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Agatha doesn’t like to be ruled by her emotions. Love and affection and happiness are all fickle and fleeting, as powerful as they are.
No, she sticks to simpler magic, teaches simpler lessons. A man with a greedy heart is turned into a cat until he gives away what he has in excess, a girl who needs to get away from home is teleported to Spain.
Small tricks that get the job done.
Flora is not as.... simple.
“You did what?”
Flora looks at her over her upturned nose, “I cursed him.”
Agatha can feel a headache coming, a real painful headache. “I got that bit, please repeat the part where you explain how to break the curse.”
It appears that Flora is all shifty smiles tonight, and while normally Agatha loves her shifty smiles and the fun that usually follows. This time she just feels vaguely upset.
“The curse will only be lifted, when he finds true love.” Flora intones, every inch of her the pompous sorceress. The light of her magic almost seeping through the skin she wore.
“You turned him into a newt.”
“Yes.”
“Last I checked Newts don’t fall in love.”
“Everything falls in love.”
Agatha bites her lip, technically they both know that they can’t make curses that have no cure. It went against the rules. And to break the rules was to die a horrible death, usually sooner rather than later. But Flora, with her little upturned nose seems to truly believe what she says.
And so Agatha decides to let it go, and simply prays she won’t regret it.
“Very well.”
Flora smiles wide, her skin wiggling happily in her dress.
“He will find love, I am positively sure of it. And the world will be a better place for it.” Flora pulls on Agatha’s long golden hair, every inch of her alive with magic in a way that she was certain must be a charm. But no that was just her.
“I certainly hope so, I would hate for the commission to get involved.”
They both laugh, here in that alley, as if nothing can touch them. And among men, it is nearly true. The both of them fairies long aged beyond what many men would believe. But Agatha didn’t know that tonight would be one of the last nights that she would ever see her dear friend again.
The first hints of something wrong come about a month later. Agatha was in her small one room apartment, a terrible thing that wasn’t really fit for human living. But she wasn’t human, and she loved the view. So really it all worked out.
It came by mail, or as close to mail as magical fairy communication got, one moment she was reading her favorite story, and the next she was holding an envelope that smelled like a garden. On the inside there was only five words neatly printed out.
“The newt found true love.”
Even from here she could hear Flora’s superior laughter, the way her eyes would crinkle. She should have asked why Flora didn’t come to tell her in person. She should have questioned why on earth Flora would choose to gloat over a letter when she was just as capable of appearing in her apartment in a flash of glitter and flowers. But she doesn’t, she merely rolled her eyes and knew that Flora would hold this over her head for the next 100 years.
She doesn’t think there might be a reason. A tell tale warning, the cough before the cold really starts to set in. You can tell with fairies. But she doesn’t think of that at all.
And she goes back to her book. The city they live in is a large place full of twisting walkways, it’s easy for them to miss each other.
It’s almost a year later when she meets him, the man who would take Flora away. He smells like a garden, like a place filled with so many flowers all piled on top of each other and overflowing with the sun.
That’s very strange.
Not becuase it was a man who smelled of flowers, no Agatha was more than progressive. But because it was the middle of winter, and what’s more the man in question besides being a greasy little thing with dark smudges behind his fingernails. He had the general complexion of a man who had never in fact been outside. She suspects some kind of magic.
It smells like Flora, and Agatha is just bored enough that she wonders what kind of magic had been cast on the man.
A curse?
A boon?
She follows him because she doesn’t know, after a while it becomes painfully obvious to her that the smudges on his body are paint he leaves flecks of it everywhere. And that the loving magical aroma around him only exists because, Flora is around him. The mans small shack of an apartment even from the street reeks of Flora, of her happiness. Of her love.
Agatha will make a sound in the back of her throat, she doesn’t approve of it. Love and loving, playing house for a century with someone that you would soon have to let go.
But it didn’t break a rule, it was just unpleasant, unpleasant to love and lose. And Agatha avoided unpleasant, so she doesn’t go to speak to Flora, doesn’t make angry harsh demands. Just shakes her head sadly and knows that soon Flora would be on her doorstep in about 69 or maybe 70 years, heartbreak and tears for a century. And then she would recover.
