A few days later, Doris left the small Alaskan town, and traveled to New York City to get a job, and start a new life with her newborn child. She managed to find a job as a seamstress since Doris had always been good with her hands, and she rented a small apartment for Bellamy and herself to live in.
At first, Doris had been worried about the curse, but had been surprised when the men around her seemed to ignore her, just like in the old days before she’d encountered the sorcerer Agathon. Because of her job, she needed to hire a babysitter to watch over Bellamy. And that’s when Doris discovered the truth of what had become of the curse.
Bellamy’s female babysitter tried to kidnap Bellamy, but didn’t get very far when someone spotted the young woman acting suspiciously while leaving Doris’s apartment with Bellamy, and had reported it to the police. It was in that moment that Doris realized that the curse had been passed on to Bellamy.
After that incident, Doris tried to come up with a way to protect her son from the curse. Acting on a hunch she decided to cover Bellamy’s face and see how women would react. When Bellamy’s face was hidden by a mask, a scarf, or a pair of sunglasses the effects of the curse appeared to be blocked somehow.
‘The eyes are the windows to the soul’ Doris had thought to herself, thinking she was on to something. When she put a pair of nonprescription glasses on Bellamy’s face to see if they worked to block the effects of the curse and discovered that they did, she knew she’d figured out a way to not break but at least stop the curse from activating. And the rest was history…
END OF DREAM
Bellamy awoke with a start the following morning. “Mother! Father! No!” He shouted into the heavy silence of his room. Sweat beaded his brow. What the hell was that? A dream? No. A vision about his own past origins.
The dream vision was still painfully fresh in Bellamy’s mind - his mother’s rescue of the sorcerer Agathon, Raul falling in love with his mother along with all of the men who lived in town, his parents’ marriage, and Doris’s pregnancy. But most of all Bellamy remembered that day.
The day the Hunters had tried to hunt down and murder his father Raul like an animal. All because of the curse.
Bellamy’s mother had never mentioned his father. Bellamy had assumed he’d been a good-for-nothing, but Raul had protected his mother and him with his last breath. Raul had named him. His father had loved him.
And his poor mother had given birth to Bellamy in the middle of that bloodbath.
Bellamy couldn’t get the horrifying images out of his mind. He gripped the sides of his head and dug his fingernails into his scalp painfully. How could he get the images out? He needed to get them out! A sudden idea came to him.
Bellamy got out of bed and took a quick, hot shower. Afterwards, he dressed in a white sweater, some faded blue jeans, and a pair of sneakers. He chose a gray coat with a white fur lining to finish his winter outfit that was sure to protect him from the cold.
As Bellamy was heading for the front door of the mansion, Jett called out to him. “Master Bellamy, are you leaving us so soon?” His voice was laced with concern.
“No.” Bellamy glanced over his shoulder at the butler. “I just…I need to go outside and clear my head. Do you mind if I borrow some tools from the tool shed?”
Jett arched a quizzical eyebrow at Bellamy, but nodded. “Not at all, Master Bellamy. Please, help yourself.”
Bellamy exited the mansion, entered the expansive front gardens of the estate, and headed for the tool shed. Inside the shed he found exactly what he’d been looking for - a pick, chisel, and hammer.
Bellamy took the tools with him and headed to an area of the garden where large chunks of ice lay scattered across the frozen lawn. The bookworm picked an especially large chunk of ice to start with, set the chisel against the ice, and set to work.
***
When Abigail made her way to the dining room for breakfast, she’d been expected Bellamy to already be seated at the table waiting for her. She pouted upon noting his absence.
When the minutes ticked by and Bellamy still didn’t arrive, Abigail took an irritated sip of her coffee and addressed Jett, “And where is Bellamy? Probably still asleep. That lazy bum.”
“Actually, Master Bellamy is outside in the front gardens,” Jett began to inform her. “He hasn’t had breakfast yet.”
Abigail shot her butler a questioning look. “The garden? Whatever for? It’s freezing out there!”
“He’s appears to be…working on something,” Jett said evasively.
“Working on what?” Abigail demanded, but Jett just remained silent. “Oh my God, I’m going out there to see for myself.” She began to get up from the table.
But Jett tutted at her. “Ah, ah, ah, you’re not going out there until you have finished your breakfast, Milady. You’re still recovering from an injury and need to build up your strength.”
