One for Sorrow
Disney's Beauty and the Beast Retold
Book I in the Blackbird Chronicles

The Blackbird Chronicles and all non-Disney, original characters therein © E. Melanthios Nocturne a.k.a. Kia M. La Marca, 2006

Belle, Gaston, Beast and all other Disney characters © Disney Enterprises, Inc., 1991-2007

.o.O.o.

Le Prologue
Hellfire

“‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’ So saith the Lord!”

“NO!” he screamed as a child screams, “Maman! Maman!” he wrenched himself free of the arms holding him back, pelting toward the stake where a woman stood, quiet. Clinging to her skirts, he screamed and fought the grabbing hands that attacked him viciously. “Go ‘way! Stop it! No!” he looked up into the green eyes of his mother, “Maman…please…”

“I love you, mon petit Merle,” she said softly.

“Maman, no!” he cried into her skirt. “Make them stop, tell them!”

“I cannot, little love,” she answered, sorrow in her voice as tears began to fall. Hands snatched him away finally and he screamed, kicking and struggling.

“Maman! MAMAN!”

The torches were thrown with morbid gaiety, the hay set as tinder going up in an instant. As the flames worked upon the twigs and branches, Merle heard his mother’s voice as she spoke her final words over the flames.

“Seek Truth!” were the last words she spoke…then came the screams.

Merle’s throat was not raw from his screams, for he was a small child and when we are born, Nature has already told us how to scream properly. Screams, then, of such an anguished soul, continued.