[story] her mother's son
Jan. 31st, 2009 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ib_archiveauthor: junny (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
temperamental
Belle is a girl in borrowed skin. The skin is male, and the explanation is that simple. The exact circumstances of her birth are unclear to her: she knows only that she was born on the edge of winter fading into spring, and the ground was white with snow outside. When they washed the blood off her face she was as beautiful as the day was pure. Green eyes, wisps of chestnut hair, her fake, clean skin alabaster pale.
It's that simple.
In her dreams her mother whispers "My son," and rocks her back and forth. The world is bigger, colder.
But: "My daughter," her father murmurs, and places a big, calloused, reassuring hand on her mother's shoulder. In her dreams, she sees his smile as it should be, not merely a shadow of it.
"Beau," her mother says, tracing a finger down her delicate skin.
"Belle," corrects her father, and there's no argument to be had.
Belle grows up with a sense of invincibility where her feminine vulnerability should have been. Her parents worry about her swagger, how she chooses to stand, how different she is becoming. She isn't like the other girls. The villagers think she's odd. Beautiful, but funny, that Belle, she hears them say.
She knows she can't die. She is, after all, a girl, and the monsters don't take the girl-children away.
They catch her on the rooftop, staring critically downwards with her nose upturned. Her sisters clamber up to pull her down just as she closes her eyes.
Skin alabaster pale, eyes lemongrass green, hair the colour of roasted chestnuts. It's a shock to no one when the older men take a liking to her. The butcher and the baker, they don't care that she's funny, only that she's beautiful. They smile at her when she's sent out alone, their fingers accidentally brushing where they shouldn't touch. She buttons her collar higher, folds her arms over her chest and she takes it in stride.
But the grocer is the last straw. He whispers lies like precious truths and pulls at her ribbons with clumsy determination. The older girls laugh about it later, all hush hush and did you know.
Belle lets them talk. She builds a fortress out of books. It is always quiet inside.
Her mother dies of an illness. She sweats, at first - they say it's a fever. Then she can't see straight. It's stress, they say. When she can't stand it's lack of rest. Then she can't speak, can't breathe. Now that, they say, could only be death.
It's belladonna, she thinks to tell them, but when she's done with the book it's already too late. She allows herself to cry a little, holding her mother's hand. "My son," her mother gasps, and lets go. Belle's father cries out, for his world is dead.
It's raining when they bury her mother. Belle has mud on her blue dress. Everybody else is wearing black, because they are only sensible when it suits them.
Her sisters say the talk around town is that the inventor's gone mad from grief. It's a little bit true, Belle muses, the grief part. He's certainly something from grief, but not mad. She knows the look in his eyes to be determination, the same as ever. Not madness. He mutters under his breath, but he has always done so, and he spends all day in his workshop.
It's not new. Nothing is ever, ever new in the village. Belle knows this.
Belle sits by the window and she thinks.
Her sixteenth birthday marks the day the king's men come. "Nothing to worry about, girlie," her father assures her, his big, calloused hand on her shoulder and his faded smile on his worn, leathery face. The villagers gather in the square. The man who takes the boys away is tall on his horse, hard-faced, stony eyed. Belle keeps her eyes on him, while her sisters stare at the ground.
The village has no sons to give, they say. No sons to give, so why don't they take a few daughters? The man's own boys are beautiful, even with their backs to the sun. The shadows do nothing to hinder the perfection of their cool smiles. Her heart races and for a moment she wants this; the confidence they exude, so familiar and so distant. The next moment brings her plummetting down, crashing back into her senses.
All of a sudden she understands. She understands this feeling that she's lived through someone else's. She's watched people choke on it, sweat, then die all through the tips of her fingers.
It's called terror.
Her father looks to her with sad eyes and she can only look away.
She's the first to run. Her mother taught her sense.
Chestnut curls fall to the ground. The scissors are relentless in her own hands, and she has never been so terrified as she is in this moment. She slides out of her blue dress and shrugs into a shirt she was mending for her father, then slips into a pair of oversized slacks.
She must do this. She must look convincing in candlelight, in moonlight, in starlight - and of course she would, with the blasted fake skin she's in. Belle chews on her lip, peering into the mirror with scrutinising eyes.
The scissors fall onto the ground with a clatter.
Her mother's son stares back at her with a look of horror. She feels like Samson in that instant, powerless, and no longer invulnerable. Funny and beautiful and wrong. With a shaking hand, she picks up the scissors. Her knuckles are pure white - she's holding them so tightly. The colour isn't flawed like her skin is.
A shuddering breath puts out the candle.
Belle read all the books. All those nights and days and inbetweens spent inside a dusty room weren't for nothing. She knows what happens to girls who walk alone in the dark. Her dream mother says: "There's nothing to be afraid of, son." But her real mother says nothing, six feet under damp earth, on the far end of the village.
She pushes through the branches and they scratch against her bare neck. I am a boy, she thinks, and not afraid of branches. She carries on through the chilling sounds that the ghosts and animals make. I am a boy, she thinks, and not afraid of ghosts.
She walks until her feet are blistered, and then she turns around to see distant firelight. I am a boy, she tries to tell herself. No, I am a girl. It doesn't matter, when the monsters will take either.
