I'll be good. I won't be bad anymore. I promise. Please, just let me out.
There was light. Someone was speaking, holding her.
She whimpered. Light, voices, those were always bad. They picked her up before they beat her. They used to make her stand, but her legs crumpled under her now when she tried to get up. It didn't matter. They just had her kneel on all fours instead.
"I'll be good," she cried. "Please, don't. Don't. I'll be good."
"It's all right," the man holding her said. "It's all right, little one. I won't hurt you."
She didn't understand. His words didn't make any sense. The only words she had heard for so long were the guards' orders and curses. When people came to look at her, they sometimes cried and said other things that made no sense before they went away. Sometimes, before they left, the guards would haul her up so the people could see her better. They would point to her cuts and sores, their voices droning on. None of it made sense.
It didn't matter. She could only wait, shivering, for the end. If she was lucky, they kicked her to the floor and (sometimes) leave half a bowl of porridge for her to eat. If she was not lucky, the guards showed the watchers how she was beaten.
When they were done, the door was closed and she was left alone in the dark again.
X
The child in Rumplestiltskin's arms whimpered with fear. She couldn't help herself. But, she didn't cry. She didn't struggle to get free of him. She knew too well those things didn't make a difference—or only made them worse.
But, she begged them to forgive her, to stop punishing her for whatever she had done wrong.
Her city, Omelas, was no longer protected her suffering. He thought it likely that, someday, they would call on him for aid. He wondered what price he should demand when that day came. . . .
Rumplestiltskin had brought her to a small room in his castle. He would have liked to have taken her to a wide, open field, some place full of flowers and light. But, after being locked up so long, he thought such a place would overwhelm her, frightening her even more.
Instead, they were in a room smaller than some prison cells Rumplestiltskin had seen. But, there was light everywhere—dim lights he hoped wouldn't hurt her eyes after so long in darkness—but not the slightest hint of shadow. There was a small tub, white ceramic with a little pattern of red and gold roses along the rim, already set up. Faint wisps of steam rose from it.
"We're going to clean you up," he said. "Is that all right? Do you want to touch the water, little one? Tell me if it's too warm or too hot?" The child stared at him, mute and terrified. He wasn't sure if she'd understood a word he'd said.
He crouched alongside the edge of the bath on his tiptoes, resting his weight on his heels while the girl sat on his lap, high enough so she could easily see over the edge of the bath while he still held her. He put his hand in the water and stirred it around. It took a bit of concentration at times to know if what didn't bother him wouldn't bother a human, but he thought this should be just right. "Go ahead, little one, touch it."
She stared at him, still silent, her wasted muscles tight with fear. He couldn't tell if she'd understood anything he'd said. But, she looked at him, then at the water. Timidly, a little hand darted out into the tub. Her fingers brushed quickly against the liquid before she pulled them back. As if the water were a serpent about to bite her, he thought. She held her hand close against her chest and looked at him, waiting to see if she'd done wrong and would be punished.
Rumplestiltskin kept speaking comfortingly to her, hoping the sound of his voice would help even if she didn't understand the meaning. How long since anyone had spoken to her? She understood the words she said, promising to be good, begging to be forgiven. She'd held onto that much. But, the things he said, the comfort he tried to give might as well have been wind in the trees for all the good it seemed to do.
He tried to lower her into the water, but she jerked back. He could feel her heart beating even more madly. She looked at the water as if it were another monster or as if she expected him to drown her.
Had they ever done that to her? Held her under while she gasped for air? The dirt and filth covering her seemed too deeply ingrained for that. But, maybe they had. Or maybe she'd forgotten what a bath was. The unfamiliar was as terrifying as anything that had been done to her, maybe even more so.
He thought over his options. With a sig,h he put one foot over the rim of the bath, managing to crouch along the edge as if he were sitting. Since he didn't want water spilling all over the room, he kept his weight on his feet, a bit of magic and his own, inhuman balance keeping him from slipping. Then, he picked up the large sponge lying by the soap he'd brought, and began to scrub the girl, ignoring the water he was getting all over himself and his clothes.
He scrubbed gently. It wasn't just water in the bath. He'd summoned the necessary herbs and potions when he'd conjured it up, things that would help numb her cuts and sores. But, he still didn't want to break the scabs or pull away festering skin. A touch of magic here and there helped the dirt pull away.
He could still feel the terrified beating of her heart as he shifted her, trying to get at some of the harder to reach spots. Afraid he would lose hold of her? Or something else? He wished he knew.
Soon, the water in the tub was a dark brown. He pulled out the plug, watching it drain away to . . . elsewhere. With a snap of his fingers, it began to fill up again till it was about ankle-deep—his ankles, not hers. She still wouldn't put so much as a toe in.
