Once Upon A Time

Chapter 13

When she finished washing his face and tending to his wounds, Gray's mother fixed him some stew and set back to doing her work. She sat down in front of a spinning wheel and began to spin their leftover wool into cloth.

"Mama." Gray said when he finished his meal. 

"Yes dear." She said while still working.

"Am I really going to turn into a beast when I grow up like Rufus said I would?"

She stopped her work and turned to face him.

"No of course not. Don't pay any attention to what those boys say. They don't know what they're talking about, they're only repeating things that they've heard that nasty duke say."

"But Mama if it's not true then why does everyone say that? Why does the village hate me? Is it because of what I did to that horse? I didn't mean to hurt him I swear!"

What Gray was referring to was an incident that took place a few months back. You see Gray had not been born like most of the children in the village. From an early age he showed signs of being able to use magic. But it was dark magic so a lot of villagers feared him and it didn't help that he had no idea how to control his powers. One day when he had been walking through the market place with his mother he saw that a farmer's horse had broken it's leg, Gray decided to try to use his powers to fix the horse's leg under the belief that if they saw that he used his magic for good then maybe they wouldn't be so afraid of him. But again he didn't know how to control his magic so he ended up accidentally turning the poor animal into stone.

Now Gray's mother knew all too well that it was an accident and that the boy meant no real harm but the villagers automatically assumed that he did it on purpose and was a threat to all of them. Ever since that day Gray did everything he could to avoid using his powers.

"I know you didn't mean to hurt that creature." She said gently. "It's just that most of the time people don't react well to what they don't understand. But you are not a beast, you are a very beautiful young boy and you will grow up to be a beautiful young man."

"You really think so?"

"I know so. I knew it from the day you were born which was the happiest day of my life."

"Are you happy now?"

"Yes I am."

"But how can you be? We're so poor and the villagers are mean to you just like they are to me."

"Perhaps but I have you so I'm happy."

"I just wish I didn't make things so much harder for you. That's the reason why so few people buy cloth from you, they're scared I might have hexed it or something. If I had never been born-"

"Now don't you dare finish that sentence. You being born was not what made life so much more difficult for me. It was my fault, mine and your father's."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed for a moment before answering.

"Gray when I was young a made a mistake. I was very naive and foolish and I...I believed your father when he said he loved me so I did something that I wasn't really proud of and sometime after that he left me."

"I don't understand. Why did he leave?"

"He said it was because I couldn't give him what he wanted."

"Well maybe we could go find him and talk to him. Maybe we could convince him he was wrong to leave and to come back. He could take care of us and we could be a family."

"No Gray. No that can never happen."

"Why not? Doesn't he love us?"

She became silent and was so very afraid to answer his question because he knew the truth could hurt him. But she couldn't just lie to him. That was something she would never do, lie to her boy.