Some things are terribly simple.
the end
temperamentalBelle is a girl in borrowed skin. The skin is male, and the explanation is that simple. The exact circumstances of her birth are unclear to her: she knows only that she was born on the edge of winter fading into spring, and the ground was white with snow outside. When they washed the blood off her face she was as beautiful as the day was pure. Green eyes, wisps of chestnut hair, her fake, clean skin alabaster pale.
It's that simple.
In her dreams her mother whispers "My son," and rocks her back and forth. The world is bigger, colder.
But: "My daughter," her father murmurs, and places a big, calloused, reassuring hand on her mother's shoulder. In her dreams, she sees his smile as it should be, not merely a shadow of it.
"Beau," her mother says, tracing a finger down her delicate skin.
"Belle," corrects her father, and there's no argument to be had.
Belle grows up with a sense of invincibility where her feminine vulnerability should have been. Her parents worry about her swagger, how she chooses to stand, how different she is becoming. She isn't like the other girls. The villagers think she's odd. Beautiful, but funny, that Belle, she hears them say.
She knows she can't die. She is, after all, a girl, and the monsters don't take the girl-children away.
They catch her on the rooftop, staring critically downwards with her nose upturned. Her sisters clamber up to pull her down just as she closes her eyes.
Skin alabaster pale, eyes lemongrass green, hair the colour of roasted chestnuts. It's a shock to no one when the older men take a liking to her. The butcher and the baker, they don't care that she's funny, only that she's beautiful. They smile at her when she's sent out alone, their fingers accidentally brushing where they shouldn't touch. She buttons her collar higher, folds her arms over her chest and she takes it in stride.
But the grocer is the last straw. He whispers lies like precious truths and pulls at her ribbons with clumsy determination. The older girls laugh about it later, all hush hush and did you know.
Belle lets them talk. She builds a fortress out of books. It is always quiet inside.
Her mother dies of an illness. She sweats, at first - they say it's a fever. Then she can't see straight. It's stress, they say. When she can't stand it's lack of rest. Then she can't speak, can't breathe. Now that, they say, could only be death.
It's belladonna, she thinks to tell them, but when she's done with the book it's already too late. She allows herself to cry a little, holding her mother's hand. "My son," her mother gasps, and lets go. Belle's father cries out, for his world is dead.
It's raining when they bury her mother. Belle has mud on her blue dress. Everybody else is wearing black, because they are only sensible when it suits them.
Her sisters say the talk around town is that the inventor's gone mad from grief. It's a little bit true, Belle muses, the grief part. He's certainly something from grief, but not mad. She knows the look in his eyes to be determination, the same as ever. Not madness. He mutters under his breath, but he has always done so, and he spends all day in his workshop.
It's not new. Nothing is ever, ever new in the village. Belle knows this.
Belle sits by the window and she thinks.
Her sixteenth birthday marks the day the king's men come. "Nothing to worry about, girlie," her father assures her, his big, calloused hand on her shoulder and his faded smile on his worn, leathery face. The villagers gather in the square. The man who takes the boys away is tall on his horse, hard-faced, stony eyed. Belle keeps her eyes on him, while her sisters stare at the ground.
The village has no sons to give, they say. No sons to give, so why don't they take a few daughters? The man's own boys are beautiful, even with their backs to the sun. The shadows do nothing to hinder the perfection of their cool smiles. Her heart races and for a moment she wants this; the confidence they exude, so familiar and so distant. The next moment brings her plummetting down, crashing back into her senses.
All of a sudden she understands. She understands this feeling that she's lived through someone else's. She's watched people choke on it, sweat, then die all through the tips of her fingers.
It's called terror.
Her father looks to her with sad eyes and she can only look away.
She's the first to run. Her mother taught her sense.
Chestnut curls fall to the ground. The scissors are relentless in her own hands, and she has never been so terrified as she is in this moment. She slides out of her blue dress and shrugs into a shirt she was mending for her father, then slips into a pair of oversized slacks.
She must do this. She must look convincing in candlelight, in moonlight, in starlight - and of course she would, with the blasted fake skin she's in. Belle chews on her lip, peering into the mirror with scrutinising eyes.
The scissors fall onto the ground with a clatter.
Her mother's son stares back at her with a look of horror. She feels like Samson in that instant, powerless, and no longer invulnerable. Funny and beautiful and wrong. With a shaking hand, she picks up the scissors. Her knuckles are pure white - she's holding them so tightly. The colour isn't flawed like her skin is.
A shuddering breath puts out the candle.
Belle read all the books. All those nights and days and inbetweens spent inside a dusty room weren't for nothing. She knows what happens to girls who walk alone in the dark. Her dream mother says: "There's nothing to be afraid of, son." But her real mother says nothing, six feet under damp earth, on the far end of the village.
She pushes through the branches and they scratch against her bare neck. I am a boy, she thinks, and not afraid of branches. She carries on through the chilling sounds that the ghosts and animals make. I am a boy, she thinks, and not afraid of ghosts.
She walks until her feet are blistered, and then she turns around to see distant firelight. I am a boy, she tries to tell herself. No, I am a girl. It doesn't matter, when the monsters will take either.
Some things are terribly simple.
the end
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