If she had waited, if she had sought her out and spoken to her. She would have known, would have seen the way her skin didn’t hide a golden glow. That the light in her eyes went all the way down to her heart.
The plague comes soon after, vicious and dark. People start to die, and Agatha watches in silence as a mother clutches a silent child to her breast, her voice screaming out to the sky. She’s making a wish, they all are like tiny stars shooting out into the sky they wish and so much of Agatha burns to answer it.
Make a wish and we appear.
But she cannot, and the wishes of the dying burn into her soul and she cannot help them. She blesses there houses, makes them strong, gives them gifts in gold and livestock so they can travel far away. It’s never enough.
There’s talk that it’s the work of a vicious fairy, there’s talk that Maleficent has returned. Agatha disagrees, she doesn’t like the way the older fairies jump at shadows, but a council is called and all the fairies in this circle attend.
It takes a week to prove what Agatha already knows, for as wicked as the plague is. It is a mix of human sickness and bacteria that magic can not touch, there is nothing magical about it. And because of that she does not question that Flora is not present, that Flora is not a part of this group.
Flora hated the meetings, the rules, all of it grated on her.
“Where’s the love?” She would ask wistfully, as they waited for the Blue Fairy to finish her very long presentation on ‘real boys.’
“Rules keep us from chaos.” She would always reply.
“But love is chaos, and we strive to bring love everywhere we go.” Flora always had long brown hair in all her forms, she was fond of it. “If the rules are to bring love and love is chaos, then shouldn’t we embrace the spirit of the code.”
It’s a real question, Flora asks too many questions. “I think your just tired of these meetings.” She would often say instead.
And together they would laugh and ignore the pained looks of the older stronger fairies. They were invincible.
Even with the plague she doesn’t check on Flora, the sickness can’t touch them, can’t hurt them. It’s an accident when she finds him again, the young man, the painter.
He still smells like flowers, and when Agatha sees him at first she is glad, at least Flora’s new lover is safe. At least he is healthy.
But when she hears him.
“Help, please my wife is very sick.”
Her heart drops.
In a moment she is in there apartment she appears in it’s one room in a flash of glitter and gold, the streets of the city far behind her. And there in a bed, small and frail, is her Flora.
The words catch In her throat, the tears are already burning in her eyes. She doesn’t need to ask how, she knows there’s only one way she could have gotten sick. One way she could have been susceptible.
“You love him.” Her voice cracks and dies, and even laying down, Flora manages to look down her perfect upturned nose at her.
“I expected you months ago.” She says, “months and months ago.”
“Why?”
“You know why, I love him.” Her magic stretches across the floor, up and out the window.
“You gave up your magic for him.” Somewhere out in the city her magic clings to the man she loves. Protecting him, helping him.
“I chose to live with him, not the same thing.” But magic cannot be shared, and life is not so easily tricked.
“You chose to die with him.”
When a fairy chooses to give there magic away in such a fashion. They are as mortal as the thing they love.
“He’s an inventor you know. Makes the most curious oddities, all those bits of metal. It’s like magic Agatha.”
“Take it back.”
Flora is sad for her, it’s etched in her face. Even as this plague tears her apart, she reaches out a hand and cups Agatha’s cheek.
“You know I can’t take it back, even if I wanted too.”
The tears come then, spilling down her face freely, she isn’t sad that Flora fell in love. That she made herself human to live with a human. Agatha has lost friends this way before, and as much as she knows she isn’t ready, she expects that will be her end as well. And just as she visits the children of fairies long past, she would expect hers to be visited in turn.
But Flora deserved more time, she deserved more love. More sunrises, more magic. Her tears fall to the ground, and everywhere they touch her magic grows and twists. Until Flora’s bed is covered in shimmering red roses.
“You deserved longer,” Agatha cries, “you deserved better.”
Flora will pick one rose with a smile.
“My favorite.”
“Even if you gave it all away, you should have had years, decades. You were only human for a few months.” Agatha cries, “you should have had years.”
“I’ve been human for almost a year now.” Flora will confess, “the most curious thing being human. It was the greatest year of my life.”
