realm always had both the sun and the moon shining together during the day, when nightfall came the moon stayed high in the sky shining softly and almost glittering, it truly had been beautiful, but now without the sun it was like the moon was sad, it glowed dull barely giving of any light. I had read about so many other realms, including the realm earth, it sounded magical there, things like movies and cars and so much more. I had always wanted to go, but I was trapped, lady Zatana would never allow me to leave and born with a condition that left me unable to feel my legs, I was stuck in a wheelchair with no easy way to run away or break free, not that I could bear to do such a thing and leave the towns people to suffer the consequences. I wasn’t the only one fascinated by tales of other realms, lady Zatana had been obsessed for the last year with the demonic realm, demons were powerful and terrible and fearsome, so of course she wanted one of her own, yes, she didn’t want to work with them, she wanted to own one like a pet and use them, much like me, I suppose. She had wanted a powerful demon at first, but then the more she learned about them the more she wanted to up her challenge. She had shared stories she had learned of the terrifying and horrifying things they did, but she always added it was nothing to the horrors and evil their king did, the beast. In the earth realm most people seemed to know him as the devil, but here we knew him as the beast. My stepmother enjoyed terrifying me while growing up, so I had read every book I could about demons, but all that did was only scare me more and make her stories seem more true. The books I’d managed to get my hands on that had been brought here from earth seemed to talk about demons once being angels, kind and loving, Lucifer Morningstar had been a powerful Archangel and God’s most favorite and beautiful, something changed though, he decided he wanted to be God and a war had broken out in heaven and Lucifer had been banished to a place called hell. I had read many books and every book told a different story about him, so far, the most convincing book had been one called the untold truths. The untold truths book had come from another realm called the seven stars, and it had talked about a similar tale, Lucifer had once been an Archangel created by God, but in this story there were many Gods and Goddesses and deities, God’s name in this book was still unknown, only Lucifer knew his true name, and though Lucifer had fallen during the war he had built himself up, made himself so strong he had become a God in his own right, God of the underworld who punished the wicked and the guilty. My stepmother loved to torment me as a young girl and would whisper before bed that if I breathed too loudly while I slept he would hear me and find me, that if I didn’t make her tea just right it would be a sin in his eyes and he would come for me. I had been left with an irrational fear that the beast was coming for me, that when I died I would be going to his realm because I had been bad, and she had only further encouraged my fear when I began to wet the bed, even at the age of seven it was humiliating, but having her scream at me that I was bad for wetting the bed in terror had only embedded more pure terror in me, even now, as an adult that fear still hid in the shadows of my mind, and I wasn’t the only one too afraid to even whisper his name, the townsfolk were too. They believed he had been the one to give my stepmother the curse in the first place. I snapped out of my dark thoughts from reading the book called the infernal realm and slammed it shut. The infernal realm was his realm and a strange one, only the darkest and most powerful of witches and warlocks dared try to enter. It was a realm that was both of the living and the dead, the most evil and vilest of people and creatures would go there when they died to be tortured and punished for all eternity, but the living could also visit too, although it was extremely difficult so much so, it was near impossible if you didn’t wield powerful magic, light magic, however, did not work no matter how powerful and the beast chose who was allowed to enter his realm and also if they could leave. I put the book back down on the counter as I heard the bell above the door to the bookstore ding. The counter had been made low enough to meet my needs as a wheelchair user so that I didn’t need to wheel myself around to talk to the customer. I smiled at him. “Good morning, Mr Yarlow, can I help you with anything today?” Mr Yarlow was a kind old man who had spent his life working on his little farm, since the curse there had been barely any work for him to do, and I couldn’t stand seeing the sadness in his eyes, he had always loved working away on his fruit and vegetables. He took off his farmer’s hat and smiled warmly back at me, “good morning Arabella, I was hoping you could help me find a book about spells, something that could help me grow some fruit and vegetables.” “Oh Mr Yarlow, that doesn’t sound like you, weren’t you the one always telling the townspeople to stay away from magic, that it only brings trouble?” He looked sadly at the floor and muttered, “these are desperate times, I cannot afford to be picky when it comes to paying for food and rent.” I smiled kindly at him, he was a good man and if he felt this was his last resort, then it wasn’t for me to judge. I wheeled around the desk and over to the book section about spells and magic. I found the one that would help him with his troubles, and he paid me and thanked me. The rest of the day wasn’t too busy, it usually wasn’t as a lot of people were afraid of my stepmother and always feared bumping into her here. When it was time to close up, I served one more customer and was just locking up after them when my stepmother appeared behind me. I jumped from fright and wasn’t sure if she had come down from the staff room upstairs or if she had magicked herself behind me. I couldn’t use the upstairs staff room for obvious reasons, but she didn’t care, and she wouldn’t make it accessible for me even though she could with a click of her fingers if she so chose to. “Arabella, I need you to help me with a spell tonight, it’s a big one, and shall require two people to cast it, be ready and home at seven sharp.” She definitely used magic to disappear this time, a black glittering cloud of smoke the only thing left behind when I blinked.