When the Wolfbane Blooms

Chapter 9 - Folklore

Belle awoke in the middle of the night. She sat straight up in bed. The hair on her neck was raised and she was drenched in sweat. She assumed she must have had a nightmare. It would happen from time to time. She rarely ever remembered what they had been about.

And then she heard howling. It was far away, off in the distance. Likely coming from the woods. It sounded as though the wolves were fighting.

She tried to brush it off and go back to sleep, but her sleep was restless for the rest of the night. She woke up and fell back asleep several more times before morning came.

When she finally woke up at an acceptable time; she felt like she hadn't slept at all. Still, she reluctantly pulled herself out of bed to get dressed for the day.

"Good morning, papa," Belle greeted her father as she entered their main room. He was at the table eating breakfast.

"Good morning. How did you sleep?"

"Fine," she answered, not wanting him to worry for no good reason. "Have you heard anything?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

She cleared her throat. "Last night. The full moon. I just hope no one got hurt this time."

"Oh," Maurice said, realisation clouding his face. "I haven't heard anything. I've already checked on the stables today and the horses are all fine."

"Good," she replied, preparing a meal for herself. "Papa, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Maurice answered, perplexed.

"Do you believe in anything... otherworldly?" She sat down across from him with her breakfast.

Maurice thought for a moment. "As in, faeries? Magic? Wizards and witches?"

"Werewolves."

Maurice's eyebrows shot up. "Well, I don't know. I think there's all sorts of things in this world that we haven't yet discovered. Werewolves could, I suppose, be one of those things."

"So you believe in the possibility?" she asked.

Maurice nodded slowly. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "With how regular these animal attacks have been, it could certainly be a possibility. Not the only one, but one of them. The fact that it always happens on a full moon, of all nights, seems to point toward that conclusion."

Belle hummed noncommittally.

"What do you believe?" her father asked.

Belle didn't want to believe in werewolves. To her, werewolves had always been a story parents told their children to keep them away from the woods and safe in bed at night. It was a horrible fantasy story meant to cause fear and revulsion. They made no logical sense. How could the moon cause a human being to transform into another creature entirely?

But Belle couldn't ignore the strange things that were happening in her village. The attacks that always happened during a full moon, Gaston's story about killing a wolf that turned into a man, and Adam being attacked by a wolf and healing within days. They were too strange to explain away with logic. She had to accept that there was something happening in Peu-de-Forêt. And if werewolves were real, then Gaston was one. And if Adam had survived a werewolf attack, that must mean that...

"I don't think I can pretend not to believe in werewolves anymore," she said, staring out the window at the hints of the forest she could spot beyond their home.

"Well, you've always been the brains of this household," Maurice chuckled. "If you believe, it must be so." Belle wasn't very reassured by that.

After her morning chores, she took Philippe to go visit the Villeneuve manor. She knew she needed to see Adam after the previous night. She needed to see if he was okay.