Her eyes become distant focusing on a place beyond her. And in an instant Agatha remembers the man, the painter, the inventor. She remembers the child strapped to his back, the one who smelled of flowers.
“Make sure there safe.”
She nods furiously can feel the tears rushing down her chin.
It’s a request and a dismissal.
She can hear him now that she’s stopped crying. His voice humming a broken lullaby to a child.
“Make sure there safe.” She repeats.
Agatha will be gone when Flora’s husband comes into the room. This is not the last time she will see her dear friend Flora, but it is the last time she will speak to her.
The last words spoken in a rush as the door opens and her painter is again at her side.
“Does he know?”
Flora will shake her head minutely, a small serene smile on her lips. He doesn’t know she is magic, she is magic and ancient and loving and wild. And he doesn’t know, Flora hasn’t told him, and so with a breath Agatha respects her wishes.
When the door opens he finds his wife clutching a single rose, and smiling in an empty room.
Her husband, Maurice no longer leaves her side and there daughter Belle is a sweet thing who is content in her cradle. Sometimes she wishes to intrude, on quiet moments, or conversation. Introduce herself and talk.
But she’s had years with Flora, millennia, this man had one year. And every now and then Flora would smile out the window, smile and hum at her. Waiting outside, always waiting.
He doesn’t know about magic, doesn’t know that his wife shed a thousand years of magic to be near him. But he weeps as if he does, he weeps as if he knows all that Flora is losing. It is in that moment that Agatha decides she loves him a little bit too.
She watches and she wishes from there little window, she casts good luck and fortune on them, makes every doctor who enters virtuous and generous. She leaves gold and money where he can find them, they will not want for anything they will have clothes and food, but it is not enough in the end.
But it really never is.
In the end, Flora is still smiling.
And her husband sheds a million tears.
Agatha wants to mourn, to cry and scream that her friend is gone. The one who pulled on her golden hair and helped her turn wild young men into frogs. Who laughed at the coven who commanded them even as they rose steadily through there ranks. Flora was everything Agatha had ever hoped to be.
But she couldn’t, Maurice was leaving,taking Belle far away from the city, far away from where Flora and Agatha used to stomp around and laugh.
He puts Belle in a small cradle, made from an old creaking wood. A small rose is the only decoration on the side. He looks a good decade older then when Agatha remembers seeing him for the first time. His youthful charm has grown dim, and his hair is already graying, as if grief has redefined who he is allowed to be.
In a window reflection, Agatha notes her tattered dress covered in dark spots of grime, the bits of leaves and twig sticking to her hair that’s gone past matted. Grief has broken her as well.
He sets out on a little rickety caravan of two, and unknown to him she follows as close as she dares, protects them from thieves in the night. And bad decisions in the day, blocking off roads and sending warnings so he never strays to close to danger. For days they travel like this, his cart determined but without direction as if the man driving cannot see past his own tears, and Agatha casting spell after spell over his shoulder her arm growing heavy and her feet beginning to ache. They continue like this until his cart of small possessions rolls into a little town, out in the middle of nowhere.
It’s quiet and peaceful, and Agatha doesn’t need magic to show Maurice that, he takes one long look at the view before gently pulling Belle out of her own bed.
“What a lovely little town.” He remarks, he clutches Belle to his chest and for a moment he just watches. Little people going about there day, in there little town.
It’s rather perfect.
Maurice doesn’t need magical assistance to find a suitable place to live, he has money, and charm. And his little machines are wonderful enough for the children to come and fawn over.
Agatha drifts through the village, her magic reaching in and out. Like air settling over the whole place. The people are kind, if a little small minded, they like there gossip and there beer. They care for little else, but Agatha thinks they are pleasant enough.
She wonders if Flora would like it, would care to see the wind chimes blowing in such a small place. It was a beautiful town, wild flowers and vibrant colors of fabric everywhere.
She decides that Flora would have loved it, and when Maurice buys a little place near the edge of town, Agatha barely needs to see the crooked door to know that Flora would have loved that too. She can hear his daughters delighted laughter as he races her up the steps, fragile still. But they are both smiling.
