Inside the Beast's Castle

Chapter 14-- Magic Spells and Fake Monsters

I smiled as the sunlight kissed my face as I lied down in the almost-dead grass at the entrance to the garden maze. The book that I took from the library was now being repurposed as a pillow for my head. Although it was not very soft, it worked. I clasped my hands against my stomach and counted the clouds I saw, giving each one a shape that they would eventually change out of.

A dog. A cat. A little duck.

I smiled again and closed my eyes, not thinking about anything. Something tickled my nose. I open one eye slowly and see a black something on the end of my tanned nose. The black thing rubbed its front legs together and flexed its wings.

"Eep!" I screeched, jumping up a swatting at my nose. "Cockroach! Cockroach!"

The one insect that I really, really don't like.

I shivered as I made sure that there were no more on me or around me, although I honestly couldn't tell because my skin was crawling. I shuddered again and snatched up my book, then headed straight for the middle of the maze. As many times as I had studied it from my room, it took me no time to get to the center of it. I looked around. The smiling baby angel at the top of the stone fountain was covered in moss and grime, with thin cracks running down its arms and face. A small puddle of rainwater was in the bottom of the round fountain, calling mosquitoes and other insects to it. The roses that used to sit at one of the walls of the maze were now no more than brown sticks, home to the spiderwebs that used two of the sticks to hang across. Dead leaves and remnants of vines covered the walls of the maze, securing the look of death that the garden gave off.

"What happened here?" I mumbled to no one. This place had once been beautiful, I was sure of it. I carefully set the book down on the edge of the stone fountain and opened it up to the page I was reading the night before, labeled Ut ea movere. I closed my eyes and thought of what I would want to move. Something small. My eyes snapped open and I bent down, searching underneath the fountain for a tiny pebble. I felt like shouting 'victory' as I stood back up with a pebble in hand. I took it and laid it smooth side down in my left hand. Then I glanced back down at the book. It said to concentrate on the rock. Feeling incredibly stupid, I squinted my eyes almost shut, staring only at the pebble lying in my hand.

"Kinisi," I mumbled the words, trying to make the pebble at least shake. Nothing happened. "Kinisi!" I said louder.

Maybe the louder you get the better the spell works.

The pebble did absolutely nothing. I stood there, alternating yelling and mumbling at the rock in my hand, trying to get it to move. When it felt like I had been doing that for hours, I stopped

"This is how to make things move the easy way!" I screeched.

I turned and threw the pebble as hard as I could away. A pale hand caught it with a smack.

"Kinisi," whispered the Beast, moving the rock into my palm.

I took a step back, heat spreading across my face. I locked onto the Beasts eyes and didn't move.

"It's not how loud or soft you say the word. I can get away with being completely silent and still move the rock. Think about where you want it to go, and while you do that think the word."

His voice was quiet and he didn't want to meet my eyes. He held his head slightly bowed so that his blonde strands of hair fell to the side of his face, framing it. I didn't move, still holding the pebble.