Abigail huffed. “Alright, fine. I’ll finish breakfast first. Then I’m going to see what that bookworm is up to.” As soon as the yeti finished her last bite of omelet she quickly sat up from her chair and rushed outside to the gardens. Her curiosity about what Bellamy could be up to was killing her at this point.
It was in that moment that Abigail realized she didn’t really know anything about Bellamy DeWinter. Just that he was a nerd, a bookworm…and maybe a hero. She remembered how he’d given her CPR to save her life. Even though Bellamy had told her not to fret about their almost kissing and had said something about how a kiss without any emotion behind it being meaningless, Abigail couldn’t help but feel that they’d still shared a kiss. Even if it hadn’t meant anything to Bellamy, it had meant something to her.
Abigail shook her head of such confusing thoughts and made her way into the garden. Where the hell was he? She sniffed the air and caught a whiff of Bellamy’s unique scent. The bookworm smelled like pinesap and maple syrup. It was a manly, woodsy scent that reminded her of the forest.
Abigail tracked Bellamy’s yummy scent to the section of the garden where huge chunks of ice had been scattered across the lawn. She gasped since the shapeless chunks of ice were no longer shapeless. Now covering the lawn were several highly detailed ice sculptures that appeared to be telling a story.
The first set of sculptures were of a homely looking woman kneeling before a man who looked like some kind of wizard with his hooded cloak that was billowing out behind him dramatically. The wizard was holding a wooden staff with a familiar looking stone decorating the top of it. Abigail’s eyes bulged when she recognized the sorcerer Agathon.
“Agathon? What the hell is going on here?” Abigail muttered to herself as she kept walking in order to inspect the next set of statues. The next two statues were of a handsome man and a woman kissing each other while locked in a passionate embrace.
Abigail’s blue cheeks turned magenta at the romantic atmosphere surrounding these two statues. The yeti realized that the woman who was kissing the good-looking man was the same plain looking one from the earlier scene with the sorcerer Agathon.
Abigail continued walking and entered a very different frozen scene from the one before. This scene looked more like a grisly crime scene. The plain woman was in this scene again, only this time she was seated on a sled that was pulled by a team of five Huskies. A man had grabbed onto the woman’s arm and had an evil leer on his face.
The woman’s expression was one of sheer terror. But the handsome man from the earlier scene was standing with his shotgun in hand and had it pointed at the man with the leer. There was this fierce, protective look in the handsome man’s eyes. Scattered around the scene were four dead bodies. It was easy to see that the handsome man was trying to rescue the plain woman from the guy who’d grabbed onto her arm.
Bellamy was hard at work, using a chisel to carefully craft the look of pain and horror on one of the fallen men’s faces.
“Bellamy,” Abigail called out hesitantly.
Bellamy looked up and met Abigail’s inquisitive stare with haunted eyes. “Hi, Abigail.”
“What’s all this?” The yeti waved her hand at the sculptures.
“This was the only way to get it all out of my head,” Bellamy began to explain. “Last night, I dreamed about my own past. It was like a vision. I’m pretty sure it was real. That everything I saw in my dreams last night - really happened.” Bellamy stood up and approached the ice sculpture of the woman on the sled. “This plain looking woman…that’s my mother Doris when she was younger. And that man there with the shotgun protecting her…is my father Raul DeWinter.”
Abigail started and looked at the ice sculpture of the plain woman again. “That’s…Doris?” But that meant that Doris had met the sorcerer Agathon when she was younger. Her brow furrowed. Pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place. “But then, that means, your curse, the sorcerer-”
“Agathon,” Bellamy finished her sentence and nodded grimly. “Yep. Apparently, the same evil sorcerer who cursed you…cursed my mom a while back. What are the chances that charlatan would curse us both, huh?”
“The stone on his staff, it’s-” Abigail started.
“The Philosopher’s Stone,” Bellamy finished. “Yep.” The bookworm began to explain his past origins to Abigail from the beginning, recounting how his mother Doris had saved Agathon from his icy prison and had earned a wish from the sorcerer. He told Abigail about how Doris had wished for Raul’s love, how Raul had indeed fallen in love with Doris along with all of the men in town. Bellamy went on to tell Abigail about how his mother Doris had intended to leave Raul in order to free him from the curse, but had then discovered she was pregnant.
A dark cloud fell over Bellamy’s face as he got to this point in the story. He then told Abigail about that fateful day. The day the Hunters in town tried to hunt down and murder his father. But how his mother had bravely gone to try and stop this from happening. Things had spiraled out of control and the men had ended up shooting each other. Raul had died protecting his mother.