And for a while she will smile and leave him be, Agatha will wander into the woods until she finds a mighty tree, the tree has fallen, torn from the ground it’s roots bent up towards the sky. In that moment she thinks of Flora, in truth she never stopped thinking of her but what was before a dull ache was slowly opening into a chasm in her heart, mighty tall Flora who had planted forests and seen trickles grow into streams. Uprooted, and torn, she sees Flora’s stillness in the tree, the sad way the mushrooms cling to it and is reminded that Flora would have loved to be planted in the ground.
It is this thought and not any other that finally breaks her, the tears she had held inside for so long come out. And she collapses on the soft earth, she weeps bitter tears on the ground. And she weeps on the tree that died. And the tears do not stop for hours. Eventually sleep over takes her, but the grief is waiting when she awakens. It sucks her energy, leaves her arms feeling heavy and her eyes sore. Nothing left in her to cry as if she was desperate for just one more drop. She loses her sense of the days, lets them spin as she lies despondent on the forest floor. She doesn’t know how long she waits. But she knows that it isn’t long, becuase when she walks back into the village there is still a wooden baby carrier set up on the porch.
Belle is still a child even as she is determined to take her first steps. And Flora watches from very close by, the way Maurice smiles at her incessant babbling. She’s been gone a week at most she decides, they are still here and they are happy.
And grief didn’t break her, her heart is strong. Grief didn’t break him, his heart is strong as well.
Agatha avoids unpleasant, but she can survive it when it finds her.
If Agatha had left them there, if she had merely wandered away to any other place. This story would not have been told, but Agatha loves Belle, and she thinks, one more day. One more day, with her laughter as she watches from across the way. And then she will go.
She doesn’t leave the town for this story to start, but three men ride in on horses.
One fat, one lean, and one staring blankly into the distance. Agatha knows this story.
The fat one speaks first.
“Hear ye, hear ye, it is time to pay the local dues as is the prerogative of all people who live within his lordships domain.” His belly jiggles when he speaks.
The thin one speaks next.
“It’s time to pay your taxes.” He has a mustache that he twirls in one hand like a cigarette.
The fat man frowns “That’s what I just said.”
The silent man doesn’t speak in the quiet that follows. He also has no discerning features.
The crowd however speaks. “Again, we just paid those not even a full moon ago.” A voice calls out, there’s a murmur of assent from the crowd.
Agatha watches her hand twitching in her dress, the silent man places his hand on the large blade hanging on his horse.
The crowd quiets.
The fat man leans over, “His lordship requires more funds for his annual ball.” The collective groan from the crowd tells Agatha this is a common occurrence.
The thin man speaks again. “I know this is not a time of joyous celebration,” he twirls his mustache tight, “but think of it this way. At least you do not live with the man.”
The crowd laughs and the thin man does a little bow from his horse.
Agatha understands, the thin man finds pleasure in being loved and so he allows the fat man to be hated. She settles further into the shadows, small town politics mean less than nothing to her.
The money will be passed around, the bags the three men rode in with grow fat with gold, and as they leave the fat man will hiss at the thin man.
“Lumiere, why must you put on this performance every time.”
The thin man, Lumiere will reply with a smile, “Cogsworth, old friend, there is always time for a little show.”
They fall into a pattern of bickering that the third man seems to accept as normal. Again, if things had been different, if they had rode out of town as they so clearly intended. This story would have been very different.
There is no fate, just actions, things piling on top of one another until no one knows where it once started and when it might have ended. This is one of those moments. The men are leaving, they raise there voices and speak as there horses guide them down familiar streets. But a moment before they leave town, there conversation is broken, a child shrieks in delight. The noise washes over them, and as one all three men turn towards an open window.
The silent man finally speaks.
“What was that?” His voice is as unassuming as his face.
The baby shrieks again and Maurice laughs along with her. There laughter echos.
“I thought that building was uninhabitable.” Cogsworth comments.
Lumiere laughs into his gloved hand, “It is a dump.”
Agatha can feel her magic steadily growing inside her.
They call out to the house, asking for the inhabitants to come outside.
Maurice steps out on a crooked stone holding the baby.
“Who are you?”
“We represent the lord of this town. Who are you?” A gloved hand pulling down on his mustache, a relaxed body betraying the sharp eyes taking in everything about Maurice.