Sighing, Rumplestiltskin conjured up a pitcher and poured warm water over the girl, soaking her knotted hair. It was a good thing he was a wizard, he thought, and an agile one at that. A normal man would never manage to hold her, pour shampoo into his hand, and work it into the tangle mess without disastrous results for both of them. He summoned a gold comb from one of his storerooms. It had belonged to a mermaid many years ago and had its own magic. The child's locks might be more matted felt than hair at this point, but the gold teeth slid through it almost—almost—painlessly. Now and then, the child stiffened in his arms as he got through a worse knot than usual.
She never cried. But, she began to whisper again, "I'll be good, I promise, I promise, I won't be bad anymore."
There were more pitchers of water and he drained the little tub four times before it ran clear. Then, he wrapped the girl in blanket sized, fluffy towel. If she noticed how fast her hair dried—and, if it had been as long as he suspected since it had been washed, why should she?—it didn't frighten her, the only thing that hadn't so far.
All the same, Rumplestiltskin decided against sending the bath away, not sure what the child would make of such a large object simply vanishing—or if, afraid as she was, she would start wondering how easily something the size of a little girl could be waved away into nothingness.
But, that was no reason to have water all over the floor. Or over himself. His leather pants and silk shirt were going to need some repairs later, but that didn't mean he had to drip all over the room in the meantime.
He spread a second towel over the floor. "I need to look at your wounds," he told her. "And put some ointment on them. Can you stand for me?" Rumplestiltskin tried to put her gently on the towel, but the girl's knees buckled under her. She tried to catch herself on him, though her grip was too weak to do much good. Half-expecting this, he caught her before she fell.
"I'm sorry," the girl said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. . . ."
"Shh, shh, it's all right. It's been a long time since you've been able to go walking, hasn't it? Don't worry. You'll be better soon. But, I need to look at your injuries. All right?"
The child didn't answer. Her face was pale and she was shaking with fear as he put her down, but she didn't fight him. Gods, he wished she would. He wished she would give some sign that she was less terrified of him than of everything else that had happened to her.
Still trying to talk soothingly, Rumplestiltskin moved aside the towel wrapped around her, getting a look at what had been done to her. He tried to keep his mind cold and clinical, ignoring the anger that bubbled up inside of him. If he thought she was afraid now, that would be absolutely nothing compared to the terror of a child witnessing the full fury of the Dark One. He forced himself to look at the wounds and think of them as problems from physicker's lesson book. Size of injury. Likely source. How long ago was it made? Were there signs of infection?
There must have been something in the spell that kept her from dying, he thought. Forced to sit in her own waste, her skin had reddened, then cracked and bled before becoming infected. Her belly protruded, the way it did on a starving child. He saw the ribs and the wasted muscles, the bones bent from poor diet and lack of exercise.
The girl's father, the keeper of the curse that had protected his land, had allowed this.
He was dead, Rumplestiltskin reminded himself. Beyond even his power to punish. And Maurice had done what no other king of his land had, he had rescued his child in the end. It may have been the very end, but it was more than anyone before him had done.
The girl was silent enough as Rumplestiltskin spread ointment and salve along her skin at first. There was no added fear even as touched her along the private parts of her body. He didn't know whether to be relieved—there was one torment she'd been spared—or angry. A normal, healthy child would have been embarrassed or upset. Her mute resignation was almost as bad as her crying and pleas, showing what she'd long ago learned to accept. But, she whimpered again as he tried to turn her over and put ointment on her back.
She didn't fight. She'd never fought. He had to watch for the way she held onto him in fear or cringed away, to listen to the silence that was worse than her cries, to try and understand. Now, as she crouched on all fours, her back exposed to him, he saw the thin whip marks. A narrow piece of wood, he thought, one sliced to have an edge, would have made those. They'd used it not just along her back but along her legs and buttocks where she would have to sit in the filth with her cuts.
It wasn't the Dark One's magic that had made the spell over Omelas. Of that much he was sure, though he hadn't recognized whose. For the sake of whoever had made it, he hoped they were long dead and gone. If they weren't and he ever found them, they would regret their survival.
When he was done covering them with ointment, he wrapped the wounds in linen. The child, sitting so she could see him, her back no longer exposed, calmed a little. He held up a thick, warm nightgown. "See?" he said. "This is yours. Do you remember what this is, little one?"
He worried it would frighten her when he put it on her, as if he were tying her up in a sack. He wadded up the hem till it was even with the neck before slipping it quickly over her head. This would be easier with magic. A wave of his hand, and she would have been bandaged and dressed. But, if the new frightened her, he didn't know how she would react to magic. More importantly, she needed to remember what it meant to be human, to be a little girl who could count on people to bandage her wounds and dress her in warm clothes. It was better, he thought, to teach (or reteach) her these things from the beginning.
If he was wrong, well, this wasn't his only pair of leather trousers.