Bellamy walked over to stand by the ice sculpture of his father Raul. “I never got to know my father. I’d always assumed he was some deadbeat since Mom never talked about him. But he saved my mother’s life and mine that day.” He placed his hand over the bullet wound on the front of Raul’s chest. “With his dying breath he named me. My father was a good man. A hero. And he didn’t deserve to die that way!” Bellamy clenched his hands into fists at his sides. He was so angry at the injustice of it all.
“Then what happened?” Abigail questioned softly.
“My mother went into labor. She had me right here,” Bellamy swept his hand at the macabre scene, his expression dour. “Surrounded by the dead bodies of her enemies and of the man she loved. Surrounded by blood and death…she gave birth to me.”
Abigail sucked in a startled breath. “That must have been a truly horrifying experience for Doris.” Her heart went out to Doris. Poor Doris.
Bellamy dragged his hand back through his brown hair; a few strands had escaped from his ponytail and had moved in front of his face. “My mother has suffered so much, and partly because of me. I wish there was something I could do for her. I’m worried about her. I hope she’s alright. I…want to apologize to her too. Sometimes I wondered what awful thing my mother had done to get herself cursed. But she was just another victim of that charlatan Agathon.”
Abigail nibbled on one of her claws. Her heart went out to Bellamy too, and his obvious inner turmoil. “You miss your mother that much?”
“Yeah.” Bellamy nodded. “If only I knew she was okay, I could relax.”
“Then…I’ll let you see her,” Abigail announced.
Bellamy’s sour look turned hopeful. “How?”
“Come with me.” Abigail took Bellamy to her bedroom and showed him the enchanted mirror the sorcerer Agathon had given her. “Here. Use this. Just ask it what you want to see.”
Bellamy nodded and took the mirror from Abigail. He stared into its silvery reflection. “Show me my mother - Doris DeWinter.”
The reflection in the mirror shifted, glowed, and stilled to reveal the inside of a hospital room. His mother Doris was strapped to a padded chair, and electrodes had been attached to her temples. Some kind of gag was inside of her mouth, probably to prevent her from biting her tongue.
“Maybe this will jog your memory about where my beloved Bellamy is!” Astonia declared before flicking the switch on the ECT machine.
Doris cried out as electricity was sent coursing through her head uncomfortably.
Bellamy’s eyes flared in alarm and he clutched at the mirror tightly. “Mother! No! Get away from her, you crazy bitch! Shit!”
“Oh my God, what’s wrong?” Abigail asked with obvious concern.
“It’s my mother…this girl who saw me without my glasses has captured my mother and appears to be torturing her in order to discover my whereabouts,” Bellamy snarled out through gritted teeth.
“Torturing?” Abigail shuddered and rubbed her arms. “Then, you must go and rescue your mother.”
Bellamy shot the yeti a surprised look. “Abigail…?”
“But I want you to bring her back here,” Abigail explained in a haughty tone. “Deal?”
Bellamy quickly nodded his agreement. “Deal.”
“Then, you’re free to go,” Abigail said airily. “For now. It’s a son’s duty to protect his mother.”
Bellamy rushed over to Abigail, grabbed her hands in his, squeezed them and gave the yeti a grateful look. “Thank you, Abigail.”
Abigail snatched her hands out of Bellamy’s grasp and made a shooing motion with her right hand. “Go on, shoo. You shouldn’t keep your mother waiting.”
Bellamy tried to hand the mirror back to Abigail, but she shook her head and pushed it back into his hands. “No. You’re going to need it. The mirror will help you find your mother, and…” A magenta tinge rose to Abigail’s blue cheeks. “It will help you find your way back to me.”
The bookworm nodded. “Understood. Thanks again.” He spun on his heel and exited the bedroom.
Abigail went over to her bedroom window so that she could watch as Bellamy exited the mansion, hurried his way down the steps and mounted the dogsled. She watched as he grabbed the reins, snapped them, and the dogs began to take off, heading for the front gate.
Jett entered her bedroom at this moment. “Master Bellamy has left the estate.”
“I am aware,” Abigail said. “I let him go on a little rescue mission to save his mother. He’s supposed to bring her back here. Or else.”
The corner of Jett’s mouth twitched in amusement. “That was a very kind thing for you to do, Milady. I’m proud of you.”
“Oh, do shut up,” Abigail grumbled and had to duck her head to hide her magenta colored cheeks.
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