“My name is Maurice, I am an inventor. And this angel, is my daughter Belle.”
The two groups stare at each other silently until Belle reaches out her tiny hand and laughs.
“And your wife?” Cogsworth asks.
“Me and my daughter just moved here, but her mother,” his smile goes dry. “She became very ill-“
“Yes, yes I’m sure it was most tragic.” Cogsworth interrupts, “but if your going to live here I’m afraid there’s going to be a matter of compensation made for land lived on.”
“He means taxes.” Lumiere comments.
“I know what he meant.” Maurice responds.
“He knew what I meant!” Cogsworth repeats triumphantly to Lumiere.
“I know what taxes are, I fully intend to pay mine. And I have already paid my gold for this house, and any possessions I have acquired. I’m no thief sir.” Maurice clutches Belle to his chest, she is no longer smiling. Even at her age she understands, this is not a time to smile.
“Of course your not a thief, but taxes are due for all new residents.” The man returns.
“How much?”
The number he quotes makes Maurice stumble against the door, it makes Agatha press a wounded hand to her mouth, it’s more than a lot. It’s impossible.
She doesn’t know what she expects Maurice to do, argue maybe. Leave surely.
What he does instead is not what she expected, he goes inside, and comes out with gold, bags of gold. Enchanted coins that Agatha had wished into his path. And one bag at a time he attaches them to there horses. One bag at a time, and Agatha watches quietly.
For every bag he adds Her shoulders shake, her hands burn, and her magic is clawing at her stomach. Demanding to be let out.
She doesn’t want to kill them, to hex them into the next century, she reminds herself of one thing as she watches him. It was only a set back, it’s hard to add coins to his savings when he wasn’t supposed to know she was spelling it in. But she could go faster make a pile of it on his counter. Let him think what he would, they would not go hungry.
She can replace the money,
When he is done he stands in front of his door little Belle held tight. The three men stare down at him.
“There is also the matter of the annual ball taxes.” He says.
Agatha burns, she seethes, she looks at the way Maurice grows ashen even as he obediently opens his pockets. She watches as all his coin falls into there hands.
She hears the thin one say
“That is all Monsieur. Until next time.”
Maurice ever stubborn replies “May it be when I am old and grey.”
The fat one laughs, “It will be next month, or next ball.” He makes a vague motion with his hand. “Whichever comes first.”
Lumiere laughs with him. His hand pulling his mustache tighter and tighter. The silent one stares.
And she hates.
It isn’t hard to follow the horsemen back from where they came from, they are loud and laughing, the coins in there pouch jingle and clang. And the palace they go to, (For it could be nothing less) towers over even the tallest tree in the forest.
It’s huge, and ornate, and vain.
The three men ride there horses over a bridge dangling over a pit and she’s pretty sure she spies a waterfall. This castle was serious business.
The large gate closes behind them and Agatha stares at the castle, one hand gripping the metal on the edge of the gate dangerously tight. It’s breakable in her hands, malleable and tearable. She had heard that once Maleficent had turned into a large raging dragon. Of all the stories of dark fairies that was the one she doubted the most. There were so many other ways to do what you needed to do, to accomplish whatever task lay in front of you. But in this moment she understands the urge, to be big and terrible and to feel it all break away under your hands.
It’s an awful feeling like lighting in her chest and nowhere to go.
The gate squeezes under her hands.
Slowly she will walk away from the fence.
She doesn’t have a plan didn’t have even the beginning of a plan. She followed the men because she was angry wanted them to suffer, wanted to forget the way Flora was gone forever.
But there wasn’t ever really a plan, no big move, no curse and spell hiding up her sleeve. There was just the desire, to do something.
The people in town are wishing, she can feel it. They wish for easier lives for a lord who didn’t take whatever they earned.
Wish and I will appear.
You know what happens next, it does not matter how she spells the cooking staff into speaking to her. How the woman with the white doily for a hat frets and frets over there lord.
“His father twisted him up,” and even under the spell the woman’s eyes are not dry. “Twisted him up and set him loose. But there was nothing we could do.”
And so the story goes, it is not the boys fault he is not to blame for his actions. It is the father who didn’t love the mother who died too young.
