Belle sat on her bed with her knees pulled close to her chest, her hands holding around her legs as she stared at the fireplace that Lucas was adding wood too. After feeling the guilt that rose in her chest, she hadn"t spoken a word and quietly sat in her bed. Though it wasn"t entirely her fault as Barron was the one who caused the door to fall, Belle couldn"t help but feel terrible for the death of the woman and the girl who must have been her daughter.
Lucas was still stoking the woods while removing the pile of ashes to place it to the sides so that they wouldn"t hinder the woods from burning and providing heat in the room. Winter had already appeared and soon in time, the clouds would start to snow and the entire land would turn to a gloomy curtain of white.
"What was that?" asked Barron in a quiet voice without letting Belle hear what he was saying, "She is a mortal. How do you expect her to know everything?"
"She might be a mortal but she needs to know what will happen if she goes trying to save every single person," Lucas answered, continuing to push the ash. He pulled up the sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt until his elbow and reached to pick out the ash that turned his flesh to skeletons before covering back up with the muscles and tissues around his arm.
"I call it bulls.h.i.+t," the rabbit folded its hands across its puffy chest, "As if you haven"t broken rules and have dragged people to the graves you buried yourself."
"I didn"t know you were entranced and interested in what I did," Lucas commented, glancing at Barron, he said, "I have broken rules but we all play according to the rules that are set. You need to know what can be broken and what can be not."
Barron had grown a soft spot in his empty ribcage for Belle. He had been spending more time with and around her. She was the only one he could rely on as there was no guarantee when Lucas would change sides.
"You could have told her in a much better way. By words," Barron stressed the word words.
Lucas raised one of his eyebrows, "Look who is speaking. If you had stuck to our side and hadn"t gone bunny hopping, she wouldn"t be in grief."
"No no. That is not going to work on me. I am not going to guilt-trip over it. I am Barron," and Barron raised his hand to say, "The fourth reaper," but his hand had no fingers to be seen.
Lucas knew it wasn"t the easiest thing for her to digest and she was now taking account of her actions. He was a reaper, a reaper who knew how to go around things without causing any effect but Belle, Belle was new to it.
Finally getting up from the fireplace, he went to sit in front of her, "You don"t have to give too much thought about it. You saw her death, she was going to die."
"But the woman and the girl…"
"They were going to die too," replied Lucas to see the frown on her face, "I forgot to mention to you that it"s just not saving people but our actions like Barron"s changes time and the tide of things around us. Barron, pull out your scythe."
Barron didn"t know what Lucas wanted but he walked forward to pull out the scythe that belonged to him, "Touch it," advised Lucas to her, "You have the gift to see death. Look if you can see the woman and the girl covered in the black smoke."
But the fourth Grim was apprehensive about it and when Belle was going to reach for the blade of the scythe, he moved it away from his reach very subtly. Inch by inch.
Lucas and Belle who noticed this, looking at Barron, "We should probably go check the corpses out there. They will be much effective," proposed Barron.
"There will be reapers swarming around the corpse. The fastest reach is your scythe which was used to kill them."
"I am not comfortable with a girl touching it," the rabbit kept his scythe close to him as if it was the most precious thing.
Belle who noticed this, she said to Barron, "I won"t judge you," she understood his reluctance in her touching his scythe. Both Barron and Lucas were reapers who had taken the souls with them and had also killed people.
Barron reluctantly let his scythe lean towards her and Belle raised her hand, her fingers touching the sharp blade of the scythe that took her back in time. As if the time got rewinded, it stopped where the woman and the girl were walking in the streets of the village. Belle concentrated on looking at them where the black smoke was indeed there on them which she hadn"t seen before.
The next second, she was taken to a scene with bodies that were on the ground and she quickly moved her fingers away, not wanting to see what it was about.
Lucas then said to her, "There are some things we are meant to change, some things that are not meant to be touched. For example, if you didn"t help the Lord with his ghouls maybe he would not exist anymore. It is tricky to think and wonder like how one would question if the egg came first or the hen. Who knows...if you didn"t exist, other things would not come to stay alive now."
Belle nodded her head to his words.
Both Lucas and Barron left the room but Belle was not able to sleep. Her thoughts felt scattered and therefore she decided to take a walk in the mansion. Hoping it would tire herself.
Without a lantern in her hand, Belle started to walk until she came to stand in front of the corridor where she had met the ghoul and where Barron had been accused of pus.h.i.+ng the bucket.
The cold corridor.