Carefully, Rumplestiltskin guided her thin arms through the sleeves, knowing the girl would give few signs if her he accidentally pushed or twisted her small limbs more than he should. Memories of his aunts forcing him into his best clothes when he wasn't cooperating came to mind. Children had the most amazing gift for turning a bit of linen into a torture device when they put their minds to it.
But, she didn't seem too frightened. He buttoned the neck closed. He thought about pulling her hair back in a ribbon or under a night cap, especially after all the work he'd gone through to get it untangled, but decided to leave it be for now. He'd managed to get her into the first clothes she'd worn in twenty years without triggering a panic attack. There was no reason press his luck. Instead, he pointed to a tray standing against the wall on short, wheeled legs. A plate of bread and two mugs of warm milk along with two kettles, one full of more milk and the other full of a special broth, were placed on it. It hadn't been there a moment before, and he hoped the girl would just accept its being there rather than being frightened by its appearance (even when he'd been conjuring up the pitcher for her bath, he'd taken care to reach over the side of the tub, just out of her line of sight).
Rumplestiltskin carried her over to it. He'd seen the dirty porridge bowl in her prison and knew she would have had to scoop it out with her hands or lick it up like a beast. Kneeling beside the small meal, he let her sit in his lap again as he handed her the mug. "Close your hands around it, like this. Do you see?" he asked, guiding her fingers. Then, he helped her bring it to her mouth.
A little bit spilled out of her mouth and down her cheeks. And just after the bath, he thought. Ah, well, tis no matter. "Lower it, a little. Don't pour it down all at once," he told her, wiping the milk from her mouth. "Drink a bit more slowly. There you go."
When she finished, he filled it again and got her a piece of bread. She tried to ram it into her mouth at once, but he stopped her. "Do you remember bread, little one?" he asked. "Here, let me help you eat it." He let her hold it but guided it down to the milk, dipping it in. "Small bites," he warned her. "Chew carefully. That's it." She seemed to have recognized the word chew. Or, if she didn't, she knew to eat carefully when someone was watching her. Had she been punished for wolfing it down? Probably. She kept her eyes on him the whole time, as if he might snatch the bread out of her hand at any moment if she made a mistake—or gobble her down himself.
When she was done, he gave her some broth to drink. There was more to it than normal broth, of course. It would help keep her from being sick from eating foods that had become strange and unfamiliar to her. Besides, milk was no good for keeping a child from being dehydrated.
The little bed in the corner had been there all along, the only other bit of furniture in the room besides the bath. Wardrobes and chests, he'd thought, would likely remind her of where she'd been locked up. No need for them here. The bed had a solid, box frame—no hidden shadows underneath where she could imagine monsters lurking (none would dare, not in his castle. But, how to explain that to her?). There was a little railing along the side, to keep her from rolling out in her sleep—even a normal child, used to a bed, might do that, after all. But, it was a very short railing, less than two feet long with little slats that could be easily reached through. He didn't think she'd feel trapped.
Other than that, it was a very small bed, fit for a child. Rumplestiltskin, hardly a tall man, would have had to curl up his legs to keep them from sticking out the end, but there was plenty of room and to spare for the girl. He had thought about giving her pillowcases embroidered with flowers and a quilt with patterns as bright and festive as the meadows he would like to show her. But, again, he didn't want to overwhelm her. A few inches of water had terrified her. The pillows were plain white. The quilt was a muted rose—pretty, he thought, and as much as he dared do for her at the moment.
"Do you remember what a bed is?" he asked her. She might not. He pulled down the blankets and lay her down in it. He thought she might cling to him; but she let go, curling up tight, her legs against her chest. She still watched him fearfully and gave no sign that she understood anything he'd said. He tucked in the blankets around her. "It's all right, little one—Belle. Do you remember your name? You're Belle. You'll get better. You'll see." He tried to sound hopeful as he said it, thinking of spells and magic that might help her heal. Memories were delicate things to play with. Tamper too recklessly, and he could do more harm than good.
He thought he saw a flicker of something for just a moment in her eyes that wasn't fear. Curiosity, perhaps. He wasn't certain. "Belle," he repeated. "That's your name, little one." He searched her mute, frightened eyes. "Had you forgotten? Or—or did they take that from you?"
There was no answer, of course. Whatever he thought he'd seen in her eyes—recognition, a flash of memory—was gone. He patted her head, not quite daring to tousle her hair as he might have once tousled Bae's, not sure if even this touch would do more harm than good. "Sleep well, Belle. I won't be far away if you need me."
Rumplestiltskin started to get up. Hesitantly, Belle slid her hand out from the blankets, reaching through the slats along her bed, she her fingers brushed against his.
Uncertain if it was what she wanted, Rumplestiltskin curled his fingers around hers, trying to leave her enough room to draw back if she wanted. Instead, she closed her grip around him. The fearful beating of her heart eased just a little.
Rumplestiltskin settled down beside her. With his free hand, he stroked her hair, watching as she fell asleep.