“Her Death is what killed him.” A few servants tell her. “After she passed there’s just no love left in his heart.”
What do they know of loss?
Of pain and regrets?
But they go on and on.
She listens and listens and listens.
And that night she returns. Her clothes are tattered, there is mud and twigs in her hair. And for the first time she feels as old as she looks. She does not knock she blows the door down in the middle of his ball, his celebration of beauty. And in one hand Rosa’s flower valiantly standing against the wind.
The party is full of people in shimmering gowns and towering hair. Glittering gold and gemstones of every manner.
This is not beauty she thinks, this was a spoiled brat who squandered everything he touched. A prince who wasn’t worth the money he spent on frivolity and debauchery. That his people like him, that he should live longer than her. Longer than Flora. It was unthinkable.
To call what happens next a test would be a lie, no matter what she says she does not want the young prince to pass. And he in his arrogance gives her all the excuse she needs, her magic bites and howls and rips. The skin she wears already pulling thin, adding another set of lines under her eyes.
“Do not judge me by my appearance.” She warns.
She is not some old beggar, she is a dragon. And she will eat him whole.
In a moment he speaks his fate, and when she lets her magic out. When her face melts into her golden glow. She does not fight her laughter. Does not care that as she casts her spell it grows and twist like a fiery dragon consuming everyone in the palace.
Does not care when his pleading is for his servants. As he watches them change before his eyes.
Her magic stretches like a cloud and covers the castle in chilling winter. The people in the town one and all begin to forget. There minds instinctive try to shield the memory of the castle from her to protect what she strips from each of them. But they cannot stop her. No one can.
“My curse shall not be broken,” She gives him the rose and kisses his hand sees it twitch and spasm as the claws begin to grow. Gentle and sweet the fire in her finally satisfied. “Until you find true love.”
And as for the money they took from Maurice it is back in his kitchen, the man himself unaware he had ever given it up.
Her magic feels exhausted. She feels burnt out. But it all happened so fast didn’t it? One moment there and the next it is done.
Would you be proud of me Rosa?
Would you be proud of this?
Agatha watches as the snow begins to fall. She didn’t mean to do that to bring winter to the forest. But her spell revealed what was hidden inside, and there was nothing left in her but a cold darkness.
“Would you have stopped me?” She asks the empty forest aloud.
There is no answer, and so she is left to wonder.
There are always consequnces to magic, it isn’t long before she notices one. He wanders around in town scratching his head.
“Ive lost something, have you seen it?” He asks her.
She shakes her head no. The man huffs in desperation before wandering away, he speaks aloud to himself as if he truly hopes to jog his memory that way.
“I’ve lost something terribly important.” His hand clutches tight to his wedding ring. He stumbles like a man mourning. But his eyes are dry.
She can see the ties he has. His family is in the castle, a wife for sure anything else she isn’t positive about. But he is the first unintended consequence a first casualty. And deep in his heart he wishes.
She almost feels regret then. That this had to happen, but there had been no love deserving of life in the princes heart. And if other people suffered because of what he did. It would hardly be a new occurrence.
The second consequence is less obvious. A boy in tattered clothes playing in the streets.
“That boys parents need to get him in school if he’s to become something in this world.” Agatha overhears in the market.
The woman she’s speaking too leans over her stall of eggs.
“Haven’t you heard? Poor kid doesn’t have any parents.”
“None at all?” The woman wonders, where before there was scorn now there is pity. Agatha bites her cheek to stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“Yes, poor kid his mother died in childbirth.” The woman continues sadly.
“And the Father?” The first woman asks, looking for gossip no doubt.
And this is when Agatha knows what has happened feels the tug on her magic even as the two people freeze in the street.
“He never had one.” The woman says, she stops and seems confused at herself. “I mean I’m sure he had a father but I never heard of him.”
The first woman nods along, feeling the same unease of forgetting something important. “Yes of course!”
Agatha turns and studies the boy. He is young, and she has made him an orphan.
When his ball rolls near her she picks it up and bends down to him. There is something about children that often strip a fairy bare. Many fairies believe it is something children see in there eyes, some that children are just more sensitive to there magic. Either way the boy rushes to her arms outstretched for his ball. But he stops a few feet shy his eyes grow puzzled as if confused. Confusion turns to wariness.
He doesn’t trust her.
Once upon a time Agatha would have been offended. But the snow still falls in the forest. However recent, his fear is justified.
“Is this your ball?” He wont meet her eyes. Little hands clutching at the air as if he wished to grab it without speaking to her.
“Is this your ball?” Agatha repeats. The boy raises his eyes to hers.
“Give it back.” The boy demands.
He is an orphan because of her, and she swallows her first response to his crass rudeness in her chest. Merely giving him a warning frown before rolling his ball towards him.
The boy picks it up stares at her again. The second stretches.
The boy grits his jaw.
“What are you?”
There is no one listening to them, the child and the dirty young woman. They are invisible in this world and so she feels comfortable to answer more truthfully.
“I’m magic.”
The boy makes a face but doesn’t argue. There is something in him. Something like a wish.
“Is there something you wish for?”
Another face. “No.”
Agatha frowns the thing in his chest is still hot. But growing dimmer with every second. Wishes are the coals that good magic can spark from. His wish is still hot, but it no longer burns.
“Did your wish come true?” She asks.
The boy nods his head. If anyone had seen them the girl in the torn dress and the boy with the ball they might have wondered what made them both stare at each other so seriously.
“What was your wish?”
The boy presses his thumb into his chest. “I live alone. I’m the man of my house.” He declares.
Agatha doesn’t laugh.
She doesn’t tell him what a foolish wish that is. Because a child does not truly wish to be alone. No child wants loneliness, not in there deepest of hearts. Not in the secret place where wishes are born.
Not unless.
She wonders and then she knows.
“What is your name?”
The boy relaxes a fraction, starts walking backward as his little hands spin his ball.
“My names Gaston.”
She nods at him, he nods back.
She wonders who his father is, wonders what she turned him into. Wonders if maybe her magic didn’t find him and tear him apart when it realized what he was.
She wasn’t human. But she had little respect for monsters.
She hovers around Gaston the rest of the day and in turn the boy ignores her. Despite his age he is very good with the ball little hands and feet kicking the ball high in the air before catching it again. In the end she doesn’t need to use magic to help him. As the day drags he is taken home by a small family. A plump man and a round wife. The both of them laugh often and in an unusual display of kindness, one of them asks after Agatha’s health.
They are some of the first in the town to speak to her, in her old dirty ripped gown.
They are what some might call delightful.
They have a son Gaston’s age.
“Do not shove the whole thing in your mouth Lefou!” The father will laugh as if the whole thing is hilarious. The wife will giggle even as she pulls there boy away from the dessert his little fingers had tried to fit inside his open mouth.
Lefou’s cheeks flush a deep red. His eyes scurrying over everyone in the square as if terrified they all see him. Gaston’s eyes are wide with interest.
Nothing special happens when the two boys meet. There is no binding of magic. No sudden realization to the kind of role the two boys will play in each other’s lives. No way to see a fallen harpsichord and a broken heart in the way they size each other up. But today they meet. And there hands will join in a simple shake on either side of laughing parents as the children are dragged away.
Today she made that boy an orphan. And everything inside that boys heart thanked her for it. Agatha purses her lips. And wanders back into the woods. There are other occurrences like those.
Things that were obviously left open, but in as little as a week those holes begin to close. How quickly they adjust.
“I’ve lost something!” Mr. Potts will exclaim loudly.
And everyone will laugh. And they will call out to him.
“You always say that!”
He doesn’t, didn’t.
But he will laugh with them.
“I suppose I do.”
How quickly they learn.
Belle begins to grow and Agatha doesn’t leave. She finds the fallen tree and she hangs a sheet to make an entrance, from tree to home in only a few simple moments. She is content with her new home.
And she watches.
She knows they will come for her, if her spell is not broken. The council will come and demand to know what she was thinking. What she has done. She has no defense.
She has separated families.
Made orphans.
Created eternal winter.
She has no defense.
Belle laughs like the whole world is happy.
Maurice dances with her and paints a large rose on her wall.
She would do it all again.